Testing foundations of quantum mechanics with photons

The foundational ideas of quantum mechanics continue to give rise to counterintuitive theories and physical effects that are in conflict with a classical description of Nature. Experiments with light at the single photon level have historically been at the forefront of tests of fundamental quantum theory and new developments in photonics engineering continue to enable new experiments. Here we review recent photonic experiments to test two foundational themes in quantum mechanics: wave-particle duality, central to recent complementarity and delayed-choice experiments; and Bell nonlocality where recent theoretical and technological advances have allowed all controversial loopholes to be separately addressed in different photonics experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, published as a Nature Physics Insight review articl

Lipid levels in sickle-cell disease associated with haemolytic severity, vascular dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension

General view of the east tower, looking up; The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial palace from the Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. The palace precinct is entered through the inverted U-shaped Meridian Gate (Wu men), the largest and most imposing walled gate in the Forbidden City. Above the tall brick base with its five tunnel entrances (the gate is also known as the Five-Phoenix Gate), rises the nine-bay central hall with its double-eaved, hipped roof; four square pavilions stand at the ends of the central hall and at each end of the arms extending south. To the north of the Meridian Gate a vast courtyard is crossed by the River of Golden Water (Jinshui he), a stream with five curving marble bridges representing the Confucian virtues: humanity, duty, wisdom, trustworthiness and ritual correctness. Source: Grove Art Online; http://www.oxfordartonline.com/ (accessed 5/10/2011

A GCH1 haplotype confers sex-specific susceptibility to pain crises and altered endothelial function in adults with sickle cell anemia

GTP cyclohydrolase (GCH1) is rate limiting for tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) synthesis, where BH4 is a cofactor for nitric oxide (NO) synthases and aromatic hydroxylases. GCH1 polymorphisms are implicated in the pathophysiology of pain, but have not been investigated in African populations. We examined GCH1 and pain in sickle cell anemia where GCH1 rs8007267 was a risk factor for pain crises in discovery (n=228; odds ratio [OR] 2.26; P=0.009) and replication (n=513; OR 2.23; P=0.004) cohorts. In vitro, cells from sickle cell anemia subjects homozygous for the risk allele produced higher BH4. In vivo physiological studies of traits likely to be modulated by GCH1 showed rs8007267 is associated with altered endothelial dependent blood flow in females with SCA (8.42% of variation; P=0.002). The GCH1 pain association is attributable to an African haplotype with where its sickle cell anemia pain association is limited to females (OR 2.69; 95% CI 1.21-5.94; P=0.01) and has the opposite directional association described in Europeans independent of global admixture. The presence of a GCH1 haplotype with high BH4 in populations of African ancestry could explain the association of rs8007267 with sickle cell anemia pain crises. The vascular effects of GCH1 and BH4 may also have broader implications for cardiovascular disease in populations of African ancestry. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Current Approaches to Punctuation in Computational Linguistics

Some recent studies in computational linguistics have aimed to take advantage of various cues presented by punctuation marks. This short survey is intended to summarise these research efforts and additionally, to outline a current perspective for the usage and functions of punctuation marks. We conclude by presenting an information-based framework for punctuation, influenced by treatments of several related phenomena in computational linguistics

The psychological effects of empowerment strategies on consumers' product demand

Companies have recently begun to use the Internet in order to integrate their customers more actively into various phases of the new product development (NPD) process. One such strategy involves empowering customers to cooperate in selecting the product concepts to be marketed by the firm. In such scenarios, it is no longer the company but its customers who decide democratically which products should be produced. This article discusses the first set of empirical studies which highlight the important psychological consequences of this power shift. The results indicate that customers who are empowered to select the products to be marketed will show stronger demand for the underlying products even though they are of identical quality in objective terms (and their subjective product evaluations are similar). This seemingly irrational finding can be observed because consumers develop a stronger feeling of psychological ownership of the products selected. The studies also identify two boundary conditions for this "empowerment – product demand" effect: It diminishes if the outcome of the joint decisionmaking process does not reflect consumers' preferences and if consumers do not feel that they have the relevant competence to make sound decisions