2,547 research outputs found
Open Space Acquisitions and Management Opportunities in the City of Atlanta and Adjacent Jurisdictions
The great cities of the world are distinguished by their public parks. The urban fabric of New York, Barcelona, Berlin, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Sydney, and Shanghai are all woven around great parks. Yet, with all of Atlanta's outstanding achievements, the City and the region have a notably undistinguished park system. In a study conducted by the Trust for Public Land and the Urban Land Institute, Atlanta ranks near the bottom of the nation's largest 25 cities in acreage of parkland per capita with 7.3 acres for every 1,000 residents. Compare that to Austin, Texas' 39 acres per 1,000 residents or Oklahoma City's 43 acres per 1,000 residents and it becomes clear that something is amiss in metro Atlanta.This study identifies the obstacles to acquiring and maintaining open and green spaces in the metro Atlanta region. Addressing open space shortages in metro Atlanta is a sizable task. This study could be considered the first step in a larger process. Time spent researching the various obstacles and opportunities regarding open space acquisition raised many questions that are beyond the scope of this project. A second phase might test the recommendations made in this phase by working with local officials on a few select projects, and begin to identify critical pieces of property in metro Atlanta that must be protected from development. A detailed inventory of significant open space and natural resources in the metro area that includes the existing inventory of land inside of Interstate 285 should be considered either as a separate study or included in this recommended second phase
Different quantum f-divergences and the reversibility of quantum operations
The concept of classical -divergences gives a unified framework to
construct and study measures of dissimilarity of probability distributions;
special cases include the relative entropy and the R\'enyi divergences. Various
quantum versions of this concept, and more narrowly, the concept of R\'enyi
divergences, have been introduced in the literature with applications in
quantum information theory; most notably Petz' quasi-entropies (standard
-divergences), Matsumoto's maximal -divergences, measured
-divergences, and sandwiched and --R\'enyi divergences.
In this paper we give a systematic overview of the various concepts of
quantum -divergences with a main focus on their monotonicity under quantum
operations, and the implications of the preservation of a quantum
-divergence by a quantum operation. In particular, we compare the standard
and the maximal -divergences regarding their ability to detect the
reversibility of quantum operations. We also show that these two quantum
-divergences are strictly different for non-commuting operators unless
is a polynomial, and obtain some analogous partial results for the relation
between the measured and the standard -divergences.
We also study the monotonicity of the --R\'enyi divergences under
the special class of bistochastic maps that leave one of the arguments of the
R\'enyi divergence invariant, and determine domains of the parameters
where monotonicity holds, and where the preservation of the
--R\'enyi divergence implies the reversibility of the quantum
operation.Comment: 70 pages. v4: New Proposition 3.8 and Appendix D on the continuity
properties of the standard f-divergences. The 2-positivity assumption removed
from Theorem 3.34. The achievability of the measured f-divergence is shown in
Proposition 4.17, and Theorem 4.18 is updated accordingl
Landauer's Principle in Repeated Interaction Systems
We study Landauer's Principle for Repeated Interaction Systems (RIS)
consisting of a reference quantum system in contact with a
structured environment made of a chain of independent quantum
probes; interacts with each probe, for a fixed duration, in
sequence. We first adapt Landauer's lower bound, which relates the energy
variation of the environment to a decrease of entropy of the
system during the evolution, to the peculiar discrete time
dynamics of RIS. Then we consider RIS with a structured environment
displaying small variations of order between the
successive probes encountered by , after interactions,
in keeping with adiabatic scaling. We establish a discrete time non-unitary
adiabatic theorem to approximate the reduced dynamics of in this
regime, in order to tackle the adiabatic limit of Landauer's bound. We find
that saturation of Landauer's bound is equivalent to a detailed balance
condition on the repeated interaction system, reflecting the non-equilibrium
nature of the repeated interaction system dynamics. This is to be contrasted
with the generic saturation of Landauer's bound known to hold for continuous
time evolution of an open quantum system interacting with a single thermal
reservoir in the adiabatic regime.Comment: Linked entropy production to detailed balance relation, improved
presentation, and added concluding sectio
Operationalizing the BIG Collective Collection: A Case Study of Consolidation vs Autonomy
This is a discussion paper prepared in collaboration with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) Library Initiatives. It presents a framework for operationalizing the BTAA collective collection. A collective collection is a collection managed collaboratively across a network of libraries. We have a very specific focus in this paper on the âpurchasedâ or print collection, acknowledging that other areas of library collections are sometimes managed collectively, digitized collections for example. The BTAA justifiably claims to be the premier academic collaboration in the US. Once described as âthe world\u27s greatest common market in education3,â it leverages the combined research and teaching capacity of major research universities to scale innovation, impact, and economies across its 14 members. Together, the BTAA members have a profound social and economic impact throughout a large part of the US. Libraries are a central part of the BTAA research, learning, and teaching endeavor. They collectively mobilize major expertise and resources. In fact, the BTAA collection represents more than a fifth of all titles in the North American print book collection. The BTAA libraries align with BTAA goals by collaborating at scale to increase both impact and efficiency.
