Time-ordering Dependence of Measurements in Teleportation

We trace back the phenomenon of "delayed-choice entanglement swapping" as it was realized in a recent experiment to the commutativity of the projection operators that are involved in the corresponding measurement process. We also propose an experimental set-up which depends on the order of successive measurements corresponding to noncommutative projection operators. In this case entanglement swapping is used to teleport a quantum state from Alice to Bob, where Bob has now the possibility to examine the noncommutativity within the quantum history.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures; v2; formalism of isometries elaborately discussed, some changes in formulas, figure and reference added; typos correcte

Current driven switching of magnetic layers

The switching of magnetic layers is studied under the action of a spin current in a ferromagnetic metal/non-magnetic metal/ferromagnetic metal spin valve. We find that the main contribution to the switching comes from the non-equilibrium exchange interaction between the ferromagnetic layers. This interaction defines the magnetic configuration of the layers with minimum energy and establishes the threshold for a critical switching current. Depending on the direction of the critical current, the interaction changes sign and a given magnetic configuration becomes unstable. To model the time dependence of the switching process, we derive a set of coupled Landau-Lifshitz equations for the ferromagnetic layers. Higher order terms in the non-equilibrium exchange coupling allow the system to evolve to its steady-state configuration.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Transmission needs across a fully renewable European power system

The residual load and excess power generation of 27 European countries with a 100% penetration of variable renewable energy sources are explored in order to quantify the benefit of power transmission between countries. Estimates are based on extensive weather data, which allows for modelling of hourly mismatches between the demand and renewable generation from wind and solar photovoltaics. For separated countries, balancing is required to cover around 24% of the total annual energy consumption. This number can be reduced down to 15% once all countries are networked together with uncon- strained interconnectors. The reduction represents the maximum possible benefit of transmission for the countries. The total Net Transfer Capacity of the unconstrained interconnectors is roughly twelve times larger than current values. However, constrained interconnector capacities six times larger than the current values are found to provide 97% of the maximum possible benefit of cooperation. This motivates a detailed investigation of several constrained transmission capacity layouts to determine the export and import capabilities of countries participating in a fully renewable European electricity system

Making Financial Uncertainty Count: Unit‐Linked Insurance, Investment and the Individualisation of Financial Risk in British Life Insurance

While most scholarship in the sociology of insurance has focused on the making of insurance risk by investigating mechanisms of pooling and spreading, this article examines insurers’ management of financial uncertainty. Based on a large corpus of written sources and 44 semi‐structured oral history interviews, this article seeks to describe and explain a shift in how financial uncertainty is dealt with in British life insurance, away from traditional multipolar arrangements revolving around actuarial prudence and discretion, towards bipolar arrangements that rely on explicit risk quantification and the logic of risk‐based capital to “individualise” financial risk. The article identifies two factors that were key in bringing about this shift: first, the competitive dynamics that unfolded with the emergence of challenger “unit‐linked” insurers in the 1960s, and, second, changes in the professional ecology, as manifested by the changing relations between the actuarial profession and insurance supervisors

Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk? European Insurance Capital Regulation and the Financial Vocabulary of Motive

‘Financialization’ refers to a variety of processes characterized by the increased prevalence of financial actors and logics in contemporary capitalist societies. Borrowing from Mills, I suggest that financialization may fruitfully be understood as the institutionalization of a financial vocabulary of motive. Mills argues that the type of reasons we give and the type of reasons we accept as legitimate varies, dependent on the social setting. The financial vocabulary of motive requires actors to motivate their actions by analogical extension of key concepts, ideas and paradigmatic problem solutions from modern finance theory. Analysing documents and 44 oral history interviews, I study the implementation of Solvency II—a European regulatory framework for insurance capital that transforms how insurers evaluate their assets and liabilities. To prevent the immediate failure of insurers’ traditional business models, insurers had to re-articulate past practices in the language of financial risk management.1. Introduction 2. Financialization as the diffusion of a financial vocabulary of motive 3. Solvency II: Towards a European insurance industry 4. Re-articulating insurance in financial terms 5. Conclusion Footnote Acknowledgements Reference

Valuation of functions of the Wadden Area

The rationale of this position paper is to explore ways to employ valuation methods to assess the impacts of alternative policy decisions on the functions of the Wadden Area. Based on this rationale, this paper aims to bring an ecological-economic perspective on the benefits of the Wadden Area. It highlights key issues involved in the notion and application of monetary valuation methods for valuing the (ecological) functions of the area. It also pays attention to the development of policy handles on the basis of the outcome of the valuation of ecological functions. Particularly, the paper discuss Payment for Environmental Services (PES), which aims at preservation and protection by purchasing conservation. The use of a valuation instrument within a Payment for Environmental Services Scheme is new. Valuation is of course an established technique within a Cost-Benefit framework. However, Payment for Environmental Services is an innovative way of designing policy instruments in the collaboration between ecologists and economist

How Do You Build a "Culture of Health"? A Critical Analysis of Challenges and Opportunities from Medical Anthropology.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health Action Framework aims to "make health a shared value" and improve population health equity through widespread culture change. The authors draw upon their expertise as anthropologists to identify 3 challenges that they believe must be addressed in order to effectively achieve the health equity and population health improvement goals of the Culture of Health initiative: clarifying and demystifying the concept of "culture," contextualizing "community" within networks of power and inequality, and confronting the crises of trust and solidarity in the contemporary United States. The authors suggest that those who seek to build a "Culture of Health" refine their understanding of how "culture" is experienced, advocate for policies and practices that break down unhealthy consolidations of power, and innovate solutions to building consensus in a divided nation

SRA: Fast Removal of General Multipath for ToF Sensors

A major issue with Time of Flight sensors is the presence of multipath interference. We present Sparse Reflections Analysis (SRA), an algorithm for removing this interference which has two main advantages. First, it allows for very general forms of multipath, including interference with three or more paths, diffuse multipath resulting from Lambertian surfaces, and combinations thereof. SRA removes this general multipath with robust techniques based on $L_1$ optimization. Second, due to a novel dimension reduction, we are able to produce a very fast version of SRA, which is able to run at frame rate. Experimental results on both synthetic data with ground truth, as well as real images of challenging scenes, validate the approach