Conditions for Nondistortion Interrogation of Quantum System

Under some physical considerations, we present a universal formulation to study the possibility of localizing a quantum object in a given region without disturbing its unknown internal state. When the interaction between the object and probe wave function takes place only once, we prove the necessary and sufficient condition that the object's presence can be detected in an initial state preserving way. Meanwhile, a conditioned optimal interrogation probability is obtained.Comment: 5 pages, Revtex, 1 figures, Presentation improved, corollary 1 added. To appear in Europhysics Letter

Elemental surface analysis at ambient pressure by electron-induced x-ray fluorescence

The development of a portable surface elemental analysis tool, based on the excitation of characteristic x rays from samples at ambient pressure with a focused electron beam is described. This instrument relies on the use of a thin electron transmissive membrane to isolate the vacuum of the electron source from the ambient atmosphere. The major attributes of this instrument include rapid (several minutes) spectrum acquisition, nondestructive evaluation of elemental composition, no sample preparation, and high-to-medium (several hundreds µm) spatial resolution. The instrument proof-of-principle has been demonstrated in a laboratory setup by obtaining energy dispersive x-ray spectra from metal and mineral samples

Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study

School-based mentoring is one of the fastest growing forms of mentoring in the US today; yet, few studies have rigorously examined its impacts. This landmark random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring is the first national study of this program model. It involves 10 agencies, 71 schools and 1,139 9- to 16-year-old youth randomly assigned to either a treatment group of program participants or a control group of their non-mentored peers. Surveys were administered to all participating youth, their teachers and mentors in the fall of 2004, spring of 2005 and late fall of 2005.The report describes the programs and their participants and answers several key questions, including: Does school-based mentoring work? What kinds of mentoring experiences help to ensure benefits? How much do these programs cost? Our findings highlight both the strengths of this program model and its current limitations and suggest several recommendations for refining this promising model-recommendations that Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies across the country are already working to implement

Making a Difference in Schools: The Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring Impact Study Executive Summary

Serving almost 870,000 youth nationwide, school-based mentoring is one of the fastest growing forms of mentoring in the US today. Making a Difference in Schools presents findings from a landmark random assignment impact study of Big Brothers Big Sisters School-Based Mentoring -- the first national study of this program model. This executive summary highlights nine key findings from the full report and outlines several recommendations for policy and practice

Fully Dynamic Matching in Bipartite Graphs

Maximum cardinality matching in bipartite graphs is an important and well-studied problem. The fully dynamic version, in which edges are inserted and deleted over time has also been the subject of much attention. Existing algorithms for dynamic matching (in general graphs) seem to fall into two groups: there are fast (mostly randomized) algorithms that do not achieve a better than 2-approximation, and there slow algorithms with \O(\sqrt{m}) update time that achieve a better-than-2 approximation. Thus the obvious question is whether we can design an algorithm -- deterministic or randomized -- that achieves a tradeoff between these two: a $o(\sqrt{m})$ approximation and a better-than-2 approximation simultaneously. We answer this question in the affirmative for bipartite graphs. Our main result is a fully dynamic algorithm that maintains a 3/2 + \eps approximation in worst-case update time O(m^{1/4}\eps^{/2.5}). We also give stronger results for graphs whose arboricity is at most \al, achieving a (1+ \eps) approximation in worst-case time O(\al (\al + \log n)) for constant \eps. When the arboricity is constant, this bound is $O(\log n)$ and when the arboricity is polylogarithmic the update time is also polylogarithmic. The most important technical developement is the use of an intermediate graph we call an edge degree constrained subgraph (EDCS). This graph places constraints on the sum of the degrees of the endpoints of each edge: upper bounds for matched edges and lower bounds for unmatched edges. The main technical content of our paper involves showing both how to maintain an EDCS dynamically and that and EDCS always contains a sufficiently large matching. We also make use of graph orientations to help bound the amount of work done during each update.Comment: Longer version of paper that appears in ICALP 201

Atmospheric electron x-ray spectrometer

The present invention comprises an apparatus for performing in-situ elemental analyses of surfaces. The invention comprises an atmospheric electron x-ray spectrometer with an electron column which generates, accelerates, and focuses electrons in a column which is isolated from ambient pressure by a:thin, electron transparent membrane. After passing through the membrane, the electrons impinge on the sample in atmosphere to generate characteristic x-rays. An x-ray detector, shaping amplifier, and multi-channel analyzer are used for x-ray detection and signal analysis. By comparing the resultant data to known x-ray spectral signatures, the elemental composition of the surface can be determined

Quasi-long range order in glass states of impure liquid crystals, magnets, and superconductors

In this review we consider glass states of several disordered systems: vortices in impure superconductors, amorphous magnets, and nematic liquid crystals in random porous media. All these systems can be described by the random-field or random-anisotropy O(N) model. Even arbitrarily weak disorder destroys long range order in the O(N) model. We demonstrate that at weak disorder and low temperatures quasi-long range order emerges. In quasi-long-range-ordered phases the correlation length is infinite and correlation functions obey power dependencies on the distance. In pure systems quasi-long range order is possible only in the lower critical dimension and only in the case of Abelian symmetry. In the presence of disorder this type of ordering turns out to be more common. It exists in a range of dimensions and is not prohibited by non-Abelian symmetries.Comment: 32 page

Testing CPT Invariance in B^0_d-\bar{B}^0_d and B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s Oscillations

Recent CDF and D0 measurements of B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s mixing make it possible to search for CP violation and test CPT symmetry in a variety of B_s decays. Considering both coherent B^0_d\bar{B}^0_d decays at the \Upsilon (4S) resonance and coherent B^0_s\bar{B}^0_s decays at the \Upsilon (5S) resonance, we formulate their time-dependent and time-integrated rates by postulating small CPT violation in B^0_d-\bar{B}^0_d and B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s oscillations. We show that the opposite-sign dilepton events from either C-odd or C-even B^0_q\bar{B}^0_q states (for q = d or s) can be used to determine or constrain the CPT-violating parameter at a super-B factory. The possibility of distinguishing between the effect of CPT violation and that of \Delta B = -\Delta Q transitions is also discussed.Comment: LaTex 12 pages. A minor change. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

When Can You Pick Up Fallen Fruit?

A poster discussing applying ideas from the Talmud to business