Search

This article addresses the role of small states in addressing security issues in Central Europe. Through an examination of the development of the Rapacki Plan, the authors trace the distinctive features of the national interests of small states in both Western and Eastern Europe. These interests were oriented towards the advancement of European integration, the resolution of the German question, and the mitigation of political and economic dependence on the USSR. Special attention is given to the Federal Republic of Germany’s (FRG) membership in NATO and the roles played by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other alliance members in attempts to address European security issues at the level of small states. Although the Rapacki Plan was never fully realized, its objectives were partially achieved. First, the arming of the FRG with American nuclear weapons and the deployment of American intermediate-range missiles on its territory were prevented; second, economic cooperation expanded, initiating the erosion of the “Iron Curtain”; third, a “universal idea of nuclear-free zones” emerged; and fourth, concrete steps were taken to prevent nuclear war.

Abstract Entanglement and coherence are fundamental properties of quantum systems, promising to power near-future quantum technologies, such as quantum computation, quantum communication, and quantum metrology. Yet, their quantification, rather than mere detection, generally requires reconstructing the spectrum of quantum states, i.e., experimentally challenging measurement sets that increase exponentially with the system size. Here, we demonstrate quantitative bounds to operationally useful entanglement and coherence that are universally valid, analytically computable, and experimentally friendly. Specifically, our main theoretical results are lower and upper bounds to the coherent information and the relative entropy of coherence in terms of local and global purities of quantum states. To validate our proposal, we experimentally implement two purity detection methods in an optical system: shadow estimation with random measurements and collective measurements on pairs of state copies. The experiment shows that both the coherent information and the relative entropy of coherence of pure and mixed unknown quantum states can be bounded by purity functions. Our research offers an efficient means of verifying large-scale quantum information processing.

The fulfillment of the key function of criminal proceedings – the resolution of the case on the merits – is impossible without criminal procedural knowledge of all the circumstances of the crime committed. The foundation of this activity is criminal procedure and evidence, which is a very complex, multi-level system. The foundation of such a system is evidence. At present, there are serious contradictions in how the sources of evidentiary information, evidence of practice, and proof are interrelated. Collection, verification, evaluation and presentation of evidence, both in theory and in practice, often give rise to non-legal, unfair and unjustified criminal procedural decisions in pre-trial proceedings and in court. Despite the plethora if views on the theory of evidence, the lack of consistency in investigative and judicial practice with regard to the evidence suggests that at present there are a large number of unresolved problems in this field as well as on the legislative level. In this regard, it seems necessary to conduct a study on the historical and legal aspects of the institute of evidence and proof in domestic legislation in order to identify the prerequisites of its origin and patterns of development. The conducted research has theoretical and practical significance. First, it contributes to the development of the topic under discussion. Second, the identified regularities allow us to use them to develop recommendations on improving the current criminal procedural legislation. The author concludes that with lapse of time, the concept of evidence has changed: from a means of substantiating guilt in “evidence-argument” terms to an element of the system of evidence including source, content and procedural form. In addition, the criteria for analyzing the development of evidence law have been formulated.

Assessment of practical quantum information processing (QIP) remains partial without understanding limits imposed by noise. Unfortunately, mere description of noise grows exponentially with system size, becoming cumbersome even for modest sized systems of imminent practical interest. We fulfill the need for estimates on performing noisy quantum state preparation, verification, and observation. To do the estimation we propose fast numerical algorithms to maximize the expectation value of any $d$-dimensional observable over states of bounded purity. This bound on purity factors in noise in a measurable way. Our fastest algorithm takes $O(d)$ steps if the eigendecomposition of the observable is known, otherwise takes $O(d^3)$ steps at worst. The algorithms also solve maximum likelihood estimation for quantum state tomography with convex and even non-convex purity constraints. Numerics show performance of our key sub-routine (it finds in linear time a probability vector with bounded norm that most overlaps with a fixed vector) can be several orders of magnitude faster than a common state-of-the-art convex optimization solver. Our work fosters a practical way forward to asses limitations on QIP imposed by quantum noise. Along the way, we also give a simple but fundamental insight, noisy systems (equivalently noisy Hamiltonians) always give higher ground-state energy than their noiseless counterparts.

Fabry disease is a lysosomal storage disorder caused by a significant decrease in the activity or absence of the enzyme α-galactosidase A. The diagnostics of Fabry disease during newborn screening are reasonable, due to the availability of enzyme replacement therapy. This paper presents an electrochemical method using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible ion-sensitive field effect transistors (ISFETs) with hafnium oxide-sensitive surfaces for the detection of α-galactosidase A activity in dried blood spot extracts. The capability of ISFETs to detect the reaction catalyzed by α-galactosidase A was demonstrated. The buffer composition was optimized to provide suitable conditions for both enzyme and ISFET performance. The use of ISFET structures as sensor elements allowed for the label-free detection of enzymatic reactions with melibiose, a natural substrate of α-galactosidase A, instead of a synthetic fluorogenic one. ISFET chips were packaged with printed circuit boards and microfluidic reaction chambers to enable long-term signal measurement using a custom device. The packaged sensors were demonstrated to discriminate between normal and inhibited GLA activity in dried blood spots extracts. The described method offers a promising solution for increasing the widespread distribution of newborn screening of Fabry disease.

