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Pixelation occurs in many imaging systems and limits the spatial resolution of the acquired images. This effect is notably present in quantum imaging experiments with correlated photons in which the number of pixels used to detect coincidences is often limited by the sensor technology or the acquisition speed. Here, we introduce a pixel super-resolution technique based on measuring the full spatially-resolved joint probability distribution (JPD) of spatially-entangled photons. Without shifting optical elements or using prior information, our technique increases the pixel resolution of the imaging system by a factor two and enables retrieval of spatial information lost due to undersampling. We demonstrate its use in various quantum imaging protocols using photon pairs, including quantum illumination, entanglement-enabled quantum holography, and in a full-field version of N00N-state quantum holography. The JPD pixel super-resolution technique can benefit any full-field imaging system limited by the sensor spatial resolution, including all already established and future photon-correlation-based quantum imaging schemes, bringing these techniques closer to real-world applications. Pixelation is common in quantum imaging systems and limit the image spatial resolution. Here, the authors introduce a pixel super-resolution approach based on measuring the full spatially-resolved joint probability distribution of spatially-entangled photons, and improve pixel resolution by a factor two.

Entangled states of light are essential for quantum technologies and fundamental tests of physics. Current systems rely on entanglement in 2D degrees of freedom, e.g., polarization states. Increasing the dimensionality provides exponential speed-up of quantum computation, enhances the channel capacity and security of quantum communication protocols, and enables quantum imaging; unfortunately, characterizing high-dimensional entanglement of even bipartite quantum states remains prohibitively time-consuming. Here, we develop and experimentally demonstrate a new theory of camera detection that leverages the massive parallelization inherent in an array of pixels. We show that a megapixel array, for example, can measure a joint Hilbert space of 10 12 dimensions, with a speed-up of nearly four orders-of-magnitude over traditional methods. The technique uses standard geometry with existing technology, thus removing barriers of entry to quantum imaging experiments, generalizes readily to arbitrary numbers of entangled photons, and opens previously inaccessible regimes of high-dimensional quantum optics.

Medically underserved people with type 2 diabetes mellitus face limited access to group-based diabetes care, placing them at risk for poor disease control and complications. Immersive technology and telemedicine solutions could bridge this gap. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of diabetes medical group visits (DMGVs) delivered in an immersive telemedicine platform versus an in-person (IP) setting and establish the noninferiority of the technology-enabled approach for changes in hemoglobin A (HbA ) and physical activity (measured in metabolic equivalent of task [MET]) at 6 months. This study is a noninferiority randomized controlled trial conducted from February 2017 to December 2019 at an urban safety net health system and community health center. We enrolled adult women (aged ≥18 years) who self-reported African American or Black race or Hispanic or Latina ethnicity and had type 2 diabetes mellitus and HbA ≥8%. Participants attended 8 weekly DMGVs, which included diabetes self-management education, peer support, and clinician counseling using a culturally adapted curriculum in English or Spanish. In-person participants convened in clinical settings, while virtual world (VW) participants met remotely via an avatar-driven, 3D VW linked to video teleconferencing. Follow-up occurred 6 months post enrollment. Primary outcomes were mean changes in HbA and physical activity at 6 months, with noninferiority margins of 0.7% and 12 MET-hours, respectively. Secondary outcomes included changes in diabetes distress and depressive symptoms. Of 309 female participants (mean age 55, SD 10.6 years; n=195, 63% African American or Black; n=105, 34% Hispanic or Latina; n=151 IP; and n=158 in VW), 207 (67%) met per-protocol criteria. In the intention-to-treat analysis, we confirmed noninferiority for primary outcomes. We found similar improvements in mean HbA by group at 6 months (IP: -0.8%, SD 1.9%; VW: -0.5%, SD 1.8%; mean difference 0.3, 97.5% CI -∞ to 0.3; P<.001). However, there were no detectable improvements in physical activity (IP: -6.5, SD 43.6; VW: -9.6, SD 44.8 MET-hours; mean difference -3.1, 97.5% CI -6.9 to ∞; P=.02). The proportion of participants with significant diabetes distress and depressive symptoms at 6 months decreased in both groups. In this noninferiority randomized controlled trial, immersive telemedicine was a noninferior platform for delivering diabetes care, eliciting comparable glycemic control improvement, and enhancing patient engagement, compared to IP DMGVs. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02726425; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02726425.

