Validating a biosignature-predicting placebo pill response in chronic pain in the settings of a randomized controlled trial.

The objective of this study is to validate a placebo pill response predictive model-a biosignature-that classifies chronic pain patients into placebo responders (predicted-PTxResp) and nonresponders (predicted-PTxNonR) and test whether it can dissociate placebo and active treatment responses. The model, based on psychological and brain functional connectivity, was derived in our previous study and blindly applied to current trial participants. Ninety-four chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients were classified into predicted-PTxResp or predicted-PTxNonR and randomized into no treatment, placebo treatment, or naproxen treatment.

Quantitative language features identify placebo responders in chronic back pain.

Although placebo effect sizes in clinical trials of chronic pain treatments have been increasing, it remains unknown if characteristics of individuals' thoughts or previous experiences can reliably infer placebo pill responses. Research using language to investigate emotional and cognitive processes has recently gained momentum. Here, we quantified placebo responses in chronic back pain using more than 300 semantic and psycholinguistic features derived from patients' language.

Identifying neural signatures mediating behavioral symptoms and psychosis onset: High-dimensional whole brain functional mediation analysis.

Along the pathway from behavioral symptoms to the development of psychotic disorders sits the multivariate mediating brain. The functional organization and structural topography of large-scale multivariate neural mediators among patients with brain disorders, however, are not well understood. Here, we design a high-dimensional brain-wide functional mediation framework to investigate brain regions that intermediate between baseline behavioral symptoms and future conversion to full psychosis among individuals at clinical high risk (CHR).

Identification of traits and functional connectivity-based neurotraits of chronic pain.

Psychological and personality factors, socioeconomic status, and brain properties all contribute to chronic pain but have essentially been studied independently. Here, we administered a broad battery of questionnaires to patients with chronic back pain (CBP) and collected repeated sessions of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans. Clustering and network analyses applied on the questionnaire data revealed four orthogonal dimensions accounting for 56% of the variance and defining chronic pain traits.

Quantile Coarsening Analysis of High-Volume Wearable Activity Data in a Longitudinal Observational Study.

Owing to advances in sensor technologies on wearable devices, it is feasible to measure physical activity of an individual continuously over a long period. These devices afford opportunities to understand individual behaviors, which may then provide a basis for tailored behavior interventions. The large volume of data however poses challenges in data management and analysis.

Brain and psychological determinants of placebo pill response in chronic pain patients.

The placebo response is universally observed in clinical trials of pain treatments, yet the individual characteristics rendering a patient a 'placebo responder' remain unclear. Here, in chronic back pain patients, we demonstrate using MRI and fMRI that the response to placebo 'analgesic' pills depends on brain structure and function. Subcortical limbic volume asymmetry, sensorimotor cortical thickness, and functional coupling of prefrontal regions, anterior cingulate, and periaqueductal gray were predictive of response.

Controlling Morphology in Polycrystalline Films by Nucleation and Growth from Metastable Nanocrystals.

Solution processing of polycrystalline compound semiconductor thin film using nanocrystals as a precursor is considered one of the most promising and economically viable routes for future large-area manufacturing. However, in polycrystalline compound semiconductor films such as CuZnSnS (CZTS), grain size, and the respective grain boundaries play a key role in dictating the optoelectronic properties. Various strategies have been employed previously in tailoring the grain size and boundaries (such as ligand exchange) but most require postdeposition thermal annealing at high temperature in the presence of grain growth directing agents (selenium or sulfur vapor with/without Na, K, etc.

Scanning SQUID sampler with 40-ps time resolution.

Scanning Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) microscopy provides valuable information about magnetic properties of materials and devices. The magnetic flux response of the SQUID is often linearized with a flux-locked feedback loop, which limits the response time to microseconds or longer. In this work, we present the design, fabrication, and characterization of a novel scanning SQUID sampler with a 40-ps time resolution and linearized response to periodically triggered signals.

Amplification, Decoherence, and the Acquisition of Information by Spin Environments.

Quantum Darwinism recognizes the role of the environment as a communication channel: Decoherence can selectively amplify information about the pointer states of a system of interest (preventing access to complementary information about their superpositions) and can make records of this information accessible to many observers. This redundancy explains the emergence of objective, classical reality in our quantum Universe. Here, we demonstrate that the amplification of information in realistic spin environments can be quantified by the quantum Chernoff information, which characterizes the distinguishability of partial records in individual environment subsystems.

Dynamic and accretive composition of patient engagement instruments for personalized plan generation.

Patient engagement is important to help patients become more informed and active in managing their health. Effective patient engagement demands short, yet valid instruments for measuring self-efficacy in various care dimensions. However, the static instruments are often too lengthy to be effective for assessment purposes.

Amplification, redundancy, and quantum Chernoff information.

Amplification was regarded, since the early days of quantum theory, as a mysterious ingredient that endows quantum microstates with macroscopic consequences, key to the "collapse of the wave packet," and a way to avoid embarrassing problems exemplified by Schrödinger's cat. Such a bridge between the quantum microworld and the classical world of our experience was postulated ad hoc in the Copenhagen interpretation. Quantum Darwinism views amplification as replication, in many copies, of the information about quantum states.

