Spherical geometry and integrable systems

We prove that the cosine law for spherical triangles and spherical tetrahedra defines integrable systems, both in the sense of multidimensional consistency and in the sense of dynamical systems.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Cognitive Assessment Tools Recommended in Geriatric Oncology Guidelines: A Rapid Review.

Cognitive assessment is a cornerstone of geriatric care. Cognitive impairment has the potential to significantly impact multiple phases of a person's cancer care experience. Accurately identifying this vulnerability is a challenge for many cancer care clinicians, thus the use of validated cognitive assessment tools are recommended. As international cancer guidelines for older adults recommend Geriatric Assessment (GA) which includes an evaluation of cognition, clinicians need to be familiar with the overall interpretation of the commonly used cognitive assessment tools. This rapid review investigated the cognitive assessment tools that were most frequently recommended by Geriatric Oncology guidelines: Blessed Orientation-Memory-Concentration test (BOMC), Clock Drawing Test (CDT), Mini-Cog, Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and Short Portable Mental Status Questionnaire (SPMSQ). A detailed appraisal of the strengths and limitations of each tool was conducted, with a focus on practical aspects of implementing cognitive assessment tools into real-world clinical settings. Finally, recommendations on choosing an assessment tool and the additional considerations beyond screening are discussed

Experimental investigation of classical and quantum correlations under decoherence

It is well known that many operations in quantum information processing depend largely on a special kind of quantum correlation, that is, entanglement. However, there are also quantum tasks that display the quantum advantage without entanglement. Distinguishing classical and quantum correlations in quantum systems is therefore of both fundamental and practical importance. In consideration of the unavoidable interaction between correlated systems and the environment, understanding the dynamics of correlations would stimulate great interest. In this study, we investigate the dynamics of different kinds of bipartite correlations in an all-optical experimental setup. The sudden change in behaviour in the decay rates of correlations and their immunity against certain decoherences are shown. Moreover, quantum correlation is observed to be larger than classical correlation, which disproves the early conjecture that classical correlation is always greater than quantum correlation. Our observations may be important for quantum information processing.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Nature Communication

Light Stop NLSPs at the Tevatron and LHC

How light can the stop be given current experimental constraints? Can it still be lighter than the top? In this paper, we study this and related questions in the context of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking, where a stop NLSP decays into a W, b and gravitino. Focusing on the case of prompt decays, we simulate several existing Tevatron and LHC analyses that would be sensitive to this scenario, and find that they allow the stop to be as light as 150 GeV, mostly due to the large top production background. With more data, the existing LHC analyses will be able to push the limit up to at least 180 GeV. We hope this work will motivate more dedicated experimental searches for this simple scenario, in which, for most purposes, the only free parameters are the stop mass and lifetime.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures; v2: added minor clarifications and reference

Web Vulnerability Study of Online Pharmacy Sites

Consumers are increasingly using online pharmacies, but these sites may not provide an adequate level of security with the consumers’ personal data. There is a gap in this research addressing the problems of security vulnerabilities in this industry. The objective is to identify the level of web application security vulnerabilities in online pharmacies and the common types of flaws, thus expanding on prior studies. Technical, managerial and legal recommendations on how to mitigate security issues are presented. The proposed four-step method first consists of choosing an online testing tool. The next steps involve choosing a list of 60 online pharmacy sites to test, and then running the software analysis to compile a list of flaws. Finally, an in-depth analysis is performed on the types of web application vulnerabilities. The majority of sites had serious vulnerabilities, with the majority of flaws being cross-site scripting or old versions of software that have not been updated. A method is proposed for the securing of web pharmacy sites, using a multi-phased approach of technical and managerial techniques together with a thorough understanding of national legal requirements for securing systems

A New Portfolio Formation Approach to Mispricing of Marketing Performance Indicators: an Application to Customer Satisfaction

There has been a recent debate in the marketing literature concerning the possible mispricing of customer satisfaction. While earlier studies claim that portfolios with attractive out-of-sample properties can be formed by loading on stocks whose firms enjoy high customer satisfaction, later studies challenge this finding. A large part of the disagreement stems from the difficulty of how to actually evaluate mispricing based on the observed portfolio returns. In particular, any portfolio formation method that requires the use of a risk model is open to the criticism of time-varying risk factor loadings due to the changing composition of the portfolio over time. As an alternative, we construct portfolios that are neutral with respect to the desired risk factors a priori. Consequently, no risk model is needed when analyzing the observed returns of our portfolios. Using various ways of measuring customer satisfaction, we do not find any convincing evidence that portfolios that load on high customer satisfaction lead to abnormal returns

