Optimal cloning of coherent states by linear optics

We describe an optical scheme for optimal Gaussian n to m cloning of coherent states. The scheme, which generalizes a recently demonstrated scheme for 1 to 2 cloning, involves only linear optical components and homodyne detection.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 13th Central European Workshop on Quantum Optics, May 23-27 2006, Vienna, Austria (Proceedings will be published in "Acta Physica Hungarica"); reference added, Eq. (8) correcte

Zastosowanie programu gwarancji dla zdrowia jamy ustnej w opiece nad kobietą w ciąży w rodzinnym centrum zdrowia w Concepción, Chile, w latach 2014–2015

Indexación: Scopus.Background. Oral health plays a crucial role in general health, quality of life and well-being of pregnant women and their newborns. In Chile, pregnant women have dental care guaranteed by law. However, due to the lack of previous epidemiological studies on the benefits of this guarantee, it is necessary to describe this situation and evaluate the need to change the methods of providing dental services. Objectives. The objective of this study was to describe the pattern of providing dental benefits resulting from the Explicit Health Guarantee – Integral Oral Health in Pregnant Women (GES-SOIE) program to pregnant women attending the Juan Soto Fernández Family Health Center, Concepción, Chile, in 2014–2015. Material and methods. A cross-sectional study of the electronic dental records of patients admitted to GES-SOIE was conducted. The variables studied were sociodemographic data, dental chair hours, non-attendance, treatment completion, and the type of referral to secondary healthcare (SHC). Results. Of 233 pregnant women, 65.2% were registered for non-attendance, 21.2% required referral to SHC and 76.4% completed their treatment. When performing logistic regression, it was found that for each non-attendance the chance of not completing the treatment increased 1.4 times. Conclusions. The level of non-attendance and opting out of the treatment in pregnant women is high, which hinders the proper functioning and effectiveness of GES-SOIE. © 2018 by Wroclaw Medical University and Polish Dental Society.http://www.dmp.umed.wroc.pl/en/article/2018/55/2/179

Cloning of Gaussian states by linear optics

We analyze in details a scheme for cloning of Gaussian states based on linear optical components and homodyne detection recently demonstrated by U. L. Andersen et al. [PRL 94 240503 (2005)]. The input-output fidelity is evaluated for a generic (pure or mixed) Gaussian state taking into account the effect of non-unit quantum efficiency and unbalanced mode-mixing. In addition, since in most quantum information protocols the covariance matrix of the set of input states is not perfectly known, we evaluate the average cloning fidelity for classes of Gaussian states with the degree of squeezing and the number of thermal photons being only partially known.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Dynamics of quasiparticle trapping in Andreev levels

We present a theory describing the trapping and untrapping of quasiparticles in the Andreev bound level of a single-channel weak link between two superconductors. We calculate the rates of the transitions between even and odd occupations of the Andreev level induced by absorption and emission of both photons and phonons. We apply the theory to a recent experiment [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 257003 (2011)] in which the dynamics of the trapping of quasiparticles in the Andreev levels of superconducting atomic contacts coupled to a Josephson junction was measured. We show that the plasma energy $h\nu_p$ of the Josephson junction defines a rather abrupt transition between a fast relaxation regime dominated by coupling to photons and a slow relaxation regime dominated by coupling to phonons. With realistic parameters the theory provides a semi-quantitative description of the experimental results.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Landslide risk management : a multidisciplinary approach to define a Decision Support System for rainfall induced landslides

