4,128 research outputs found
Quantum Mechanics helps in searching for a needle in a haystack
Quantum mechanics can speed up a range of search applications over unsorted
data. For example imagine a phone directory containing N names arranged in
completely random order. To find someone's phone number with a probability of
50%, any classical algorithm (whether deterministic or probabilistic) will need
to access the database a minimum of O(N) times. Quantum mechanical systems can
be in a superposition of states and simultaneously examine multiple names. By
properly adjusting the phases of various operations, successful computations
reinforce each other while others interfere randomly. As a result, the desired
phone number can be obtained in only O(sqrt(N)) accesses to the database.Comment: Postscript, 4 pages. This is a modified version of the STOC paper
(quant-ph/9605043) and is modified to make it more comprehensible to
physicists. It appeared in Phys. Rev. Letters on July 14, 1997. (This paper
was originally put out on quant-ph on June 13, 1997, the present version has
some minor typographical changes
Engaging with Bourdieu\u27s theory of practice: an empirical tool for exploring school students\u27 technology practice
This article presents Bourdieu\u27s theory of practice as a tool for exploring school students\u27 technology practice in empirical research. The authors provide educational technology researchers with an accessible introduction to the theory of practice. They then detail the conceptual, methodological and analytic application of the theory of practice in two educational technology studies. The application of the theory in the two studies highlights the potential of the sociological framing for informing a robust critical research agenda and understanding the circumstances that can contribute to digital inequalities. Practically, knowledge gained through theoretically informed research is critical for researchers, governments, schools and teachers in working to overcome digital inequalities
Inequalities that test locality in quantum mechanics
Quantum theory violates Bell's inequality, but not to the maximum extent that
is logically possible. We derive inequalities (generalizations of Cirel'son's
inequality) that quantify the upper bound of the violation, both for the
standard formalism and the formalism of generalized observables (POVMs). These
inequalities are quantum analogues of Bell inequalities, and they can be used
to test the quantum version of locality. We discuss the nature of this kind of
locality. We also go into the relation of our results to an argument by Popescu
and Rohrlich (Found. Phys. 24, 379 (1994)) that there is no general connection
between the existence of Cirel'son's bound and locality.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; the argument has been made clearer in the revised
version; 1 reference adde
Geographical, linguistic, and cultural influences on genetic diversity: Y-chromosomal distribution in Northern European populations
Peer reviewe
Stability of undissociated screw dislocations in zinc-blende covalent materials from first principle simulations
The properties of perfect screw dislocations have been investigated for
several zinc-blende materials such as diamond, Si, -SiC, Ge and GaAs, by
performing first principles calculations. For almost all elements, a core
configuration belonging to shuffle set planes is favored, in agreement with low
temperature experiments. Only for diamond, a glide configuration has the lowest
defect energy, thanks to an sp hybridization in the core
Quantification and expert evaluation of evidence for chemopredictive biomarkers to personalize cancer treatment.
Predictive biomarkers have the potential to facilitate cancer precision medicine by guiding the optimal choice of therapies for patients. However, clinicians are faced with an enormous volume of often-contradictory evidence regarding the therapeutic context of chemopredictive biomarkers.We extensively surveyed public literature to systematically review the predictive effect of 7 biomarkers claimed to predict response to various chemotherapy drugs: ERCC1-platinums, RRM1-gemcitabine, TYMS-5-fluorouracil/Capecitabine, TUBB3-taxanes, MGMT-temozolomide, TOP1-irinotecan/topotecan, and TOP2A-anthracyclines. We focused on studies that investigated changes in gene or protein expression as predictors of drug sensitivity or resistance. We considered an evidence framework that ranked studies from high level I evidence for randomized controlled trials to low level IV evidence for pre-clinical studies and patient case studies.We found that further in-depth analysis will be required to explore methodological issues, inconsistencies between studies, and tumor specific effects present even within high evidence level studies. Some of these nuances will lend themselves to automation, others will require manual curation. However, the comprehensive cataloging and analysis of dispersed public data utilizing an evidence framework provides a high level perspective on clinical actionability of these protein biomarkers. This framework and perspective will ultimately facilitate clinical trial design as well as therapeutic decision-making for individual patients
Perfect quantum error correction coding in 24 laser pulses
An efficient coding circuit is given for the perfect quantum error correction
of a single qubit against arbitrary 1-qubit errors within a 5 qubit code. The
circuit presented employs a double `classical' code, i.e., one for bit flips
and one for phase shifts. An implementation of this coding circuit on an
ion-trap quantum computer is described that requires 26 laser pulses. A further
circuit is presented requiring only 24 laser pulses, making it an efficient
protection scheme against arbitrary 1-qubit errors. In addition, the
performance of two error correction schemes, one based on the quantum Zeno
effect and the other using standard methods, is compared. The quantum Zeno
error correction scheme is found to fail completely for a model of noise based
on phase-diffusion.Comment: Replacement paper: Lost two laser pulses gained one author; added
appendix with circuits easily implementable on an ion-trap compute
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