Overview on the phenomenon of two-qubit entanglement revivals in classical environments

The occurrence of revivals of quantum entanglement between separated open quantum systems has been shown not only for dissipative non-Markovian quantum environments but also for classical environments in absence of back-action. While the phenomenon is well understood in the first case, the possibility to retrieve entanglement when the composite quantum system is subject to local classical noise has generated a debate regarding its interpretation. This dynamical property of open quantum systems assumes an important role in quantum information theory from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Hybrid quantum-classical systems are in fact promising candidates to investigate the interplay among quantum and classical features and to look for possible control strategies of a quantum system by means of a classical device. Here we present an overview on this topic, reporting the most recent theoretical and experimental results about the revivals of entanglement between two qubits locally interacting with classical environments. We also review and discuss the interpretations provided so far to explain this phenomenon, suggesting that they can be cast under a unified viewpoint.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures. Chapter written for the upcoming book "Lectures on general quantum correlations and their applications

Quantum-Dot Light-Emitting Diodes with Nitrogen-Doped Carbon Nanodot Hole Transport and Electronic Energy Transfer Layer

Electroluminescence efficiency is crucial for the application of quantum-dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs) in practical devices. We demonstrate that nitrogen-doped carbon nanodot (N-CD) interlayer improves electrical and luminescent properties of QD-LEDs. The N-CDs were prepared by solution-based bottom up synthesis and were inserted as a hole transport layer (HTL) between other multilayer HTL heterojunction and the red-QD layer. The QD-LEDs with N-CD interlayer represented superior electrical rectification and electroluminescent efficiency than those without the N-CD interlayer. The insertion of N-CD layer was found to provoke the Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from N-CD to QD layer, as confirmed by time-integrated and - resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy. Moreover, hole-only devices (HODs) with N-CD interlayer presented high hole transport capability, and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy also revealed that the N-CD interlayer reduced the highest hole barrier height. Thus, more balanced carrier injection with sufficient hole carrier transport feasibly lead to the superior electrical and electroluminescent properties of the QD-LEDs with N-CD interlayer. We further studied effect of N-CD interlayer thickness on electrical and luminescent performances for high-brightness QD-LEDs. The ability of the N-CD interlayer to improve both the electrical and luminescent characteristics of the QD-LEDs would be readily exploited as an emerging photoactive material for high-efficiency optoelectronic devices.ope

Aberrant large tumor suppressor 2 (LATS2) gene expression correlates with EGFR mutation and survival in lung adenocarcinomas

BACKGROUND: Large tumor suppressor 2 (LATS2) gene is a putative tumor suppressor gene with potential roles in regulation of cell proliferation and apoptosis in lung cancer. The aim of this study is to explore the association of aberrant LATS2 expression with EGFR mutation and survival in lung adenocarcinoma (AD), and the effects of LATS2 silencing in both lung AD cell lines. METHODS: LATS2 mRNA and protein expression in resected lung AD were correlated with demographic characteristics, EGFR mutation and survival. LATS2-specific siRNA was transfected into four EGFR wild-type (WT) and three EGFR mutant AD cell lines and the changes in LATS2 expression and relevant signaling molecules before and after LATS2 knockdown were assayed. RESULTS: Fifty resected lung AD were included (M:F=23:27, smokers:non-smokers=19:31, EGFR mutant:wild-type=21:29) with LATS2 mRNA levels showed no significant difference between gender, age, smoking and pathological stages while LATS2 immunohistochemical staining on an independent set of 79 lung AD showed similar trend. LATS2 mRNA level was found to be a significant independent predictor for survival status (disease-free survival RR=0.217; p=0.003; Overall survival RR=0.238; p=0.036). siRNA-mediated suppression of LATS2 expression resulted in augmentation of ERK phosphorylation in EGFR wild-type AD cell lines with high basal LATS2 expression, discriminatory modulation of Akt signaling between EGFR wild-type and mutant cells, and induction of p53 accumulation in AD cell lines with low baseline p53 levels. CONCLUSIONS: LATS2 expression level is predictive of survival in patients with resected lung AD. LATS2 may modulate and contribute to tumor growth via different signaling pathways in EGFR mutant and wild-type tumors.postprin