Comprehensive experimental test of quantum erasure

In an interferometer, path information and interference visibility are incompatible quantities. Complete determination of the path will exclude any possibility of interference, rendering the visibility zero. However, if the composite object and probe state is pure, it is, under certain conditions, possible to trade the path information for improved (conditioned) visibility. Such a procedure is called quantum erasure. We have performed such experiments with polarization entangled photon pairs. Using a partial polarizer we could vary the degree of entanglement between object and probe. We could also vary the interferometer splitting ratio and thereby vary the a priori path predictability. We have tested quantum erasure under a number of different experimental conditions and found good agreement between experiments and theory.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, REVTe

Fantasy, Forgery, and the Byron Legend

Byron was—to echo Wordsworth—half-perceived and half-created. He would have affirmed Jean Baudrillard’s observation that “to seduce is to die to reality and reconstitute oneself as illusion.” But among the readers he seduced, in person and in poetry, were women possessed of vivid imaginations who collaborated with him in fashioning his legend. Accused of “treating women harshly,” Byron acknowledged: “It may be so—but I have been their martyr. My whole life has been sacrificed to them and by them.” Those whom he spell bound often returned the favor in their own writings tried to remake his public image to reflect their own. Through writings both well known and generally unknown, James Soderholm examines the poet’s relationship with five women: Elizabeth Pigot, Caroline Lamb, Annabella Milbanke, Teresa Guiccioli, and Marguerite Blessington. These women participated in Byron’s life and literary career and the manipulation of images that is the Byron legend. Soderholm argues against the sentimental depictions of biographers who would preserve Byron’s romantic aura by diminishing the contributions of these women to his social, sexual, and literary identity. By restoring the contexts in which literary works charm or bedevil particular readers, the author shows the consequences of Byron’s poetic seductions during and after his life. James Soderholm is assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. Soderholm is a nimblefooted writer whose characterizations have punch. . . . [He] has taken the extra time and effort to give us this economical, well-researched, clever, and convincing study of Byron\u27s serious relationships with literate and literary women. —European Romantic Review Soderholm has taken the extra time and effort to give us this economical, well-researched, clever, and convincing study of Byron\u27s serious relationships with literate and literary women. —European Romantic Review A study that will clearly make a solid contribution to biographical theory, Byron scholarship, and scholarship on the women writers related to him. —Rocky Mountain Review A delightful book: lucidly written, eloquently expressed, and scholarly without being in the least instance turgid or pretentious. . . . An exemplary book that ushers in a fresh and invigorating critical approach to Byron. —Byron Journalhttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1085/thumbnail.jp

Analysis of the generation of photon pairs in periodically poled lithium niobate

The process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) in nonlinear crystals makes it fairly easy to generate entangled photon states. It has been known for some time that the conversion efficiency can be improved by employing quasi-phase-matching in periodically poled crystals. Using two single-photon detectors, we have analyzed the photon pairs generated by SPDC in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal pumped by a femtosecond laser. Several parameters could be varied in our setup, allowing us to obtain data in close agreement with both thermal and Poissonian photon-pair distributions.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, uses ws-procs10x7.cls; v2: Sign in equation (5) correcte

The Impact of Interference on GNSS Receiver Observables – A Running Digital Sum Based Simple Jammer Detector

A GNSS-based navigation system relies on externally received information via a space-based Radio Frequency (RF) link. This poses susceptibility to RF Interference (RFI) and may initiate failure states ranging from degraded navigation accuracy to a complete signal loss condition. To guarantee the integrity of the received GNSS signal, the receiver should either be able to function in the presence of RFI without generating misleading information (i.e., offering a navigation solution within an accuracy limit), or the receiver must detect RFI so that some other means could be used as a countermeasure in order to ensure robust and accurate navigation. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to identify an interference occurrence and not to confuse it with other signal conditions, for example, indoor or deep urban canyon, both of which have somewhat similar impact on the navigation performance. Hence, in this paper, the objective is to investigate the effect of interference on different GNSS receiver observables in two different environments: i. an interference scenario with an inexpensive car jammer, and ii. an outdoor-indoor scenario without any intentional interference. The investigated observables include the Automatic Gain Control (AGC) measurements, the digitized IF (Intermediate Frequency) signal levels, the Delay Locked Loop and the Phase Locked Loop discriminator variances, and the Carrier-to-noise density ratio (C/N0) measurements. The behavioral pattern of these receiver observables is perceived in these two different scenarios in order to comprehend which of those observables would be able to separate an interference situation from an indoor scenario, since in both the cases, the resulting positioning accuracy and/or availability are affected somewhat similarly. A new Running Digital Sum (RDS) -based interference detection method is also proposed herein that can be used as an alternate to AGC-based interference detection. It is shown in this paper that it is not at all wise to consider certain receiver observables for interference detection (i.e., C/N0); rather it is beneficial to utilize certain specific observables, such as the RDS of raw digitized signal levels or the AGC-based observables that can uniquely identify a critical malicious interference occurrence

