Entropy Bound for the Classical Capacity of a Quantum Channel Assisted by Classical Feedback

We prove that the classical capacity of an arbitrary quantum channel assisted by a free classical feedback channel is bounded from above by the maximum average output entropy of the quantum channel. As a consequence of this bound, we conclude that a classical feedback channel does not improve the classical capacity of a quantum erasure channel, and by taking into account energy constraints, we conclude the same for a pure-loss bosonic channel. The method for establishing the aforementioned entropy bound involves identifying an information measure having two key properties: 1) it does not increase under a one-way local operations and classical communication channel from the receiver to the sender and 2) a quantum channel from sender to receiver cannot increase the information measure by more than the maximum output entropy of the channel. This information measure can be understood as the sum of two terms, with one corresponding to classical correlation and the other to entanglement.Comment: v2: 6 pages, 1 figure, final version published in conference proceeding

Morphological analysis: to evaluate the pattern of Residential building based on wind performance

[EN] Residential morphological patterns are reflection of people's living habits and tradition, local climate and building regulations, so that one of those factors could be studied through in order to understand residential morphological patterns. Based upon our previous study, we do know that in China living habits and local climate mainly influence the shape of residential buildings and apartment patterns, but we do not know whether the pattern of residential plots determined by FAR and sunshine hours are suitable for wind environment related to residential environmental quality. Therefore, it is very significant to evaluate wind environment within residential plots based on the apartment pattern controlled by various building codes. Our study focuses on the pattern of Slab apartments in Nanjing, which are mainly used in China, and selects 40 residential slices with different plot shapes, plot FAR, building heights and sizes. Based upon MATLAB, we have got all geometrical data between buildings among these slices to identify the spatial pattern character of each residential plot. Through evaluating wind environment of these slices by simulation we can obtain wind speed, pressure and age of air and choose the pattern of age of air as the main evaluation factor of wind performance. Correlation analysis will be made between the apartment patterns and pattern of age of air, by doing so, each typical space between buildings will be evaluated. Our study will reveal the relevance of apartment pattern and wind environment, which can be used to support and improve design in the future.Yang, Y.; You, W.; Peng, Y.; Ding, W. (2018). Morphological analysis: to evaluate the pattern of Residential building based on wind performance. En 24th ISUF International Conference. Book of Papers. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1461-1469. https://doi.org/10.4995/ISUF2017.2017.5977OCS1461146

Trifluorobenzamidine prevents allergic rhinitis by regulating IgE, IL-4 and IL-5 in T-cells

Purpose: To investigate the effect of trifluorobenzamidine (TBI) on a mouse model of ovalbumin (OVA)- induced allergic rhinitis. Methods: Allergic rhinitis was established in mice via sensitization on days 1, 5 and 14 through intraperitoneal injection of OVA (100 μg) in PBS. On day 15, the mice were subjected to intranasal exposure to OVA (1.5 mg dissolved in PBS). Prior to 10 days of intranasal exposure to OVA, the micewere treated with TBI at doses of 5, 10 and 20 μg/kg. Cytokine levels were determined using enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits, while cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 and caspase-1 activity were assayed with western blotting. Results: Treatment with TBI significantly (p < 0.05) reduced OVA-mediated increases in nasal rub scores, and decreased serum levels of IgE, TNF-α, thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP), IL-1β and histamine in mice. It also significantly regulated spleen weight and IL-4 secretion (p < 0.05) in OVAadministered mice. TBI significantly downregulated the expressions of IL-5, IL-13, TNFα, TSLP, IL-1β and IL-6 (p < 0.05). Administration of TBI caused a marked reduction in OVA-mediated increase in caspase-1 activity in mice intranasal tissues, and also significantly reduced OVA-induced excessive production of MIP-2 and ICAM-1 (p < 0.05). Moreover, TBI prevented OVA-induced infiltration of eosinophils and mast cells into intranasal tissues (p < 0.05). Conclusion: TBI reduces levels of IgE and various pro-inflammatory cytokines in OVA-administered mice. It also regulates Th1:Th2 ratio, inhibited activity of caspase-1, suppressed mast cell/eosinophil infiltration and reduced ICAM-1 and MIP-2 levels. Therefore, TBI possesses inhibitory potential against rhinitis allergy, and thus can potentially be developed as a new treatment strategy for asthma. Keywords: Trifluorobenzamidine, Anti-inflammation, Allergic rhinitis, Cytokines, Caspase-1, Itchin

A wire deflection detection method based on image processing in wire + arc additive manufacturing

