Breeding protocols are advantageous for finite-length entanglement distillation

Bennett et al. proposed a family of protocols for entanglement distillation, namely, hashing, recurrence and breeding protocols. The last one is inferior to the hashing protocol in the asymptotic regime and has been investigated little. In this paper, we propose a framework of converting a stabilizer quantum error-correcting code to a breeding protocol, which is a generalization of the previous conversion methods by Luo-Devetak and Wilde. Then, show an example of a stabilizer that gives a breeding protocol better than hashing protocols, in which the finite number of maximally entangled pairs are distilled from the finite number of partially entangled pairs.Comment: 9 pages, latex2e, no figure, 1 table, v2 added the two important citations (see the acknowledgment

Universal rights in a divided world: the human rights engagement of the World Council of Churches from the 1940s to the 1970s

This dissertation traces the human rights engagement of the ecumenical movement through its most important institutional embodiment, the World Council of Churches (WCC). In doing so, it contributes to the historiography on human rights, on the WCC, and on religious internationalism. The first part of the dissertation argues that from the 1940s to the 1960s, the WCC’s human rights engagement was strongly focused on religious freedom and extended well beyond the United Nations. Scholarship on the WCC had addressed its advocacy against curtailment of religious freedom communist states in some detail, a story that this dissertation retraces in relation to recent work on human rights, using the case of the Soviet Union. But the ecumenical movement also saw two other major opponents, Islam (especially in the context of decolonization) and political Roman Catholicism, which led it to lobby and campaign for religious freedom in countries including Indonesia, Nigeria, and Spain. The second part of the dissertation considers the expansion of the WCC’s human rights agenda. Over the course of the 1960s, the cause of antiracism invited piecemeal expansion of the WCC’s human rights agenda. Only in the early 1970s, however, did the WCC develop a radically new conception of human rights, shaped above all by the need to respond to military dictatorships in Latin America. It sought to develop a conception of human rights that could be effective in addressing not only questions of political repression but also the structural causes underlying it. Whereas the historiography on human rights has thus far focused on secular liberals and conservative Catholics, this dissertation brings into view the transnational activities of the predominantly Protestant ecumenical movement. The WCC’s human rights engagement, which refracted but also impacted on the Cold War, decolonization, and secularization, represented an important strand of postwar internationalis

Refracted Communications: Multilingualism and (Im)Purity in the Works of Maria-Mercè Marçal and Julia Fiedorczuk

This dissertation explores the multilingual poetics of hospitality in the works of Maria-Mercè Marçal (1952-1958), who wrote in Catalan, and Julia Fiedorczuk (born in 1975), who writes in Polish. Multilingualism, for Marçal and Fiedorczuk, will not only refer to the presence of multiple languages in a literary text, but also to translation; it also means a mixing of dialects and argots with the normative versions of Polish and Catalan and includes the mixing of different symbolic structures that regulate communication, such as the expression of gender, skin color or class belonging. Chapter One provides an outline of the ties between the nation, national language, and family in Polish and Catalan contexts; it also engages with texts by Marçal and Fiedorczuk that inform and potentially destabilize the traditionally gendered roles within the national community, metaphorized as family. I point to the historical perilousness of the patriarchal understanding of the nation as ‘the country of men,’ and of the romanticized Nature as woman (the latter, I argue, acquires an especially dangerous dimension given the on-going, global environmental crisis). In Chapter Three, I explore some alternative versions of nationalism or patriotism in alignment with the ecofeminist and transnational writing practice of both authors. Marçal complicates the links between motherhood and language; she also reworks the myth of the dragon and Sant Jordi, pointing to the ties between patriarchy and anthropocentrism. For Fiedorczuk, the links between poetry and spirituality give rise to an abstract notion of Fatherland, which needs to be replaced with the care for the cleanliness of the air, seas, and rivers, leading to an understanding of community founded upon inter-species solidarity. In Chapter Three, Marçal and Fiedorczuk appear in their role as translators. In the chapter, rather than offering a critique of Marçal’s and Fiedorczuk’s translations, I sketch the visions of the translator’s task that shine through Fiedorczuk’s and Marçal’s translation strategies. Fiedorczuk analyzes translations in the context of representation of the non-human world and sees translation and writing as part and parcel of the same process: ecopoetic interbeing, by which she understands the making of a home through language. Marçal’s focus is on musicality, sound, and dialogue, which remain linked to her understanding of writing and translating as passion. In Chapter Four I look at the importance of translation as metaphor in Marçal’s and Fiedorczuk’s writing. Chapter Five contains close readings of fragments of Fiedorczuk’s and Marçal’s prose, focusing on language mixing, the definition of language border and linguistic and cultural ‘outsiders.’ For Marçal, boundary-crossing is a metaphor for inter-human and inter-textual, passionate relationships, which are often germane to translation. For her part, Fiedorczuk understands writing as an ecopoetic issue, as the creation of a home in which both the human ‘outsiders’ and the non-humans will thrive

