Perspectives for quantum state engineering via high nonlinearity in a double-EIT regime

We analyse the possibilities for quantum state engineering offered by a model for Kerr-type nonlinearity enhanced by electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which was recently proposed by Petrosyan and Kurizki [2002, Phys. Rev. A, 65, 33833]. We go beyond the semiclassical treatment and derive a quantum version of the model with both a full Hamiltonian approach and an analysis in terms of dressed states. The preparation of an entangled coherent state via a cross-phase modulation effect is demonstrated. We briefly show that the violation of locality for such an entangled coherent state is robust against low detection efficiency. Finally, we investigate the possibility of a bi-chromatic photon blockade realized via the interaction of a low density beam of atoms with a bi-modal electromagnetic cavity which is externally driven. We show the effectiveness of the blockade effect even when more than a single atom is inside the cavity. The possibility to control two different cavity modes allows some insights into the generation of an entangled state of cavity modes.

Welfare Effort and Poverty from the Monetary and Capabilities Approach: A Cross-Country Analysis in Latin American and the Caribbean (1990-2010)

There is abundant empirical evidence on the negative relationship between welfare effort and poverty. However, poverty indicators traditionally used have been representative of the monetary approach, excluding its multidimensional reality from the analysis. Using three regression techniques for the period 1990-2010 and controlling for demographic and cyclical factors, this paper examines the relationship between social spending per capita —as the indicator of welfare effort— and poverty in up to 21 countries of the region. The proportion of the population with an income below its national basic basket of goods and services (PM1) and the proportion of population with an income below 50% of the median income per capita (PM2) were the two poverty indicators considered from the monetarist approach to measure poverty. From the capability approach the proportion of the population with food inadequacy (PC1) and the proportion of the population without access to improved water sources or sanitation facilities (PC2) were used. The fi ndings confi rm that social spending is actually useful to explain changes in poverty (PM1, PC1 and PC2), as there is a high negative and signifi cant correlation between the variables before and after controlling for demographic and cyclical factors. In two regression techniques, social spending per capita did not show a negative relationship with the PM2. Countries with greater welfare effort for the period 1990-2010 were not necessarily those with the lowest level of poverty. Ultimately social spending per capita was more useful to explain changes in poverty from the capability approach.

Dependence of the ion energy on the parameters of the laser pulse and target in the radiation-pressure-dominated regime of acceleration

When the dominant mechanism for ion acceleration is the laser radiation pressure, the conversion efficiency of the laser energy into the energy of relativistic ions may be very high. Stability analysis of a thin plasma layer accelerated by the radiation pressure shows that Raleigh-Taylor instability may enhance plasma inhomogeneity. In the linear stage of instability, the plasma layer decays into separate bunches, which are accelerated by the radiation pressure similarly to clusters accelerated under the action of an electromagnetic wave. The energy and luminosity of an ion beam accelerated in the radiation-pressure-dominated regime are calculated.

Time of flight mass spectrometry for quantitative data analysis in fast transient studies using a Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP) reactor

A Time of flight (ToF) mass spectrometer suitable in terms of sensitivity, detector response and time resolution, for application in fast transient Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP) kinetic catalyst characterization is reported. Technical difficulties associated with such application as well as the solutions implemented in terms of adaptations of the ToF apparatus are discussed. The performance of the ToF was validated and the full linearity of the specific detector over the full dynamic range was explored in order to ensure its applicability for the TAP application. The reported TAP-ToF setup is the first system that achieves the high level of sensitivity allowing monitoring of the full 0-200 AMU range simultaneously with sub-millisecond time resolution. In this new setup, the high sensitivity allows the use of low intensity pulses ensuring that transport through the reactor occurs in the Knudsen diffusion regime and that the data can, therefore, be fully analysed using the reported theoretical TAP models and data processing.

Regulatory regime change in Turkish banks:Reactive or proactive?

