3,218 research outputs found
Achievable Qubit Rates for Quantum Information Wires
Suppose Alice and Bob have access to two separated regions, respectively, of
a system of electrons moving in the presence of a regular one-dimensional
lattice of binding atoms. We consider the problem of communicating as much
quantum information, as measured by the qubit rate, through this quantum
information wire as possible. We describe a protocol whereby Alice and Bob can
achieve a qubit rate for these systems which is proportional to N^(-1/3) qubits
per unit time, where N is the number of lattice sites. Our protocol also
functions equally in the presence of interactions modelled via the t-J and
Hubbard models
Palaeoecological study of South Milton Ley, South Devon
1. Attend South Milton Ley and obtain 6 sediment cores from 3 different areas of
the ley to investigate the impact of discharges from the sewage treatment
works (STW).
2. From each of the 3 locations, extrude one master core at appropriate intervals
and describe its stratigraphy.
3. From each of the 3 locations, measure the dry weight and organic matter
content of selected levels of the master core.
4. Date the master core from each of the 3 locations to provide a chronology of
the ley sediments using radiometric dating methods and/or spheroidal
carbonaceous particles (SCPs).
5. Analyse the diatom assemblages in five to ten samples from selected depths
of each master core.
6. Apply a diatom-phosphorus transfer function to the diatom assemblages of
each master core to reconstruct total phosphorus concentrations and in turn
determine the nutrient loading history of the ley.
7. Produce a summary report of the findings
Retrodictively Optimal Localisations in Phase Space
In a previous paper it was shown that the distribution of measured values for
a retrodictively optimal simultaneous measurement of position and momentum is
always given by the initial state Husimi function. This result is now
generalised to retrodictively optimal simultaneous measurements of an arbitrary
pair of rotated quadratures x_theta1 and x_theta2. It is shown, that given any
such measurement, it is possible to find another such measurement,
informationally equivalent to the first, for which the axes defined by the two
quadratures are perpendicular. It is further shown that the distribution of
measured values for such a meaurement belongs to the class of generalised
Husimi functions most recently discussed by Wuensche and Buzek. The class
consists of the subset of Wodkiewicz's operational probability distributions
for which the filter reference state is a squeezed vaccuum state.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. AMS Latex. Replaced with published versio
Cancer incidence in British vegetarians
Background:
Few prospective studies have examined cancer incidence among vegetarians.
Methods:
We studied 61 566 British men and women, comprising 32 403 meat eaters, 8562 non-meat eaters who did eat fish ('fish eaters') and 20 601 vegetarians. After an average follow-up of 12.2 years, there were 3350 incident cancers of which 2204 were among meat eaters, 317 among fish eaters and 829 among vegetarians. Relative risks (RRs) were estimated by Cox regression, stratified by sex and recruitment protocol and adjusted for age, smoking, alcohol, body mass index, physical activity level and, for women only, parity and oral contraceptive use.
Results:
There was significant heterogeneity in cancer risk between groups for the following four cancer sites: stomach cancer, RRs (compared with meat eaters) of 0.29 (95% CI: 0.07â1.20) in fish eaters and 0.36 (0.16â0.78) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.007; ovarian cancer, RRs of 0.37 (0.18â0.77) in fish eaters and 0.69 (0.45â1.07) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.007; bladder cancer, RRs of 0.81 (0.36â1.81) in fish eaters and 0.47 (0.25â0.89) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.05; and cancers of the lymphatic and haematopoietic tissues, RRs of 0.85 (0.56â1.29) in fish eaters and 0.55 (0.39â0.78) in vegetarians, P for heterogeneity=0.002. The RRs for all malignant neoplasms were 0.82 (0.73â0.93) in fish eaters and 0.88 (0.81â0.96) in vegetarians (P for heterogeneity=0.001).
Conclusion:
The incidence of some cancers may be lower in fish eaters and vegetarians than in meat eaters
Consistent perturbations in an imperfect fluid
We present a new prescription for analysing cosmological perturbations in a
more-general class of scalar-field dark-energy models where the energy-momentum
tensor has an imperfect-fluid form. This class includes Brans-Dicke models,
f(R) gravity, theories with kinetic gravity braiding and generalised galileons.
