Quantum Randomness Certified by the Uncertainty Principle

We present an efficient method to extract the amount of true randomness that can be obtained by a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG). By repeating the measurements of a quantum system and by swapping between two mutually unbiased bases, a lower bound of the achievable true randomness can be evaluated. The bound is obtained thanks to the uncertainty principle of complementary measurements applied to min- and max- entropies. We tested our method with two different QRNGs, using a train of qubits or ququart, demonstrating the scalability toward practical applications.Comment: 10 page

A faunal analysis of the Jackson Site (diMe-17) in southwestern Manitoba

The Jackson site (DiMe-17) is a Late Precontact site located in the Lauder Sandhills of southwestern Manitoba. The majority of the site consists of a Vickers Focus bison kill and associated processing/refuse areas radiocarbon dated to 290±50, 300±70, and 410±60 BP. At the southwestern corner of the site, a small amount of Blackduck pottery was recovered below the Vickers Focus occupation. Excavations occurred at the site between 1994 and 1997 and were completed by university archaeological field school students, paid crew members, and one volunteer. The site was excavated in an attempt to better understand the Vickers Focus presence in the Lauder Sandhills and to provide archaeological field school students with an opportunity to gain first hand knowledge of field excavation techniques. A total of 194, 198 bone specimens were analyzed from the Vickers Focus occupation at the Jackson site. Element and species distribution patterns verified proposed activity areas, while an examination of bison mandible eruption and wear patterns in conjunction with foetal bison remains corroborate that the site was occupied during the winter months. The fragmented nature of the assemblage is a result of human butchery and subsequent processing of elements for marrow and grease. Non-cultural processes such as carnivore modification, weathering, rootlet etching, and trampling left visible traces on the assemblage but did not cause density-mediated destruction. A comparison of the subsistence strategies employed by the Jackson and Sanderson site inhabitants did not provide sufficient information to confirm proposed contact between Vickers Focus and Mortlach groups. The Sanderson site is a multiple Mortlach occupation located on the Souris River in southeastern Saskatchewan. Inhabitants of both sites were reliant on bison, and both employed a smash and strip method of bison butchery. Intensive bison utilization was evident at both sites but the Jackson site inhabitants may have been under greater nutritional stress. The greatest difference between the two groups was visible in the method of meat storage. The Mortlach inhabitants at the Sanderson site used frozen meat caches while no such evidence for this exists at the Jackson site

Forecasting high waters at Venice Lagoon using chaotic time series analisys and nonlinear neural netwoks

Time series analysis using nonlinear dynamics systems theory and multilayer neural networks models have been applied to the time sequence of water level data recorded every hour at 'Punta della Salute' from Venice Lagoon during the years 1980-1994. The first method is based on the reconstruction of the state space attractor using time delay embedding vectors and on the characterisation of invariant properties which define its dynamics. The results suggest the existence of a low dimensional chaotic attractor with a Lyapunov dimension, DL, of around 6.6 and a predictability between 8 and 13 hours ahead. Furthermore, once the attractor has been reconstructed it is possible to make predictions by mapping local-neighbourhood to local-neighbourhood in the reconstructed phase space. To compare the prediction results with another nonlinear method, two nonlinear autoregressive models (NAR) based on multilayer feedforward neural networks have been developed. From the study, it can be observed that nonlinear forecasting produces adequate results for the 'normal' dynamic behaviour of the water level of Venice Lagoon, outperforming linear algorithms, however, both methods fail to forecast the 'high water' phenomenon more than 2-3 hours ahead.Publicad

a decoupled numerical procedure for modelling soil interaction in the computation of the dynamic response of a rail track

Abstract The problem of vibration transmitted by train traffic to the soil in the case of railway lines in urban areas is gaining increasing attention in environmental impact analysis. An efficient method to consider both the train-track interaction in detail and the vibration transmitted to the soil nearby with an affordable computational cost is desirable. The paper proposes a numerical procedure based on a substructuring approach, in which the system is divided into three main subdomains: the train running on the track, the rail subjected to the loads coming from the train and the reactions from the sleepers and the "ground" sub-system, composed by the sleepers, the ballast with its subgrade and the actual ground. The overall procedure is divided into subsequent steps: first, the finite element modelling of the sleeper-ballast-subgrade combined system, characterized within the linear elastic field by means of frequency response functions at rail-sleeper interfaces. In a second step, moving loads transmitted to the track are computed by numerical time domain integration of the equations of motion of the train running on a model of the track only, in which the subgrade is modelled as a series of spring-damper elements, whose parameters are tuned according to the results of the FE model used in the first step and therefore consistent with it. Non-linear behavior of the rail-wheel interaction can be accounted for by the time-domain procedure. The track dynamics is finally computed via direct frequency domain analysis; the track is again modelled by Finite Elements, loaded by the forces transmitted by the train wheels and by the supporting sleepers. Finally, the vibrations propagated through the soil to a general receiver point are evaluated. The procedure can exploit favorable properties of frequency domain analysis in treating moving loads; in addition, frequency dependent properties of materials can be introduced

