Biomarkers in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus along with Metabolic Syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a group of physiological abnormalities characterized by obesity, insulin resistance (IR), and hypertriglyceridemia, which carry the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Immune and metabolic alterations have been observed in MetS and are associated with autoimmune development. Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease caused by a complex interaction of environmental, hormonal, and genetic factors and hyperactivation of immune cells. Patients with SLE have a high prevalence of MetS, in which elevated CVD is observed. Among the efforts of multidisciplinary healthcare teams to make an early diagnosis, a wide variety of factors have been considered and associated with the generation of biomarkers. This review aimed to elucidate some primary biomarkers and propose a set of assessments to improve the projection of the diagnosis and evolution of patients. These biomarkers include metabolic profiles, cytokines, cardiovascular tests, and microRNAs (miRs), which have been observed to be dysregulated in these patients and associated with outcomes.

Multipass wide-field phase imager.

Advances in optical imaging always look for an increase in sensitivity and resolution among other practicability aspects. Within the same scope, in this work we report a versatile interference contrast imaging technique, with high phase sensitivity and a large field-of-view of several mm2. Sensitivity is increased through the use of a self-imaging non-resonant cavity, which causes photons to probe the sample in multiple rounds before being detected, where the configuration can be transmissive or reflective. Phase profiles can be resolved individually for each round thanks to a specially designed single-photon camera with time-of-flight capabilities and true pixels-off gating. Measurement noise is reduced by novel data processing combining the retrieved sample profiles from multiple rounds. Our protocol is especially useful under extremely low light conditions as required by biological or photo-sensitive samples. Results demonstrate more than a four-fold reduction in phase measurement noise, compared to single round imaging, and values close to the predicted sensitivity in case of the best possible cavity configuration, where all photons are maintained until n rounds. We also find good agreement with the theoretical predictions for low number of rounds, where experimental imperfections would play a minor role. The absence of a laser or cavity lock-in mechanism makes the technique an easy to use inspection tool.

Fast quantum-enhanced imaging with visible-wavelength entangled photons.

Quantum resources can provide supersensitive performance in optical imaging. Detecting entangled photon pairs from spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) with single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) image sensor arrays (ISAs) enables practical wide-field quantum-enhanced imaging. However, matching the SPDC wavelength to the peak detection efficiency range of complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) compatible mass-producible SPAD-ISAs has remained technologically elusive, resulting in low imaging speeds to date. Here, we show that a recently developed visible-wavelength entangled photon source enables high-speed quantum imaging. By operating at high detection efficiency of a SPAD-ISA, we increase acquisition speed by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous similar quantum imaging demonstrations. Besides being fast, the quantum-enhanced phase imager operating at short wavelengths retrieves nanometer scale height differences, tested by imaging evaporated silica and protein microarray spots on glass samples, with sensitivity improved by a factor of 1.351 ± 0.004 over equivalent ideal classical imaging. This work represents an important stepping stone towards scalable real-world quantum imaging advantage, and may find use in biomedical and industrial applications as well as fundamental research.

A quantum-enhanced wide-field phase imager.

Quantum techniques can be used to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio in optical imaging. Leveraging the latest advances in single-photon avalanche diode array cameras and multiphoton detection techniques, here, we introduce a supersensitive phase imager, which uses space-polarization hyperentanglement to operate over a large field of view without the need of scanning operation. We show quantum-enhanced imaging of birefringent and nonbirefringent phase samples over large areas, with sensitivity improvements over equivalent classical measurements carried out with equal number of photons. The potential applicability is demonstrated by imaging a biomedical protein microarray sample. Our technology is inherently scalable to high-resolution images and represents an essential step toward practical quantum-enhanced imaging.

Analysis of the passive biomechanical behavior of a sheep-specific aortic artery in pulsatile flow conditions.

