14,320 research outputs found

    Improving the mapping of condition-specific health-related quality of life onto SF-6D score

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    Background This study sought to improve the predictive performance and goodness-of-fit of mapping models, as part of indirect valuation, by introducing cubic spline smoothing to map a group of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) measures onto a preference-based measure. Methods This study was a secondary analysis of a cross-sectional health survey data assessing the HRQOL for patients with colorectal neoplasms. Mapping functions of condition-specific functional assessment of cancer therapy—colorectal (FACT-C) onto preference-based SF-6D measure were developed using a dataset of 553 Chinese subjects with different stages of colorectal neoplasm. The missing values of FACT-C were imputed using multiple imputation. Then three widely applicable models (ordinary least square (OLS), Tobit and two-part models) were employed for the mapping function after applying the cubic spline smoothing on the data. For the evaluation of the effectiveness of cubic spline smoothing and multiple imputation, the goodness-of-fit and prediction performance of each model were compared. Results Analyses showed that the models fitted with transformed data from cubic spline smoothing offered better performance in goodness-of-fit and prediction than the models fitted with the original data. The values of R2R^2 were improved by over 10 %, and the root mean square error and the mean absolute error were both reduced. The best goodness-of-fit and performance were achieved by OLS model using transformed data from cubic spline smoothing. Conclusions Cubic spline smoothing and multiple imputation were recommended for the mapping of HRQOL measures onto the preference-based measure. Among the three mapping models, the simple-to-use OLS model had the best performance.postprin

    Operator entanglement of two-qubit joint unitary operations revisited: Schmidt number approach

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    Operator entanglement of two-qubit joint unitary operations is revisited. Schmidt number is an important attribute of a two-qubit unitary operation, and may have connection with the entanglement measure of the unitary operator. We found the entanglement measure of two-qubit unitary operators is classified by the Schmidt number of the unitary operators. The exact relation between the operator entanglement and the parameters of the unitary operator is clarified too.Comment: To appear in the Brazilian Journal of Physic

    Orange emission in Pr3+-doped fluoroindate glasses

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    We synthesize and study the properties of praseodymium doped fluoroindate glasses. Glass compositions with praseodymium molar concentrations up to 5% were obtained with good optical quality. Thermal, optical, and luminescence properties are investigated. Judd–Ofelt analysis is used to determine radiative lifetime and emission cross-section of the orange transition originating from the 3P0 level. We find that these glasses are good candidates for the realization of blue diode laser pumped orange lasers for quantum information processing applications

    Performance of Monolayer Graphene Nanomechanical Resonators with Electrical Readout

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    The enormous stiffness and low density of graphene make it an ideal material for nanoelectromechanical (NEMS) applications. We demonstrate fabrication and electrical readout of monolayer graphene resonators, and test their response to changes in mass and temperature. The devices show resonances in the MHz range. The strong dependence of the resonant frequency on applied gate voltage can be fit to a membrane model, which yields the mass density and built-in strain. Upon removal and addition of mass, we observe changes in both the density and the strain, indicating that adsorbates impart tension to the graphene. Upon cooling, the frequency increases; the shift rate can be used to measure the unusual negative thermal expansion coefficient of graphene. The quality factor increases with decreasing temperature, reaching ~10,000 at 5 K. By establishing many of the basic attributes of monolayer graphene resonators, these studies lay the groundwork for applications, including high-sensitivity mass detectors

    Boosting the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells using weakly luminescent gold(III) corrole with long-lived exciton state

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    Poster Session: P-69Transition metal complexes have been widely used as light-emitting and photon-absorbing materials in optoelectronic devices with diverse applications. While these complexes have been intensively studied in the field of organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) due to their inherently high phosphorescence quantum yields …postprin

    p21/Cyclin E pathway modulates anticlastogenic function of Bmi-1 in cancer cells.

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    Apart from regulating stem cell self-renewal, embryonic development and proliferation, Bmi-1 has been recently reported to be critical in the maintenance of genome integrity. In searching for novel mechanisms underlying the anticlastogenic function of Bmi-1, we observed, for the first time, that Bmi-1 positively regulates p21 expression. We extended the finding that Bmi-1 deficiency induced chromosome breaks in multiple cancer cell models. Interestingly, we further demonstrated that knockdown of cyclin E or ectopic overexpression of p21 rescued Bmi-1 deficiency-induced chromosome breaks. We therefore conclude that p21/cyclin E pathway is crucial in modulating the anticlastogenic function of Bmi-1. As it is well established that the overexpression of cyclin E potently induces genome instability and p21 suppresses the function of cyclin E, the novel and important implication from our findings is that Bmi-1 plays an important role in limiting genomic instability in cylin E-overexpressing cancer cells by positive regulation of p21.published_or_final_versio

    Two-dimensional universal conductance fluctuations and the electron-phonon interaction of topological surface states in Bi2Te2Se nanoribbons

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    The universal conductance fluctuations (UCFs), one of the most important manifestations of mesoscopic electronic interference, have not yet been demonstrated for the two-dimensional surface state of topological insulators (TIs). Even if one delicately suppresses the bulk conductance by improving the quality of TI crystals, the fluctuation of the bulk conductance still keeps competitive and difficult to be separated from the desired UCFs of surface carriers. Here we report on the experimental evidence of the UCFs of the two-dimensional surface state in the bulk insulating Bi2Te2Se nanoribbons. The solely-B\perp-dependent UCF is achieved and its temperature dependence is investigated. The surface transport is further revealed by weak antilocalizations. Such survived UCFs of the topological surface states result from the limited dephasing length of the bulk carriers in ternary crystals. The electron-phonon interaction is addressed as a secondary source of the surface state dephasing based on the temperature-dependent scaling behavior
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