Thyroxine-binding globulin: investigation of microheterogeneity

Preparations of T4-binding globulin (TBG) from human serum was performed using only two affinity chromatography steps. Purity of the protein was demonstrated by a single band in overloaded disc and sodium dodecyl sulfate electrophoresis, equimolar binding to T4, and linearity in sedimentation velocity run. The molecular weight was calculated to be 60,000 +/- 3,000 daltons (n = 3), the sedimentation coefficient was 3.95S, and the Stokes' radius was 37 A. The amino acid composition was found to be in good agreement with the calculations of other authors. By isoelectric focussing (IEF), pure TBG showed four main bands at pH 4.25, 4.35, 4.45, and 4.55 together with several fainter bands. The N- acetylneuraminic acid (NANA) content of the four TBG bands isolated by preparative IEF was found to decrease from 10.2 mol NANA/mol TBG in the band at pH 4.25 to 4.8 mol NANA/mol TBG in the band at pH 4.55. No significant difference in the affinity constants of the TBG bands to T4 was found. The affinity constants for TBG ranged from 3.1 x 10(9) to 7.2 x 10(9) M-1. Sequential kinetic desialylation of pure TBG resulted in a progressive tendency toward one major band at pH 6.0. In native sera, microheterogeneity of TBG was detected after IEF on polyacrylamide gel plates by immunofixation. The typical TBG patterns shown by pure TBG were also found in normal subjects. Characteristic deviations from this pattern were found in the sera of females during estrogen therapy or pregnancy, where there was a gradual increase in density of the band at pH 4.25 and the appearance of an additional band at pH 4.15. In sera from patients with liver disease and elevated TBG levels, there was a fading of the acidic bands, whereas the more alkaline band at pH 4.55 was intensified. It is therefore proposed that microheterogeneity of TBG is caused by differences in NANA content and that variations of TBG patterns in native sera may reflect altered TBG synthesis or degradation. A genetically related microheterogeneity of TBG could not be demonstrated after examination of 800 sera, including 2 families with quantitative TBG deficiency

Developing the Deutsch-Hayden approach to quantum mechanics

The formalism of Deutsch and Hayden is a useful tool for describing quantum mechanics explicitly as local and unitary, and therefore quantum information theory as concerning a "flow" of information between systems. In this paper we show that these physical descriptions of flow are unique, and develop the approach further to include the measurement interaction and mixed states. We then give an analysis of entanglement swapping in this approach, showing that it does not in fact contain non-local effects or some form of superluminal signalling.Comment: 14 pages. Added section on entanglement swappin

Single-qubit optical quantum fingerprinting

We analyze and demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of linear optical single-qubit fingerprinting over its classical counterpart. For one-qubit fingerprinting of two-bit messages, we prepare `tetrahedral' qubit states experimentally and show that they meet the requirements for quantum fingerprinting to exceed the classical capability. We prove that shared entanglement permits 100% reliable quantum fingerprinting, which will outperform classical fingerprinting even with arbitrary amounts of shared randomness.Comment: 4 pages, one figur

Multiphoton entanglement through a Bell multiport beam splitter

Multiphoton entanglement is an important resource for linear optics quantum computing. Here we show that a wide range of highly entangled multiphoton states, including W-states, can be prepared by interfering single photons inside a Bell multiport beam splitter and using postselection. A successful state preparation is indicated by the collection of one photon per output port. An advantage of the Bell multiport beam splitter is that it redirects the photons without changing their inner degrees of freedom. The described setup can therefore be used to generate polarisation, time-bin and frequency multiphoton entanglement, even when using only a single photon source.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, carefully revised version, references adde

Generalized Induced Norms

Let ||.|| be a norm on the algebra M_n of all n-by-n matrices over the complex field C. An interesting problem in matrix theory is that "are there two norms ||.||_1 and ||.||_2 on C^n such that ||A||=max{||Ax||_2: ||x||_1=1} for all A in M_n. We will investigate this problem and its various aspects and will discuss under which conditions ||.||_1=||.||_2.Comment: 8 page