In this work, a novel numerical-experimental procedure is proposed, through the use of the Cardiac Simulation Test (CST), device that allows the exposure of the arterial tissue to in-vitro conditions, mimicking cardiac cycles generated by the heart. The main goal is to describe mechanical response of the arterial wall under physiological conditions, when it is subjected to a variable pressure wave over time, which causes a stress state affecting the biomechanical behavior of the artery wall. In order to get information related to stress and strain states, numerical simulation via finite element method, is performed under a condition of systolic and diastolic pressure. The description of this methodological procedure is performed with a sample corresponding to a sheep aorta without cardiovascular pathologies. There are two major findings: the evaluation of the mechanical properties of the sheep aorta through the above-mentioned tests and, the numerical simulation of the mechanical response under the conditions present in the CST. The results state that differences between numerical and experimental circumferential stretch in diastole and systole to distinct zones studied do not exceed 1%. However, greater discrepancies can be seen in the distensibility and incremental modulus, two main indicators, which are in the order of 30%. In addition, numerical results determine an increase of the principal maximum stress and strain between the case of systolic and diastolic pressure, corresponding to 31.1% and 14.9% for the stress and strain measurement respectively; where maximum values of these variables are located in the zone of the ascending aorta and the aortic arch.

Author Correction: All-optical implementation of collision-based evolutions of open quantum systems.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Experimental Investigation of Superdiffusion via Coherent Disordered Quantum Walks.

Many disordered systems show a superdiffusive dynamics, intermediate between the diffusive one, typical of a classical stochastic process, and the so-called ballistic behavior, which is generally expected for the spreading in a quantum process. We have experimentally investigated the superdiffusive behavior of a quantum walk, whose dynamics can be related to energy transport phenomena, with a resolution which is high enough to clearly distinguish between different disorder regimes. By our experimental setup, the region between ballistic and diffusive spreading can be effectively scanned by suitably setting few degrees of freedom and without applying any decoherence to the quantum walk evolution.

All-optical implementation of collision-based evolutions of open quantum systems.

We present a new optical scheme enabling the implementation of highly stable and configurable non-Markovian dynamics. Here one photon qubit can circulate in a multipass bulk geometry consisting of two concatenated Sagnac interferometers to simulate the so called collisional model, where the system interacts at discrete times with a vacuum environment. We show the optical features of our apparatus and three different implementations of it, replicating a pure Markovian scenario and two non-Markovian ones, where we quantify the information backflow by tracking the evolution of the initial entanglement between the system photon and an ancillary one.

First observation of the quantized exciton-polariton field and effect of interactions on a single polariton.

Polaritons are quasi-particles that originate from the coupling of light with matter and that demonstrate quantum phenomena at the many-particle mesoscopic level, such as Bose-Einstein condensation and superfluidity. A highly sought and long-time missing feature of polaritons is a genuine quantum manifestation of their dynamics at the single-particle level. Although they are conceptually perceived as entangled states and theoretical proposals abound for an explicit manifestation of their single-particle properties, so far their behavior has remained fully accounted for by classical and mean-field theories. We report the first experimental demonstration of a genuinely quantum state of the microcavity polariton field, by swapping a photon for a polariton in a two-photon entangled state generated by parametric downconversion. When bringing this single-polariton quantum state in contact with a polariton condensate, we observe a disentangling with the external photon. This manifestation of a polariton quantum state involving a single quantum unlocks new possibilities for quantum information processing with interacting bosons.

Experimental Detection of Quantum Channel Capacities.

We present an efficient experimental procedure that certifies nonvanishing quantum capacities for qubit noisy channels. Our method is based on the use of a fixed bipartite entangled state, where the system qubit is sent to the channel input. A particular set of local measurements is performed at the channel output and the ancilla qubit mode, obtaining lower bounds to the quantum capacities for any unknown channel with no need of quantum process tomography. The entangled qubits have a Bell state configuration and are encoded in photon polarization. The lower bounds are found by estimating the Shannon and von Neumann entropies at the output using an optimized basis, whose statistics is obtained by measuring only the three observables σ_{x}⊗σ_{x}, σ_{y}⊗σ_{y}, and σ_{z}⊗σ_{z}.

Experimental observation of weak non-Markovianity.

