Dynamical properties of dissipative XYZ Heisenberg lattices

We study dynamical properties of dissipative XYZ Heisenberg lattices where anisotropic spin-spin coupling competes with local incoherent spin flip processes. In particular, we explore a region of the parameter space where dissipative magnetic phase transitions for the steady state have been recently predicted by mean-field theories and exact numerical methods. We investigate the asymptotic decay rate towards the steady state both in 1D (up to the thermodynamical limit) and in finite-size 2D lattices, showing that critical dynamics does not occur in 1D, but it can emerge in 2D. We also analyze the behavior of individual homodyne quantum trajectories, which well reveal the nature of the transition

EVS: Head-up or Head Down? Evaluation of Crew Procedure and Human Factors for Enhanced Vision Systems

Feasibility of an EVS head-down procedure is examined that may provide the same operational benefits under low visibility as the FAA rule on Enhanced Flight Visibility that requires the use of a head-up display (HUD). The main element of the described EVS head-down procedure is the crew procedure within cockpit for flying the approach. The task sharing between Pilot-Flying and Pilot-Not-Flying is arranged such that multiple head-up/head-down transitions can be avoided. The pilot-flying is using the head-down display for acquisition of the necessary visual cues in the EVS image. The pilot-not-flying is monitoring the instruments and looking for the outside visual cues

Variational neural network ansatz for steady states in open quantum systems

We present a general variational approach to determine the steady state of open quantum lattice systems via a neural network approach. The steady-state density matrix of the lattice system is constructed via a purified neural network ansatz in an extended Hilbert space with ancillary degrees of freedom. The variational minimization of cost functions associated to the master equation can be performed using a Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling. As a first application and proof-of-principle, we apply the method to the dissipative quantum transverse Ising model.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 54 references, 5 pages of Supplemental Information

I bronzi votivi dal santuario di Ercole ad Alba Fucens

Between 2006 and 2009 the Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici dell’Abruzzo carried out a series of new archaeological excavations in the ancient city of Alba Fucens. Research also extended to the sanctuary of Hercules, and a great many small votive bronzes were found in the area. More than 60 items were recovered between complete and fragmentary examples,. This group of items comprised about 50 representations of Hercules, 2 female/male offerors, 7 clubs, 1 bovine and a few other fragments. According to the published information, the votive bronzes had been deposited in an area carefully organised when the sanctuary underwent reorganisation in the first half of the 1st century BC. This paper examines the votive bronzes found in the Sanctuary of Hercules at Alba Fucens with two main aims: classification with an ‘artisanal’-oriented approach and an attempt to analyse these types of items adopting an economic perspective

Photon transport in a dissipative chain of nonlinear cavities

We analyze a chain of coupled nonlinear optical cavities driven by a coherent source of light localized at one end and subject to uniform dissipation. We characterize photon transport by studying the populations and the photon correlations as a function of position. When complemented with input-output theory, these quantities provide direct information about photon transmission through the system. The position of single- and multi-photon resonances directly reflect the structure of the many-body energy levels. This shows how a study of transport along a coupled cavity array can provide rich information about the strongly correlated (many-body) states of light even in presence of dissipation. By means of a numerical algorithm based on the time-evolving block decimation scheme adapted to mixed states, we are able to simulate arrays up to sixty cavities.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figure

Trajetórias e rotina de prisioneiras por tráfico de drogas: autoras e caodjuvantes

