Economic evaluation of LIFE methodology

Background: The LIFE project (Lifecycle Information For E-Literature) was carried out during 2004-2006 by a consortium consisting of The British Library and University College London Library Services . The project was joint venture funded by JISC under the programme area Institutional Management Support and Collaboration. The project has received favourable feedback, for instance during a workshop organised at the end of it, and JISC has agreed to fund a second phase during 2007-2008. The consortium has been strengthened by three associate partners (SHERPA-LEAP Consortium, SHERPA-DP and the Medical Research Council). In addition some funds were reserved for the use of an outside economic consultant for an evaluation of the life-cycle models that emerged as the key results from the first phase. The LIFE-2 project consists of five work packages, and this report is part of the first of these. The objective of WP 1 is formulated in the LIFE 2 Project proposal as follows: Validation of the economic modelling and methodology for the Lifecycle and Generic Preservation formulae developed in Phase 1 of the LIFE project, with technical and presentational development of the models. Cloudlake Consulting Oy has been commissioned by the consortium to carry out this validation. The report has been written by Bo-Christer Björk. He is professor of Information Systems Science at the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration in Helsinki, Finland. He has been conducting research concerning the scientific publishing process since 2000 and has published several peer reviewed journal articles as well as conference papers on the subject. He is often an invited speaker at international workshops in this area

Open Access 2007 - 2017: Country and University Level Perspective

Each year the number of Open Access (OA) papers is gradually increasing. We carried out a study investigating 400 universities from 8 countries to examine: i) the total number of OA papers per country, ii) proportion of OA papers published by representative universities in each country classified into three tiers of research quality: high, middle and low, iii) how universities within the same country compare to each other and iv) the growth of OA papers in countries per year. We conclude that among the analysed countries the UK and USA rank first and second respectively, while Russia and India are positioned towards the bottom of the list. We observe no link between the proportion of OA papers published by authors at a university and the university ranking, with some universities in the middle university rank tier having a larger proportion of OA papers than those in the high tier

Interest Rates and Information Geometry

The space of probability distributions on a given sample space possesses natural geometric properties. For example, in the case of a smooth parametric family of probability distributions on the real line, the parameter space has a Riemannian structure induced by the embedding of the family into the Hilbert space of square-integrable functions, and is characterised by the Fisher-Rao metric. In the nonparametric case the relevant geometry is determined by the spherical distance function of Bhattacharyya. In the context of term structure modelling, we show that minus the derivative of the discount function with respect to the maturity date gives rise to a probability density. This follows as a consequence of the positivity of interest rates. Therefore, by mapping the density functions associated with a given family of term structures to Hilbert space, the resulting metrical geometry can be used to analyse the relationship of yield curves to one another. We show that the general arbitrage-free yield curve dynamics can be represented as a process taking values in the convex space of smooth density functions on the positive real line. It follows that the theory of interest rate dynamics can be represented by a class of processes in Hilbert space. We also derive the dynamics for the central moments associated with the distribution determined by the yield curve.Comment: 20 pages, 3 figure

Unfolding spinor wavefunctions and expectation values of general operators: Introducing the unfolding-density operator

We show that the spectral weights $W_{m\vec K}(\vec k)$ used for the unfolding of two-component spinor eigenstates $| {\psi_{m\vec K}^\mathrm{SC}} > = | \alpha > | {\psi_{m\vec{K}}^\mathrm{SC, \alpha}} > + | \beta > | {\psi_{m\vec{K}}^\mathrm{SC, \beta}} >$ can be decomposed as the sum of the partial spectral weights $W_{m\vec{K}}^{\mu}(\vec k)$ calculated for each component $\mu = \alpha, \beta$ independently, effortlessly turning a possibly complicated problem involving two coupled quantities into two independent problems of easy solution. Furthermore, we define the unfolding-density operator $\hat{\rho}_{\vec{K}}(\vec{k}_{i}; \, \varepsilon)$, which unfolds the primitive cell expectation values $\varphi^{pc}(\vec{k}; \varepsilon)$ of any arbitrary operator $\mathbf{\hat\varphi}$ according to $\varphi^{pc}(\vec{k}_{i}; \varepsilon) = \mathit{Tr}(\hat{\rho}_{\vec{K}}(\vec{k}_{i}; \, \varepsilon)\,\,\hat{\varphi})$. As a proof of concept, we apply the method to obtain the unfolded band structures, as well as the expectation values of the Pauli spin matrices, for prototypical physical systems described by two-component spinor eigenfunctions

