780 research outputs found
A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Education on Social Capital
To assess the empirical estimates of the effect of education on social trust and social participation - the basic dimensions of individual social capital - a meta-analysis is applied, synthesizing 154 evaluations on social trust, and 286 evaluations on social participation. The publication bias problem is given special emphasis in the meta-analysis. Our statistical synthesis confirms that education is a strong and robust correlate of individual social capital. The meta-analysis provides support for the existence of a relative effect of education on social participation, and of a reciprocity mechanism between the dimensions of social capital. The analysis also suggests that the erosion of social participation during the past decades has coincided with a decrease of the marginal return to education on social capital. Finally, we find differences in the return to education between genders, between US and other nations, and variations for different education attainments.
College Education and social trust. An Evidence-based Study on the Causal Mechanisms
This paper examines the influence of college education on social trust at the individual level. Based on the literature of trust and social trust, we hypothesize that life experience/development since adulthood and perceptions of cultural/social structures are two primary channels in the causal linkage between college education and social trust. In the first part of the empirical study econometric techniques are employed to tackle the omitted-variable problem and substantial evidence is found to confirm the positive effect of college education. In the second part contemporary information is used to examine the hypothetical mechanisms in the causal inference. That life experience is a primary channel via which college education promotes social trust fails to find support in our examination, while individual perceptions of cultural and social structures explain up to 77 percent of the causal effect.
Higher Education and Membership of Voluntary Groups
This research uses the British National Child Development Study to examine the effect of higher education on individual membership of voluntary groups and organizations. Gender differences in the education effects are given emphasis. We apply parametric and nonparametric econometric methods to isolate the influence of confounding variables. There is strong evidence of education endogeneity in the female sample and we observe a negative education effect on women's group membership. Education endogeneity does not cause serious estimation bias in the male sample. Higher education is a significantly positive determinant of men's group membership. Further investigations from a mid-life perspective reveal that the boost of female participation in the workforce and their attitudes towards employment are key factors in the negative association between higher education and women's group membership. Our research provides clues for the divergence in the enrolment in higher education and social participation behavior in Western countries.
On the Key-Uncertainty of Quantum Ciphers and the Computational Security of One-way Quantum Transmission
We consider the scenario where Alice wants to send a secret (classical)
-bit message to Bob using a classical key, and where only one-way
transmission from Alice to Bob is possible. In this case, quantum communication
cannot help to obtain perfect secrecy with key length smaller then . We
study the question of whether there might still be fundamental differences
between the case where quantum as opposed to classical communication is used.
In this direction, we show that there exist ciphers with perfect security
producing quantum ciphertext where, even if an adversary knows the plaintext
and applies an optimal measurement on the ciphertext, his Shannon uncertainty
about the key used is almost maximal. This is in contrast to the classical case
where the adversary always learns bits of information on the key in a known
plaintext attack. We also show that there is a limit to how different the
classical and quantum cases can be: the most probable key, given matching
plain- and ciphertexts, has the same probability in both the quantum and the
classical cases. We suggest an application of our results in the case where
only a short secret key is available and the message is much longer.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures. This is a revised version of an earlier version
that appeared in the proc. of Eucrocrypt'04:LNCS3027, 200
Localized states influence spin transport in epitaxial graphene
We developed a spin transport model for a diffusive channel with coupled
localized states that result in an effective increase of spin precession
frequencies and a reduction of spin relaxation times in the system. We apply
this model to Hanle spin precession measurements obtained on monolayer
epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001) (MLEG). Combined with newly performed
measurements on quasi-free-standing monolayer epitaxial graphene on SiC(0001)
our analysis shows that the different values for the diffusion coefficient
measured in charge and spin transport measurements in MLEG and the high values
for the spin relaxation time can be explained by the influence of localized
states arising from the buffer layer at the interface between the graphene and
the SiC surface.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, including supplementary materia
Information Transfer Implies State Collapse
We attempt to clarify certain puzzles concerning state collapse and
decoherence. In open quantum systems decoherence is shown to be a necessary
consequence of the transfer of information to the outside; we prove an upper
bound for the amount of coherence which can survive such a transfer. We claim
that in large closed systems decoherence has never been observed, but we will
show that it is usually harmless to assume its occurrence. An independent
postulate of state collapse over and above Schroedinger's equation and the
probability interpretation of quantum states, is shown to be redundant.Comment: 13 page
Linear scaling between momentum and spin scattering in graphene
Spin transport in graphene carries the potential of a long spin diffusion
length at room temperature. However, extrinsic relaxation processes limit the
current experimental values to 1-2 um. We present Hanle spin precession
measurements in gated lateral spin valve devices in the low to high (up to
10^13 cm^-2) carrier density range of graphene. A linear scaling between the
spin diffusion length and the diffusion coefficient is observed. We measure
nearly identical spin- and charge diffusion coefficients indicating that
electron-electron interactions are relatively weak and transport is limited by
impurity potential scattering. When extrapolated to the maximum carrier
mobilities of 2x10^5 cm^2/Vs, our results predict that a considerable increase
in the spin diffusion length should be possible
Entropic uncertainty relations and entanglement
We discuss the relationship between entropic uncertainty relations and
entanglement. We present two methods for deriving separability criteria in
terms of entropic uncertainty relations. Especially we show how any entropic
uncertainty relation on one part of the system results in a separability
condition on the composite system. We investigate the resulting criteria using
the Tsallis entropy for two and three qubits.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, v2: small change
Mediated tunable coupling of flux qubits
It is sketched how a monostable rf- or dc-SQUID can mediate an inductive
coupling between two adjacent flux qubits. The nontrivial dependence of the
SQUID's susceptibility on external flux makes it possible to continuously tune
the induced coupling from antiferromagnetic (AF) to ferromagnetic (FM). In
particular, for suitable parameters, the induced FM coupling can be
sufficiently large to overcome any possible direct AF inductive coupling
between the qubits.
The main features follow from a classical analysis of the multi-qubit
potential. A fully quantum treatment yields similar results, but with a
modified expression for the SQUID susceptibility.
Since the latter is exact, it can also be used to evaluate the
susceptibility--or, equivalently, energy-level curvature--of an isolated
rf-SQUID for larger shielding and at degenerate flux bias, i.e., a (bistable)
qubit. The result is compared to the standard two-level (pseudospin) treatment
of the anticrossing, and the ensuing conclusions are verified numerically.Comment: REVTeX 4, 16 pp., 4 EPS figures. N.B.: "Alec" is my first, and
"Maassen van den Brink" my family name. v2: major expansion and rewriting,
new title and co-author; to appear in New Journal of Physics special issue
(R. Fazio, ed.
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