Y-box-binding proteins (YB proteins) are multifunctional DNA- and RNA-binding proteins that play an important role in the regulation of gene expression. The high homology of their cold shock domains and the similarity between their long, unstructured C-terminal domains suggest that Y-box-binding proteins may have similar functions in a cell. Here, we consider the functional interchangeability of the somatic YB proteins YB-1 and YB-3. RNA-seq and Ribo-seq are used to track changes in the mRNA abundance or mRNA translation in HEK293T cells solely expressing YB-1, YB-3, or neither of them. We show that YB proteins have a dual effect on translation. Although the expression of YB proteins stimulates global translation, YB-1 and YB-3 inhibit the translation of their direct CLIP-identified mRNA targets. The impact of YB-1 and YB-3 on the translation of their mRNA targets is similar, which suggests that they can substitute each other in inhibiting the translation of their mRNA targets in HEK293T cells.

After the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, many buildings and structures received mechanical, thermal, or combined damages. Quick and high-quality restoration, strengthening, protection of reinforced concrete and brick load-bearing elements of structures of buildings and structures is an urgent problem today. That is why the application of modern technical solutions with the use of composite materials allows in the shortest possible time to restore and strengthening damaged structural elements without the use of material-intensive technologies and additional loading of buildings and foundations. In this article, the technology of restoration and strengthening of load-bearing brick columns using the Mapei FRG System is considered on the example of the restoration of a building in the city of Izyum. As a result, it was possible to restore and strengthen the bearing capacity of all elements of the building in the shortest possible time without the use of complex mechanisms and without additional load.

Based on the results of the studies, it has been found that the live weight of quails increased relative to the control by 6.9 (P

Information policies such as scores, ratings, and recommendations are increasingly shaping society's choices in high-stakes domains. We provide a framework to study the welfare implications of information policies on a population of heterogeneous individuals. We define and characterize the Bayes welfare set , consisting of the population's utility profiles that are feasible under some information policy. The Pareto frontier of this set can be recovered by a series of standard Bayesian persuasion problems. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions under which an information policy exists that Pareto dominates the no-information policy. We illustrate our results with applications to data leakage, price discrimination, and credit ratings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entanglement and coherence are fundamental properties of quantum systems, promising to power near-future quantum technologies, such as quantum computation, quantum communication, and quantum metrology. Yet, their quantification, rather than mere detection, generally requires reconstructing the spectrum of quantum states, i.e., experimentally challenging measurement sets that increase exponentially with the system size. Here, we demonstrate quantitative bounds to operationally useful entanglement and coherence that are universally valid, analytically computable, and experimentally friendly. Specifically, our main theoretical results are lower and upper bounds to the coherent information and the relative entropy of coherence in terms of local and global purities of quantum states. To validate our proposal, we experimentally implement two purity detection methods in an optical system: shadow estimation with random measurements and collective measurements on pairs of state copies. The experiment shows that both the coherent information and the relative entropy of coherence of pure and mixed unknown quantum states can be bounded by purity functions. Our research offers an efficient means of verifying large-scale quantum information processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The object of research is the processes of structure formation and modeling of the properties of a specialized binder. The development of new binding materials based on production waste with high early strength indicators could make it possible to speed up construction period and is one of the urgent tasks at present. This study focused on the creation of binders based on the СаО–Fe2O3 system. The developed binder of the СаО–Fe2O3 system has the following composition: limestone – 26 %; red slime – 74 %, which has a dense fine-porous structure and high early strength indicators – 22.5 MPa with a density of 1960 kg m³. There is also an increase in the average density of samples annealed at a temperature of 1200 ℃ for 60 minutes, ground and mixed with water, in comparison with samples fired at 1100 ℃ for 60 minutes, by 500 kg/m³, due to new formations. The prospect of using modified composite binders with special functional properties has been substantiated. The use of production waste based on the СаО-Fe2O3 system could make it possible to obtain materials with high physical and mechanical properties, which makes them promising for application in various areas of the construction industry. The development of such binders will help reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry, owing to the use of affordable and effective components. This approach will not only contribute to the improvement of the quality of building materials but also help reduce the ecological burden on the environment by using alternative resources and industrial waste. The developed binder could be used for the development of solutions for 3d printing, as well as repair of concrete coatings [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A numerical investigation of the influence of porosity, pore size, and planar defects (microcracks) on the elastic constants, compressive and tensile strength of a fine-grained matrix in a SiO2 refractory ceramics is presented. The modeling results show a qualitatively different effect of the 3D (pores) and 2D (microcracks) defects on its effective elastic properties. An increase in porosity leads to a decrease in Young's modulus and the strength of the refractory matrix, while the trend in the Poisson's ratio behavior depends on the degree of pore structure connectivity. Microcracks also reduce the effective strength and Young's modulus of the matrix but, unlike the pores, they cause an asymmetry in the effective elastic properties. The Young's modulus of the matrix decreases more slowly under compression than under tension, and the Poisson's ratio trend is the opposite (an increase under compression and a decrease under tension). The quantitative estimates of the effective mechanical characteristics of the fine grain matrix can be used in multiscale computer models of traditional and advanced SiO2-based refractories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]