In wire and arc additive manufacture (WAAM), the twist of wire during a robot’s movement can result in the sudden changes of the wire-feeding position and thus cause deposition defects and dimensional errors. In the worst case, it may cause wire jamming and damage of the wire-feeding system. Therefore, online monitoring and correction of the wire deflection are very important for WAAM. In this paper, a vision-based measuring method is proposed for detecting the deviations of the wire-feeding position of a plasma welding-based WAAM process. It uses adaptive threshold and Hough transform to extract the wire edges, judges and merges the coincident lines, and applies Radon transform to measure the wire deflection. Software to automatically detect the wire deviation was developed based on the proposed method. The method and the software were verified with experiments

Bounding the forward classical capacity of bipartite quantum channels

We introduce various measures of forward classical communication for bipartite quantum channels. Since a point-to-point channel is a special case of a bipartite channel, the measures reduce to measures of classical communication for point-to-point channels. As it turns out, these reduced measures have been reported in prior work of Wang et al. on bounding the classical capacity of a quantum channel. As applications, we show that the measures are upper bounds on the forward classical capacity of a bipartite channel. The reduced measures are upper bounds on the classical capacity of a point-to-point quantum channel assisted by a classical feedback channel. Some of the various measures can be computed by semi-definite programming.Comment: 52 pages, 6 figure

Effect of Sleep Time and Sleep Quality on the Risk of Low Back Pain among the Middle-aged and Elderly People in China

BackgroundAs one of the disabling pains, low back pain seriously affects the quality of life of patients and causes a huge economic burden to them. Studies have shown that poor sleep quality has a certain effect on the occurrence of low back pain, but the dose-response relationship between sleep time and the risk of low back pain has been currently unclear, and there is a lack of relevant research in this area in China.ObjectiveTo explore the effect of sleep time and sleep quality on the risk of low back pain among the middle-aged and elderly people in China.MethodsUsing the longitudinal data of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) between 2011 to 2015, all middle-aged and elderly people with a baseline age >45 year sat baseline from the three surveys in 2011, 2013, and 2015 were selected as the research subjects. The cut-off time of follow-up was 2015-12-31, and the self-reported low back and back pain was used as the outcome event, and follow-up was terminated upon the occurrence of the outcome event. Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to assess the effect of sleep time and sleep quality on the risk of low back pain and the combined effect of them. Restricted cubic spline model was used to analyze the dose-response relationship between sleep time and the risk of low back pain.ResultsA total of 4 459 subjects were included, with an average follow-up of (3.6±0.8) years; sleep duration: <7 h/d in 1 549 subjects (34.74%) , 7-8 h/d in 1 843 subjects (41.33%) , ≥9 h/d in 1 067 subjects (23.93%) ; 2 700 people (60.55%) with good sleep quality and 1 759 people (39.45%) with impaired sleep quality. A total of 643 people developed low back pain, the incidence rate was 14.42% (643/4 459) . The prevalence of low back pain in middle-aged and elderly people with sleep time <7 h/d was higher than that in middle-aged and elderly people with sleep time of 7-8 h/d and ≥9 h/d 〔the prevalence rates were 20.92% (324/1 549 ) , 10.91% (201/1 843) and 11.06% (118/1 067) 〕 (P<0.05) . The prevalence of low back pain among middle-aged and elderly people with impaired sleep quality was higher than that of middle-aged and elderly people with good sleep quality 〔21.38% (376/1 759) and 9.89% (267/2 700) 〕 (P<0.05) . The multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that, compared with sleep time of 7-8 h/d, sleep time <7 h/d was the influential factor of low back pain 〔HR=1.63, 95%CI (1.37, 1.95) , P<0.05〕; compared with better sleep quality, impaired sleep quality was an influential factor of low back pain 〔HR=1.85, 95%CI (1.58, 2.17) , P<0.05〕; compared with male and female sleeping for 7-8 h/d, the risk of low back pain in male and female sleeping <7 h/d was 1.47 times 〔95%CI (1.09, 1.98) , P<0.05〕 and 1.76 times 〔95%CI (1.41, 2.20) , P<0.05〕.The data changed to 2.09 times 〔95%CI (1.60, 2.74) , P<0.05〕 and 1.73 times 〔95%CI (1.41, 2.11) , P<0.05〕 when comparing happened between impaired and good sleep quality (P<0.05) . Restricted cubic spline model analysis showed a linear dose-response relationship between sleep time and the risk of low back pain (Ptrend<0.05, Pnon-linear=0.33) , and the risk of low back pain increased with the decrease of sleep time. There was a linear dose-response relationship between sleep time and the risk of low back pain in male and female (male: Ptrend<0.05, Pnon-linear=0.66; female: Ptrend<0.05, Pnon-linear=0.23) , and the risk of low back pain in male and female increased with the decrease of sleep time (<7 h/d) .The multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis showed that, only sleep time ≥9 h/d with good sleep quality was not associated with the risk of low back pain compared to sleep time 7-8 h/d with good sleep quality (P>0.05) , sleep time<7 h/d with good sleep quality, sleep time<7 h/d with impaired sleep quality, sleep time 7-8 h/d with impaired sleep quality, sleep time≥ 9 h/d with impaired sleep quality all increased the risk of low back pain (P<0.05) .ConclusionInsufficient sleep time and impaired sleep quality are closely related to the occurrence of low back pain, and the risk of low back pain is significantly increased when insufficient sleep time and impaired sleep quality coexist

