7,420 research outputs found
Dissipation and entanglement dynamics for two interacting qubits coupled to independent reservoirs
We derive the master equation of a system of two coupled qubits by taking
into account their interaction with two independent bosonic baths. Important
features of the dynamics are brought to light, such as the structure of the
stationary state at general temperatures and the behaviour of the entanglement
at zero temperature, showing the phenomena of sudden death and sudden birth as
well as the presence of stationary entanglement for long times. The model here
presented is quite versatile and can be of interest in the study of both
Josephson junction architectures and cavity-QED.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics A: Mathematical
and Theoretica
Democratization in a passive dendritic tree : an analytical investigation
One way to achieve amplification of distal synaptic inputs on a dendritic tree is to scale the amplitude and/or duration of the synaptic conductance with its distance from the soma. This is an example of what is often referred to as “dendritic democracy”. Although well studied experimentally, to date this phenomenon has not been thoroughly explored from a mathematical perspective. In this paper we adopt a passive model of a dendritic tree with distributed excitatory synaptic conductances and analyze a number of key measures of democracy. In particular, via moment methods we derive laws for the transport, from synapse to soma, of strength, characteristic time, and dispersion. These laws lead immediately to synaptic scalings that overcome attenuation with distance. We follow this with a Neumann approximation of Green’s representation that readily produces the synaptic scaling that democratizes the peak somatic voltage response. Results are obtained for both idealized geometries and for the more realistic geometry of a rat CA1 pyramidal cell. For each measure of democratization we produce and contrast the synaptic scaling associated with treating the synapse as either a conductance change or a current injection. We find that our respective scalings agree up to a critical distance from the soma and we reveal how this critical distance decreases with decreasing branch radius
Theodicy and End-of-Life Care
Acknowledgments The section on Islamic perspective is contributed by information provided by Imranali Panjwani, Tutor in Theology & Religious Studies, King's College London.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
The value of competitive employment:In-depth accounts of people with intellectual disabilities
BackgroundIncreasing the societal participation of people with intellectual disabilities via competitive employment requires a full understanding of what this means to them. This paper aims to provide an in‐depth examination of the lived experiences of people with intellectual disabilities in competitive employment.MethodInterviews were conducted with six participants with mild intellectual disability or borderline functioning and good verbal communication skills. Interviews were analysed according to the guidelines of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Member checks were conducted.ResultsAnalysis yielded three main themes: (a) Building on my life experiences, (b) My place at work and (c) Being a valuable member of society, like everyone else.ConclusionsCompetitive employment could make a substantial contribution to the sense of belonging to society and quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities. Nevertheless, they must cope with stigma‐related obstacles and feelings of being dependent on others in the work environment
Role of an A-type K + conductance in the back-propagation of action potentials in the dendrites of hippocampal pyramidal neurons.
Abstract. Action potentials elicited in the axon actively back-propagate into the dendritic tree. During this process their amplitudes can be modulated by internal and external factors. We used a compartmental model of a hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neuron to illustrate how this modulation could depend on (1) the properties of an A-type K + conductance that is expressed at high density in hippocampal dendrites and (2) the relative timing of synaptic activation. The simulations suggest that the time relationship between pre-and postsynaptic activity could help regulate the amplitude of back-propagating action potentials, especially in the distal portion of the dendritic tree
Branching dendrites with resonant membrane: a “sum-over-trips” approach
Dendrites form the major components of neurons. They are complex branching structures that receive and process thousands of synaptic inputs from other neurons. It is well known that dendritic morphology plays an important role in the function of dendrites. Another important contribution to the response characteristics of a single neuron comes from the intrinsic resonant properties of dendritic membrane. In this paper we combine the effects of dendritic branching and resonant membrane dynamics by generalising the “sum-over-trips” approach (Abbott et al. in Biol Cybernetics 66, 49–60 1991). To illustrate how this formalism can shed light on the role of architecture and resonances in determining neuronal output we consider dual recording and reconstruction data from a rat CA1 hippocampal pyramidal cell. Specifically we explore the way in which an Ih current contributes to a voltage overshoot at the soma
Quantum superpositions of clockwise and counterclockwise supercurrent states in the dynamics of a rf-SQUID exposed to a quantized electromagnetic field
The dynamical behavior of a superconducting quantum interference device (a
rf-SQUID) irradiated by a single mode quantized electromagnetic field is
theoretically investigated. Treating the SQUID as a flux qubit, we analyze the
dynamics of the combined system within the low lying energy Hilbert subspace
both in the asymmetric and in the symmetric SQUID potential configurations. We
show that the temporal evolution of the system is dominated by an oscillatory
behavior characterized by more than one, generally speaking, incommensurable
Rabi frequencies whose expressions are explicitly given. We find that the
external parameters may fixed in such a way to realize a control on the
dynamical replay of the total system which, for instance, may be forced to
exhibit a periodic evolution accompanied by the occurrence of an oscillatory
disappearance of entanglement between the two subsystems. We demonstrate the
possibility of generating quantum maximally entangled superpositions of the two
macroscopically distinguishable states describing clockwise and
counterclockwise supercurrents in the loop. The experimental feasibility of our
proposal is briefly discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, submitted to PR
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