It is generally observed that direct impact of natural hazards, irreversible losses of human and physical capital and economic activities, is stronger on already poor economies. Moreover, the indirect adverse impact on the wealth growth of their ex-ante strategy to mitigate risk may even outweigh ex-post direct impact of a catastrophic event. The reason is that already poor economies have scarce resources to cope with natural hazard, weaker risk management capacity and higher degree of risk aversion. Therefore, in trying to coping ex-ante with risk, they choose a lower risk-return portfolio of assets (Elbers et al., 2007). If this is true, we can conclude that both effects of catastrophic events exacerbate inequalities and stuck economies in ‘poverty traps’ due to huge economic losses. Avoiding those ‘traps’ must be a common worldwide object just as improving environmental security. Areas and populations involved are not limited to those directly hit by the catastrophic event but even those indirectly involved by forced raising of funds, expropriation of property rights and immigration (forced socialization of risk consequences). Unfortunately, then, even in more developed countries, the level of resources devoted to the prevention against natural hazards were, often, extremely scarce and badly allocated. Worries about free-riding in raising funds from governments and taxpayers; rent–seeking and shifting of the responsibility of experts or politicians are the main causes of this misallocation. Things get worse due to bad, incomplete and biased information. In this paper we try to understand the economic and financial impact of natural disasters such as landslide. This is one of the major worldwide natural hazard. One of the problem we deal with is that landslide risk assessment methodologies were mainly qualitative and subjective. Qualitative methods, for example, are essentially based on the assumption that landslides will occur in the same geological, geomorphological, hydrogeological and climatic conditions as in the past. We propose a multidisciplinary approach to landslide risk management. This will be a useful DSS (Decision Support System) able to remove much of the uncertainty in dealing with rainfall landslides Risk Assessment Methodologies. This approach consists of a ‘simulation chain’ to link forecast rainfall (input) to the effects in terms of infiltration, slope stability up to definition of vulnerability and risk assessment. This ‘simulation chain’ is developed at CMCC (Euro–Mediterranean Centre for the Climate Change) (Meteoroligical Models) and at Geothecnical Laboratory of the Second University of Naples (Geothecnical Models), both partners in SafeLand (7th Framework Programme, Cooperation Theme 6 Environment including climate change Sub-activity 6.1.3 Natural Hazards), and at the Department of Economics of the University of Naples “Federico II” (Economics and Finance). Multidisciplinary groups of experts will gain enough resources to devote to the prevention against natural hazards if they are self-selected to be: - able to manage multi-skills involved, - able to manage the main inputs of the provision of environmental security, that is, sophisticated techniques and huge amount of continuous data from ‘early-warning monitoring-webs’, - they don’t escape from their professional responsibility, - able to be independent from politics and objectively trustable. If people trust in them and understand the objectivity of science and its limits, whatever is the national or local government, the only problem to raise funds from taxpayers and borrowers will be that imposed by the EU-27 ability to exploit Lisbon Treaty and the new Stability Pact

Social Movements and Public Policies in Chile: Analysis of the Student Movement of 2011 and the No+AFP movement of 2016

Social movements have been studied for their possible influence within political systems. In the past 12 years, Chile has registered an increasing number of social movements that have played an important role in the political system. This article adopts a qualitative methodology with a comparative approach of a case, comparing the student movement of 2011 and the No+AFP movement of 2016 and the influence of each movement on the public policy process, their linkages with political parties and whether this connection contributes to the movement having a greater incidence in decision-making. For the development of the comparison, the responses of the political system to the movements will be used; the incidence of the social movements will be analyzed by the level of intervention in the stages of public policy; and finally, the influence of movements will be examined, distinguishing a reactive influence (refusing to accept any decision of the authority) from a proactive influence (participating in the decision-making process of policies)

Heat conduction in chains of non-locally coupled harmonic oscillators: mean-field limit

We consider one-dimensional systems of all-to-all harmonically coupled particles with arbitrary masses, subject to two Langevin thermal baths. The couplings correspond to the mean-field limit of long-range interactions. Additionally, the particles can be subject to a harmonic on-site potential to break momentum conservation. Using the non-equilibrium Green operator formalism, we calculate the transmittance, the heat flow and local temperatures, for arbitrary configurations of masses. For identical masses, we show analytically that, the heat flux decays with the system size $N$, as $1/N$, regardless of the conservation or not of the momentum, and of the introduction or not of a Kac factor. These results describe in good agreement the thermal behavior of systems with small heterogeneity in the masses.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure