A Note on Pseudo-Hermitian Systems with Point Interactions and Quantum Separability

We study the quantum entanglement and separability of Hermitian and pseudo-Hermitian systems of identical bosonic or fermionic particles with point interactions. The separability conditions are investigated in detail.Comment: 6 page

Seasonal dynamics of terrestrial vertebrate abundance between Amazonian flooded and unflooded forests

The flood pulse is the main factor structuring and differentiating the ecological communities of Amazonian unflooded (terra firme) and seasonally-flooded (várzea) forests as they require unique adaptations to survive the prolonged annual floods. Therefore, várzea and terra firme forests hammer out a spatio-temporal mosaic of resource availability, which may result in landscape scale seasonal movements of terrestrial vertebrates between adjacent forest types. Yet the lateral movements of terrestrial vertebrates between hydrologically distinct neighbouring forest types exhibiting staggered resource availability remains poorly understood, despite the important implications of this spatial dynamic for the ecology and conservation of forest wildlife. We examined the hypothesis of terrestrial fauna seasonal movements between two adjacent forest types at two contiguous sustainable-use forest reserves in Western Brazilian Amazonia. We used camera trapping data on the overall species richness, composition, and abundance of nine major vertebrate trophic guilds to infer on terrestrial vertebrate movements as a function of seasonal changes in floodplain water level. Species richness differed in neighboring terra firme forests between the high-and low-water phases of the flood pulse and terra firme forests were more species rich than várzea forests. There were clear differences in species composition between both forest types and seasons. Generalized Linear Models showed that water level was the main factor explaining aggregate abundance of all species and three trophic guilds. Our results indicate that the persistence of viable populations of large terrestrial vertebrates adjacent to major Amazonian rivers requires large, well-connected forest landscapes encompassing different forest types to ensure large-scale lateral movements by forest wildlife

Acorn flour and sourdough: an innovative combination to improve gluten free bread characteristics

Nowadays, challenges in gluten free breads (GFB) are focused on improving the nutritional and health benefits. Acorn flour is an underexploited sustainable ingredient, naturally gluten free, with many nutritional and technological advantages. The aim of this study was to explore the interaction of acorn flour supplementation (up to 35%) to rice flour and sourdough process to obtain rice based GFB. Different levels of rice flour replacement with acorn flour (0%, 23% and 35%), and sourdough (20%) were tested in a basic GFB recipe, and technological, nutritional, and functional GFB characteristics evaluated. The combination of acorn flour and sourdough was responsible for acidifying dough and bread. Breads containing 35:65 acorn flour: rice flour led to harder breads with lower crumb luminosity and with reddish and brownish tones, besides improved structural features when adding sourdough. That combination of sourdough and acorn flour reduced the rate and the extent of starch hydrolysis, as well as increase the minerals content, total phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity. Therefore, the combination of acorn flour and sourdough process allows obtaining rice based GFB with better nutritional patterninfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Supervised chemical pattern recognition in almond (Prunus dulcis) Portuguese PDO cultivars: a PCA and LDA based triennial study

Almonds harvested in three years in Trás-os-Montes (Portugal) were characterized to find differences among Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) Amêndoa Douro and commercial non-PDO cultivars. Nutritional parameters, fiber (neutral and acid detergent fibers, acid detergent lignin and cellulose), fatty acids, triacylglycerols (TAG) and tocopherols were evaluated. Fat was the major component, followed by carbohydrates, protein and moisture. Fatty acids were mostly detected as monounsaturated and polyunsaturated forms, with relevance of oleic and linoleic acids. Accordingly, 1,2,3-trioleoylglycerol and 1,2-dioleoyl-3-linoleoylglycerol were the major TAG. α-Tocopherol was the leading tocopherol. To verify statistical differences among PDO and non-PDO cultivars independently of the harvesting year, data were analyzed through an analysis of variance, a principal components analysis and a linear discriminant analysis (LDA). These differences identified classification parameters, providing an important tool for authenticity purposes. The best results were achieved with TAG analysis coupled with LDA, that proved its effectiveness to discriminate almond cultivars

Chemical characterization of chestnut cultivars from three consecutive years: chemometrics and contribution for authentication

