On the correction of anomalous phase oscillation in entanglement witnesses using quantum neural networks

Entanglement of a quantum system depends upon relative phase in complicated ways, which no single measurement can reflect. Because of this, entanglement witnesses are necessarily limited in applicability and/or utility. We propose here a solution to the problem using quantum neural networks. A quantum system contains the information of its entanglement; thus, if we are clever, we can extract that information efficiently. As proof of concept, we show how this can be done for the case of pure states of a two-qubit system, using an entanglement indicator corrected for the anomalous phase oscillation. Both the entanglement indicator and the phase correction are calculated by the quantum system itself acting as a neural network

Optimal Reachability for Weighted Timed Games

Weighted timed automata are timed automata annotated with costs on locations and transitions. The optimal game-reachability problem for these automata is to find the best-cost strategy of supplying the inputs so as to ensure reachability of a target set within a specified number of iterations. The only known complexity bound for this problem is a doubly-exponential upper bound. We establish a singly-exponential upper bound and show that there exist automata with exponentially many states in a single region with pair-wise distinct optimal strategies

The history of AIDS exceptionalism

In the history of public health, HIV/AIDS is unique; it has widespread and long-lasting demographic, social, economic and political impacts. The global response has been unprecedented. AIDS exceptionalism - the idea that the disease requires a response above and beyond "normal" health interventions - began as a Western response to the originally terrifying and lethal nature of the virus. More recently, AIDS exceptionalism came to refer to the disease-specific global response and the resources dedicated to addressing the epidemic. There has been a backlash against this exceptionalism, with critics claiming that HIV/AIDS receives a disproportionate amount of international aid and health funding

Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood?

A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030. This is an important omission because of the substantial brain, cognitive and socioemotional developments that occur in early life and because of increasing evidence of early-life learning's large impacts on subsequent education and lifetime wellbeing. We provide an overview of this evidence and use new analyses to illustrate medium- and long-term implications of early learning, first by presenting associations between pre-primary programme participation and adolescent mathematics and science test scores in 73 countries and secondly, by estimating the costs of inaction (not making pre-primary programmes universal) in terms of forgone lifetime earnings in 134 countries. We find considerable losses, comparable to or greater than current governmental expenditures on all education (as percentages of GDP), particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In addition to improving primary, secondary and tertiary schooling, we conclude that to attain SDG 4 and reduce inequalities in a post-COVID era, it is essential to prioritize quality early childhood care and education, including adopting policies that support families to promote early learning and their children's education

Informal payments and intra-household allocation of resources for health care in Albania

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Informal payments for health care services can impose financial hardship on households. Many studies have found that the position within the household can influence the decision on how much is spent on each household member. This study analyses the intra-household differences in spending on informal payments for health care services by comparing the resources allocated between household heads, spouses and children.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Pooled data from two cross sectional surveys, the Albanian Living Standard Measurement Survey 2002 and 2005, are used to analyse both the probability and the amount paid in inpatient and outpatient health care services. A generalised Hausman specification test is used to compare the coefficients of probit and OLS models for nuclear and extended households.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We find that due to the widespread informal payments there are no significant differences between households in the incidence of informal payments for households' members, but there are more differences in the amount paid informally. Results suggest that households strategically allocate their resources on health care by favouring individuals with higher earning potential who have invested more in human capital. Extended households pay higher amounts for spouses with higher education compared to nuclear households. On the other hand, nuclear households choose to pay higher amounts for children with a higher level of education compared to extended households.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The differences between households should be taken into account by public policies which should compensate this by redistribution mechanisms targeting disadvantaged groups. Governments should implement effective measures to deal with informal patient payments.</p> <p><b>JEL Codes: </b>I10, I19, D10</p

Dental management considerations for the patient with an acquired coagulopathy. Part 1: Coagulopathies from systemic disease

Current teaching suggests that many patients are at risk for prolonged bleeding during and following invasive dental procedures, due to an acquired coagulopathy from systemic disease and/or from medications. However, treatment standards for these patients often are the result of long-standing dogma with little or no scientific basis. The medical history is critical for the identification of patients potentially at risk for prolonged bleeding from dental treatment. Some time-honoured laboratory tests have little or no use in community dental practice. Loss of functioning hepatic, renal, or bone marrow tissue predisposes to acquired coagulopathies through different mechanisms, but the relationship to oral haemostasis is poorly understood. Given the lack of established, science-based standards, proper dental management requires an understanding of certain principles of pathophysiology for these medical conditions and a few standard laboratory tests. Making changes in anticoagulant drug regimens are often unwarranted and/or expensive, and can put patients at far greater risk for morbidity and mortality than the unlikely outcome of postoperative bleeding. It should be recognised that prolonged bleeding is a rare event following invasive dental procedures, and therefore the vast majority of patients with suspected acquired coagulopathies are best managed in the community practice setting