1,613 research outputs found
Study of the Distillability of Werner States Using Entanglement Witnesses and Robust Semidefinite Programs
We use Robust Semidefinite Programs and Entanglement Witnesses to study the
distillability of Werner states. We perform exact numerical calculations which
show 2-undistillability in a region of the state space which was previously
conjectured to be undistillable. We also introduce bases which yield
interesting expressions for the {\em distillability witnesses} and for a tensor
product of Werner states with arbitrary number of copies.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figure
Formation of Self-Assembled Mesophases During Lipid Digestion
Lipids play an important role in regulating bodily functions and providing a source of energy. Lipids enter the body primarily in the form of triglycerides in our diet. The gastrointestinal digestion of certain types of lipids has been shown to promote the self-assembly of lipid digestion products into highly ordered colloidal structures. The formation of these ordered colloidal structures, which often possess well-recognized liquid crystalline morphologies (or âmesophasesâ), is currently understood to impact the way nutrients are transported in the gut and absorbed. The formation of these liquid crystalline structures has also been of interest within the field of drug delivery, as it enables the encapsulation or solubilization of poorly water-soluble drugs in the aqueous environment of the gut enabling a means of absorption. This review summarizes the evidence for structure formation during the digestion of different lipid systems associated with foods, the techniques used to characterize them and provides areas of focus for advancing our understanding of this emerging field
Microcontainers as an oral delivery system for spray dried cubosomes containing ovalbumin
Available online 18 December 2016Abstract not availableLine Hagner Nielsen, Thomas Rades, Ben Boyd, Anja Boise
Commercially Supplied Amine-Modified siRNAs May Require Ultrafiltration prior to Conjugation with Amine-Reactive Compounds
Conjugation of siRNA to macromolecules such as serum albumin has multiple potential benefits, including enhanced extravasation via albumin-mediated transcytosis across endothelial cells and reduced renal clearance. In attempting to conjugate siRNA to albumin, we used commercially sourced amine-modified siRNA and reacted it with the heterobifunctional linker succinimidyl 4-[N-maleimidomethyl]cyclohexane-1-carboxylate (SMCC) to introduce a maleimide group suitable for conjugation to the thiol group of the surface-exposed cysteine residue (Cys 34) within albumin. We found the conjugation of the SMCC-treated siRNA to bovine serum albumin (BSA) to be very inefficient and investigated the cause of the low yield of conjugate. Ultrafiltration with phosphate-buffered saline prior to activation with SMCC dramatically increased the yield of siRNA-albumin conjugate (~15-fold). Communication with the commercial supplier revealed that ammonium acetate buffer was used in a desalting step as part of the siRNA purification process prior to supply, likely resulting in ammonium counterions to the siRNA polyanion, which would interfere with conjugation by consuming the SMCC. After ultrafiltration, a greatly reduced amount of SMCC could be used to affect conjugation, without significant reduction in yield. These data indicate that amine-modified siRNA sourced commercially may require ultrafiltration or dialysis prior to use in conjugation reactions
On representations of the feasible set in convex optimization
We consider the convex optimization problem where is convex, the feasible set K is convex and Slater's
condition holds, but the functions are not necessarily convex. We show
that for any representation of K that satisfies a mild nondegeneracy
assumption, every minimizer is a Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) point and conversely
every KKT point is a minimizer. That is, the KKT optimality conditions are
necessary and sufficient as in convex programming where one assumes that the
are convex. So in convex optimization, and as far as one is concerned
with KKT points, what really matters is the geometry of K and not so much its
representation.Comment: to appear in Optimization Letter
Developing the Lismore CSG poll- a university/local government collaboration