Two-dimensional pattern formation using graphoepitaxy of PS-b-PMMA block copolymers for advanced FinFET device and circuit fabrication.

Directed self-assembly (DSA) of lamellar phase block-co-polymers (BCPs) can be used to form nanoscale line-space patterns. However, exploiting the potential of this process for circuit relevant patterning continues to be a major challenge. In this work, we propose a way to impart two-dimensional pattern information in graphoepitaxy-based lamellar phase DSA processes by utilizing the interactions of the BCP with the template pattern.

Quantum self-correction in the 3D cubic code model.

A big open question in the quantum information theory concerns the feasibility of a self-correcting quantum memory. A quantum state recorded in such memory can be stored reliably for a macroscopic time without need for active error correction, if the memory is in contact with a cold enough thermal bath. Here we report analytic and numerical evidence for self-correcting behavior in the quantum spin lattice model known as the 3D cubic code.

Classification of topologically protected gates for local stabilizer codes.

Given a quantum error correcting code, an important task is to find encoded operations that can be implemented efficiently and fault tolerantly. In this Letter we focus on topological stabilizer codes and encoded unitary gates that can be implemented by a constant-depth quantum circuit. Such gates have a certain degree of protection since propagation of errors in a constant-depth circuit is limited by a constant size light cone.

Criticality without frustration for quantum spin-1 chains.

Frustration-free (FF) spin chains have a property that their ground state minimizes all individual terms in the chain Hamiltonian. We ask how entangled the ground state of a FF quantum spin-s chain with nearest-neighbor interactions can be for small values of s. While FF spin-1/2 chains are known to have unentangled ground states, the case s=1 remains less explored.

Dynamics of confined reactive water in smectite clay-zeolite composites.

The dynamics of water confined to mesoporous regions in minerals such as swelling clays and zeolites is fundamental to a wide range of resource management issues impacting many processes on a global scale, including radioactive waste containment, desalination, and enhanced oil recovery. Large-scale atomic models of freely diffusing multilayer smectite particles at low hydration confined in a silicalite cage are used to investigate water dynamics in the composite environment with the ReaxFF reactive force field over a temperature range of 300-647 K. The reactive capability of the force field enabled a range of relevant surface chemistry to emerge, including acid/base equilibria in the interlayer calcium hydrates and silanol formation on the edges of the clay and inner surface of the zeolite housing.

Energy landscape of 3D spin Hamiltonians with topological order.

We explore the feasibility of a quantum self-correcting memory based on 3D spin Hamiltonians with topological quantum order in which thermal diffusion of topological defects is suppressed by macroscopic energy barriers. To this end we characterize the energy landscape of stabilizer code Hamiltonians with local bounded-strength interactions which have a topologically ordered ground state but do not have stringlike logical operators. We prove that any sequence of local errors mapping a ground state of such a Hamiltonian to an orthogonal ground state must cross an energy barrier growing at least as a logarithm of the lattice size.

Quantum information storage using tunable flux qubits.

We present details and results for a superconducting quantum bit (qubit) design in which a tunable flux qubit is coupled strongly to a transmission line. Quantum information storage in the transmission line is demonstrated with a dephasing time of T(2)∼ 2.5 µs.

High-coherence hybrid superconducting qubit.

We report quantum coherence measurements of a superconducting qubit whose design is a hybrid of several existing types. Excellent coherence times are found: T2∼T1∼1.5 μs.

Physician-Driven Management of Patient Progress Notes in an Intensive Care Unit.

We describe fieldwork in which we studied hospital ICU physicians and their strategies and documentation aids for composing patient progress notes. We then present a clinical documentation prototype, activeNotes, that supports the creation of these notes, using techniques designed based on our fieldwork. ActiveNotes integrates automated, context-sensitive patient data retrieval, and user control of automated data updates and alerts via tagging, into the documentation process.

Tradeoffs for reliable quantum information storage in 2D systems.

We ask whether there are fundamental limits on storing quantum information reliably in a bounded volume of space. To investigate this question, we study quantum error correcting codes specified by geometrically local commuting constraints on a 2D lattice of finite-dimensional quantum particles. For these 2D systems, we derive a tradeoff between the number of encoded qubits k, the distance of the code d, and the number of particles n.

Quantum simulation of many-body Hamiltonians using perturbation theory with bounded-strength interactions.

We show how to map a given n-qubit target Hamiltonian with bounded-strength k-body interactions onto a simulator Hamiltonian with two-body interactions, such that the ground-state energy of the target and the simulator Hamiltonians are the same up to an extensive error O(epsilon n) for arbitrary small epsilon. The strength of the interactions in the simulator Hamiltonian depends on epsilon and k but does not depend on n. We accomplish this reduction using a new way of deriving an effective low-energy Hamiltonian which relies on the Schrieffer-Wolff transformation of many-body physics.

Moment switching in nanotube magnetic force probes.

Magnetic images of high density vertically recorded media using metal-coated carbon nanotube tips exhibit a doubling of the spatial frequency under some conditions (Deng et al 2004 Appl. Phys. Lett.