The eleven Indigenous communities served by the File Hills Qu'Appelle Tribal Council (FHQTC) in Saskatchewan, Canada have experienced a progressive reduction in access to physical and occupational therapy services. A community-directed needs assessment facilitated by FHQTC Health Services was undertaken in the summer of 2021 to identify experiences and barriers of community members in accessing rehabilitation services. Sharing circles were conducted according to FHQTC COVID-19 policies; researchers connected to community members via Webex virtual conferencing software. Community stories and experiences were collected via sharing circles and semi-structured interviews. Data was analysed using an iterative thematic analysis approach with NVIVO qualitative analysis software. An overarching theme of culture contextualised five primary themes: 1) Barriers to Rehabilitation Care, 2) Impacts on Family and Quality of Life, 3) Calls for Services, 4) Strength Based Supports, and 5) What Care Should Look Like. Each theme is comprised of numerous subthemes amassed by stories from community members. Five recommendations were developed to enhance culturally responsive access to local services in FHQTC communities: 1) Rehabilitation Staffing Requirements, 2) Integration with Cultural Care, 3) Practitioner Education and Awareness, 4) Patient and Community-Centered Care, and 5) Feedback and Ongoing Evaluation.

Abstract Rationale Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Objectives To determine risk factors for and outcomes of rapid lung function decline in a cohort of adults in the United States. Methods We analyzed data from 15,536 adults aged 44–66 yr in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study. We used Cox proportional hazard models to determine the risk of rapid lung function decline at 3 yr on mortality and COPD hospitalizations over the subsequent 8 yr. Measurements and Main Results Of those in the baseline cohort, 13,756 (88.5%) had spirometry at the Year 3 visit. The strongest risk factors for not having a follow-up spirometry were as follows: having Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage 3 or 4 disease at baseline (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 2.8; 95% confidence interval [CI], 2.1–3.8), being black (adjusted OR, 2.4; 95% CI, 2.1–2.7), and being a current smoker (adjusted OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.5–2.0). Participants with GOLD stage 3 or 4 disease were also more likely to be in the most rapidly declining lung function quartile (adjusted OR, 3.7; 95% CI, 2.7–5.0). Overall, participants with the most rapidly declining lung function had a modestly increased risk of death (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.2–1.7) and time to a COPD-related hospitalization (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.4; 95% CI, 1.2–1.8). Conclusion Rapid lung function decline was independently associated with a modest increased risk of COPD hospitalizations and deaths.

Group-based diabetes care, both technology-enabled and in-person, can improve diabetes outcomes in low-income minority women, but the mechanism remains unclear. We tested whether diabetes group medical visits (GMVs) reduced hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) by mitigating diabetes distress (DD), an emotional response affecting nearly half of adults with type 2 diabetes in community settings. We conducted a mediation and moderation analysis of data from the Women in Control 2.0 comparative effectiveness study, which showed that both technology-enabled and in-person diabetes GMVs improve HbA1c. We tested whether DD mediated the relationship between diabetes GMV engagement and reductions in HbA1c. We also tested whether this relationship was moderated by depressive symptoms and social support. Participants were 309 low-income and minority women. Diabetes GMV engagement was measured using the Group Climate Questionnaire. The mediator, DD, was measured using the Diabetes Distress Screening Scale. The outcome was the 6-month change in HbA1c. Social support was measured using the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey. DD mediated the relationship between engagement and 6-month HbA1c. Specifically, group engagement affected HbA1c by reducing distress associated with the regimen of diabetes self-management (P=.04), and possibly the emotional burden of diabetes (P=.09). The relationship between engagement and 6-month HbA1c was moderated by depressive symptoms (P=.02), and possibly social support (P=.08). Engagement in diabetes GMVs improved HbA1c because it helped reduce diabetes-related distress, especially related to the regimen of diabetes management and possibly related to its emotional burden, and especially for women without depressive symptoms and possibly for women who lacked social support.