Sankofa: Traditions of Mentoring Among Black Women Educators

The importance of the standpoint of Black women educators is rarely understood and even more infrequently recognized as a position of exceptional knowledge in regard to the field of education. Research highlights maternal relationships grounded in traditional practices of community uplift and connectedness as a common factor in the effectiveness of Black women educators. This project frames Black women educators within Black women\u27s culture of Sisterhood and Motherhood as defined by Patricia Hill Collins (2009). This study explored the influence of sisterhood and motherhood in the experiences of Black women educators and the impact of those experiences on their work as educators. The analysis derived from a series of four semi-structured interviews and informal follow-up conversations with three of my close sister friends who are educators in a Midwest Public school system. Three narrative portraits of Black women educators were created based on a 6-month portraiture study involving the collection of observable data, semi-structured and informal interviews and discourse analysis to capture the perspective of Black women educators in the field of education. Through an examination of this portrait study and other studies on Black women\u27s culture and pedagogical engagement, this project provides examples of Black women educators who embody the essence of Sankofa in the form of mentoring. Findings indicated that mentoring among Black women educators builds on a tradition of sisterhood and motherhood in the Black community. These findings provide three culturally relevant components apparent in the mentoring experiences of these participants: self-actualization, socio-political awareness and mothering of the mind

Making heritage in post-apartheid South Africa: Agencies, museums and sites

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (History)This work responds to the perceptions of post-apartheid heritage practices as producing an authorised heritage discourse. It contrasts this perception by approaching the making of postapartheid heritage as not just a simple discourse, but as a broad and complicated network of many meanings, knowledges, practices and approaches. These are generated and disseminated through multiple disciplinary and practice inputs and outputs, and at different levels and scales. This work approaches these multiple intersecting points of heritage production and reproductions as an intricate network, within and through processes of heritage making can be seen as productive and unproductive. The focus of this work is in these different facets that emerge as different role players navigate through intricate negotiations of meanings and knowledges about pasts and presents. In this thesis, these workings are repeatedly identified through the term complex, which I use to mean complicated, intricate or convoluted. The analysis applies the term differently from the theoretical concept of complex, which refers to the making of public national citizenry through a power/knowledge, rather than power and knowledge discourse. This work therefore investigates the complicated workings of heritage by means of legislation, the complicated heritage governance by a council and agency, and the workings of heritage through equally complicated operations of museums and sites. The investigation involves focused ethnographic studies of the operations of the South African Heritage Resources Agency, National Heritage Council, Nelson Mandela Museum, Ncome Monument and Museum Complex, Freedom Park, and Robben Island Museum. While this work might be theoretically associated within Critical Heritage Studies, especially its recent preoccupation with the notion of authorised heritage discourse, it is framed against this concept. It argues that post-apartheid heritage is produced through intricate negotiations occurring within entanglements, rather than through simple a hegemonic discourse. It also argues that making heritage in post-apartheid South Africa occurs within a wide network of multiple practices and approaches, rather than along streamlined, simple deployments of dominant meanings and knowledges

Revisiting the form and function of conflict: Neurobiological, psychological, and cultural mechanisms for attack and defense within and between groups

Conflict can profoundly affect individuals and their groups. Oftentimes, conflict involves a clash between one side seeking change and increased gains through victory and the other side defending the status quo and protecting against loss and defeat. However, theory and empirical research largely neglected these conflicts between attackers and defenders, and the strategic, social, and psychological consequences of attack and defense remain poorly understood. To fill this void, we model (1) the clashing of attack and defense as games of strategy and reveal that (2) attack benefits from mismatching its target's level of defense, whereas defense benefits from matching the attacker's competitiveness. This suggests that (3) attack recruits neuroendocrine pathways underlying behavioral activation and overconfidence, whereas defense invokes neural networks for behavioral inhibition, vigilant scanning, and hostile attributions; and that (4) people invest less in attack than defense, and attack often fails. Finally, we propose that (5) in intergroup conflict, out-group attack needs institutional arrangements that motivate and coordinate collective action, whereas in-group defense benefits from endogenously emerging in-group identification. We discuss how games of attack and defense may have shaped human capacities for prosociality and aggression, and how third parties can regulate such conflicts and reduce their waste. Keywords: behavioral game theory; biobehavioral approach–avoidance; coevolution of prosociality and aggression; conflict; conflict intervention; cultural institutions; intergroup relations; psychological adaptations

