Transformation design and nonlinear Hamiltonians

We study a class of nonlinear Hamiltonians, with applications in quantum optics. The interaction terms of these Hamiltonians are generated by taking a linear combination of powers of a simple `beam splitter' Hamiltonian. The entanglement properties of the eigenstates are studied. Finally, we show how to use this class of Hamiltonians to perform special tasks such as conditional state swapping, which can be used to generate optical cat states and to sort photons.Comment: Accepted for publication in Journal of Modern Optic

Complement activation capacity in plasma before and during high-dose prednisolone treatment and tapering in exacerbations of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis

BACKGROUND: Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are characterized by intestinal inflammation mainly caused by a disturbance in the balance between cytokines and increased complement (C) activation. Our aim was to evaluate possible associations between C activation capacity and prednisolone treatment. METHODS: Plasma from patients with exacerbations of UC (n = 18) or CD (n = 18) were collected before and during high dose prednisolone treatment (1 mg/kg body weight) and tapering. Friedman's two way analysis of variance, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon signed-rank sum test were used RESULTS: Before treatment, plasma from CD patients showed significant elevations in all C-mediated analyses compared to the values obtained from 38 healthy controls (p < 0.02), and in mannan binding lectin (MBL)-concentration and MBL-C4-activation capacity (AC) values compared to UC patients (p < 0.02). Before treatment, plasma from UC patients showed significant elevations only in the classical pathway-mediated C3-AC compared to values obtained from healthy controls (p < 0.01). After treatment was initiated, significant reductions, which persisted during follow-up, were observed in the classical pathway-mediated C3-AC and MBL-C4-AC in plasma from CD patients (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that C activation capacity is up-regulated significantly in plasma from CD patients. The decreases observed after prednisolone treatment reflect a general down-regulation in immune activation

Autoantibodies Against the Complement Regulator Factor H in the Serum of Patients With Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder

Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD) is an autoimmune inflammatory disease of the central nervous system (CNS), characterized by pathogenic, complement-activating autoantibodies against the main water channel in the CNS, aquaporin 4 (AQP4). NMOSD is frequently associated with additional autoantibodies and antibody-mediated diseases. Because the alternative pathway amplifies complement activation, our aim was to evaluate the presence of autoantibodies against the alternative pathway C3 convertase, its components C3b and factor B, and the complement regulator factor H (FH) in NMOSD. Four out of 45 AQP4-seropositive NMOSD patients (similar to 9%) had FH autoantibodies in serum and none had antibodies to C3b, factor B and C3bBb. The FH autoantibody titers were low in three and high in one of the patients, and the avidity indexes were low. FH-IgG complexes were detected in the purified IgG fractions by Western blot. The autoantibodies bound to FH domains 19-20, and also recognized the homologous FH-related protein 1 (FHR-1), similar to FH autoantibodies associated with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS). However, in contrast to the majority of autoantibody-positive aHUS patients, these four NMOSD patients did not lack FHR-1. Analysis of autoantibody binding to FH19-20 mutants and linear synthetic peptides of the C-terminal FH and FHR-1 domains, as well as reduced FH, revealed differences in the exact binding sites of the autoantibodies. Importantly, all four autoantibodies inhibited C3b binding to FH. In conclusion, our results demonstrate that FH autoantibodies are not uncommon in NMOSD and suggest that generation of antibodies against complement regulating factors among other autoantibodies may contribute to the complement-mediated damage in NMOSD.Peer reviewe

AI Researchers, Video Games Are Your Friends!

If you are an artificial intelligence researcher, you should look to video games as ideal testbeds for the work you do. If you are a video game developer, you should look to AI for the technology that makes completely new types of games possible. This chapter lays out the case for both of these propositions. It asks the question "what can video games do for AI", and discusses how in particular general video game playing is the ideal testbed for artificial general intelligence research. It then asks the question "what can AI do for video games", and lays out a vision for what video games might look like if we had significantly more advanced AI at our disposal. The chapter is based on my keynote at IJCCI 2015, and is written in an attempt to be accessible to a broad audience.Comment: in Studies in Computational Intelligence Studies in Computational Intelligence, Volume 669 2017. Springe

