789 research outputs found
The efficiency of education in generating literacy: a stochastic frontier approach
The growing importance attached to education as a key factor to improve economic performance coupled with the persistent scarcity of resources for education makes it important that skills and literacy are produced efficiently. This paper provides an international comparison of the efficiency of literacy production. We find substantial differences between countries in levels of literacy, differences in literacy between education levels and differences in the efficiency of literacy production. There are some notable differences between more Anglo-Saxon countries and the Continental European countries. The findings suggest that in almost all countries the scope for efficiency improvements in education is large. So even without major increases in (public) funding, improvements in educational outcomes are achievable. We can get better value for the money we spend on education.
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
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
Hamiltonian and Linear-Space Structure for Damped Oscillators: I. General Theory
The phase space of damped linear oscillators is endowed with a bilinear
map under which the evolution operator is symmetric. This analog of
self-adjointness allows properties familiar from conservative systems to be
recovered, e.g., eigenvectors are "orthogonal" under the bilinear map and obey
sum rules, initial-value problems are readily solved and perturbation theory
applies to the_complex_ eigenvalues. These concepts are conveniently
represented in a biorthogonal basis.Comment: REVTeX4, 10pp., 1 PS figure. N.B.: `Alec' is my first name, `Maassen
van den Brink' my family name. v2: extensive streamlinin
A Pathwise Ergodic Theorem for Quantum Trajectories
If the time evolution of an open quantum system approaches equilibrium in the
time mean, then on any single trajectory of any of its unravelings the time
averaged state approaches the same equilibrium state with probability 1. In the
case of multiple equilibrium states the quantum trajectory converges in the
mean to a random choice from these states.Comment: 8 page
Charge Transport Processes in a Superconducting Single-Electron Transistor Coupled to a Microstrip Transmission Line
We have investigated charge transport processes in a superconducting
single-electron transistor (S-SET) fabricated in close proximity to a
two-dimensional electron gas (2DEG) in a GaAs/AlGaAs heterostructure. The
macroscopic bonding pads of the S-SET along with the 2DEG form a microstrip
transmission line. We observe a variety of current-carrying cycles in the S-SET
which we attribute to simultaneous tunneling of Cooper pairs and emission of
photons into the microstrip. We find good agreement between these experimental
results and simulations including both photon emission and photon-assisted
tunneling due to the electromagnetic environment.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, REVTeX
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