Background Improving the health of women before pregnancy and throughout a woman’s lifespan could mitigate disparities and improve the health and wellbeing of women, infants and children. The preconception period is important for reducing health risks associated with poor maternal, perinatal and neonatal outcomes, and eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in maternal and child health. Low cost health information technology interventions provided in community-based settings have the potential to reach and reduce disparities in health outcomes for socially disadvantaged, underserved and health disparity populations. These interventions are particularly important for Black and African American women who have a disproportionate burden of pregnancy-related complications and infant mortality rates compared to any other racial and ethnic group in the U.S. Methods This is a hybrid type II implementation-effectiveness cohort study aimed at evaluating appropriateness, acceptability and feasibility implementation outcomes, while also systematically examining the clinical effectiveness of a preconception care (PCC) intervention, the Gabby System, for Black and African American women receiving health services in community-based sites. The intervention will be implemented in six Community Health Centers and six Healthy Start programs across the U.S. Each study site will recruit and enroll 25–50 young Black and African American women who will participate in the intervention for a 6-month period. Appropriateness, acceptability and feasibility of implementing the PCC intervention will be assessed using: 1) Qualitative data derived from individual interviews with Gabby System end-users (clients and patients) and site staff; and, 2) Quantitative data from staff surveys, Gabby System usage and uptake. Aggregate health risk and utilization measures collected directly from the Gabby server will be used to examine the effectiveness of the Gabby System on self-reported behavior change. Discussion This study will examine implementation outcomes and clinical effectiveness of an evidence-based PCC intervention for Black and African American women receiving services in Healthy Start programs and Community Health Centers. Contextual factors that influence uptake and appropriate implementation strategies will be identified to inform future scalability of the intervention. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04514224 . Date of registration: August 14, 2020. Retrospectively Registered.

A systematic study of variables that affect the fiber welding process is presented. Cotton cloth samples are treated with controlled amounts of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate for a series of times and temperatures. Diluting the ionic liquid with a volatile molecular co-solvent allows temporal and spatial control of the welding process not possible with neat ionic liquids. Materials are characterized by scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and mechanical (tensile) testing. Results suggest careful management of process variables permits controlled, reproducible manipulation of chemical and physical properties.

For many, national identity is deeply felt and politically powerful. Yet at the same time, these same peoples may hold ambiguous, agnostic, or even antagonistic views towards national sovereignty. Nationality often exists without nationalism.These dogs that do not bark are ubiquitous in multinational states like the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Spain that formally recognized and actively encouraged the cultural expression of many national identities under one sovereign roof.How can we explain this broader diversity in the ways that nationality has been imagined in multinational states? Why do some national groups remain loyal to multinationalism, while others reject it? When is nationality meaningful to begin with?An influential paradigm from historical sociology holds that beliefs about national identity are the legacy of mass native-language literacy pursued by modernizing states in formation. New research from comparative politics has elaborated this paradigm, providing compelling evidence for the durability of national identities in individual cases, especially in Eastern Europe and Eurasia.This structuralist paradigm, however, by focusing on outlier cases where historical beliefs about national identity were exceptionally durable, has been shaped by a survivorship bias that diverted attention from cases where national identity failed to persist across generations. Considering the full range of national beliefs in Eurasia reveals that national identities can be persistent, but can also change quickly - over months, not generations. We require a theory of national identity formation that can accommodate both slow-moving and fast-moving beliefs.This project provides such a theory and applies it to explain variation in national beliefs in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was the first multinational state: it systematically inculcated national identity amongst its citizens by investing in native-language education and building indigenous cultural intelligentsias for over 100 peoples under a single, sovereign, socialist roof. My theory tells us how Soviet nation-building did in fact shape the way that everyday Soviet citizens thought about national identity.I distinguish between two distinct dimensions of nationality: the political implications of nationality for the state, and the meaningfulness of nationality to begin with. To explain the former dimension, I point to the writers, artists, and professors that let nationalist movements during the collapse of communism. Members of these national intelligentsia, like the poet Silva Kaputikyan in Armenia, the writer Zviad Gamsakhurdia in Georgia, and the musicologist Vytautas Landsbergis in Lithuania had long histories of advocating over communal grievances in the offices of writers unions and hallways of national academies. When Mikhail Gorbachev’s liberalizing policies lifted the constraints of Soviet censorship, it was these communal grievances that became the seeds of popular movements that would eventually challenge Soviet multinationalism.Structure, however, still mattered. The legacy of mass native-language literacy continued to shape which categories of nationality were already meaningful to everyday Soviet citizens. In this way, mass native-language literacy would empower or constrain the ability of national intelligentsias to popularize their communal grievances. Intelligentsia seeking to popularize communal grievances made appeals based on imagined membership in the nation, and such claims only rang true when these nations were already clearly defined and easily understood – when it was unquestionable that they existed in the first place. In this way, the long-term influence of mass literacy and the proximate effect of intelligentsias - structure and agency - together explain the full diversity of ways that nationality was imagined in Eurasia in this period.To test this theory, I first introduce original archival data on voting in 1946, which I use to mea- sure anti-Soviet sentiment, and primary source data on the professions of candidates elected in 1989, during the first competitive multi-candidate elections in Soviet history, which I use to measure where members of the intelligentsia entered into public politics. Using these data, I show that Soviet provinces where former writers, artists, professors, and other cultural intelligentsia won national office experienced an 18% increase in the percentage of mass demonstrations making nationalist demands. I then perform an automated text analysis on a corpus of Soviet cultural newspapers to show that the grievances raised by intelligentsia in these publications in the decades prior to Gorbachev’s liberalization matched the specific demands expressed publicly by protesters during the mass mobilizations of 1987-91 around such orthodox nationalist themes like monument preservation, language policy, and the remembrance of Stalin-era repression.To trace the effect of intelligentsias in an individual case, I replicate work by Darden & Grzymala-Busse (2006) on the positive relationship between historical mass literacy and anti-Soviet sentiment, and select a deviant case - the case of Armenia - that over-performed what we would expect based on historical mass literacy alone. Using a diverse base of qualitative and quantitative primary sources, including in-person elite interviews with former leaders of and participants in the 1987-91 protest movements, archived interviews, archived correspondences, memoirs, and historical publications, I show how Armenian writers, artists, and academics with a long history of advocating over irredentist territorial claims deployed their credentials and mobilized their constituencies to popularize those claims and tie them to the existential issue of Armenian independence - something that the intelligentsia in neighboring Azerbaijan, who lacked such a history, failed to do.Finally, I provide new evidence for the way that historical mass native-language literacy structures the effect of these national intelligentsias. To do so, I present original archival data on the Bolshevik campaigns to “liquidate illiteracy” amongst the adult Soviet population in the 1920s; this represents some of the only systematic fine-grained quantitative evidence that we have on the actual implementation of mass literacy. I show that literacy achieved as part of Soviet “affirmative action” programs were actually associated with fewer protests over language issues in 1987-91 and a weaker effect of intelligentsias on nationalist mobilization. I use these findings to motivate a new, alternative mechanism by which historical mass literacy structured the effect of intelligentsias based on the supply of nationally based grievances, and probe the plausibility of this new mechanism using the case of Belarus.This project shows that strong beliefs about national identity can, and often do, exist alongside ambiguous, agnostic, or even antagonistic views towards national sovereignty. It challenges the conventional wisdom on the durability of national identities by showing that the half-life of national identities can be shorter than we think, and beliefs about national identity can turn on a dime. It corrects the survivorship bias in the literature by investigating the full range of ways that nationality was imagined and re-imagined in this region. This study introduces a new class of political actor - intelligentsias - that was once ubiquitous in classic social science theories of class, identity, and the state. It also demonstrates that the Soviet Union could and did build nations, and in doing so revises political science theories which assume that autocracies like the Soviet Union viewed national identity merely as a threat to or instrument of rule. Finally, this study establishes a new research agenda for scholars of state-building on the cultural face of state formation.