Understanding and predicting seasonal-to-interannual climate variability - the producer perspective

Seasonal prediction is based on changes in the probability of weather statistics due to changes in slowly varying forcings such as sea surface temperature anomalies, most notably those associated with El Niňo–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, seasonal weather can be perturbed by many factors, and is very much influenced by internal variability of the atmosphere, so comprehensive models are needed to identify what can be predicted. The predictability and probabilistic nature of seasonal forecasts is explained with suitable examples. Current capabilities for seasonal prediction that have grown out of work done in the research community at both national and international levels are described. Dynamical seasonal prediction systems are operational or quasi-operational at a number of forecasting centres around the world. Requirements for seasonal prediction include initial conditions, particularly for the upper ocean but also other parts of the climate system; high quality models of the ocean-atmosphere-land system; and data for verification and calibration. The wider context of seasonal prediction and seamless forecasting is explained. Recommendations for the future of seasonal prediction and climate services are given

Distinctive South and East Asian Monsoon circulation responses to global warming

The Asian summer monsoon (ASM) is the most energetic circulation system. Projecting its future change is critical for the mitigation and adaptation of billions of people living in the region. There are two important components within the ASM: South Asian summer monsoon (SASM) and East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). Although current state-of-the-art climate models projected increased precipitation in both SASM and EASM due to the increase of atmospheric moisture, their circulation changes differ markedly—A robust strengthening (weakening) of EASM (SASM) circulation was projected. By separating fast and slow processes in response to increased CO2 radiative forcing, we demonstrate that EASM circulation strengthening is attributed to the fast land warming and associated Tibetan Plateau thermal forcing. In contrast, SASM circulation weakening is primarily attributed to an El Niño-like oceanic warming pattern in the tropical Pacific and associated suppressed precipitation over the Maritime Continent

Validation of the Oxford classification of IgA nephropathy for pediatric patients from China

BACKGROUND: The Oxford classification of IgA nephropathy (IgAN) provides a useful tool for prediction of renal prognosis. However, the application of this classification in children with IgAN needs validation in different patient populations. METHODS: A total of 218 children with IgAN from 7 renal centers in China were enrolled. The inclusion criteria was similar to the original Oxford study. RESULTS: There were 98 patients (45%) with mesangial proliferation (M1), 51 patients (23%) with endocapillary proliferation (E1), 136 patients (62%) with segmental sclerosis/adhesion lesion (S1), 13 patients (6%) with moderate tubulointerstitial fibrosis (T1 26-50% of cortex scarred), and only 2 patients (1%) with severe tubulointerstitial fibrosis (T2, >50% of cortex scarred). During a median follow-up duration of 56 months, 24 children (12.4%) developed ESRD or 50% decline in renal function. In univariate COX analysis, we found that tubular atrophy/interstitial fibrosis (HR 4.3, 95%CI 1.8-10.5, P < 0.001) and segmental glomerulosclerosis (HR 9.2 1.2-68.6, P = 0.03) were significant predictors of renal outcome. However, mesangial hypercellularity, endocapillary proliferation, crescents, and necrosis were not associated with renal prognosis. In the multivariate COX regression model, none of these pathologic lesions were shown to be independent risk factors of unfavorable renal outcome except for tubular atrophy/interstitial fibrosis (HR 2.9, 95%CI 1.0-7.9 P = 0.04). CONCLUSIONS: We confirmed tubular atrophy/interstitial fibrosis was the only feature independently associated with renal outcomes in Chinese children with IgAN