On determining which quantum measurement performs better for state estimation

We introduce an operational and statistically meaningful measure, the quantum tomographic transfer function, that possesses important physical invariance properties for judging whether a given informationally complete quantum measurement performs better tomographically in quantum-state estimation relative to other informationally complete measurements. This function is independent of the unknown true state of the quantum source, and is directly related to the average optimal tomographic accuracy of an unbiased state estimator for the measurement in the limit of many sampling events. For the experimentally-appealing minimally complete measurements, the transfer function is an extremely simple formula. We also give an explicit expression for this transfer function in terms of an ordered expansion that is readily computable and illustrate its usage with numerical simulations, and its consistency with some known results.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Towards optimal quantum tomography with unbalanced homodyning

Balanced homodyning, heterodyning and unbalanced homodyning are the three well-known sampling techniques used in quantum optics to characterize all possible photonic sources in continuous-variable quantum information theory. We show that for all quantum states and all observable-parameter tomography schemes, which includes the reconstructions of arbitrary operator moments and phase-space quasi-distributions, localized sampling with unbalanced homodyning is always tomographically more powerful (gives more accurate estimators) than delocalized sampling with heterodyning. The latter is recently known to often give more accurate parameter reconstructions than conventional marginalized sampling with balanced homodyning. This result also holds for realistic photodetectors with subunit efficiency. With examples from first- through fourth-moment tomography, we demonstrate that unbalanced homodyning can outperform balanced homodyning when heterodyning fails to do so. This new benchmark takes us one step towards optimal continuous-variable tomography with conventional photodetectors and minimal experimental components.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Corporate Culture, Leadership Style, and Performance of Foreign and Local Organizations in Malaysia

This study examined the relationship between corporate culture, leadership style, and performance in Malaysia. This research also investigated the corporate culture and leadership style in local and foreign organizations. Organizational culture was measured by using the Competing Values Framework (Quinn and Rohrbaugh, 1983; Cameron and Quinn, 1999), leadership style was measured by using the model developed by Javidan & Dastmalchian {1993} and Dastmalchian (2000), while performance was measured in terms of profitability. A total of 1 34 companies, comprising of 60 foreign companies and 74 local companies participated in the study. The Chi-square tests, Pearson correlation, and cross tabulation tests analysis were carried out to measure the significant association between the variables. The findings showed that local companies tend to have a hierarchical culture, while foreign companies tend to have a clan and result-oriented culture. As for the leadership style, the results showed the similarity of both local and foreign companies in practicing an auditor style of leadership. Cross-tabulation results also revealed that there is an association between organizational culture and leadership style in foreign organizations but no association was found in local organizations. With regards to the relationship between organizational culture and performance, it was found that there is no association between them in foreign or local companies due to other influencing external factors. In addition, no significant relationship was found between leadership style and performance in foreign or local companies

Effects of Capital Flight on Economic Growth in Selected ASEAN Economies

Prior to the Asian financial crises, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand had experienced strong and impressive real economic growth rate from the 1970s to until beginning of 1997. Conventional wisdom hold that with the region’s impressive economic growth associated with higher interest returns and lower risk would expect capital to stay in the countries but not flee. However, it was quite surprising that even during periods of high economic growth rate; there was capital flight in these selected ASEAN economies. The lost of capital through capital flight will intensify capital scarcity problem as it restricts the capacity and the ability to finance domestic investment where resources are most needed to generate economic growth and development particularly after the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Although there are no universally accepted and indisputable definitions of capital flight, however, it is generally agreed that capital flight is the outflow of capital that is conflict with national interests, goals and objective. For the empirical work, the ARDL ‘Bounds test’ approach to cointegration was conducted with annual time series data from 1972 to 2005 to determine factors affecting capital flight from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand using World Bank measure, Morgan Guaranty Trust measure and Dooley Derived measure. By using the three alternative measures of capital flight, yields broadly similar results. On one hand, the results indicate that higher capital flight is associated with higher external debt, higher budget deficit as well as higher political instability that proxy by Political rights. On the other hand, the elasticities indicate that higher capital flight is associated with lower Interest rates differential (United States Treasury Bill rate minus domestic deposit rate), and lower accumulation of international reserve. However, the estimated results reveal that only higher capital flight is associated with higher Interest rates differential in Thailand case. Although there are large and growing researches for the determinants of economic growth, there has scarcely been any study concerning the impact of capital flight on economic growth. The empirical results support the contention that capital flight played a crucial role in influencing the four selected ASEAN economic growths. Furthermore, there has been no systematic investigation of the impact of political instability on capital flight and economic growth, particularly the ASEAN countries. The empirical results clearly show that political stability plays an important role in affecting capital flows and in determining economic growth in these four Southeast Asia economies. For a flight relief or even reversal of capital flight to occur as well as to stimulate economic growth, steps includes economic policies, political stability and institutional developments should be taken to prevent the causes of capital flight to ensure sufficient capital resources required for recovery from the current recession in the short-run and accomplish a more sustainable impressive economic growth in the long run. Indeed, the more preferred and effective strategy would be to implement balanced policy measures but not just bias on one or just certain aspects of macroeconomic fundamentals, perhaps, the adaptation of appropriate policy to suit varying circumstances of the economy is more important. Any policy announcements by the government should be in line with the long-term objectives of the country