This paper examines the positive contributions made toward restructuring the regulatory framework of Turkey's banking and financial sectors prior to and post the 2000–2001 financial crisis. Drawing on a framework initially developed by Onis and Senses, 2007 and Onis and Senses, 2009 and further referred to by Onis, 2009 and Onis, 2010 it argues that financial reforms undertaken by the Turkish government would not have been successful without the strong support of domestic coalitions. While the external pressures put on the Turkish government from the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank and the European Union for financial reforms were necessary to kick start the reforms as a reactive process, these pressures on their own may have served only the interests of financial business elites at the expense of the broader stakeholders. Empirical data for the study was collected from documentary analysis of key financial institutions and interviews with twenty major Turkish regulatory agents and other stakeholders. The paper then discusses how the perceptions of these stakeholders are embodied into, and have influenced, regulatory regime change in Turkey from a reactive state to a more proactive one.

A European perspective on progress in moving away from the mouse bioassay for marine-toxin analysis

This review considers the ethical and technical problems currently associated with employing mouse bioassays for marine-toxin analysis and the challenges and the difficulties that alternative methods must overcome before being deemed applicable for implementation into a regulatory monitoring regime. We discuss proposed alternative methods, classified as functional, immunological and analytical, for well-established European toxins as well as emerging toxins in European waters, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages. We also consider emerging tools and technologies for future toxin analysis.

Vulnerability and multiple deprivation perspectives on economic exclusion in Europe: A latent class analysis

In this paper we address issues relating to vulnerability to economic exclusion and levels of economic exclusion in Europe. We do so by applying latent class models to data from the European Community Household Panel for thirteen countries. This approach allows us to distinguish between vulnerability to economic exclusion and exposure to multiple deprivation at a particular point in time. The results of our analysis confirm that in every country it is possible to distinguish between a vulnerable and a non-vulnerable class. Association between income poverty, life-style deprivation and subjective economic strain is accounted for by allocating individuals to the categories of this latent variable. The size of the vulnerable class varies across countries in line with expectations derived from welfare regime theory. Between class differentiation is weakest in social democratic regimes but otherwise the pattern of differentiation is remarkably similar. The key discriminatory factor is life-style deprivation, followed by income and economic strain. Social class and employment status are powerful predictors of latent class membership in all countries but the strength of these relationships varies across welfare regimes. Individual biography and life events are also related to vulnerability to economic exclusion. However, there is no evidence that they account for any significant part of the socio-economic structuring of vulnerability and no support is found for the hypothesis that social exclusion has come to transcend class boundaries and become a matter of individual biography. However, the extent of socio-economic structuring does vary substantially across welfare regimes. Levels of economic exclusion, in the sense of current exposure to multiple deprivation, also vary systematically by welfare regime and social class. Taking both vulnerability to economic exclusion and levels of exclusion into account suggests that care should be exercised in moving from evidence on the dynamic nature of poverty and economic exclusion to arguments relating to the superiority of selective over universal social policies.

Performance Analysis of Randomized Distributed Space-Time Codes over Composite Gamma/Lognormal Fading Channels

This work investigates the end-to-end performance of randomized distributed space-time codes with complex Gaussian distribution, when employed in a wireless relay network. The relaying nodes are assumed to adopt a decode-and-forward strategy and transmissions are affected by small and large scale fading phenomena. Extremely tight, analytical approximations of the end-to-end symbol error probability and of the end-to-end outage probability are derived and successfully validated through Monte-Carlo simulation. For the high signal-to-noise ratio regime, a simple, closed-form expression for the symbol error probability is further provided.

Spatial and Temporal Changes in Soil Organic Carbon Assessment using an Integrated Geostatistical and Compositional Data Analysis Approach

The Irish and UK governments, along with other countries, have made a commitment to limit the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by reducing emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. This can be achieved (in part) through increasing the sequestration of CO2 from the atmosphere including monitoring the amount stored in vegetation and soils. A large proportion of soil carbon is held within peat due to the relatively high carbon density of peat and organic-rich soils. This is particularly important for a country such as Ireland, where some 16% of the land surface is covered by peat. For Northern Ireland, it has been estimated that the total amount of carbon stored in vegetation is 4.4Mt compared to 386Mt stored within peat and soils. As a result it has become increasingly important to measure and monitor changes in stores of carbon in soils. The conservation and restoration of peat covered areas, although ongoing for many years, has become increasingly important. This is summed up in current EU policy outlined by the European Commission (2012) which seeks to assess the relative contributions of the different inputs and outputs of organic carbon and organic matter to and from soil. Results are presented from the EU-funded Tellus Border Soil Carbon Project (2011 to 2013) which aimed to improve current estimates of carbon in soil and peat across Northern Ireland and the bordering counties of the Republic of Ireland.
Historical reports and previous surveys provide baseline data. To monitor change in peat depth and soil organic carbon, these historical data are integrated with more recently acquired airborne geophysical (radiometric) data and ground-based geochemical data generated by two surveys, the Tellus Project (2004-2007: covering Northern Ireland) and the EU-funded Tellus Border project (2011-2013) covering the six bordering counties of the Republic of Ireland, Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth. The concept being applied is that saturated organic-rich soil and peat attenuate gamma-radiation from underlying soils and rocks. This research uses the degree of spatial correlation (coregionalization) between peat depth, soil organic carbon (SOC) and the attenuation of the radiometric signal to update a limited sampling regime of ground-based measurements with remotely acquired data. To comply with the compositional nature of the SOC data (perturbations of loss on ignition [LOI] data), a compositional data analysis approach is investigated. Contemporaneous ground-based measurements allow corroboration for the updated mapped outputs. This provides a methodology that can be used to improve estimates of soil carbon with minimal impact to sensitive habitats (like peat bogs), but with maximum output of data and knowledge.

Fingerprint Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) analysis in Goat’s Milk and Halloumi Cheese as Marker for Authentication of Region of Origin

Goats’ milk is responsible for unique traditional products such as Halloumi cheese. The characteristics of Halloumi depend on the original features of the milk and on the conditions under which the milk has been produced such as feeding regime of the animals or region of production. Using a range of milk (33) and Halloumi (33) samples collected over a year from three different locations in Cyprus (A, Anogyra; K, Kofinou; P, Paphos), the potential for fingerprint VOC analysis as marker to authenticate Halloumi was investigated. This unique set up consists of an in-injector thermo desorption (VOCtrap needle) and a chromatofocusing system based on mass spectrometry (VOCscanner). The mass spectra of all the analyzed samples are treated by multivariate analysis (Principle component analysis and Discriminant functions analysis). Results showed that the highland area of product (P) is clearly identified in milks produced (discriminant score 67%). It is interesting to note that the higher similitude found on milks from regions “A” and “K” (with P being distractive; discriminant score 80%) are not ‘carried over’ on the cheeses (higher similitude between regions “A” and “P”, with “K” distinctive). Data have been broken down into three seasons. Similarly, the seasonality differences observed in different milks are not necessarily reported on the produced cheeses. This is expected due to the different VOC signatures developed in cheeses as part of the numerous biochemical changes during its elaboration compared to milk. VOC however it is an additional analytical tool that can aid in the identification of region origin in dairy products.

Social Services of General Interest: The EU Competence Regime and a Constitution of Social Governance

In discussing the potential role of the EU, the Member States, their composite parts and civil society organisations in establishing social services of general interest at sub-national, national, transnational and EU wide levels, this chapter explores the EU competence regime for social services of general interest. Its analysis contradicts a tendency in academic writing to demand protection of national prerogatives for shaping welfare states against EU intervention at all costs, because this would be counterproductive for the progress of the EU project. It submits that an EU constitution of social governance should create mixed responsibilities so that the EU, states and civil society actors support each other in creating preconditions for social integration in the EU. It uses the field of social services of general interests as an example of applying this general theoretical concept.

