Exploring learning outcomes in CBT and existential therapy in Denmark

The purpose of this thesis is to draw attention to the special characteristics of the outcome of psychotherapy through qualitative research. The thesis explores a phenomenological and hermeneutic enquiry into the lived experience of psychotherapy in terms of learning outcomes. This includes both Existential therapy (ET) and Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) and their possible differences and similarities. I can describe learning as any experiential change that occurs in the participants understanding as result of the therapy in which they participate. Learning outcomes are concerned with the achievements of the learner rather than the intentions of the educator, as expressed in the objectives of an educational effort. The thesis uses Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as a qualitative method to explore meanings of the learning phenomenon generated from themes found in transcripts of semi-structured interviews from twelve participants with an equal length of short time client experience of psychotherapy. That is, six participants who had attended CBT and six participants who had attended ET. Consistent themes from the data indicate that, overall, psychotherapy helps clients to enhance general learning in three major domains: (1) Self and life; (2) Thinking, acting and feeling; (3) Relationships with others. The data also indicates that ET overall helps clients to enhance particular learning of authenticity and insight into self, life and relationships with others with courage, engagement and freedom in an open and personal approach to difficulties and life issues. Furthermore, the data indicates that CBT overall helps the client to enhance particular learning of self-capability and self-esteem with independence in self-chosen relationships and capabilities for organized and appropriate approach to difficulties and life issues. Thus, ET is more oriented towards learning authenticity and self-positioning in life, whereas CBT is more oriented towards learning capabilities for organized and appropriate ways of thinking, acting and feeling. This research points to the value of the learning perspective for therapeutic practice and facilitates a model of psychotherapeutic learning with an understanding of learning outcomes based on motivational learning, learning to do with previous experiences, learning design for process, the therapeutic learning relationship and the educational role of the psychotherapist

Almost Commuting Orthogonal Matrices

We show that almost commuting real orthogonal matrices are uniformly close to exactly commuting real orthogonal matrices. We prove the same for symplectic unitary matrices. This is in contrast to the general complex case, where not all pairs of almost commuting unitaries are close to commuting pairs. Our techniques also yield results about almost normal matrices over the reals and the quaternions.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure

Three-dimensional theory of stimulated Raman scattering

We present a three-dimensional theory of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) or superradiance. In particular we address how the spatial and temporal properties of the generated SRS beam, or Stokes beam, of radiation depends on the spatial properties of the gain medium. Maxwell equations for the Stokes field operators and of the atomic operators are solved analytically and a correlation function for the Stokes field is derived. In the analysis we identify a superradiating part of the Stokes radiation that exhibit beam characteristics. We show how the intensity in this beam builds up in time and at some point largely dominates the total Stokes radiation of the gain medium. We show how the SRS depends on geometric factors such as the Fresnel number and the optical depth, and that in fact these two factors are the only factors describing the coherent radiation.Comment: 21 pages 14 figure

Hybrid Quantum Repeater Protocol With Fast Local Processing

We propose a hybrid quantum repeater protocol combining the advantages of continuous and discrete variables. The repeater is based on the previous work of Brask et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 160501 (2010)] but we present two ways of improving this protocol. In the previous protocol entangled single-photon states are produced and grown into superpositions of coherent states, known as two-mode cat states. The entanglement is then distributed using homodyne detection. To improve the protocol, we replace the time-consuming non-local growth of cat states with local growth of single-mode cat states, eliminating the need for classical communication during growth. Entanglement is generated in subsequent connection processes. Furthermore the growth procedure is optimized. We review the main elements of the original protocol and present the two modifications. Finally the two protocols are compared and the modified protocol is shown to perform significantly better than the original protocol.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure

Ground-State Energy and Spin Gap of Spin-1/2 Kagome Heisenberg Antiferromagnetic Clusters: Large Scale Exact Diagonalization Results

We present a comprehensive list of ground state energies and spin gaps of finite kagome clusters with up to 42 spins obtained using large-scale exact diagonalization techniques. This represents the current limit of this exact approach. For a fixed number of spins N we study several cluster shapes under periodic boundary conditions in both directions resulting in a toroidal geometry. The clusters are characterized by their side length and diagonal as well as the shortest "Manhattan" diameter of the torii. A finite-size scaling analysis of the ground state energy as well as the spin gap is then performed in terms of the shortest toroidal diameter as well as the shortest "Manhattan" diameter. The structure of the spin-spin correlations further supports the importance of short loops wrapping around the torii.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, added one referenc

Stability, effective dimensions, and interactions for bosons in deformed fields

The hyperspherical adiabatic method is used to derive stability criteria for Bose-Einstein condensates in deformed external fields. An analytical approximation is obtained. For constant volume the highest stability is found for spherical traps. Analytical approximations to the stability criterion with and without zero point motion are derived. Extreme geometries of the field effectively confine the system to dimensions lower than three. As a function of deformation we compute the dimension to vary continuously between one and three. We derive a dimension-dependent effective radial Hamiltonian and investigate one choice of an effective interaction in the deformed case.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. A. In version 2 figures 2 and 5 are added along with more discussions and explanations. Version 3 contains added comments and reference

Effective Hamiltonian Theory and Its Applications in Quantum Information

This paper presents a useful compact formula for deriving an effective Hamiltonian describing the time-averaged dynamics of detuned quantum systems. The formalism also works for ensemble-averaged dynamics of stochastic systems. To illustrate the technique we give examples involving Raman processes, Bloch-Siegert shifts and Quantum Logic Gates.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Canadian Journal of Physic

Improving the Equity-Efficiency Trade-Off: Mandatory Savings Accounts for Social Insurance.

In the modern welfare state a substantial part of an individual’s tax bill is transferred back to the same individual taxpayer in the form of social transfers. This provides a rationale for financing part of social insurance through mandatory savings accounts. We analyze the behavioral and welfare effects of compulsory savings accounts in an intertemporal model with uncertainty, endogenous involuntary unemployment and retirement decisions, credit constraints, and heterogeneous agents. We show that the introduction of (early) retirement and unemployment accounts generates a Pareto improvement by enabling the government to provide lifetime income insurance and liquidity insurance ina more effcient manner.

Stability and structure of two coupled boson systems in an external field

The lowest adiabatic potential expressed in hyperspherical coordinates is estimated for two boson systems in an external harmonic trap. Corresponding conditions for stability are investigated and the related structures are extracted for zero-range interactions. Strong repulsion between non-identical particles leads to two new features, respectively when identical particles attract or repel each other. For repulsion new stable structures arise with displaced center of masses. For attraction the mean-field stability region is restricted due to motion of the center of masses

Dissipative preparation of entanglement in optical cavities

We propose a novel scheme for the preparation of a maximally entangled state of two atoms in an optical cavity. Starting from an arbitrary initial state, a singlet state is prepared as the unique fixed point of a dissipative quantum dynamical process. In our scheme, cavity decay is no longer undesirable, but plays an integral part in the dynamics. As a result, we get a qualitative improvement in the scaling of the fidelity with the cavity parameters. Our analysis indicates that dissipative state preparation is more than just a new conceptual approach, but can allow for significant improvement as compared to preparation protocols based on coherent unitary dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure