35,337 research outputs found
A hermeneutic inquiry into user-created personas in different Namibian locales
Persona is a tool broadly used in technology design to support communicational interactions between designers and users. Different Persona types and methods have evolved mostly in the Global North, and been partially deployed in the Global South every so often in its original User-Centred Design methodology. We postulate persona conceptualizations are expected to differ across cultures. We demonstrate this with an exploratory-case study on user-created persona co-designed with four Namibian ethnic groups: ovaHerero, Ovambo, ovaHimba and Khoisan. We follow a hermeneutic inquiry approach to discern cultural nuances from diverse human conducts. Findings reveal diverse self-representations whereby for each ethnic group results emerge in unalike fashions, viewpoints, recounts and storylines. This paper ultimately argues User-Created Persona as a potentially valid approach for pursuing cross-cultural depictions of personas that communicate cultural features and user experiences paramount to designing acceptable and gratifying technologies in dissimilar locales
Ecology of Thioploca spp.: Nitrate and sulfur storage in relation to chemical microgradients and influence of Thioploca spp. on the sedimentary nitrogen cycle
Microsensors, including a recently developed NO3 − biosensor, were applied to measure O2 and NO3 − profiles in marine sediments from the upwelling area off central Chile and to investigate the influence of Thioploca spp. on the sedimentary nitrogen metabolism. The studies were performed in undisturbed sediment cores incubated in a small laboratory flume to simulate the environmental conditions of low O2, high NO3 −, and bottom water current. On addition of NO3 −and NO2 −, Thioploca spp. exhibited positive chemotaxis and stretched out of the sediment into the flume water. In a core densely populated with Thioploca, the penetration depth of NO3 − was only 0.5 mm and a sharp maximum of NO3 − uptake was observed 0.5 mm above the sediment surface. In sediments with only fewThioploca spp., NO3 − was detectable down to a depth of 2 mm and the maximum consumption rates were observed within the sediment. No chemotaxis toward nitrous oxide (N2O) was observed, which is consistent with the observation that Thioploca does not denitrify but reduces intracellular NO3 − to NH4 +. Measurements of the intracellular NO3 − and S0 pools inThioploca filaments from various depths in the sediment gave insights into possible differences in the migration behavior between the different species. Living filaments containing significant amounts of intracellular NO3 − were found to a depth of at least 13 cm, providing final proof for the vertical shuttling of Thioploca spp. and nitrate transport into the sediment
Reconceptualising Personas Across Cultures: Archetypes, Stereotypes & Collective Personas in Pastoral Namibia
The paucity of projects where persona is the research foci and a lack of consensus on this artefact keep many reticent about its purpose and value. Besides crafting personas is expected to differ across cultures, which contrasts the advancements in Western theory with studies and progress in other sites. We postulate User-Created Personas reveal specific characteristics of situated contexts by allowing laypeople to design persona artefacts in their own terms. Hence analysing four persona sessions with an ethnic group in pastoral Namibia –ovaHerero– brought up a set of fundamental questions around the persona artefact regarding stereotypes, archetypes, and collective persona representations: (1) to what extent user depictions are stereotypical or archetypal? If stereotypes prime (2) to what degree are current personas a useful method to represent end-users in technology design? And, (3) how can we ultimately read accounts not conforming to mainstream individual persona descriptions but to collectives
Scattering fidelity in elastodynamics
The recent introduction of the concept of scattering fidelity, causes us to
revisit the experiment by Lobkis and Weaver [Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 254302
(2003)]. There, the ``distortion'' of the coda of an acoustic signal is
measured under temperature changes. This quantity is in fact the negative
logarithm of scattering fidelity. We re-analyse their experimental data for two
samples, and we find good agreement with random matrix predictions for the
standard fidelity. Usually, one may expect such an agreement for chaotic
systems only. While the first sample, may indeed be assumed chaotic, for the
second sample, a perfect cuboid, such an agreement is more surprising. For the
first sample, the random matrix analysis yields a perturbation strength
compatible with semiclassical predictions. For the cuboid the measured
perturbation strength is much larger than expected, but with the fitted values
for this strength, the experimental data are well reproduced.Comment: 4 page
Quantum error correction may delay, but also cause, entanglement sudden death
Dissipation may cause two initially entangled qubits to evolve into a
separable state in a finite time. This behavior is called entanglement sudden
death (ESD). We study to what extent quantum error correction can combat ESD.