I/Q imbalance in AF dual-hop relaying: Performance analysis in Nakagami-m fading

We analyze the performance of amplify-and-forward dual-hop relaying systems in the presence of in-phase and quadrature-phase imbalance (IQI) at the relay node. In particular, an exact analytical expression for and tight lower bounds on the outage probability are derived over independent, non-identically distributed Nakagami-m fading channels. Moreover, tractable upper and lower bounds on the ergodic capacity are presented at arbitrary signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Some special cases of practical interest (e.g., Rayleigh and Nakagami-0.5 fading) are also studied. An asymptotic analysis is performed in the high SNR regime, where we observe that IQI results in a ceiling effect on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR), which depends only on the level of I/Q impairments, i.e., the joint image rejection ratio. Finally, the optimal I/Q amplitude and phase mismatch parameters are provided for maximizing the SINR ceiling, thus improving the system performance. An interesting observation is that, under a fixed total phase mismatch constraint, it is optimal to have the same level of transmitter (TX) and receiver (RX) phase mismatch at the relay node, while the optimal values for the TX and RX amplitude mismatch should be inversely proportional to each other.

Inexact-aware architecture design for ultra-low power bio-signal analysis

This study introduces an inexact, but ultra-low power, computing architecture devoted to the embedded analysis of bio-signals. The platform operates at extremely low voltage supply levels to minimise energy consumption. In this scenario, the reliability of static RAM (SRAM) memories cannot be guaranteed when using conventional 6-transistor implementations. While error correction codes and dedicated SRAM implementations can ensure correct operations in this near-threshold regime, they incur in significant area and energy overheads, and should therefore be employed judiciously. Herein, the authors propose a novel scheme to design inexact computing architectures that selectively protects memory regions based on their significance, i.e. their impact on the end-to-end quality of service, as dictated by the bio-signal application characteristics. The authors illustrate their scheme on an industrial benchmark application performing the power spectrum analysis of electrocardiograms. Experimental evidence showcases that a significance-based memory protection approach leads to a small degradation in the output quality with respect to an exact implementation, while resulting in substantial energy gains, both in the memory and the processing subsystem.

(Des)vantagens do regime especial de tributação dos grupos de sociedades

Dissertação para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Contabilidade e Finanças Orientador: Mestre, Gabriela Pinheiro

Adesão ao regime terapêutico na pessoa com enfarte agudo do miócardio: contributo dos enfermeiros no internamento hospita

