The Evolution of Poverty During the Crisis in Indonesia

The economic crisis caused a clear deterioration in the welfare of the Indonesian people. in this paper, we examine the appropriate method to compare the change in poverty rates over time. we then piece together a consistent series of estimates of poverty rates during the crisis from various sources, covering a period from february 1996 to february 2002. the reconciliation of these various estimates paints a very reasonable picture and neatly tracks events. the poverty rate increased from the lowest point of around 15 percent at the onset of the crisis in the mid of 1997 to the highest point of around 33 percent nearing the end of 1998. this maximum increase in poverty rate during the crisis of 18 percentage points implies that around 36 million additional people were pushed into absolute poverty due to the crisis. after the peak point, the poverty rate started to decline again and reached the pre-crisis level of around 15 percents at the end of 1999, implying the lost time in poverty reduction due to the crisis was around two and a half years. however, the poverty rate after this point appears to have fluctuated. during 2001 until early 2002, poverty was on the rise again. keywords: poverty, crisis, welfare, measurement, Indonesi

Quantum logic with weakly coupled qubits

There are well-known protocols for performing CNOT quantum logic with qubits coupled by particular high-symmetry (Ising or Heisenberg) interactions. However, many architectures being considered for quantum computation involve qubits or qubits and resonators coupled by more complicated and less symmetric interactions. Here we consider a widely applicable model of weakly but otherwise arbitrarily coupled two-level systems, and use quantum gate design techniques to derive a simple and intuitive CNOT construction. Useful variations and extensions of the solution are given for common special cases.Comment: 4 pages, Revte

Quantifying Vulnerability to Poverty: a Proposed Measure, with Application to Indonesia

Vulnerability is an important aspect of households' experience of poverty. many households, while not currently "in poverty", recognize that they are vulnerable to events that could easily push them into poverty-a bad harvest, a lost job, an unexpected expense, an illness, an economic downturn. most operational measures define poverty as some function of the shortfall of current consumption expenditures from a poverty line, and hence measure only poverty at a single point in time. we propose a simple expansion of these measures to quantify "vulnerability." we define vulnerability as a probability, the risk a household will experience at least one episode of poverty in the near future. a household is defined to be vulnerable if it has 50-50 odds or worse of falling into poverty. using these definitions we calculate the "vulnerability to poverty line" (vpl) as the level of expenditures below which a household is vulnerable to poverty. this vpl allows the calculation of the direct analogue of the "headcount poverty rate," which is the proportion of households vulnerable to poverty. we implement this approach using panel data from Indonesia. we first show that if poverty line is set so that the headcount poverty rate is 20 percent, the proportion of households that are vulnerable to poverty is 50 percent. so in addition to the 20 percent that are currently poor, hence are vulnerable, an additional 30 percent of the population is at risk of poverty. second, we illustrate the usefulness of this approach by examining differences in vulnerability between households by level of education, by land holding status and by gender of the household head. the conclusion speculates on the policy implications of these high levels of vulnerability. * we would like to thank peter rosner, martin ravallion, and menno pradhan for their valuable comments and suggestions. we are very grateful to unicef and bps for providing access to the data

Periodic Bursts of Coherent Radio Emission from an Ultracool Dwarf

We report the detection of periodic (p = 1.96 hours) bursts of extremely bright, 100% circularly polarized, coherent radio emission from the M9 dwarf TVLM 513-46546. Simultaneous photometric monitoring observations have established this periodicity to be the rotation period of the dwarf. These bursts, which were not present in previous observations of this target, confirm that ultracool dwarfs can generate persistent levels of broadband, coherent radio emission, associated with the presence of kG magnetic fields in a large-scale, stable configuration. Compact sources located at the magnetic polar regions produce highly beamed emission generated by the electron cyclotron maser instability, the same mechanism known to generate planetary coherent radio emission in our solar system. The narrow beams of radiation pass our line of sight as the dwarf rotates, producing the associated periodic bursts. The resulting radio light curves are analogous to the periodic light curves associated with pulsar radio emission highlighting TVLM 513-46546 as the prototype of a new class of transient radio source.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The Career and Legacy of Hornist Joseph Eger: His Solo Career, Recordings, and Arrangements

This study documents the career of Joseph Eger (b. 1920), who had a short but remarkable playing career in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. Eger toured the United States and Britain as a soloist with his own group, even trading tours with the legendary British hornist, Dennis Brain. He recorded a brilliant solo album, transcribed or arranged several solos for horn, and premiered compositions now standard in the horn repertoire. He served as Principal Horn of the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the National Symphony. Despite his illustrious career as a hornist, many horn players today do not recognize his name. While Eger was a renowned horn soloist in the middle of the twentieth century, he all but disappeared as a hornist, refocused his career, and reemerged as a conductor, social activist, and author. This dissertation seeks to be the long-overdue comprehensive documentation of Eger's career as the first American horn soloist and his contributions to the world of horn playing. First, a biography of Eger is presented, focusing especially on his education and career as an orchestral player, soloist, and recording artist, including its intersections with the lives of many prominent musicians and personalities of the twentieth century. A personal interview provided most of this information. An examination of what is perhaps Eger's greatest and most lasting contribution, his solo album, Around the Horn, will follow. A discussion of this recording and his Grammy-nominated chamber music album will provide insight into the high quality of his horn playing and the breadth of his repertoire. Finally, Eger's transcriptions and editions of pieces for solo horn and the pieces that were premiered or composed for him will be listed and discussed