Kesan Makanan Dan Tidur Terhadap Penyerapan Parasetamol

Tujuan kajian ini ialah untuk menilai kesan mwcanan dan tidur ke atas penyerapan parasetamol yang diadministrasikan secara oral. Di dalaJI kajian ini 4 orang subjek telah digunakan. Subjek-subjek ini berumur di antara 20 - 24 tahun, 2 daripada subjek ini terdiri daripada lelaki dan 2 lagi adalah perempuan.Berat badan ,subjek juga. dienti tkan semasa menjalankan kajian ini

Effects of Progesterone Intravaginal Devices on Artificial Insemination, Oestrous Synchronization, Ovulation and Pregnancy Rate in Kedah-Kelantan Cattle

The first experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of various progestagen treatment methods in term of oestrous synchronization, ovulation and pregnancy rate using controlled internal drug-release (CIDR) device or progesterone-releasing intravaginal device (PRID) with prostaglandin F2ct (PGF2ct) injection on the day of CIDRIPRID removal. Twenty-four non-pregnant Kedah-Kelantan (KK) cows were randomly assigned to two groups: CIDR (n=12); PRID (n=12). Both group were given 12-day synchronization treatment and received an intramuscular injection of 25 mg PGF2ct on the day of device removal. The ovaries of all cows were examined by ultrasonography, using a 5 MHz probe, from one day after CIDR/PRID removal until ovulation. Blood samples were collected for determination of progesterone. The proportion of cows observed in oestrus was significantly higher in the CIDR group than PRID group (91.7% vs 58.3%, P<O.Ol). Pregnancy rate was also significantly higher in CIDR group than PRID group (27.3% vs 14.2%, P<0.05). Results from experiment indicated that CIDR is more efficient than PRID. The second experiment was to evaluate the effect of the length of progestagen treatment (12 day vs 7 day) on oestrous synchronization, ovulation and pregnancy rate using controlled internal drug-release device (CIDR) with PGF2a injection at the end of CIDR treatment. Sixteen adult non-pregnant KK cows were divided into two groups: long-term treated group (n=8); Short-term treated group (n=8), day of CIDR removal. All the cows were undergone transrectal ultrasonography, and blood samples were taken for hormone assay. Until 120 h after CIDR removal, the percentage of cows came into oestrus was significantly higher in long-termtreated group than short-term treated group (87.5%). The pregnancy rate was significantly higher in the short-term treated group than in long-term-treated group (40.0% vs 25.0%, follicle in long-term treated group attained a larger maximum diameter than in short-term treated group (P<0.05). The mean time of ovulation after device removal was 108 h in the short-term treated group and 88 ± 5.06 h in the long-tenn treated group; the length of time required for ovulation between two treatment were significantly different (P<0.05). The result showed that the 7-d CIDR+ PGF2a oestrous synchronization protocol rendered a better fertility in Kedah-Kelantan cows

Development of Fishburgers From Selaroides Leptolepis, Aristichthys Nobilis and Alutera Monoceros

Selaroides leptolepis, Aristichthys llobilis and Alutera monoceros were used to develop frozen fish product aimed at fast food outlets and households. At the idea generation stage, 24 product ideas were generated. The 24 product ideas were reduced to three using a series of scoring techniques for screening. Fishburgers were chosen for furthur development. The formulation for fishburger was established using a sensory panel A final consumer testing of the product was carried out in a nearby housing area. A sample size of 60 households was used. Results showed that the market potential for this product is expected to be very good as 75% of the respondents are willing to buy this product if it is in the market. The acceptable price range is RM 5.50 to RM 6.50. Fishburgers packed in LDPE bags, PP semi rigid containers and PS tray over wrapped with LDPE cling flim were acceptable after 18 weeks of storage at -20°C. The storage quality in terms of thiobarbituric acid no (TBA), trimethylamine (TMA) and total volatile basic nitrogen (TVBN) showed significant (P<0.05) increases. There were decreases in salt soluble protein, pH, moisture content and microbial counts. Fishburgers in PP semi rigid containers had the best stability followed by samples in LDPE bags and PS + LDPE. The effects of washing and storage on the quality of S.leptolepis and A. nobilis surimi kept at -20°C for 24 weeks were studied. Surimi was prepared from unwashed, once-washed and twice-washed minces. The storage quality in terms of texture, colour, elasticity, moisture content, pH and SSP values for all samples showed significant (P<0.05) decreases during storage. There were increases in expressible moisture, TMA, TVBN and TBA. Results also showed that twice-washed mince of both species were generally more stable than once-washed and unwashed minces

Structure of Two-qubit Symmetric Informationally Complete POVMs

In the four-dimensional Hilbert space, there exist 16 Heisenberg--Weyl (HW) covariant symmetric informationally complete positive operator valued measures (SIC~POVMs) consisting of 256 fiducial states on a single orbit of the Clifford group. We explore the structure of these SIC~POVMs by studying the symmetry transformations within a given SIC~POVM and among different SIC~POVMs. Furthermore, we find 16 additional SIC~POVMs by a regrouping of the 256 fiducial states, and show that they are unitarily equivalent to the original 16 SIC~POVMs by establishing an explicit unitary transformation. We then reveal the additional structure of these SIC~POVMs when the four-dimensional Hilbert space is taken as the tensor product of two qubit Hilbert spaces. In particular, when either the standard product basis or the Bell basis are chosen as the defining basis of the HW group, in eight of the 16 HW covariant SIC~POVMs, all fiducial states have the same concurrence of $\sqrt{2/5}$. These SIC~POVMs are particularly appealing for an experimental implementation, since all fiducial states can be connected to each other with just local unitary transformations. In addition, we introduce a concise representation of the fiducial states with the aid of a suitable tabular arrangement of their parameters.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, 5 table