RESUMO: O Enfarte Agudo do Miocárdio (EAM) representa um dos principais problemas de saúde pública em Portugal. A rápida intervenção nos factores de risco determinantes da saúde cardíaca pode ter um impacto positivo em vários indicadores de saúde. O objectivo final dessa intervenção passa por capacitar a pessoa, para que, autonomamente, adopte um conjunto de comportamentos de saúde, baseados em estilos de vida protectores da saúde cardíaca, que favorecem positivamente o processo de reabilitação. Esta procura e aquisição do comportamento de saúde, adesão ao regime terapêutico, deve ser desenvolvido em parceria com os profissionais de saúde. O hospital representa a porta de entrada da pessoa com EAM no sistema de saúde. É neste contacto que se inicia uma intervenção de sensibilização e promoção da adesão ao regime terapêutico. Sendo os enfermeiros um grupo profissional que estabelece uma relação continua com a pessoa, importa conhecer um conjunto de dimensões do desempenho dos enfermeiros na promoção da adesão ao regime terapêutico. Breve referência ao desenho de estudo. Foram incluídas no estudo 143 enfermeiros de 9 serviços hospitalares da Região de Saúde de Lisboa e Vale do Tejo. Os dados foram obtidos através de um questionário auto-preenchido. Os dados mostraram que a população de enfermeiros é jovem (M= 30,5: dp= 8,0), 49% têm uma idade £ 26 anos e apresenta pouca experiência profissional (M=7,7; dp= 7,6), 48,2% exerce a profissão há menos de 3 anos. A antiguidade no serviço actual é reduzida (M= 4,7; dp= 4,6), 48,9% estão no serviço há menos de 2 anos. Os enfermeiros acreditam que deviam intervir com mais frequência nos factores de risco fisiológicos e comportamentais que nos factores psicossociais e ambientais; a confiança que têm nas capacidades para intervir nos factores de risco fisiológicos e comportamentais é maior que nos factores psicossociais e ambientais e no último ano, intervieram mais frequentemente nos factores de risco fisiológicos e comportamentais que nos psicossociais e ambientais. O “ensaio” da validação da escala de Will scale de Anderson et al (2004), sobre a capacidade de intervenção na saúde cardíaca, mostrou que o teste de Esfericidade de Bartlett e Medida de adequação da amostragem de Kaiser-Meyer- Olkin (KMO) permitiram a realização da análise factorial em componentes principais (AFCP). Da AFCP emergiram 16 factores, os mesmos que no estudo original de Anderson et al (2004), que revelaram boa consistência interna, com valores de alpha de Cronbach que variaram entre 0,71 a 0,98. Os resultados revelam a necessidade de sensibilizar os enfermeiros para valorizar a intervenção no âmbito dos factores de risco psicossociais e ambientais para promover a adesão ao regime terapêutico. Sugerem ainda que a intervenção baseada na evidência pode ser potenciada de forma a melhorar as práticas de cuidados dos enfermeiros. ABSTRACT: Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the most important problems in public health in Portugal. A prompt intervention in cardiac health determinants means a positive impact in health outcomes, individually and collectively. The main purpose of this intervention lays on patient’s empowerment so he or she becomes able to choose healthy behaviours, based on heart health protective life styles, and therefore to manage his/hers therapeutic regime. This search and acquisition of health behaviours leading to therapeutic regime adherence may positively have an influence on the whole rehabilitation process and it must be developed in partnership with health workers. MI patients’ first contact with the Health System usually happens at the Hospital. Here the first steps are taken to start an intervention in order to promote therapeutic regime adherence. Nurses are a group of health workers who establish a unique and continuous relation with patients, so it matters to have knowledge of their performance skills that can actually promote a healthy behaviours and increase therapeutic regime adherence. Short Study design The study sample includes 143 nurses working on 9 different hospital wards, belonging to the Lisboa and Tejo’s Valley Health Region, in the district of Lisbon. Data were collected trough a self-administered questionnaire. It revealed that the nurses sample is a young population (M=30,5; dp=8,0), 49% of whom are aged less than 26 years old and has little professional experience (M=7,7; dp= 7,6); 48,2% work has nurses for less than 3 years. There’s a low percentage of seniority (M=4,7; dp=4,6), 48,9% of nurses work in these wards for less than 2 years. Nurses believe they should have intervene more frequently in physiological and behaviour risk factors than in psychological, social and environmental factors; they have greater confidence in their ability to intervene in physiological and behaviour risk factors than to intervene in psychological, social and environmental factors. In last year they took interventions more frequently in physiological and behaviour risk factors than in the other health determinants. The Scale Validation “essay” on Will Scale (Anderson et al, 2004), about heart health intervention capacity, revealed that the Bartlett’s test sphericity and the Kaiser-Meyer- Olkin’s (KMO) appropriate sample measure allowed the factorial analysis on main components (FAMC). From FAMC emerged 16 factors, the same number found on Anderson’s et al (2004) study, revealing good internal consistence, with Cronbach’s alpha values that varied between 0,71 and 0,98. The results point a need for nurses to attribute bigger value to other health determinants intervention - such as psychological, social and environmental determinants - so they’ll take part in promoting therapeutic regime adherence. The results also suggest t