The character of library spaces, services, and collections is evolving with changing learning and research behaviors. It is widely recognized that continued autonomous development of large standalone collections does not meet needs and is not efficient. A library cannot collect all that its members would like to see, and much of what it does collect does not get used. At the same time, library space is being configured around engagement rather than around collections, the long-term stewardship costs of print materials are being recognized, and the role of books in research and learning is changing. Libraries are re-evaluating traditional approaches to building, managing, and sharing collections, and are increasingly looking to do this cooperatively. In this paper, we define and explore key attributes of collective collections and present a series of recommendations designed to advance the BTAA libraries toward a more purposeful coordination of their collections. Doing all that we propose would involve an extensive multi-year program. The approach we recommend here is broadly applicable in other consortium settings as well, which is why we characterize the paper as a case study
Effective DNA Inhibitors of Cathepsin G by In Vitro Selection
Cathepsin G (CatG) is a chymotrypsin-like protease released upon degranulation of neutrophils. In several inflammatory and ischaemic diseases the impaired balance between CatG and its physiological inhibitors leads to tissue destruction and platelet aggregation. Inhibitors of CatG are suitable for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and procoagulant conditions. DNA released upon the death of neutrophils at injury sites binds CatG. Moreover, short DNA fragments are more inhibitory than genomic DNA. Defibrotide, a single stranded polydeoxyribonucleotide with antithrombotic effect is also a potent CatG inhibitor. Given the above experimental evidences we employed a selection protocol to assess whether DNA inhibition of CatG may be ascribed to specific sequences present in defibrotide DNA. A Selex protocol was applied to identify the single-stranded DNA sequences exhibiting the highest affinity for CatG, the diversity of a combinatorial pool of oligodeoxyribonucleotides being a good representation of the complexity found in defibrotide. Biophysical and biochemical studies confirmed that the selected sequences bind tightly to the target enzyme and also efficiently inhibit its catalytic activity. Sequence analysis carried out to unveil a motif responsible for CatG recognition showed a recurrence of alternating TG repeats in the selected CatG binders, adopting an extended conformation that grants maximal interaction with the highly charged protein surface. This unprecedented finding is validated by our results showing high affinity and inhibition of CatG by specific DNA sequences of variable length designed to maximally reduce pairing/folding interactions
Magnetic flux tube models in superstring theory
Superstring models describing curved 4-dimensional magnetic flux tube
backgrounds are exactly solvable in terms of free fields. We first consider the
simplest model of this type (corresponding to `Kaluza-Klein' Melvin
background). Its 2d action has a flat but topologically non-trivial
10-dimensional target space (there is a mixing of angular coordinate of the
2-plane with an internal compact coordinate). We demonstrate that this theory
has broken supersymmetry but is perturbatively stable if the radius R of the
internal coordinate is larger than R_0=\sqrt{2\a'}. In the Green-Schwarz
formulation the supersymmetry breaking is a consequence of the presence of a
flat but non-trivial connection in the fermionic terms in the action. For R <
R_0 and the magnetic field strength parameter q > R/2\a' there appear
instabilities corresponding to tachyonic winding states. The torus partition
function Z(q,R) is finite for R > R_0 (and vanishes for qR=2n, n=integer). At
the special points qR=2n (2n+1) the model is equivalent to the free superstring
theory compactified on a circle with periodic (antiperiodic) boundary condition
for space-time fermions. Analogous results are obtained for a more general
class of static magnetic flux tube geometries including the a=1 Melvin model.Comment: 28 pages, harvmac. Minor changes, final version to appear in NP
Higher order terms for the quantum evolution of a Wick observable within the Hepp method
The Hepp method is the coherent state approach to the mean field dynamics for
bosons or to the semiclassical propagation. A key point is the asymptotic
evolution of Wick observables under the evolution given by a time-dependent
quadratic Hamiltonian. This article provides a complete expansion with respect
to the small parameter \epsilon > 0 which makes sense within the
infinite-dimensional setting and fits with finite-dimensional formulae
Symbol correspondences for spin systems
The present monograph explores the correspondence between quantum and
classical mechanics in the particular context of spin systems, that is,
SU(2)-symmetric mechanical systems. Here, a detailed presentation of quantum
spin-j systems, with emphasis on the SO(3)-invariant decomposition of their
operator algebras, is followed by an introduction to the Poisson algebra of the
classical spin system and a similarly detailed presentation of its
SO(3)-invariant decomposition. Subsequently, this monograph proceeds with a
detailed and systematic study of general quantum-classical symbol
correspondences for spin-j systems and their induced twisted products of
functions on the 2-sphere. This original systematic presentation culminates
with the study of twisted products in the asymptotic limit of high spin
numbers. In the context of spin systems, it shows how classical mechanics may
or may not emerge as an asymptotic limit of quantum mechanics.Comment: Research Monograph, 171 pages (book format, preliminary version
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