Foreword: Abolition Constitutionalism

In this Foreword, I make the case for an abolition constitutionalism that attends to the theorizing of prison abolitionists. In Part I, I provide a summary of prison abolition theory and highlight its foundational tenets that engage with the institution of slavery and its eradication. I discuss how abolition theorists view the current prison industrial complex as originating in, though distinct from, racialized chattel slavery and the racial capitalist regime that relied on and sustained it, and their movement as completing the “unfinished liberation” sought by slavery abolitionists in the past. Part II considers whether the U.S. Constitution is an abolitionist document. I interrogate the historic abolition constitutionalism by examining antebellum abolitionists’ readings of the Constitution and their partial incorporation into the Reconstruction Amendments, as well as the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence obstructing the Amendments’ transformative potential. I pay close attention to the Supreme Court’s most recent decision interpreting the relationship between the Fourteenth Amendment and carceral punishment — Flowers v. Mississippi— to analyze the Justices’ rejection of an abolitionist approach in their ruling. Finally, Part III links Parts I and II by exploring the relationship between prison abolition and the U.S. Constitution. I argue that, despite the ascendance of proslavery and anti-abolition constitutionalism, we should consider the abolitionist history of the Reconstruction Amendments as a usable past to help move toward a radical future. I hope to show that the prison abolition movement can reinvigorate abolition constitutionalism. In turn, today’s activists can deploy the Reconstruction Amendments instrumentally to further their aims and, in the process, construct a new abolition constitutionalism on the path to building a society without prisons

Feminisms in Movement: Theories and Practices from the Americas

Feminist movements from the Americas provide some of the most innovative, visible, and all-encompassing forms of organizing and resistance. With their diverse backgrounds, these movements address sexism, sexualized violence, misogyny, racism, homo- and transphobia, coloniality, extractivism, climate crisis, and neoliberal capitalist exploitation as well as the interrelations of these systems. Fighting interlocking axes of oppression, feminists from the Americas represent, practice, and theorize a truly "intersectional" politics. Feminisms in Movement: Theories and Practices from the Americas brings together a wide variety of perspectives and formats, spanning from the realms of arts and activism to academia. Black and decolonial feminist voices and queer/cuir perspectives, ecofeminist approaches and indigenous women's mobilizations inspire future feminist practices and inform social and cohabitation projects. With contributions from Rita Laura Segato, Mara Viveros Vigoya, Yuderkys Espinosa-Miñoso, and interviews with Anielle Franco (Brazilian activist and minister) and with the Chilean feminist collective LASTESIS

Mining, Power and Sustainable Development: Micro-Politics of Benefits Sharing in Ghana

The last two decades has witnessed the adoption of sustainable development principles within the mining industry, following the publication of the industry’s minerals and mining for sustainable development (MMSD) report in 2002. It has been argued by scholars and industry actors that mining companies can contribute to sustainable development by being environmentally responsible, improving the economic and social well-being of people affected by mining projects as well as creating mechanisms for a plurality of decision-making processes throughout the entire mining life cycle. Sustainable development however, is a contested development concept with no implementation blueprint. Unsurprising therefore, the exact meaning and application of sustainable development in the mining industry has been the subject of increasing academic debate. From the burgeoning literature that explores the links between mining and sustainable development, it is difficult to ascertain what sustainable development means to different actors, and how differences in its conception influences the extent to which mining may or not contribute to sustainable development in practice at the community level. This is critical given that at the community level, unequal power relations may exist and potentially shape how mining led sustainable development costs and benefits are shared. Thus, to fully discern the link between mining and sustainable development, it is imperative to unveil first the sustainable development rationalities of various actors and then how those rationalities or agendas are ritualised in practice taking into account contextual influences such as unequal power relations. Taking the sharing of mining benefits by governments and mining companies as a point of departure, this thesis explores how mining contributes to the sustainable development of communities affected by mining projects in Ghana. It does so by focussing on how mine benefits, in the form of redistributed revenues, are accessed, controlled and used by beneficiary communities. The thesis uses a political ecology analytical approach and draws on qualitative primary research data collected from three communities affected by Newmont Mining Corporation’s project in the Birim North District of Ghana. This thesis argues from the findings that, underlying the limited contribution of mining to sustainable development of mining communities in Ghana is a crisis of mining benefits sharing. The findings of this research show that, different actors including the government, mining companies and mining communities have different conceptions and agendas of sustainable development. Furthermore, within the communities, there are different conceptions of what sustainable development is between the elites and poor or non-elites. Overall, the government defines sustainable development in terms of economic growth; the mining companies, influenced by the need to maintain a social license, consider sustainable development to be about the creation a legacy. Community elites, such as chiefs, consider sustainable development to be about community infrastructure; whereas non-elites within the community, many of whom have lost access to their own farmlands due to mining developments, see sustainable development as that which will improve their livelihoods and economic outcomes. This study reveals that, community power imbalances have ensured that the mineral revenues allocated for community driven sustainable development, are ultimately controlled by local elites. The elites, through their unfettered powers, capture both the decision-making processes and the revenues to pursue their sustainable development agendas, to the detriment of the poor and marginalised non-elites. The elites do this by deploying different strategies to counteract the structures governing the use of the revenues. This thesis contributes empirically to understanding how benefit sharing for sustainable development processes work in practice and explains why some people gain while others lose in this equation. This thesis recommends the redesign of the current benefit sharing models being used by Newmont Mining and the government. The suggested new design will provide opportunities to correct the existing power imbalances and ensure that a sustainable development that benefits the communities as whole is achieved.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Social Sciences, 201