We employ the intuitive language of fluids, allowing us to explicitly maintain
a dependence on physical and potentially measurable properties. We demonstrate
that hydrodynamics is not always a valid description for describing
cosmological perturbations in general scalar-field theories and present a
consistent alternative that nonetheless utilises the fluid language. We apply
this approach explicitly to a worked example: k-essence non-minimally coupled
to gravity. This is the simplest case which captures the essential new features
of these imperfect-fluid models. We demonstrate the generic existence of a new
scale separating regimes where the fluid is perfect and imperfect. We obtain
the equations for the evolution of dark-energy density perturbations in both
these regimes. The model also features two other known scales: the Compton
scale related to the breaking of shift symmetry and the Jeans scale which we
show is determined by the speed of propagation of small scalar-field
perturbations, i.e. causality, as opposed to the frequently used definition of
the ratio of the pressure and energy-density perturbations.Comment: 40 pages plus appendices. v2 reflects version accepted for
publication in JCAP (new summary of notation, extra commentary on choice of
gauge and frame, extra references to literature
Husimi Transform of an Operator Product
It is shown that the series derived by Mizrahi, giving the Husimi transform
(or covariant symbol) of an operator product, is absolutely convergent for a
large class of operators. In particular, the generalized Liouville equation,
describing the time evolution of the Husimi function, is absolutely convergent
for a large class of Hamiltonians. By contrast, the series derived by
Groenewold, giving the Weyl transform of an operator product, is often only
asymptotic, or even undefined. The result is used to derive an alternative way
of expressing expectation values in terms of the Husimi function. The advantage
of this formula is that it applies in many of the cases where the anti-Husimi
transform (or contravariant symbol) is so highly singular that it fails to
exist as a tempered distribution.Comment: AMS-Latex, 13 page
Emergency department contact prior to suicide in mental health patients
ObjectivesTo describe attendance at emergency departments (EDs) in the year prior to suicide for a sample of mental health patients. To examine the characteristics of those who attended (particularly those who attended frequently) prior to suicide.DesignCase review of ED records for 286 individuals who died within 12 months of mental health contact in North West England (2003-2005).MethodCases identified through the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide were checked against regional EDs to establish attendance in the year prior to death. Records were examined to establish the number of attendances, reason for the final, non-fatal attendance, treatment offered and outcome.ResultsOne hundred and twenty-four (43%) individuals had attended the ED at least once in the year prior to their death, and of these, 35 (28%) had attended the ED on more than three occasions. These frequent attenders died by suicide significantly sooner after their final, non-fatal attendance than other attenders. A clinical history of alcohol misuse was also associated with early death following ED attendance.ConclusionsOver 40% of our clinical sample attended an ED in the year prior to death, and some individuals attended particularly frequently. EDs may therefore represent an important additional setting for suicide prevention in mental health patients. The majority of attendances prior to suicide were for self-harm or to request psychiatric help. Clinicians should be alert to the risk associated with such presentations and to the possible association between frequent attendance and suicide
Nutrition, lifestyle and colorectal cancer incidence: a prospective investigation of 10â998 vegetarians and non-vegetarians in the United Kingdom
In a cohort of 10998 men and women, 95 incident cases of colorectal cancer were recorded after 17 years. Risk increased in association with smoking, alcohol, and white bread consumption, and decreased with frequent consumption of fruit. The relative risk in vegetarians compared with nonvegetarians was 0.85 (95% CI: 0.55-1.32)
The variance on the shock response of a carbon fibre composite due to the orientation of the weave
Three different orientations of a tape-wrapped carbon fibre composite with phenolic resin matrix (abbreviated to TWCP) have been investigated under one-dimensional shock loading. This has been achieved via a single-stage gas gun, with manganin gauges as the diagnostic tool. The orientations of TWCP studied in this paper were 25°, 45° and 90°, with respect to the impact face. The shock response of these orientations, for this material, has been obtained (the Hugoniot equation of state). These results have been contrasted with previously reported literature data for the same material at different orientations (0° and 20°). It was found that orientation had minimal effect on the behaviour of this composite under shock. The exception to this was the 90° orientation which exhibited an elastic precursor at particle velocities of less than 0.65 mm ”sâ1; where the shock velocity was equivalent to the elastic sound speed of the material
The Lie Algebraic Significance of Symmetric Informationally Complete Measurements
Examples of symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued
measures (SIC-POVMs) have been constructed in every dimension less than or
equal to 67. However, it remains an open question whether they exist in all
finite dimensions. A SIC-POVM is usually thought of as a highly symmetric
structure in quantum state space. However, its elements can equally well be
regarded as a basis for the Lie algebra gl(d,C). In this paper we examine the
resulting structure constants, which are calculated from the traces of the
triple products of the SIC-POVM elements and which, it turns out, characterize
the SIC-POVM up to unitary equivalence. We show that the structure constants
have numerous remarkable properties. In particular we show that the existence
of a SIC-POVM in dimension d is equivalent to the existence of a certain
structure in the adjoint representation of gl(d,C). We hope that transforming
the problem in this way, from a question about quantum state space to a
question about Lie algebras, may help to make the existence problem tractable.Comment: 56 page
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