A Schroedinger link between non-equilibrium thermodynamics and Fisher information

It is known that equilibrium thermodynamics can be deduced from a constrained Fisher information extemizing process. We show here that, more generally, both non-equilibrium and equilibrium thermodynamics can be obtained from such a Fisher treatment. Equilibrium thermodynamics corresponds to the ground state solution, and non-equilibrium thermodynamics corresponds to excited state solutions, of a Schroedinger wave equation (SWE). That equation appears as an output of the constrained variational process that extremizes Fisher information. Both equilibrium- and non-equilibrium situations can thereby be tackled by one formalism that clearly exhibits the fact that thermodynamics and quantum mechanics can both be expressed in terms of a formal SWE, out of a common informational basis.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

The Telecommunications Act of 1996: Predicting the Winners and Losers

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 has created substantial upheaval across the telecommunications landscape. On one hand, the 1996 Act created broad deregulatory and market entry opportunities for new market players; on the other hand, those implementing the Act have presumed that incumbent carriers will cooperate with new market entrants thereby accelerating the loss of market share, but gaining new market entry opportunities once competition begins to flourish. This Article analyzes the Various different factions that are likely to benefit from the Act, as well as those that are likely to suffer losses from telecommunications deregulation. The author concludes that the big future winners will be those who have exploited market entry opportunities or who successfully mitigate the financial consequences of market entry and heightened competition. The author also concludes that the future losers will be those enterprises that have exploited legal and regulatory barriers to competition, and have not adequately responded to changed circumstances and the prospects for new facilities-based and resale competition

Revenge of the Bellheads: How the Telecommunications Mindset Will Reshape the Internet

Recent double digit billion dollar mergers of telecommunications firms consolidate both market share and market leadership by incumbent operators such as Verizon. These companies seek to exploit technological and market convergence by offering a triple play package of wired and wireless telephone service, video and Internet access. As well they need to develop new profit centers to compensate for declining revenues and market shares in traditional services such as wireline telephony. While incumbent telecommunications operators have pursued new market opportunities, these ventures have not abandoned core management philosophies, operating assumptions and business strategies. Longstanding strategies for recovering investments, using a telecommunications template greatly contrast with the means by which information processing and content providers achieve profitability. Internet ventures have come up with many different business models including ones that offer free, subsidized or deliberately underpriced access as well as regularly increasing value propositions to consumers, e.g., more options for the same price. Incumbent telecommunications firms rarely deviate from a rigid cost recovery structure that identifies cost causers. Internet and telecommunications business models rarely jibe, even though convergence and business transactions puts incumbent telecommunications firms in market leadership positions. Having such dominant market share now makes it likely that incumbent telecommunications firms will attempt to imprint their business models and their mindsets on Internet markets. Recently senior managers of several incumbent carriers have expressed displeasure with the apparent inability of their companies to recover the sizeable investment in broadband Internet access. With an eye toward recouping these investments, the companies have announced plans to replace, or offer alternatives to unmetered All You Can Eat Internet access and to oppose any initiative that restrains their pricing and operational flexibility. The incumbent telecommunications companies characterize their new Internet pricing plans as offering “greater choice” to consumers. Different pricing points based on throughput caps makes sense to a “Bellhead” corporate officer who thinks he or she can identify cost causers and capture rents that otherwise would accrue to content providers. However, the Internet seamlessly blends content and conduit, making it difficult to identify the cost causer. This article will examine Bellhead business models incorporating metering and other traditional cost recovery strategies with an eye toward determining what constitutes reasonable price discrimination and what represents an unfair trade practice or an anticompetitive strategy. The article will consider whether and how Bellhead management strategies will jeopardize the serendipity and positive networking externalities that have accrued when users can freely “surf the web” and content providers can bundle user sought content with advertising. Different pricing points based on throughput caps makes sense to Bellhead corporate officers who think they can capture rents that otherwise would accrue to content providers. The article also will examine the clash of Bellhead and Nethead cultures with an eye toward identifying the stakes involved when Internet access pricing and interconnection primarily follows a telecommunications infrastructure cost recovery scheme in lieu of different commercial relationships favored by most Internet ventures. The article concludes that most Bellhead cost recovery models are lawful even though they will reduce for most consumers the real or perceived value proposition offered by an unmetered monthly Internet access subscription

