  The Zeno effect is investigated for soliton type pulses in a nonlinear
directional coupler with dissipation. The effect consists in increase of the
coupler transparency with increase of the dissipative losses in one of the
arms. It is shown that localized dissipation can lead to switching of solitons
between the arms. Power losses accompanying the switching can be fully
compensated by using a combination of dissipative and active (in particular,
parity-time -symmetric) segments.