Four Castanea sativa Miller cultivars (Aveleira, Boaventura, Judia and Longal) belonging to the Protected Designation of Origin ‘‘Castanha da Terra Fria’’, from the Northeast of Portugal, were selected in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Their nutritional, fatty acids, triacylglycerols and tocopherols profiles were evaluated. Water was the major component, followed by carbohydrates, protein and fat, with energetic values lower than 190 kcal/100 g of fresh fruit. Oleic, linoleic and palmitic were the major fatty acids, 1-oleoyl-2-linoleoyl- 3-linoleoyl-sn-glycerol, 1-linoleoyl-2-linoleoyl-3-palmitoyl-sn-glycerol, 1-oleoyl-2-linoleoyl-3- oleoyl-sn-glycerol and 1-linoleoyl-2-oleoyl-3-palmitoyl-sn-glycerol were the prevalent triacylglycerols and c-tocopherol was the most abundant tocopherol. In each parameter, differences between cultivars, harvest year and the possible cultivar year interaction were screened through a two-way analysis of variance. Differences among cultivars have been attenuated by the variability among years, leading, in general, to a significant interaction effect, which resulted in a relative homogeneity regarding chemical parameters, showing that nutritional and chemical composition was influenced by seasonal variability. A stepwise linear discriminant model, based on 10 (a-tocopherol, c-tocotrienol, LLL, OLLn, d-tocopherol, c-tocopherol, d-tocotrienol, PLLn, protein and OOO) of the 38 initial evaluated variables was also established. The model allowed the complete discrimination of cultivars with overall sensibilities and specificities of 100%, for both original grouped data and leave-one-out cross-validation procedures. Furthermore, similar results were also obtained using only tocopherols data, showing their usefulness as a discriminant factor for chestnut cultivars

Relational EPR

We study the EPR-type correlations from the perspective of the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics. We argue that these correlations do not entail any form of 'non-locality', when viewed in the context of this interpretation. The abandonment of strict Einstein realism implied by the relational stance permits to reconcile quantum mechanics, completeness, (operationally defined) separability, and locality.Comment: Revised, published versio

Minimal Informationally Complete Measurements for Pure States

We consider measurements, described by a positive-operator-valued measure (POVM), whose outcome probabilities determine an arbitrary pure state of a D-dimensional quantum system. We call such a measurement a pure-state informationally complete (PSI-complete) POVM. We show that a measurement with 2D-1 outcomes cannot be PSI-complete, and then we construct a POVM with 2D outcomes that suffices, thus showing that a minimal PSI-complete POVM has 2D outcomes. We also consider PSI-complete POVMs that have only rank-one POVM elements and construct an example with 3D-2 outcomes, which is a generalization of the tetrahedral measurement for a qubit. The question of the minimal number of elements in a rank-one PSI-complete POVM is left open.Comment: 2 figures, submitted for the Asher Peres festschrif

Magnetic fluctuations in frustrated Laves hydrides R(Mn_{1-x}Al_{x})_{2}H_{y}

By neutron scattering, we have studied the spin correlations and spin fluctuations in frustrated Laves hydrides, where magnetic disorder sets in the topologically frustrated Mn lattice. Below the transition towards short range magnetic order, static spin clusters coexist with fluctuating and alsmost uncorrelated spins. The magnetic response shows a complexe lineshape, connected with the presence of the magnetic inhomogeneities. Its analysis shows the existence of two different processes, relaxation and local excitations, for the spin fluctuations below the transition. The paramagnetic fluctuations are discussed in comparison with classical spin glasses, cluster glasses, and non Fermi liquid itinerant magnets

Experimental Proposal for Achieving Superadditive Communication Capacities with a Binary Quantum Alphabet

We demonstrate superadditivity in the communication capacity of a binary alphabet consisting of two nonorthogonal quantum states. For this scheme, collective decoding is performed two transmissions at a time. This improves upon the previous schemes of Sasaki et al. [Phys. Rev. A 58, 146 (1998)] where superadditivity was not achieved until a decoding of three or more transmissions at a time. This places superadditivity within the regime of a near-term laboratory demonstration. We propose an experimental test based upon an alphabet of low photon-number coherent states where the signal decoding is done with atomic state measurements on a single atom in a high-finesse optical cavity.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure

Quantum feedback with weak measurements

The problem of feedback control of quantum systems by means of weak measurements is investigated in detail. When weak measurements are made on a set of identical quantum systems, the single-system density matrix can be determined to a high degree of accuracy while affecting each system only slightly. If this information is fed back into the systems by coherent operations, the single-system density matrix can be made to undergo an arbitrary nonlinear dynamics, including for example a dynamics governed by a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. We investigate the implications of such nonlinear quantum dynamics for various problems in quantum control and quantum information theory, including quantum computation. The nonlinear dynamics induced by weak quantum feedback could be used to create a novel form of quantum chaos in which the time evolution of the single-system wave function depends sensitively on initial conditions.Comment: 11 pages, TeX, replaced to incorporate suggestions of Asher Pere