804 research outputs found
Resonant Energy Exchange between Atoms in Dispersing and Absorbing Surroundings
Within the framework of quantization of the macroscopic electromagnetic
field, a master equation describing both the resonant dipole-dipole interaction
(RDDI) and the resonant atom-field interaction (RAFI) in the presence of
dispersing and absorbing macroscopic bodies is derived, with the relevant
couplings being expressed in terms of the surroundings-assisted Green tensor.
It is shown that under certain conditions the RDDI can be regarded as being
governed by an effective Hamiltonian. The theory, which applies to both weak
and strong atom-field coupling, is used to study the resonant energy exchange
between two (two-level) atoms sharing initially a single excitation. In
particular, it is shown that in the regime of weak atom-field coupling there is
a time window, where the energy transfer follows a transfer-rate law of the
type obtained by ordinary second-order perturbation theory. Finally, the
spectrum of the light emitted during the energy transfer is studied and the
line splittings are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figs, Proceedings of ICQO'2002, Raubichi, to appear in
Optics and Spectroscop
Semiconductor Surface Studies
Contains reports on one research project.Joint Services Electronics Program (Contract DAAG29-83-K-0003
Wealth inequalities in physical and cognitive impairments across Japan and Europe: the role of health expenditure and infrastructure
Although prior research has provided insights into the association between country-level factors and health inequalities, key research gaps remain. First, most previous studies examine subjective rather than objective health measures. Second, the wealth dimension in health inequalities is understudied. Third, a handful of studies explicitly focus on older adults. To bridge these research gaps, this study measures wealth-related inequalities in physical and cognitive impairments and examines the extent to which welfare states moderate wealth inequalities in physical and cognitive impairments among older people across Japan and Europe. We utilized harmonized data on non-institutionalized individuals aged 50–75 from the Japanese Study of Aging and Retirement (JSTAR) and the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) (N = 31,969 for physical impairments and 31,348 for cognitive impairments). Our multilevel linear regression analyses examined whether national public health spending and healthcare access resources explained cross-country differences in wealth inequalities in physical and cognitive impairments. We applied a concentration index to quantify the degree of wealth inequalities in impairments. The findings indicate that inequalities in both impairment outcomes favored wealthier individuals in all countries, but the magnitude of inequality varied by country. Furthermore, a higher share of public health spending, lower out-of-pocket expenditure, and higher investment in healthcare resources were associated with lower wealth inequalities, especially for physical impairments. Our findings suggest that different health interventions and policies may be needed to mitigate specific impairment inequalities
Technical Efficiency of Resource-Conserving Technologies in Rice -Wheat Systems: The Case of Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh in India
This study has evaluated the technical efficiency of farmers engaged in rice-wheat cropping systems in North-eastern India, who are using Resource-Conserving Technologies (RCTs) such as Zero Tillage (ZT) and Direct Seeded Rice (DSR). These technology promotions are being carried out under the intervention of the Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) project, primarily funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The resource-conserving technologies are being promoted as part of conservation agriculture supported by the project. The data used in this study have been derived from the socioeconomic surveys conducted in Eastern Uttar-Pradesh and Bihar in North-eastern India during the kharif season of 2009 and rabi season of 2010. A stochastic frontier analysis was carried out to investigate and compare the determinants of technical efficiency among the farmers receiving intervention and those who are not. The study has revealed that farmers receiving CSISA intervention have realized higher levels of technical efficiency. Additionally, farmers who are receiving subsidies and farmers who are planting more diversified crops have higher levels of technical efficiency.Conservation agriculture, Direct seeded rice, India, Resource-conserving technology, Technical efficiency, Stochastic frontier, Zero tillage, Agricultural and Food Policy, O30, Q18, O22,
Modeling Stable Matching Problems with Answer Set Programming
The Stable Marriage Problem (SMP) is a well-known matching problem first
introduced and solved by Gale and Shapley (1962). Several variants and
extensions to this problem have since been investigated to cover a wider set of
applications. Each time a new variant is considered, however, a new algorithm
needs to be developed and implemented. As an alternative, in this paper we
propose an encoding of the SMP using Answer Set Programming (ASP). Our encoding
can easily be extended and adapted to the needs of specific applications. As an
illustration we show how stable matchings can be found when individuals may
designate unacceptable partners and ties between preferences are allowed.
Subsequently, we show how our ASP based encoding naturally allows us to select
specific stable matchings which are optimal according to a given criterion.
Each time, we can rely on generic and efficient off-the-shelf answer set
solvers to find (optimal) stable matchings.Comment: 26 page
Linear Query Approximation Algorithms for Non-monotone Submodular Maximization under Knapsack Constraint
This work, for the first time, introduces two constant factor approximation
algorithms with linear query complexity for non-monotone submodular
maximization over a ground set of size subject to a knapsack constraint,
and . is a deterministic algorithm
that provides an approximation factor of while is a
randomized algorithm with an approximation factor of . Both run in
query complexity. The key idea to obtain a
constant approximation ratio with linear query lies in: (1) dividing the ground
set into two appropriate subsets to find the near-optimal solution over these
subsets with linear queries, and (2) combining a threshold greedy with
properties of two disjoint sets or a random selection process to improve
solution quality. In addition to the theoretical analysis, we have evaluated
our proposed solutions with three applications: Revenue Maximization, Image
Summarization, and Maximum Weighted Cut, showing that our algorithms not only
return comparative results to state-of-the-art algorithms but also require
significantly fewer queries
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