Geometry of entangled states, Bloch spheres and Hopf fibrations

We discuss a generalization to 2 qubits of the standard Bloch sphere representation for a single qubit, in the framework of Hopf fibrations of high dimensional spheres by lower dimensional spheres. The single qubit Hilbert space is the 3-dimensional sphere S3. The S2 base space of a suitably oriented S3 Hopf fibration is nothing but the Bloch sphere, while the circular fibres represent the qubit overall phase degree of freedom. For the two qubits case, the Hilbert space is a 7-dimensional sphere S7, which also allows for a Hopf fibration, with S3 fibres and a S4 base. A main striking result is that suitably oriented S7 Hopf fibrations are entanglement sensitive. The relation with the standard Schmidt decomposition is also discussedComment: submitted to J. Phys.

Benefits and Risks of Weight-Loss Treatment for Older, Obese Women

Background: A key issue in the treatment of obesity in older adults is whether the health benefits of weight loss outweigh the potential risks with respect to musculoskeletal injury. Objective: To compare change in weight, improvements in metabolic risk factors, and reported musculoskeletal adverse events in middle-aged (50-59 years) and older (65-74 years), obese women. Materials and methods: Participants completed an initial 6-month lifestyle intervention for weight loss, comprised of weekly group sessions, followed by 12 months of extended care with biweekly contacts. Weight and fasting blood samples were assessed at baseline, month 6, and month 18; data regarding adverse events were collected throughout the duration of the study. Results: Both middle-aged (n = 162) and older (n = 56) women achieved significant weight reductions from baseline to month 6 (10.1 +/- 0.68 kg and 9.3 +/- 0.76 kg, respectively) and maintained a large proportion of their losses at month 18 (7.6 +/- 0.87 kg and 7.6 +/- 1.3 kg, respectively); there were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to weight change. Older women further experienced significant reductions in systolic blood pressure, HbA(1c), and C-reactive protein from baseline to month 6 and maintained these improvements at month 18. Despite potential safety concerns, we found that older women were no more likely to experience musculoskeletal adverse events during the intervention as compared with their middle-aged counterparts. Conclusion: These results suggest that older, obese women can experience significant health benefits from lifestyle treatment for obesity, including weight loss and improvements in disease risk factors. Further investigation of the impact of weight loss on additional health-related parameters and risks (eg, body composition, muscular strength, physical functioning, and injuries) in older adults is needed.National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute R18HL73326University of FloridaDivision of Statistics and Scientific Computatio

Not all negative: Macro justice principles predict positive attitudes towards asylum seekers in Australia

This is an electronic version of an article published in Anderson, J. R., Stuart, A. and Rossen, I. (2015), Not all negative: Macro justice principles predict positive attitudes towards asylum seekers in Australia. Australian Jnl of Psychology, 67: 207–213. doi: 10.1111/ajpy.12085Public opinion toward asylum seekers within Australia has become increasingly hostile over the past decade. In particular, such negative attitudes are associated with questioning the legitimacy of those who seek asylum, and the fairness of granting their refugee status. In a sample of 100 students (Mage=22.83 years, SDage=8.26 years) we tested the role of macro and micro principles of social justice in predicting attitudes toward asylum seekers, beyond the established role of social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Using multiple hierarchical regression analyses, we show that macro justice social principles (i.e., the belief in equal distribution of resources across a society) predict positive attitudes toward asylum seekers beyond the variation accounted for by SDO and RWA in predicting negative attitudes. These results underscore the importance of taking into account individual orientations toward justice; we argue that these findings have important implications for the development of communication designed to reduce prejudice toward asylum seekers

MECHANISTIC STUDIES OF IMPROVED FOAM EOR PROCESSES

The objective of this research is to widen the application of foam to enhanced oil recovery (EOR) by investigating fundamental mechanisms of foams in porous media. This research will lay the groundwork for more applied research on foams for improved sweep efficiency in miscible gas, steam and surfactant-based EOR. Task 1 investigates the pore-scale interactions between foam bubbles and polymer molecules. Task 2 examines the mechanisms of gas trapping, and interaction between gas trapping and foam effectiveness. Task 3 investigates mechanisms of foam generation in porous media. The most significant progress during this period was made on Tasks 2 and 3. Research on Task 2 focused on simulating the effect of gas trapping on foam mobility during foam injection and during subsequent injection of liquid. Gas trapping during liquid injection is crucial both to injectivity during liquid injection in surfactant-alternating-gas foam (SAG) projects and also provides a window into trapping mechanisms that apply during foam flow. We updated our simulator for foam (Rossen et al., 1999; Cheng et al., 2000) to account explicitly for the first time for the effects of gas trapping on gas mobility in foam and in liquid injected after foam, and for the effects of pressure gradient on gas trapping. The foam model fits steady-state foam behavior in both high- and low-quality flow regimes (Alvarez et al., 2001) and steady-state liquid mobility after foam. The simulator also fits the transition period between foam and liquid injection in laboratory corefloods qualitatively with no additional adjustable parameters. Research on Task 3 focused on foam generation in homogeneous porous media. In steady gas-liquid flow in homogeneous porous media with surfactant present, there is often observed a critical injection velocity or pressure gradient {del}{sub p}{sup min} at which foam generation occurs. Earlier research on foam generation was extended with extensive data for a variety of porous media, permeabilities, gases (N{sub 2} and CO{sub 2}), surfactants, and temperatures. For bead- and sandpacks, {del}{sub p}{sup min} scales like (1/k), where k is permeability, over 2 1/2 orders of magnitude in k; for consolidated media, the relation is more complex. For dense-CO{sub 2} foam, {del}{sub p}{sup min} exists but can be less than 1 psi/ft. If pressure drop, rather than flow rates, is fixed, one observes an unstable regime between stable ''strong'' and ''coarse'' foam regimes; in the unstable regime {del}{sub p} is nonuniform in space or variable in time. Results are interpreted in terms of the theory of foam mobilization at a critical pressure gradient (Rossen and Gauglitz, 1990)

Lowest order in inelastic tunneling approximation: Efficient scheme for simulation of inelastic electron tunneling data

We have developed an efficient and accurate formalism which allows the simulation at the ab initio level of inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy data under a scanning tunneling microscope setup. It exploits fully the tunneling regime by carrying out the structural optimization and vibrational mode calculations for surface and tip independently. The most relevant interactions in the inelastic current are identified as the inelastic tunneling terms, which are taken into account up to lowest order, while all other inelastic contributions are neglected. As long as the system is under tunneling regime conditions and there is no physisorbed molecule on the surface or tip apex, this lowest order in inelastic tunneling (LOIT) approach reduces drastically the computational cost compared to related approaches while maintaining a good accuracy. Adopting the wide-band limit for both tip and surface further reduces calculation times significantly, and is shown to give similar results to when the full energy dependence of the Green's functions is taken into account. The LOIT is applied to the Cu(111)+CO system probed by a clean and a CO contaminated tip to find good agreement with previous works. Different parameters involved in the calculations such as basis sets, k sampling, tip-sample distance, or temperature, among others, are discussed in detail. © 2013 American Physical Society.J.C. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Science under Contract No.MAT2010-18432.Peer Reviewe