291 research outputs found
REACH implementation costs in the Belgian food industry:a semi-qualitative study
In this paper we discuss how companies in the Belgian food industry are affected by the REACH legislation and whether their competitiveness is weakened as a result. The study has been carried out through an extensive literature study, an electronic survey, in-depth interviews and a case-study. No indication is observed of REACH compliance significantly hampering the competitive position of Belgian food industry. The overall cost burden seems to be relatively low. In contrast with the chemical industry, large food companies bear the highest costs, whereas the financial impact on small and medium-sized food companies remains limited.<br
A Combined Geometric Morphometric and Discrete Element Modeling Approach for Hip Cartilage Contact Mechanics.
Finite element analysis (FEA) provides the current reference standard for numerical simulation of hip cartilage contact mechanics. Unfortunately, the development of subject-specific FEA models is a laborious process. Owed to its simplicity, Discrete Element Analysis (DEA) provides an attractive alternative to FEA. Advancements in computational morphometrics, specifically statistical shape modeling (SSM), provide the opportunity to predict cartilage anatomy without image segmentation, which could be integrated with DEA to provide an efficient platform to predict cartilage contact stresses in large populations. The objective of this study was, first, to validate linear and non-linear DEA against a previously validated FEA model and, second, to present and evaluate the applicability of a novel population-averaged cartilage geometry prediction method against previously used methods to estimate cartilage anatomy. The population-averaged method is based on average cartilage thickness maps and therefore allows for a more accurate and individualized cartilage geometry estimation when combined with SSM. The root mean squared error of the population-averaged cartilage geometry predicted by SSM as compared to the manually segmented cartilage geometry was 0.31 ± 0.08 mm. Identical boundary and loading conditions were applied to the DEA and FEA models. Predicted DEA stress distribution patterns and magnitude of peak stresses were in better agreement with FEA for the novel cartilage anatomy prediction method as compared to commonly used parametric methods based on the estimation of acetabular and femoral head radius. Still, contact stress was overestimated and contact area was underestimated for all cartilage anatomy prediction methods. Linear and non-linear DEA methods differed mainly in peak stress results with the non-linear definition being more sensitive to detection of high peak stresses. In conclusion, DEA in combination with the novel population-averaged cartilage anatomy prediction method provided accurate predictions while offering an efficient platform to conduct population-wide analyses of hip contact mechanics
Quantum benchmark for storage and transmission of coherent states
We consider the storage and transmission of a Gaussian distributed set of
coherent states of continuous variable systems. We prove a limit on the average
fidelity achievable when the states are transmitted or stored by a classical
channel, i.e., a measure and repreparation scheme which sends or stores
classical information only. The obtained bound is tight and serves as a
benchmark which has to be surpassed by quantum channels in order to outperform
any classical strategy. The success in experimental demonstrations of quantum
memories as well as quantum teleportation has to be judged on this footing.Comment: 4 pages, references added, minor change
Quantum skew divergence
In this paper we study the quantum generalisation of the skew divergence,
which is a dissimilarity measure between distributions introduced by L. Lee in
the context of natural language processing. We provide an in-depth study of the
quantum skew divergence, including its relation to other state
distinguishability measures. Finally, we present a number of important
applications: new continuity inequalities for the quantum Jensen-Shannon
divergence and the Holevo information, and a new and short proof of Bravyi's
Small Incremental Mixing conjecture.Comment: Supersedes 1102:3041, as it contains many new results and
applications. v2: minor modifications, including a streamlining of the
proofs. 32 1/4 page
Maximally entangled mixed states of two qubits
We consider mixed states of two qubits and show under which global unitary
operations their entanglement is maximized. This leads to a class of states
that is a generalization of the Bell states. Three measures of entanglement are
considered: entanglement of formation, negativity and relative entropy of
entanglement. Surprisingly all states that maximize one measure also maximize
the others. We will give a complete characterization of these generalized Bell
states and prove that these states for fixed eigenvalues are all equivalent
under local unitary transformations. We will furthermore characterize all
nearly entangled states closest to the maximally mixed state and derive a new
lower bound on the volume of separable mixed states
On Random Unitary Channels
In this article we provide necessary and sufficient conditions for a
completely positive trace-preserving (CPT) map to be decomposable into a convex
combination of unitary maps. Additionally, we set out to define a proper
distance measure between a given CPT map and the set of random unitary maps,
and methods for calculating it. In this way one could determine whether
non-classical error mechanisms such as spontaneous decay or photon loss
dominate over classical uncertainties, for example in a phase parameter. The
present paper is a step towards achieving this goal.Comment: 11 pages, typeset using RevTeX
On unified-entropy characterization of quantum channels
We consider properties of quantum channels with use of unified entropies.
Extremal unravelings of quantum channel with respect to these entropies are
examined. The concept of map entropy is extended in terms of the unified
entropies. The map -entropy is naturally defined as the unified
-entropy of rescaled dynamical matrix of given quantum channel.
Inequalities of Fannes type are obtained for introduced entropies in terms of
both the trace and Frobenius norms of difference between corresponding
dynamical matrices. Additivity properties of introduced map entropies are
discussed. The known inequality of Lindblad with the entropy exchange is
generalized to many of the unified entropies. For tensor product of a pair of
quantum channels, we derive two-sided estimating of the output entropy of a
maximally entangled input state.Comment: 12 pages, no figures. Typos are fixed. One lemma is extended and
removed to Appendi
Continuity and Stability of Partial Entropic Sums
Extensions of Fannes' inequality with partial sums of the Tsallis entropy are
obtained for both the classical and quantum cases. The definition of kth
partial sum under the prescribed order of terms is given. Basic properties of
introduced entropic measures and some applications are discussed. The derived
estimates provide a complete characterization of the continuity and stability
properties in the refined scale. The results are also reformulated in terms of
Uhlmann's partial fidelities.Comment: 9 pages, no figures. Some explanatory and technical improvements are
made. The bibliography is extended. Detected errors and typos are correcte
Fluctuations of Quantum Entanglement
It is emphasized that quantum entanglement determined in terms of the von
Neumann entropy operator is a stochastic quantity and, therefore, can
fluctuate. The rms fluctuations of the entanglement entropy of two-qubit
systems in both pure and mixed states have been obtained. It has been found
that entanglement fluctuations in the maximally entangled states are absent.
Regions where the entanglement fluctuations are larger than the entanglement
itself (strong fluctuation regions) have been revealed. It has been found that
the magnitude of the relative entanglement fluctuations is divergent at the
points of the transition of systems from an entangled state to a separable
state. It has been shown that entanglement fluctuations vanish in the separable
states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
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