Association Between Fiscal Effort Above Required Local Effort and Accreditation in Virginia Schools

This study expands on previous research regarding the adequacy of educational funding in order to reach a desired academic outcome. Specifically, this study examines Virginia policies of Standards of Quality and Standards of Accreditation to see if local fiscal effort above the minimum required by Virginia has an association to the desired minimum academic outcome of school accreditation. The research in this study shows that when using a linear regression analysis or an ANCOVA there is no relationship between effort above Required Local Effort (RLE) and the percentage of students attending an accredited school. However, when looking at the non-linear data in this study, there does appear to be a relationship between effort above RLE and the percentage of students attending an accredited school. The t-tests run show a significant difference between the sustained or increased effort above RLE and decreased effort above RLE. Further, localities with sustained or increased effort above RLE had the largest average percentage of students attending accredited schools. The conclusion being that the practical significance of sustained and increasing effort above RLE has a positive relationship to a higher percentage of students attending accredited schools

The Ballpark podcast Episode 2.8 Where did the opioid epidemic come from?

With the skyrocketing rates of opioid abuse and overdose deaths in the US, John Collins and Alex Soderholm of the International Drugs Policy Unit join us to dissect the key questions behind this epidemic: what's at the root of this opioid crisis? Where are these drugs coming from? And what can the US do about it? This episode features Dr ..

Metal markets and recycling policies: impacts and challenges

An increased understanding of the existing markets for recycled (secondary) metals, including interactions with virgin materialproduction, is essential for public decision-making processes concerning the implementation and evaluation of different categoriesof recycling policies. In this paper, we review the existing literature with the purpose of discussing (1) the impacts of variousrecycling policies on metal markets in which aggregate demand can be met by both primary and secondary production, and (2) anumber of challenges that policy-makers need to confront in choosing between various types of recycling policies and policydesigns. A simple partial equilibrium model is used as a pedagogical tool for shedding light on the impacts of tradable recyclingcredits, virgin material taxes, and recycling subsidies. In a second step, the paper identifies and discusses a few key challengesthat policy-makers will need to address in recycling policy-making. These challenges include improving the functioning ofsecondary material markets by addressing various non-environmental market inefficiencies; identifying and designing (secondbest)policy mixes due to the presence of incomplete monitoring and enforcement of waste disposal behavior, and regulatingenvironmental impacts through price- or quantity-based policies. Throughout the analysis, we consult the empirical literature onthe functioning of scrap metal markets (e.g., steel, copper, and aluminum)

Platonic Occasions: Dialogues on Literature, Art and Culture

In Platonic Occasions, Richard Begam and James Soderholm reflect upon a wide range of thinkers, writers and ideas from Plato, Descartes and Nietzsche to Shakespeare, the Romantics and the Moderns—from Evil, Love and Death to Art, Memory and Mimesis. The dialogues suggest that Percy Shelley was right when he claimed “We are all Greeks,” and yet what have we learned about the initiatives of culture and literature since our classical predecessors? Begam and Soderholm’s ten dialogues function as a series of dual-meditations that take Plato as an intellectual godfather while presenting a new form of dialogic knowledge based on the friction and frisson of two minds contending, inventing and improvising. The authors discuss not only what is healthy and vigorous about Western culture but also consider where that culture is in retreat, as they seek to understand the legacy of the Enlightenment and its relation to the contemporary moment.Platonic Occasionsis an experiment in criticism that enjoins the reader to imagine what the dialogic imagination can do when inspired by Platonic inquiry, but not bound by a single master and the singular mind. Beyond Socratic maieutics and Cartesian meditation is a form of intellectual interplay where it is impossible not to be of two minds