A Study on Mental Health among the Adolescent Orphan Children Living in Orphanages

The absence of parental support, affection, attachment, poor mental health, depression, low self-efficacy, social adjustment, and low self-esteem play a significant role in developing risk-behaviour among adolescents (Stiffman et al. 1992; Pao et al. 2000).  Living in poor living conditions and poor care are also traumatic to the orphan child. Children in orphanages are comparatively more ‘unhappy’ and more prone to depression than non-orphan children (Mostafaei et al. 2012) as they lack parental love, support and have less-effective role models, which inadvertently develop into adjustment difficulties and other psychosocial behaviour problems.  The present study of the researchers explores the level of mental health among the adolescent orphan children, living in the four orphanages in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu state. The universe of the study is 217 and the researchers selected the entire population for the current study by using census method .The 54-item multidimensional “Mental Health Inventory” (MHI) developed by Jagdish and Srivastava (1983) was used to assess the mental health condition of the participant adolescents and the required data from the respondents have been collected.  It is found that the vast majorities of the respondents do experience below normal level of mental health and are feeling unhappy. And also they feel bad about themselves; they are not able to cope effectively with the challenges and the negative feedbacks.  And the findings help the care-takers to know the realities of each adolescent and to deal with them accordingly. Keywords: Mental Health, Care-takers and adolescent orphan childre

Preferred Measurements: Optimality and Stability in Quantum Parameter Estimation

We explore precision in a measurement process incorporating pure probe states, unitary dynamics and complete measurements via a simple formalism. The concept of `information complement' is introduced. It undermines measurement precision and its minimization reveals the system properties at an optimal point. Maximally precise measurements can exhibit independence from the true value of the estimated parameter, but demanding this severely restricts the type of viable probe and dynamics, including the requirement that the Hamiltonian be block-diagonal in a basis of preferred measurements. The curvature of the information complement near a globally optimal point provides a new quantification of measurement stability.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, in submission. Substantial Extension and replacement of arXiv:0902.3260v1 in response to Referees' remark

Audit Quality and Earnings Management of Listed Oil Marketing Companies in Nigeria

We investigate the impact of audit quality on earnings management (EM) of 8 oil marketing companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) from 2004 to 2013.We focus on oil marketing companies because of the alleged large scale financial misrepresentations associated with the Nigerian oil sector. We expect a significant negative relationship between audit quality and EM which is represented by discretionary accruals estimated by the modified Jones Model.  We use audit firm size, auditor industry specialization and auditor tenure as proxies for audit quality. Contrary to expectations, our results reveal that both audit firm size and auditor industry specialization have negative but insignificant impact on EM of the sampled companies. We, however, find evidence of a significant negative impact of auditor tenure on EM which is consistent with our a priori expectations.  We  recommend  the removal of the restriction placed on the tenure of auditors to a maximum of nine consecutive years by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) because of its potential to constrain earnings management practices of Nigerian listed companies. Keywords: Audit Quality, Earnings Management,  Oil Marketing Companies, Nigeria. 

Partial separability revisited: Necessary and sufficient criteria

We extend the classification of mixed states of quantum systems composed of arbitrary number of subsystems of arbitrary dimensions. This extended classification is complete in the sense of partial separability and gives 1+18+1 partial separability classes in the tripartite case contrary to a former 1+8+1. Then we give necessary and sufficient criteria for these classes, which make it possible to determine to which class a mixed state belongs. These criteria are given by convex roof extensions of functions defined on pure states. In the special case of three-qubit systems, we define a different set of such functions with the help of the Freudenthal triple system approach of three-qubit entanglement.Comment: v3: 22 pages, 5 tables, 1 figure, minor corrections (typos), clarification in the Introduction. Accepted in Phys. Rev. A. Comments are welcom

The Keck+Magellan Survey for Lyman Limit Absorption I: The Frequency Distribution of Super Lyman Limit Systems

We present the results of a survey for super Lyman limit systems (SLLS; defined to be absorbers with 19.0 <= log(NHI) <= 20.3 cm^-2) from a large sample of high resolution spectra acquired using the Keck and Magellan telescopes. Specifically, we present 47 new SLLS from 113 QSO sightlines. We focus on the neutral hydrogen frequency distribution f(N,X) of the SLLS and its moments, and compare these results with the Lyman-alpha forest and the damped Lyman alpha systems (DLA; absorbers with log(NHI) >= 20.3 cm^-2). We find that that f(N,X) of the SLLS can be reasonably described with a power-law of index alpha = -1.43^{+0.15}_{-0.16} or alpha = -1.19^{+0.20}_{-0.21} depending on whether we set the lower N(HI) bound for the analysis at 10^{19.0} cm^-2 or 10^{19.3}$ cm^-2, respectively. The results indicate a flattening in the slope of f(N,X) between the SLLS and DLA. We find little evidence for redshift evolution in the shape of f(N,X) for the SLLS over the redshift range of the sample 1.68 < z < 4.47 and only tentative evidence for evolution in the zeroth moment of f(N,X), the line density l_lls(X). We introduce the observable distribution function O(N,X) and its moment, which elucidates comparisons of HI absorbers from the Lyman-alpha through to the DLA. We find that a simple three parameter function can fit O(N,X) over the range 17.0 <= log(NHI) <=22.0. We use these results to predict that f(N,X) must show two additional inflections below the SLLS regime to match the observed f(N,X) distribution of the Lyman-alpha forest. Finally, we demonstrate that SLLS contribute a minor fraction (~15%) of the universe's hydrogen atoms and, therefore, an even small fraction of the mass in predominantly neutral gas.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures, accepted to the Astrophysical Journal. Revision includes updated reference

Local and Global Distinguishability in Quantum Interferometry

A statistical distinguishability based on relative entropy characterises the fitness of quantum states for phase estimation. This criterion is employed in the context of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and used to interpolate between two regimes, of local and global phase distinguishability. The scaling of distinguishability in these regimes with photon number is explored for various quantum states. It emerges that local distinguishability is dependent on a discrepancy between quantum and classical rotational energy. Our analysis demonstrates that the Heisenberg limit is the true upper limit for local phase sensitivity. Only the `NOON' states share this bound, but other states exhibit a better trade-off when comparing local and global phase regimes.Comment: 4 pages, in submission, minor revision