We find that in some cases quantum error correction can delay entanglement
sudden death but in other cases quantum error correction may cause ESD for
states that otherwise do not suffer from it. Our analysis also shows that
fidelity may not be the best measure to compare the efficiency of different
error correction codes since the fidelity is not directly coupled to a state's
remaining entanglement.Comment: 3 figure
Fast Two-Qubit Gates in Semiconductor Quantum Dots using a Photonic Microcavity
Implementations for quantum computing require fast single- and multi-qubit
quantum gate operations. In the case of optically controlled quantum dot qubits
theoretical designs for long-range two- or multi-qubit operations satisfying
all the requirements in quantum computing are not yet available. We have
developed a design for a fast, long-range two-qubit gate mediated by a photonic
microcavity mode using excited states of the quantum dot-cavity system that
addresses these needs. This design does not require identical qubits, it is
compatible with available optically induced single qubit operations, and it
advances opportunities for scalable architectures. We show that the gate
fidelity can exceed 90% in experimentally accessible systems
Detecting separable states via semidefinite programs
We introduce a new technique to detect separable states using semidefinite
programs. This approach provides a sufficient condition for separability of a
state that is based on the existence of a certain local linear map applied to a
known separable state. When a state is shown to be separable, a proof of this
fact is provided in the form of an explicit convex decomposition of the state
in terms of product states. All states in the interior of the set of separable
states can be detected in this way, except maybe for a set of measure zero.
Even though this technique is more suited for a numerical approach, a new
analytical criterion for separability can also be derived.Comment: 8 pages, accepted for publication in Physical Review
Charge qubits and limitations of electrostatic quantum gates
We investigate the characteristics of purely electrostatic interactions with
external gates in constructing full single qubit manipulations. The quantum bit
is naturally encoded in the spatial wave function of the electron system.
Single-electron{transistor arrays based on quantum dots or insulating
interfaces typically allow for electrostatic controls where the inter-island
tunneling is considered constant, e.g. determined by the thickness of an
insulating layer. A representative array of 3x3 quantum dots with two mobile
electrons is analyzed using a Hubbard Hamiltonian and a capacitance matrix
formalism. Our study shows that it is easy to realize the first quantum gate
for single qubit operations, but that a second quantum gate only comes at the
cost of compromising the low-energy two-level system needed to encode the
qubit. We use perturbative arguments and the Feshbach formalism to show that
the compromising of the two-level system is a rather general feature for
electrostatically interacting qubits and is not just related to the specific
details of the system chosen. We show further that full implementation requires
tunable tunneling or external magnetic fields.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR
Dimension minimization of a quantum automaton
A new model of a Quantum Automaton (QA), working with qubits is proposed. The
quantum states of the automaton can be pure or mixed and are represented by
density operators. This is the appropriated approach to deal with measurements
and dechorence. The linearity of a QA and of the partial trace super-operator,
combined with the properties of invariant subspaces under unitary
transformations, are used to minimize the dimension of the automaton and,
consequently, the number of its working qubits. The results here developed are
valid wether the state set of the QA is finite or not. There are two main
results in this paper: 1) We show that the dimension reduction is possible
whenever the unitary transformations, associated to each letter of the input
alphabet, obey a set of conditions. 2) We develop an algorithm to find out the
equivalent minimal QA and prove that its complexity is polynomial in its
dimension and in the size of the input alphabet.Comment: 26 page
Geometric approach to chaos in the classical dynamics of abelian lattice gauge theory
A Riemannian geometrization of dynamics is used to study chaoticity in the
classical Hamiltonian dynamics of a U(1) lattice gauge theory. This approach
allows one to obtain analytical estimates of the largest Lyapunov exponent in
terms of time averages of geometric quantities. These estimates are compared
with the results of numerical simulations, and turn out to be very close to the
values extrapolated for very large lattice sizes even when the geometric
quantities are computed using small lattices. The scaling of the Lyapunov
exponent with the energy density is found to be well described by a quadratic
power law.Comment: REVTeX, 9 pages, 4 PostScript figures include
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