Regional universities can contribute to the capacity of regional governance by providing an important source of specialist knowledge that can be used to aid problem-solving and engage communities more actively in decision-making. This paper reports a case of a partnership between a regional university and a local government authority (LGA), in a situation where the local government authority chose to run a referendum-style poll on a regionally important environmental and industrial issue; the development of the coal seam gas industry in a rural area. The partnership was adopted to produce an independently developed question for the poll. The poll question was developed by university academics who having consulted with stakeholders, provided advice to the LGA, which took responsibility for the final wording of the poll question. An evaluation of the processes involved in developing the poll question included reflection on the collaborative relationship between the university and the LGA. While the independence implicit in the university staff role was acknowledged as important, the importance of a university-LGA collaboration was also highlighted. The value of a more formally-structured process was noted, as were the importance of emphasising the universityâs role as an advisory body only, and the LGAâs ownership of the final decision. Implications for policy include (1) the important role that regional Australian universities can play in enhancing governance and decision-making processes, (2) the potential for independent input to policy development processes for local and regional governance, and (3) the poll process which provides a robust method for ascertaining social acceptance of a controversial land use issue
Paper Prototyping Comfortable VR Play for Diverse Sensory Needs
We co-designed paper prototype dashboards for virtual environments for three children with diverse sensory needs. Our goal was to determine individual interaction styles in order to enable comfortable and inclusive play. As a first step towards an inclusive virtual world, we began with designing for three sensory-diverse children who have labels of neurotypical, ADHD, and autism respectively. We focused on their leisure interests and their individual sensory profiles. We present the results of co-design with family members and paper prototyping sessions conducted by family members with the children. The results contribute preliminary empirical findings for accommodating different levels of engagement and empowering users to adjust environmental thresholds through interaction design
On the Necessary Memory to Compute the Plurality in Multi-Agent Systems
We consider the Relative-Majority Problem (also known as Plurality), in
which, given a multi-agent system where each agent is initially provided an
input value out of a set of possible ones, each agent is required to
eventually compute the input value with the highest frequency in the initial
configuration. We consider the problem in the general Population Protocols
model in which, given an underlying undirected connected graph whose nodes
represent the agents, edges are selected by a globally fair scheduler.
The state complexity that is required for solving the Plurality Problem
(i.e., the minimum number of memory states that each agent needs to have in
order to solve the problem), has been a long-standing open problem. The best
protocol so far for the general multi-valued case requires polynomial memory:
Salehkaleybar et al. (2015) devised a protocol that solves the problem by
employing states per agent, and they conjectured their upper bound
to be optimal. On the other hand, under the strong assumption that agents
initially agree on a total ordering of the initial input values, Gasieniec et
al. (2017), provided an elegant logarithmic-memory plurality protocol.
In this work, we refute Salehkaleybar et al.'s conjecture, by providing a
plurality protocol which employs states per agent. Central to our
result is an ordering protocol which allows to leverage on the plurality
protocol by Gasieniec et al., of independent interest. We also provide a
-state lower bound on the necessary memory to solve the problem,
proving that the Plurality Problem cannot be solved within the mere memory
necessary to encode the output.Comment: 14 pages, accepted at CIAC 201
One-way quantum key distribution: Simple upper bound on the secret key rate
We present a simple method to obtain an upper bound on the achievable secret
key rate in quantum key distribution (QKD) protocols that use only
unidirectional classical communication during the public-discussion phase. This
method is based on a necessary precondition for one-way secret key
distillation; the legitimate users need to prove that there exists no quantum
state having a symmetric extension that is compatible with the available
measurements results. The main advantage of the obtained upper bound is that it
can be formulated as a semidefinite program, which can be efficiently solved.
We illustrate our results by analysing two well-known qubit-based QKD
protocols: the four-state protocol and the six-state protocol. Recent results
by Renner et al., Phys. Rev. A 72, 012332 (2005), also show that the given
precondition is only necessary but not sufficient for unidirectional secret key
distillation.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Heralded Single-Photon Partial Coherence
We study transverse spatial coherence of approximately localized single-photon states. We demonstrate nonlocal control over single-photon spatial coherence via projective measurements of an entangled twin and provide a theoretical interpretation from quantum coherence theory. Our results show that the spatial coherence of a single-photon state behaves similarly to that of a classical optical field, although the coincidence measurement adds a degree of freedom
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