Non-Markovianity has recently attracted large interest due to significant advances in its characterization and its exploitation for quantum information processing. However, up to now, only non-Markovian regimes featuring environment to system backflow of information (strong non-Markovianity) have been experimentally simulated. In this work, using an all-optical setup we simulate and observe the so-called weak non-Markovian dynamics. Through full process tomography, we experimentally demonstrate that the dynamics of a qubit can be non-Markovian despite an always increasing correlation between the system and its environment which, in our case, denotes no information backflow. We also show the transition from the weak to the strong regime by changing a single parameter in the environmental state, leading us to a better understanding of the fundamental features of non-Markovianity.

Postselection-Loophole-Free Bell Test Over an Installed Optical Fiber Network.

Device-independent quantum communication will require a loophole-free violation of Bell inequalities. In typical scenarios where line of sight between the communicating parties is not available, it is convenient to use energy-time entangled photons due to intrinsic robustness while propagating over optical fibers. Here we show an energy-time Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality violation with two parties separated by 3.7 km over the deployed optical fiber network belonging to the University of Concepción in Chile. Remarkably, this is the first Bell violation with spatially separated parties that is free of the postselection loophole, which affected all previous in-field long-distance energy-time experiments. Our work takes a further step towards a fiber-based loophole-free Bell test, which is highly desired for secure quantum communication due to the widespread existing telecommunication infrastructure.

Role of toll-interacting protein gene polymorphisms in leprosy Mexican patients.

BACKGROUND: Leprosy is a debilitating infectious disease of human skin and nerves. Genetics factors of the host play an important role in the disease susceptibility. Toll-interacting protein (TOLLIP) is an inhibitory adaptor protein within the toll-like receptor (TLR) pathway, which recognizes structurally conserved molecular patterns of microbial pathogens, initiating immune responses. The objective of this study was to investigate the association of variants in the TOLLIP gene with susceptibility to leprosy in Mexican patients. METHODS: TOLLIP polymorphisms were studied using a case-control design of Mexican patients with lepromatous leprosy (LL). The polymorphisms of TOLLIP at loci -526 C>G (rs5743854), 1309956C>T (rs3750920), 1298430C>A (rs5744015), and 1292831 G>A (rs3750919) were analyzed by PCR, with sequence-specific primers in LL patients and healthy subjects (HS) as controls. RESULTS: Genotype distributions were in Hardy Weinberg equilibrium for all sites except for rs3750920. Neither genotype nor allele frequencies were statistically different between LL patients and controls (P > 0.05). The maximum pairwise D' coefficient reached was 0.44 of linkage (P = 0.01) for all the polymorphisms except for rs5743854. The three loci haplotype comparison yielded no significant differences between groups. CONCLUSIONS: Just the individuals with genotype C/C of rs3750920 have a trend of protective effect to developing LL.

Experiencias de la Universidad de Yacutan a traves de la Facultad de Medicina / Experiences of the Universida de Yucatan througt the School of Medicine

Se describe la concepción de Universidad, los fines de la política de salud vigente, la interrelación entre autonomía universitaria y el papel del Estado en la confluencia de planes nacionales. Se cita la experiencia obtenida a través del Programa de atención Primaria en la Universidad de Yucatán por intermedio de la Facultad de Medicina. Se plantean alternativas en cuanto a la formación de recursos humanos y tipos de servicios, basados en las políticas nacionales de salud. La universidad integra 3 funciones: producción (investigación), transmisión (generación de científicos) y utilización (profesionalización) de los conocimientos. Se enumeran los objetivos para la consecución de las metas planteadas en las políticas de salud del Estado. De acuerdo al Plan del Estado, se detallan las actividades de la Universidad de Yucatán. Se detallan las acciones a largo y mediano plazo del Programa Docente Asistencial de Atención Primaria a la Salud (P.R.O.D.A.P.S.) que se inició en 1979 y concluyó en 1982. Se enumeran propuestas para la formación de recursos humanos, con una nueva concepción del servicio para la salud de la población