Environmental pollutants can be found in many ecosystems and cover many different compound classes. The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for monitoring and regulating several of these classes of compounds which daily enter the environment. However, there are still hundreds, if not thousands, of compounds present in the environment which have yet to be regulated or even identified. The discovery and identification of these unknown emerging pollutants is crucial for the prevention of potential human health risks and irreversible ecological damage. The research presented is divided into two projects. The first part of this research investigates the disinfectant 3-Bromo-1-chloro-5,5-dimethylhydantoin, which is often used in the treatment of hot tubs. Treating the water with this chemical is intended to protect the swimmer from harmful bacteria that may be present in the water. However, the reaction of the disinfectant with other organic compounds found in the water can lead to the formation of potentially toxic disinfection by-products. The use of thermal desorption negative chemical ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry allows for a wider range of compounds to be ionized than conventional gas or liquid chromatography. The high resolution mass data were used to infer a molecular formula that could be used in database searches to find potential structural matches. The mass spectra indicated the presence of ions containing one and two bromine atoms. The second study investigated the oxidation of the prevalent environmental contaminant triclosan. Triclosan is known to oxidize to form 2,4-dichlorophenol, which is carcinogenic and displays some estrogenic activity. While other oxidation products have been hypothesized, such as other dichlorophenols, none have been positively identified. Analysis of reactions of triclosan and hydrogen peroxide at high pH indicate the presence of three compounds that appear to all be dichlorophenols. One compound has been identified as 2,4-dichlorophenol. Additionally, 2,5-dichlorophenol and 3,4-dichlorophenol have been identified. A late eluting peak has fragmentation consistent with the dichlorophenols. However, it does not coelute with the dichlorophenol standards. This compound is hypothesized to be a semi-quinone. The effects of pH on the oxidation product profile of triclosan are also presented.