Ethics, organ donation and tax: a proposal

Five arguments are presented in favour of the proposal that people who opt in as organ donors should receive a tax break. These arguments appeal to welfare, autonomy, fairness, distributive justice and self-ownership, respectively. Eight worries about the proposal are considered in this paper. These objections focus upon no-effect and counter-productiveness, the Titmuss concern about social meaning, exploitation of the poor, commodification, inequality and unequal status, the notion that there are better alternatives, unacceptable expense, and concerns about the veto of relatives. The paper argues that none of the objections to the proposal is very telling

Hvad er vigtig pædagogisk viden om socialt udsatte børn i daginstitutionen? Pædagogstuderendes faglige viden, rettet mod udsatte børn i daginstitutionens pædagogiske arbejde

Tidligere og nuværende forskning, knyttet til pædagogisk arbejde med udsatte børn i daginstitutionens pædagogiske praksis, har i høj grad fokuseret på enten daginstitutionens strukturelle udformning, muligheder og begrænsninger i arbejdet med denne gruppe børn eller på de professionelle pædagogers kompetencer til at udføre det pædagogiske arbejde. Dette forskningsprojekt bidrager imidlertid med en ny og meget relevant vinkel på det pædagogiske arbejde med udsatte børn i daginstitutionen, idet der i herværende sammenhæng sættes fokus på den pædagogiske professionsuddannelse og udforskes, på hvilke måder uddannelsen forbereder de studerende på deres fremtidige arbejde i daginstitutionen med udsatte børn

Robust entanglement generation by reservoir engineering

Following a recent proposal [C. Muschik et. al., Phys. Rev. A 83, 052312 (2011)], engineered dissipative processes have been used for the generation of stable entanglement between two macroscopic atomic ensembles at room temperature [H. Krauter et. al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 080503 (2011)]. This experiment included the preparation of entangled states which are continuously available during a time interval of one hour. Here, we present additional material, further-reaching data and an extension of the theory developed in [C. Muschik et. al., Phys. Rev. A 83, 052312 (2011)]. In particular, we show how the combination of the entangling dissipative mechanism with measurements can give rise to a substantial improvement of the generated entanglement in the presence of noise.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Physics B, special issue on "Quantum Memory

Entanglement generated by dissipation and steady state entanglement of two macroscopic objects

Entanglement is a striking feature of quantum mechanics and an essential ingredient in most applications in quantum information. Typically, coupling of a system to an environment inhibits entanglement, particularly in macroscopic systems. Here we report on an experiment, where dissipation continuously generates entanglement between two macroscopic objects. This is achieved by engineering the dissipation using laser- and magnetic fields, and leads to robust event-ready entanglement maintained for 0.04s at room temperature. Our system consists of two ensembles containing about 10^{12} atoms and separated by 0.5m coupled to the environment composed of the vacuum modes of the electromagnetic field. By combining the dissipative mechanism with a continuous measurement, steady state entanglement is continuously generated and observed for up to an hour.Comment: This is an update of the preprint from June 2010. It includes new results on the creation of steady state entanglement, which has been maintained up to one hou