The International Application of the Second Computer Inquiry

This article chronicles the FCC\u27s attempt to confront the confluence of telecommunications and data processing technologies by fashioning a regulatory scheme designed primarily for the United States. The Commission has chosen to apply this scheme, without significant qualification, internationally. Given the different objectives and structure of United States and foreign communications industries, the FCC\u27s system cannot be transplanted abroad without prior consultation and substantial modification. After reviewing the international problems created by the Commission\u27s application abroad of its newly developed scheme, this article concludes with recommendations for resolving these conflicts that currently threaten the well-being of carriers, customers, and international comity

An affine generalization of evacuation

We establish the existence of an involution on tabloids that is analogous to Schutzenberger's evacuation map on standard Young tableaux. We find that the number of its fixed points is given by evaluating a certain Green's polynomial at $q = -1$, and satisfies a "domino-like" recurrence relation.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure

Fisher's arrow of `time' in cosmological coherent phase space

Fisher's arrow of `time' in a cosmological phase space defined as in quantum optics (i.e., whose points are coherent states) is introduced as follows. Assuming that the phase space evolution of the universe starts from an initial squeezed cosmological state towards a final thermal one, a Fokker-Planck equation for the time-dependent, cosmological Q phase space probability distribution can be written down. Next, using some recent results in the literature, we derive an information arrow of time for the Fisher phase space cosmological entropy based on the Q function. We also mention the application of Fisher's arrow of time to stochastic inflation modelsComment: 10 pages, LaTex, Honorable Mention at GRF-199

Power laws of complex systems from Extreme physical information

Many complex systems obey allometric, or power, laws y=Yx^{a}. Here y is the measured value of some system attribute a, Y is a constant, and x is a stochastic variable. Remarkably, for many living systems the exponent a is limited to values +or- n/4, n=0,1,2... Here x is the mass of a randomly selected creature in the population. These quarter-power laws hold for many attributes, such as pulse rate (n=-1). Allometry has, in the past, been theoretically justified on a case-by-case basis. An ultimate goal is to find a common cause for allometry of all types and for both living and nonliving systems. The principle I - J = extrem. of Extreme physical information (EPI) is found to provide such a cause. It describes the flow of Fisher information J => I from an attribute value a on the cell level to its exterior observation y. Data y are formed via a system channel function y = f(x,a), with f(x,a) to be found. Extremizing the difference I - J through variation of f(x,a) results in a general allometric law f(x,a)= y = Yx^{a}. Darwinian evolution is presumed to cause a second extremization of I - J, now with respect to the choice of a. The solution is a=+or-n/4, n=0,1,2..., defining the particular powers of biological allometry. Under special circumstances, the model predicts that such biological systems are controlled by but two distinct intracellular information sources. These sources are conjectured to be cellular DNA and cellular transmembrane ion gradient

The Admissibility of Electronic Evidence Under the Federal Rules of Evidence

Following the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, much has been written about the discovery of electronically-stored information

Quantum limits of super-resolution in reconstruction of optical objects

We investigate analytically and numerically the role of quantum fluctuations in reconstruction of optical objects from diffraction-limited images. Taking as example of an input object two closely spaced Gaussian peaks we demonstrate that one can improve the resolution in the reconstructed object over the classical Rayleigh limit. We show that the ultimate quantum limit of resolution in such reconstruction procedure is determined not by diffraction but by the signal-to-noise ratio in the input object. We formulate a quantitative measure of super-resolution in terms of the optical point-spread function of the system.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to Physical Review A e-mail: [email protected]

Wigner-Yanase skew information as tests for quantum entanglement

A Bell-type inequality is proposed in terms of Wigner-Yanase skew information, which is quadratic and involves only one local spin observable at each site. This inequality presents a hierarchic classification of all states of multipartite quantum systems from separable to fully entangled states, which is more powerful than the one presented by quadratic Bell inequalities from two-entangled to fully entangled states. In particular, it is proved that the inequality provides an exact test to distinguish entangled from nonentangled pure states of two qubits. Our inequality sheds considerable light on relationships between quantum entanglement and information theory.Comment: 5 page