Characterization of Real Time Platelet Deposition onto Opaque Surfaces under Clinically-Relevant Flow Conditions

Although the thrombogenic nature of the surfaces of cardiovascular devices is an important aspect of blood biocompatibility, few studies have examined platelet deposition onto opaque materials used for these devices in real time. This is particularly true for the metallic surfaces used in current ventricular assist devices (VADs). Using hemoglobin depleted red blood cells (RBC ghosts) and long working distance optics to visualize platelet deposition, we sought to perform such an evaluation. A titanium alloy (Ti6Al4V) and 5 alternative opaque materials were examined. Ti6Al4V had significantly increased platelet deposition relative to the majority of alternative materials. Blood flow patterns are of particular concern for devices such as blood pumps where shearing forces can be high, volumes are relatively large, and the flow fields can be complex. However, few studies have examined the effect of geometric irregularities on thrombus formation on clinically relevant opaque materials under flow. The second objective of this report was to quantify human platelet deposition onto titanium alloys, as well as positive and negative control surfaces, in the region of crevices (~50-150 µm in width) that might be encountered in many VADs. The results revealed that the largest crevice size was the least thrombogenic. At the higher shear rate, the most deposition occurred in the medium size crevice. A third challenge in assessing the hemocompatibility of a blood-wetted device is understanding the functional relationship between shear stress, biochemical agonists, and artificial surfaces. The final objective of this report was to investigate the effect of sub-threshold concentrations of ADP in conjunction with flow on platelet deposition onto clinically relevant opaque materials. To achieve this aim, a membrane-based agonist delivery system was designed to evenly introduce specific concentrations of agonists into a flowing blood analog. The results showed that that the addition of a sub-threshold level of ADP to the system resulted in nearly a 2.5 fold increase in deposition on the titanium surface. The data generated from this report could be used to improve the accuracy of a predictive model of thrombotic deposition in VADs

Entangling operations and their implementation using a small amount of entanglement

We study when a physical operation can produce entanglement between two systems initially disentangled. The formalism we develop allows to show that one can perform certain non-local operations with unit probability by performing local measurement on states that are weakly entangled.Comment: 4 pages, no figure

Radon-Nikodym derivatives of quantum operations

Given a completely positive (CP) map $T$, there is a theorem of the Radon-Nikodym type [W.B. Arveson, Acta Math. {\bf 123}, 141 (1969); V.P. Belavkin and P. Staszewski, Rep. Math. Phys. {\bf 24}, 49 (1986)] that completely characterizes all CP maps $S$ such that $T-S$ is also a CP map. This theorem is reviewed, and several alternative formulations are given along the way. We then use the Radon-Nikodym formalism to study the structure of order intervals of quantum operations, as well as a certain one-to-one correspondence between CP maps and positive operators, already fruitfully exploited in many quantum information-theoretic treatments. We also comment on how the Radon-Nikodym theorem can be used to derive norm estimates for differences of CP maps in general, and of quantum operations in particular.Comment: 22 pages; final versio

Nanoaperture fabrication via colloidal lithography for single molecule fluorescence analysis

In single molecule fluorescence studies, background emission from labeled substrates often restricts their concentrations to non-physiological nanomolar values. One approach to address this challenge is the use of zero-mode waveguides (ZMWs), nanoscale holes in a thin metal film that physically and optically confine the observation volume allowing much higher concentrations of fluorescent substrates. Standard fabrication of ZMWs utilizes slow and costly E-beam nano-lithography. Herein, ZMWs are made using a self-assembled mask of polystyrene microspheres, enabling fabrication of thousands of ZMWs in parallel without sophisticated equipment. Polystyrene 1 mu m dia. microbeads self-assemble on a glass slide into a hexagonal array, forming a mask for the deposition of metallic posts in the inter-bead interstices. The width of those interstices (and subsequent posts) is adjusted within 100-300 nm by partially fusing the beads at the polystyrene glass transition temperature. The beads are dissolved in toluene, aluminum or gold cladding is deposited around the posts, and those are dissolved, leaving behind an array ZMWs. Parameter optimization and the performance of the ZMWs are presented. By using colloidal self-assembly, typical laboratories can make use of sub-wavelength ZMW technology avoiding the availability and expense of sophisticated clean-room environments and equipment

Multipartite entanglement for entanglement teleportation

The scheme for entanglement teleportation is proposed to incorporate multipartite entanglement of four qubits as a quantum channel. Based on the invariance of entanglement teleportation under arbitrary two-qubit unitary transformation, we derive relations of separabilities for joint measurements at a sending station and for unitary operations at a receiving station. From the relations of separabilities it is found that an inseparable quantum channel always leads to a total teleportation of entanglement with an inseparable joint measurement and/or a nonlocal unitary operation.Comment: slightly modifie

Comparison between the Cramer-Rao and the mini-max approaches in quantum channel estimation

In a unified viewpoint in quantum channel estimation, we compare the Cramer-Rao and the mini-max approaches, which gives the Bayesian bound in the group covariant model. For this purpose, we introduce the local asymptotic mini-max bound, whose maximum is shown to be equal to the asymptotic limit of the mini-max bound. It is shown that the local asymptotic mini-max bound is strictly larger than the Cramer-Rao bound in the phase estimation case while the both bounds coincide when the minimum mean square error decreases with the order O(1/n). We also derive a sufficient condition for that the minimum mean square error decreases with the order O(1/n).Comment: In this revision, some unlcear parts are clarifie