Theories of Reference: What Was the Question?

The new theory of reference has won popularity. However, a number of noted philosophers have also attempted to reply to the critical arguments of Kripke and others, and aimed to vindicate the description theory of reference. Such responses are often based on ingenious novel kinds of descriptions, such as rigidified descriptions, causal descriptions, and metalinguistic descriptions. This prolonged debate raises the doubt whether different parties really have any shared understanding of what the central question of the philosophical theory of reference is: what is the main question to which descriptivism and the causal-historical theory have presented competing answers. One aim of the paper is to clarify this issue. The most influential objections to the new theory of reference are critically reviewed. Special attention is also paid to certain important later advances in the new theory of reference, due to Devitt and others

Quantum information transport to multiple receivers

The importance of transporting quantum information and entanglement with high fidelity cannot be overemphasized. We present a scheme based on adiabatic passage that allows for transportation of a qubit, operator measurements and entanglement, using a 1-D array of quantum sites with a single sender (Alice) and multiple receivers (Bobs). Alice need not know which Bob is the receiver, and if several Bobs try to receive the signal, they obtain a superposition state which can be used to realize two-qubit operator measurements for the generation of maximally entangled states.Comment: Modified in view of referee's comments, new author added, natural scheme for operator measurements identified, hence W state preparation replaced with GHZ state preparation via operator measurements. 4 pages, 3 figure

Bowen ratio estimates of evapotranspiration for stands on the Virgin River in Southern Nevada

A Bowen ratio energy balance was conducted over a Tamarix ramosissima (saltcedar) stand growing in a riparian corridor along the Virgin River in southern Nevada. Measurements in two separate years were compared and contrasted on the basis of changes in growing conditions. In 1994, a drought year, record high temperatures, dry winds, and a falling water table caused partial wilt of outer smaller twigs in the canopy of many trees in the stand around the Bowen tower. Subsequently, evapotranspiration (ET) estimates declined dramatically over a 60‐day period (11 mm d−1 tod−1). In 1995, the Virgin River at the Bowen tower area changed its course, hydrologically isolating the Tamarix stand in the vicinity of the tower. In 1996, a 25% canopy loss was visually estimated for the Tamarix growing in the area of the tower. Higher soil temperatures relative to air temperatures were recorded in 1996 in response to this loss in canopy. With a more open canopy, thermally induced turbulence was observed in 1996. On day 160 of 1996, a 28°C rise over a 9‐hour period was correlated with increased wind speeds of greater than 4 m s−1. Subsequently, higher ET estimates were made in 1996 compared to 1994 (145 cm versus 75 cm). However, the energy balance was dominated by advection in 1996, with latent energy flux exceeding net radiation 65% of the measurement days compared to only 11% in 1994. We believe this advection was on a scale of the floodplain (hundreds of meters) as opposed to regional advection, since the majority of wind (90%) was in a N–S direction along the course of the river, and that a more open canopy allowed the horizontal transfer of energy into the Tamarix stand at the Bowen tower. Our results suggest that Tamarix has the potential to be both a low water user and a high water user, depending on moisture availability, canopy development, and atmospheric demand, and that advection can dominate energy balances and ET in aridland riparian zones such as the Virgin River

Evapotranspiration from a saltcedar-dominated desert floodplain: A scaling approach

The purpose of this study was to investigate evapotranspiration (ET) from a variety of scales (leaf to landscape) in saltcedar-dominated floodplain vegetation along the lower Virgin River of southern Nevada. Leaf-level gas exchange indicated that saltcedar exhibits similar stomatal conductance as the sympatric phreatophytes arrowweed, mesquite, and willow. However, sap flow in saltcedar was higher per unit sapwood area than the other species, suggesting that it maintains higher leaf area per unit sapwood area. At the stand level, saltcedar ET was found to exceed potential ET early in the summer when soils were moist and the water table was near the surface, but by late summer, after floodplain soils had dried and the water table had dropped, saltcedar ET was well below potential rates. Summer irrigation did not result in increased conductance of saltcedar for at least four weeks, suggesting that saltcedar does not utilize summer rainfall under normal conditions in the arid Mojave Desert

A local and scalable lattice renormalization method for ballistic quantum computation

© 2018, The Author(s). A recent proposal has shown that it is possible to perform linear-optics quantum computation using a ballistic generation of the lattice. Yet, due to the probabilistic generation of its cluster state, it is not possible to use the fault-tolerant Raussendorf lattice, which requires a lower failure rate during the entanglement-generation process. Previous work in this area showed proof-of-principle linear-optics quantum computation, while this paper presents an approach to it which is more practical, satisfying several key constraints. We develop a classical measurement scheme that purifies a large faulty lattice to a smaller lattice with entanglement faults below threshold. A single application of this method can reduce the entanglement error rate to 7% for an input failure rate of 25%. Thus, we can show that it is possible to achieve fault tolerance for ballistic methods

Lattice surgery on the Raussendorf lattice

© 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd. Lattice surgery is a method to perform quantum computation fault-tolerantly by using operations on boundary qubits between different patches of the planar code. This technique allows for universal planar code computation without eliminating the intrinsic two-dimensional nearest-neighbor properties of the surface code that eases physical hardware implementations. Lattice surgery approaches to algorithmic compilation and optimization have been demonstrated to be more resource efficient for resource-intensive components of a fault-tolerant algorithm, and consequently may be preferable over braid-based logic. Lattice surgery can be extended to the Raussendorf lattice, providing a measurement-based approach to the surface code. In this paper we describe how lattice surgery can be performed on the Raussendorf lattice and therefore give a viable alternative to computation using braiding in measurement-based implementations of topological codes

Assessment of an electronic voting system within the tutorial setting: a randomised controlled trial (ISRCTN54535861)

Background: Electronic voting systems have been used in various educational settings with little measurement of the educational impact on students. The goal of this study was to measure the effects of the inclusion of an electronic voting system within a small group tutorial. Method: A prospective randomised controlled trial was run at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, a teaching hospital in Adelaide, Australia. 102 students in their first clinical year of medical school participated in the study where an electronic voting system was introduced as a teaching aid into a standard tutorial. Long-term retention of knowledge and understanding of the topics discussed in the tutorials was measured and student response to the introduction of the electronic voting system was assessed. Results: Students using the electronic voting system had improved long-term retention of understanding of material taught in the tutorial. Students had a positive response to the use of this teaching aid. Conclusion: Electronic voting systems can provide a stimulating learning environment for students and in a small group tutorial may improve educational outcomes.Edward J. Palmer, Peter G. Devitt, Neville J. De Young and David Morri