Conformational changes in human fibrinogen after in vitro phosphorylation and their relation to fibrinogen behaviour

AbstractThe far-ultraviolet circular dichroism spectra of fibrinogens phosphorylated by protein kinase C or casein kinase II indicated a conformational change corresponding to an increase in ordered secondary structure. The spectra of protein kinase A- or casein kinase I-phosphorylated fibrinogens did not differ substantially from the control. Fluorescence studies indicated changes in the tertiary structure around tryptophan residues for protein kinase A- or C-phosphorylated fibrinogens, but failed to show any such change for fibrinogen phosphorylated by either of the casein kinases. This latter result was also confirmed by circular dichroism measurements in the near-ultraviolet region. The apparent increase in ordered structure was proposed as an explanation for the slower rate of plasmin degradation seen in fibrinogens after phosphorylation by protein kinase C [6], and casein kinase II, especially as both spectral changes and plasmin degradation rate were unaffected by alkaline phosphatase

Entanglement quantification through local observable correlations

We present a significantly improved scheme of entanglement detection inspired by local uncertainty relations for a system consisting of two qubits. Developing the underlying idea of local uncertainty relations, namely correlations, we demonstrate that it's possible to define a measure which is invariant under local unitary transformations and which is based only on local measurements. It is quite simple to implement experimentally and it allows entanglement quantification in a certain range for mixed states and exactly for pure states, without first obtaining full knowledge (e.g. through tomography) of the state.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, revised version with new proof and replaced figure

Deterministic teleportation using single-photon entanglement as a resource

We outline a proof that teleportation with a single particle is in principle just as reliable as with two particles. We thereby hope to dispel the skepticism surrounding single-photon entanglement as a valid resource in quantum information. A deterministic Bell state analyzer is proposed which uses only classical resources, namely coherent states, a Kerr non-linearity, and a two-level atom.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Imaging a 1-electron InAs quantum dot in an InAs/InP nanowire

Nanowire heterostructures define high-quality few-electron quantum dots for nanoelectronics, spintronics and quantum information processing. We use a cooled scanning probe microscope (SPM) to image and control an InAs quantum dot in an InAs/InP nanowire, using the tip as a movable gate. Images of dot conductance vs. tip position at T = 4.2 K show concentric rings as electrons are added, starting with the first electron. The SPM can locate a dot along a nanowire and individually tune its charge, abilities that will be very useful for the control of coupled nanowire dots

On the structure of the sets of mutually unbiased bases for N qubits

For a system of N qubits, spanning a Hilbert space of dimension d=2^N, it is known that there exists d+1 mutually unbiased bases. Different construction algorithms exist, and it is remarkable that different methods lead to sets of bases with different properties as far as separability is concerned. Here we derive the four sets of nine bases for three qubits, and show how they are unitarily related. We also briefly discuss the four-qubit case, give the entanglement structure of sixteen sets of bases,and show some of them, and their interrelations, as examples. The extension of the method to the general case of N qubits is outlined.Comment: 16 pages, 10 tables, 1 figur

Two-photon imaging and quantum holography

It has been claimed that ``the use of entangled photons in an imaging system can exhibit effects that cannot be mimicked by any other two-photon source, whatever strength of the correlations between the two photons'' [A. F. Abouraddy, B. E. A. Saleh, A. V. Sergienko, and M. C. Teich, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 123602 (2001)]. While we believe that the cited statement is true, we show that the method proposed in that paper, with ``bucket detection'' of one of the photons, will give identical results for entangled states as for appropriately prepared classically correlated states.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, REVTe