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Sociologia Política, Florianópolis, 2007.Este trabalho traz parte da história de vida de treze mulheres encarceradas no único Presídio Feminino de Santa Catarina, em Florianópolis, acusadas e/ou condenadas por tráfico de drogas proibidas. No Brasil e no mundo, o narcotráfico por si só desperta atenção, mas poucos são os trabalhos a focar a criminalidade à luz das relações de gênero. É o que propomos: compreender em que medida a participação das mulheres no tráfico de drogas ilícitas está permeada pelo papel a elas imposto por nossa cultura e também como a participação delas se intersecciona com as relações afetivas com seus companheiros, pais, irmãos, filhos e com suas mães, irmãs e filhas.Tendo como ponto de partida dados quantitativos e qualitativos, a hipótese central foi: será o ingresso da mulher no tráfico de drogas induzido por seu(s) companheiro(s)? Considerando que autoridades e pesquisadores, como Alba Zaluar (1994), apontavam que as mulheres não eram as protagonistas principais no tráfico de drogas, decidimos ver se isto se confirmava na realidade, porém do ponto de vista das prisioneiras. Assim, com esta primeira hipótese, nos fundamentamos nas teorias de gênero e na revisão da literatura para abordar os seguintes aspectos: criminalidade, vida carcerária e sistema penal e prisional. Embora façamos uso de dados quantitativos, a metodologia do trabalho é qualitativa. As entrevistadas foram selecionadas de duas formas: cruzamento de dados da instituição e convite interpessoal. O roteiro foi elaborado de modo a apreender dois momentos de suas trajetórias de vida: os vários contextos de inserção e o da participação no tráfico de drogas. Em ambos os casos dialogamos com diversos autores. Os resultados são surpreendentes, tanto do ponto de vista prático quanto teórico. Primeiro descortinamos o presídio, damos cor às relações sociais do convívio e do sistema através da rotina das presidiárias na instituição, destacando vários aspectos (rituais de entrada, distribuição e uso do espaço, visitas, vigilância e castigo, etc.). Depois projetamos luz nos relacionamentos afetivos das mulheres entrevistadas para, enfim, perceber que embora o padrão androcêntrico pretenda para os homens tudo que é superior, inclusive dizer que seriam os homens os responsáveis pelo ingresso delas na criminalidade, algumas vezes isto não se confirmou, como mostram nossos dados.This text shows part of the history of life of thirteen women jailed in the only Feminine Penitentiary of Santa Catarina, in Florianópolis, defendant and/or condemned by traffic of illegal drugs. In Brazil and in the world the drug traffic by itself awakes attention, but few are the works to focus crime on the point of view of gender relations. This is what we consider: to also understand at what measure the participation of women in the traffic of illicit drugs it is imposed by the paper they play in our culture (use the term cultura as symbolic system, as the point of view of Laraia (1986, p. 62-63) and as their participation crosses with the affective relations with its friendships, with its mothers, parents, sisters, brothers and children. Having as starting point given quantitative and qualitative dates, the central hypothesis was: what if the ingression of woman in the induced traffic of drugs for their (s) accompanying (s)? Considering that authorities and researchers, as Alba Zaluar (1994), pointed that women were not the main protagonists in the traffic of drugs, we decided to see if this was confirmed in the reality, on the point of view of the prisoners. Thus, with this first hypothesis, which is based on the theories of gender and the revision of literature to approach the following aspects: crime, jail life and prisional system. However we make use of quantitative data, the methodology of the work is qualitative. The interviewed ones had been selected from contacts made in the institution and the script was elaborated in order to apprehend two moments of their trajectories of life: of insertion and of the participation in the traffic of drugs. In both cases we dialogue with some authors. The results are surprising, from the practical point of view as much as theoretical. First we disclosed the penitentiary, giving color to the social relations of the conviviality and the system through the routine of the prisoners in the institution, detaching some aspects (ritual of entrance, distribution and use of the space, visits, monitoring and punishment, etc.). Later we lightened the affective relationships of the women interviewed to, at last, realize that although the androcentric standard intends for men everything that is superior, including to say that the responsible for the ingression of them in crime would be the men, some times this was not confirmed, as our data show

Gods of value. Preliminary remarks on religion and economy in pre-Roman Italy

Despite a long tradition of studies in ancient Mediterranean economic history, a significant lack of studies can be noted in connection with pre-Roman Italy, by which I mean especially the central area of the Italian peninsula between the 8th BCE and the “Romanization”. The tight and profound relation of this area with wide sectors of the Mediterranean world (Phoenicians, Greeks, Iberian area…) and Rome is well known. In particular the Etruscans played a crucial political and commercial role in the Mediterranean setting at least in the Archaic period and the Italic world, with the later phenomenon of the mercatores, contributed to the globalized Mediterranean commercial network of the Hellenistic age. Rome itself, at least in its formative period and down to the beginning of the Republic, must be considered embedded in this network. In pre-Roman Italy sanctuaries and sacred areas are places in which alongside religious practices some fundamental political and economic functions are located, too. The ways in which such sanctuaries became places of storage and use of public goods are in part for us unknown. The process must be probably related to the emergence of the abstract concept of value that, not by chance, also in the Greek world has been connected to the development of the social urban form and to the emergence in particular of the regime of the votive offerings that, introducing the notion of quantitative value, sanctioned the distance with the qualitative expression of value, typical of the previous social organization. As far as the pre-Roman world is concerned we can perceive through the archaeological data the end of the process, in which the so-called religio votiva must be read (as it has been) on the one hand as a religious practice, but on the other hand it is undoubtedly a mean to improve the economic resources of the sanctuaries and consequently of the community itself through a passage of wealth from the private sphere to the public one. Unfortunately a large quantity of these offerings is irremediably lost because made of perishable materials or archaeologically represented by objects of apparently scarce value. But there is still a huge amount of data found in Etruscan and Italic sanctuaries that clearly speak of the function of deposit and management of great quantities of goods by local communities and whose informative potential has been definitely underestimated in scholarship. In particular I am referring to the well-known practice of offering metals in different forms (aes rude, coins, bronze statues and more in general metal objects, …). On these theoretical bases my paper aims to investigate the so-called religio votiva with an economic approach and to analyze the quantitative value of the votive offerings. To reach this goal, I will tackle especially a meaningful study case, a class of material widely investigated in previous researches but with a non-economic approach: the small votive bronzes. Representing both divinities and offerers, they have definitely played a major role in the votive practice both in Tyrrhenian and Adriatic regions between the 7th and the 1st c. BCE (i.e. both in a genuinely pre-Roman period and in a “Romanized” moment). These bronzes are often of poor quality and extremely repetitive, but they are definitely interesting as far as religious, cultural, artisanal and economic considerations are concerned. It is necessary to remember that these objects are made of metal and in particular of the same metal – bronze – that the majority of the most ancient coins in use in central Italy was made of. It is therefore evident that small votive bronzes did hold an intrinsic value and that the massive presence of them in a sanctuary represented a consistent deposit of metal. A direct consequence of these considerations is the fact that a detailed study of these artifacts, based on an accurate analysis that exploits both artisanal aspects and specific set of data concerning dimension and weight, could give us the possibility to shed light on a set of relevant economic aspects of pre-Roman and early “Romanized” Italy