Servicing the federation : the case for metadata harvesting

The paper presents a comparative analysis of data harvesting and distributed computing as complementary models of service delivery within large-scale federated digital libraries. Informed by requirements of flexibility and scalability of federated services, the analysis focuses on the identification and assessment of model invariants. In particular, it abstracts over application domains, services, and protocol implementations. The analytical evidence produced shows that the harvesting model offers stronger guarantees of satisfying the identified requirements. In addition, it suggests a first characterisation of services based on their suitability to either model and thus indicates how they could be integrated in the context of a single federated digital library

Heralded Entanglement of Arbitrary Degree in Remote Qubits

Incoherent scattering of photons off two remote atoms with a Lambda-level structure is used as a basic Young-type interferometer to herald long-lived entanglement of an arbitrary degree. The degree of entanglement, as measured by the concurrence, is found to be tunable by two easily accessible experimental parameters. Fixing one of them to certain values unveils an analog to the Malus' law. An estimate of the variation in the degree of entanglement due to uncertainties in an experimental realization is given.Comment: published version, 4 pages and 2 figure

Phosphate concentration in artificial tears

Background: Irrigating solutions and eye drops may contain phosphates as part of their buffer system. In the presence of epithelial keratopathy, a high concentration of phosphate favours corneal calcification. Knowledge of the phosphate concentration in artificial tear products helps to prevent this sight-threatening complication. This study gives an overview on the amount of phosphate contained in artificial tears. Methods: Fifty-nine samples of commercially available artificial tear preparations were tested. The quantification of phosphate was performed using the molybdate method on a Modular P autoanalyzer. Results: Twenty-six of 59 (44%) artificial tear products had a phosphate concentration above physiological levels (>1.45mmol/l). A phosphate concentration above 25mmol/l was found in nine products (15%), a concentration higher than 50mmol/l in three (5%). Conclusions: Many artificial tear formulations contain unphysiological levels of phosphate, but very high concentrations are found only in a few products. These preparations have the potential to favour the formation of insoluble crystalline calcium phosphate deposits when used on a damaged corneal surface, and should therefore be used cautiousl

Generation of Total Angular Momentum Eigenstates in Remote Qubits

We propose a scheme enabling the universal coupling of angular momentum of $N$ remote noninteracting qubits using linear optical tools only. Our system consists of $N$ single-photon emitters in a $\Lambda$-configuration that are entangled among their long-lived ground-state qubits through suitably designed measurements of the emitted photons. In this manner, we present an experimentally feasible algorithm that is able to generate any of the $2^N$ symmetric and nonsymmetric total angular momentum eigenstates spanning the Hilbert space of the $N$-qubit compound.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, improved presentation. Accepted in Physical Review

A versatile source of polarization-entangled photons

We propose a method for the generation of a large variety of entangled states, encoded in the polarization degrees of freedom of N photons, within the same experimental setup. Starting with uncorrelated photons, emitted from N arbitrary single photon sources, and using linear optical tools only, we demonstrate the creation of all symmetric states, e.g., GHZ- and W-states, as well as all symmetric and non-symmetric total angular momentum eigenstates of the N qubit compound.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

On the feasibility of pentamode mechanical metamaterials

Conceptually, all conceivable three-dimensional mechanical materials can be built from pentamode materials. Pentamodes also enable to implement three-dimensional transformation acoustics - the analogue of transformation optics. However, pentamodes have not been realized experimentally to the best of our knowledge. Here, we investigate inasmuch the pentamode theoretical ideal suggested by Milton and Cherkaev in 1995 can be approximated by a metamaterial with current state-of-the-art lithography. Using numerical calculations calibrated by our fabricated three-dimensional microstructures, we find that the figure of merit, i.e., the ratio of bulk modulus to shear modulus, can realistically be made as large as about 1,000.Comment: 4 pages and 5 figure

Polar catastrophe and electronic reconstructions at the LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interface: evidence from optical second harmonic generation

The so-called "polar catastrophe", a sudden electronic reconstruction taking place to compensate for the interfacial ionic polar discontinuity, is currently considered as a likely factor to explain the surprising conductivity of the interface between the insulators LaAlO3 and SrTiO3. We applied optical second harmonic generation, a technique that a priori can detect both mobile and localized interfacial electrons, to investigating the electronic polar reconstructions taking place at the interface. As the LaAlO3 film thickness is increased, we identify two abrupt electronic rearrangements: the first takes place at a thickness of 3 unit cells, in the insulating state; the second occurs at a thickness of 4-6 unit cells, i.e., just above the threshold for which the samples become conducting. Two possible physical scenarios behind these observations are proposed. The first is based on an electronic transfer into localized electronic states at the interface that acts as a precursor of the conductivity onset. In the second scenario, the signal variations are attributed to the strong ionic relaxations taking place in the LaAlO3 layer

Coherent photon bremsstrahlung and dynamics of heavy-ion collisions: comparison of different models

Differential spectra of coherent photon bremsstrahlung in relativistic heavy ion collisions are calculated within various schematic models of the projectile-target stopping. Two versions of the degradation length model, based on a phenomenological deceleration law, are considered. The simple shock wave model is studied analytically. The predictions of these models agree in the soft photon limit, where the spectrum is determined only by the final velocity distribution of charged particles. The results of these models in the case of central Au+Au collisions at various bombarding energies are compared with the predictions of the microscopic transport model UrQMD. It is shown that at the AGS energy the coherent photon bremsstrahlung exceeds the photon yield from $\pi^0$-decays at photon energies \omega\loo 50 MeV.Comment: 23 pages RevTeX, 9 eps Figure