Clinical applications of squamous cell carcinoma antigen-immunoglobulins M to monitor chronic hepatitis C

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the main cause of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis in Western countries. Over time, the majority of cirrhotic patients develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the most common fatal cancers worldwide - fourth for incidence rate. A high public health priority need is the development of biomarkers to screen for liver disease progression and for early diagnosis of HCC development, particularly in the high risk population represented by HCV-positive patients with cirrhosis. Several studies have shown that serological determination of a novel biomarker, squamous cell carcinoma antigen-immunoglobulins M (SCCA-IgM), might be useful to identify patients with progressive liver disease. In the initial part of this review we summarize the main clinical studies that have investigated this new circulating biomarker on HCV-infected patients, providing evidence that in chronic hepatitis C SCCA-IgM may be used to monitor progression of liver disease, and also to assess the virological response to antiviral treatment. In the last part of this review we address other, not less important, clinical applications of this biomarker in hepatology

An innovative approach based on a tree-searching algorithm for the optimal matching of independently optimum sum and difference excitations

An innovative approach for the optimal matching of independently optimum sum and difference patterns through sub-arrayed monopulse linear arrays is presented. By exploiting the relationship between the independently optimal sum and difference excitations, the set of possible solutions is considerably reduced and the synthesis problem is recast as the search of the best solution in a non-complete binary tree. Towards this end, a fast resolution algorithm that exploits the presence of elements more suitable to charge sub-array membership is presented. The results of a set of numerical experiments are reported in order to validate the proposed approach pointing out its effectiveness also in comparison with state-of-the-art optimal matching techniques. (c) 2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works

Towards A Theory Of Quantum Computability

We propose a definition of quantum computable functions as mappings between superpositions of natural numbers to probability distributions of natural numbers. Each function is obtained as a limit of an infinite computation of a quantum Turing machine. The class of quantum computable functions is recursively enumerable, thus opening the door to a quantum computability theory which may follow some of the classical developments

A Hybrid Approach Based on PSO and Hadamard Difference Sets for the Synthesis of Square Thinned Arrays

A hybrid approach for the synthesis of planar thinned antenna arrays is presented. The proposed solution exploits and combines the most attractive features of a particle swarm algorithm and those of a combinatorial method based on the noncyclic difference sets of Hadamard type. Numerical experiments validate the proposed solution, showing improvements with respect to previous results. (c) 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works

A Hybrid Approach for Modeling Stochastic Ray Propagation in Stratified Random Lattices

The present contribution deals with ray propagation in semi-innite percolation lattices consisting of a succession of uniform density layers. The problem of analytically evaluating the probability that a single ray penetrates up to a prescribed level before being reected back into the above empty half-plane is addressed. A hybrid approach, exploiting the complementarity of two mathematical models in dealing with uniform congurations, is presented and assessed through numerical ray-tracing-based experiments in order to show improvements upon previous predictions techniques. "The definitive version is available at www3.interscience.wiley.com

Quantum Turing Machines Computations and Measurements

Contrary to the classical case, the relation between quantum programming languages and quantum Turing Machines (QTM) has not being fully investigated. In particular, there are features of QTMs that have not been exploited, a notable example being the intrinsic infinite nature of any quantum computation. In this paper we propose a definition of QTM, which extends and unifies the notions of Deutsch and Bernstein and Vazirani. In particular, we allow both arbitrary quantum input, and meaningful superpositions of computations, where some of them are "terminated" with an "output", while others are not. For some infinite computations an "output" is obtained as a limit of finite portions of the computation. We propose a natural and robust observation protocol for our QTMs, that does not modify the probability of the possible outcomes of the machines. Finally, we use QTMs to define a class of quantum computable functions---any such function is a mapping from a general quantum state to a probability distribution of natural numbers. We expect that our class of functions, when restricted to classical input-output, will be not different from the set of the recursive functions.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1504.02817 To appear on MDPI Applied Sciences, 202

Pauli Tomography: complete characterization of a single qubit device

The marriage of Quantum Physics and Information Technology, originally motivated by the need for miniaturization, has recently opened the way to the realization of radically new information-processing devices, with the possibility of guaranteed secure cryptographic communications, and tremendous speedups of some complex computational tasks. Among the many problems posed by the new information technology there is the need of characterizing the new quantum devices, making a complete identification and characterization of their functioning. As we will see, quantum mechanics provides us with a powerful tool to achieve the task easily and efficiently: this tools is the so called quantum entanglement, the basis of the quantum parallelism of the future computers. We present here the first full experimental quantum characterization of a single-qubit device. The new method, we may refer to as ''quantum radiography'', uses a Pauli Quantum Tomography at the output of the device, and needs only a single entangled state at the input, which works on the test channel as all possible input states in quantum parallel. The method can be easily extended to any n-qubits device

Percolation-Based Approaches For Ray-Optical Propagation in Inhomogeneous Random Distribution of Discrete Scatterers

We address the problem of optical ray propagation in an inhomogeneous half�]plane lattice, where each cell can be occupied according to a known one�]dimensional obstacles density distribution. A monochromatic plane wave impinges on the random grid with a known angle and undergoes specular reflections on the occupied cells. We present two different approaches for evaluating the propagation depth inside the lattice. The former is based on the theory of the Martingale random processes, while in the latter ray propagation is modelled in terms of a Markov chain. A numerical validation assesses the proposed solutions, while validation through experimental data shows that the percolation model, in spite of its simplicity, can be applied to model real propagation problems