Green Production of Anionic Surfactant Obtained from Pea Protein

A pea protein isolate was hydrolyzed by a double enzyme treatment method in order to obtain short peptide sequences used as raw materials to produce lipopeptides-based surfactants. Pea protein hydrolysates were prepared using the combination of Alcalase and Flavourzyme. The influence of the process variables was studied to optimize the proteolytic degradation to high degrees of hydrolysis. The average peptide chain lengths were obtained at 3–5 amino acid units after a hydrolysis of 30 min with the mixture of enzymes. Then, N-acylation in water, in presence of acid chloride (C12 and C16), carried out with a conversion rate of amine functions of 90%, allowed to obtain anionic surfactant mixtures (lipopeptides and sodium fatty acids). These two steps were performed in water, in continuous and did not generate any waste. This process was therefore in line with green chemistry principles. The surface activities (CMC, foaming and emulsifying properties) of these mixtures were also studied. These formulations obtained from natural renewable resources and the reactions done under environmental respect, could replace petrochemical based surfactants for some applications

Protein content prediction in single wheat kernels using hyperspectral imaging

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) combines Near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy and digital imaging to give information about the chemical properties of objects and their spatial distribution. Protein content is one of the most important quality factors in wheat. It is known to vary widely depending on the cultivar, agronomic and climatic conditions. However, little information is known about single kernel protein variation within batches. The aim of the present work was to measure the distribution of protein content in whole wheat kernels on a single kernel basis, and to apply HSI to predict this distribution. Wheat samples from 2013 and 2014 harvests were sourced from UK millers and wheat breeders, and individual kernels were analysed by HSI and by the Dumas combustion method for total protein content. HSI was applied in the spectral region 980-2500 nm in reflectance mode using the push-broom approach. Single kernel spectra were used to develop partial least squares (PLS) regression models for protein prediction of intact single grains. The protein content ranged from 6.2 to 19.8% (“as-is” basis), with significantly higher values for hard wheats. The performance of the calibration model was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R2) and the root mean square error (RMSE) from 3250 samples used for calibration and 868 used for external validation. The calibration performance for single kernel protein content was R2 of 0.82 and 0.79, and RMSE of 0.86 and 0.94% for the calibration and validation dataset, enabling quantification of the protein distribution between kernels and even visualisation within the same kernel. The performance of the single kernel measurement was poorer than that typically obtained for bulk samples, but is acceptable for some specific applications. The use of separate calibrations built by separating hard and soft wheat, or on kernels placed on similar orientation did not greatly improve the prediction ability. We simulated the use of the lower cost InGaAs detector (1000-1700 nm), and reported that the use of proposed HgCdTe detectors over a restricted spectral range gave a lower prediction error (RMSEC=0.86% vs 1.06%, for HgCdTe and InGaAs, respectively), and 26 increased R2 value (Rc2=0.82 vs 0.73)

Detection of multipartite entanglement with two-body correlations

We show how to detect entanglement with criteria built from simple two-body correlation terms. Since many natural Hamiltonians are sums of such correlation terms, our ideas can be used to detect entanglement by energy measurement. Our criteria can straightforwardly be applied for detecting different forms of multipartite entanglement in familiar spin models in thermal equilibrium.Comment: 5 pages including 2 figures, LaTeX; for the proceedings of the DPG spring meeting, Berlin, March 200

Anomalous U(1) symmetry and lepton flavor violation

We show that in a large class of models based on anomalous U(1) symmetry which addresses the fermion mass hierarchy problem, leptonic flavor changing processes are induced that are in the experimentally interesting range. The flavor violation occurs through the renormalization group evolution of the soft SUSY breaking parameters between the string scale and the U(1)_A breaking scale. We derive general expressions for the evolution of these parameters in the presence of higher dimensional operators. Several sources for the flavor violation are identified: flavor-dependent contributions to the soft masses from the U(1)_A gaugino, scalar mass corrections proportional to the trace of U(1)_A charge, non-proportional A-terms from vertex corrections, and the U(1)_A D-term. Quantitative estimates for the decays \mu -> e \gamma and \tau -> \mu \gamma are presented in supergravity models which accommodate the relic abundance of neutralino dark matter.Comment: References added, typos corrected, 28 pages LaTeX, includes 14 eps figure

Psychosocial work conditions and registered sickness absence: a 3-year prospective cohort study among office employees

Purpose To investigate associations between a wide variety of psychosocial work conditions and sickness absence in a medium-sized company. Methods Prospective cohort study of 395 employees working in an insurance office. Self-reported psychosocial work conditions were measured by questionnaire in January 2002 and linked to registered sickness absence in the period January 2002 to December 2004 adjusting for earlier sick leave and psychological distress. Results The questionnaires of 244 employees were eligible for analysis. Decision authority and co-worker support were associated with sickness absence days, but their associations with sickness absence episodes were not significant. Role clarity was associated with the number of sickness absence days, but only with the number of short sickness absence episodes in women. Conclusions The wide variety of investigated psychosocial work conditions contributed little to the explanation of sickness absence in the medium-sized insurance office