Forecasting high waters at Venice Lagoon using chaotic time series analysis and nonlinear neural networks

Time series analysis using nonlinear dynamics systems theory and multilayer neural networks models have been applied to the time sequence of water level data recorded every hour at 'Punta della Salute' from Venice Lagoon during the years 1980–1994. The first method is based on the reconstruction of the state space attractor using time delay embedding vectors and on the characterisation of invariant properties which define its dynamics. The results suggest the existence of a low dimensional chaotic attractor with a Lyapunov dimension, DL, of around 6.6 and a predictability between 8 and 13 hours ahead. Furthermore, once the attractor has been reconstructed it is possible to make predictions by mapping local-neighbourhood to local-neighbourhood in the reconstructed phase space. To compare the prediction results with another nonlinear method, two nonlinear autoregressive models (NAR) based on multilayer feedforward neural networks have been developed. From the study, it can be observed that nonlinear forecasting produces adequate results for the 'normal' dynamic behaviour of the water level of Venice Lagoon, outperforming linear algorithms, however, both methods fail to forecast the 'high water' phenomenon more than 2–3 hours ahead

Nurse's experience of assessing pain on patients in the end of life in west Sweden

Bakgrund: Att bedöma smärta på patienter i livets slutskede har en central del i vårdandet och det krävs både kunskap och erfarenhet av sjuksköterskan men även empati, lyhördhet och kommunikation är viktiga delar för att smärtbedömningen ska fungera optimalt. Situationen är dock inte helt enkel för sjuksköterskan och smärtbedömning är en komplex del vid vårdandet av patienter i livets slutskede. Syfte: Syftet med vår studie är att beskriva sjuksköterskors upplevelser av att bedöma smärta hos patienter i livets slutskede på en onkologisk avdelning i västra Sverige. Metod: För att besvara vårt syfte användes två olika kvalitativa metoder. Den ena metoden var en kvalitativ gruppintervju och den andra metoden utgick från ett formulär med öppna frågor som skickades ut till sjuksköterskor verksamma på avdelningen. Frågorna som ställdes var öppna och berörde samma område som intervjun. Resultat: Analysen resulterade i tre teman: Komplexiteten av att bedöma smärta under den sista levnadsveckan att använda sig av resurser när patienten inte kan kommunicera verbalt samt otillräckliga rutiner vid smärtbedömning och dokumentation. Slutsats: Smärta är komplext och därför krävs det dels tydliga direktiv, och rutiner på avdelningen samt mer utbildning inom området för att skapa trygghet hos sjuksköterskor när de ska bedöma smärta hos en patient i livets slutskede

Omnidirectional people's gathering monitoring by using deep learning algorithms

It has long been recognized as gathering of people is one of the major risk factor in spreading of viral epidemics. Social distancing is then one of the most simple and powerful system to mitigate the spread of infections.We explore here the possibility of monitoring public people’s gathering by using a novel bifocal omnidirectional lens designed by INAF jointly with deep learning-based algorithms. The paper briefly describe how the lens works, the applied deep learning algorithms and the preliminary results of the trials

Factor graph based detection approach for high-mobility OFDM systems with large FFT modes

In this article, a novel detector design is proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over frequency selective and time varying channels. Namely, we focus on systems with large OFDM symbol lengths where design and complexity constraints have to be taken into account and many of the existing ICI reduction techniques can not be applied. We propose a factor graph (FG) based approach for maximum a posteriori (MAP) symbol detection which exploits the frequency diversity introduced by the ICI in the OFDM symbol. The proposed algorithm provides high diversity orders allowing to outperform the free-ICI performance in high-mobility scenarios with an inherent parallel structure suitable for large OFDM block sizes. The performance of the mentioned near-optimal detection strategy is analyzed over a general bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM) system applying low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. The inclusion of pilot symbols is also considered in order to analyze how they assist the detection process