Political Opinion and National Identity: Dilemma of the Sahrawi Ethnic Unity after 38 Years of Diaspora

Western Sahara has been called “the last colony” of Africa. The territory was colonized by Spain in 1884. During the pan-Maghreb liberation period in the 1950s, the local population, Sahrawi people also joined the resistance against colonial powers. However, when Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Mauritania obtained own independence as nation-state, the “Maghrebian dream” ended. Western Sahara has not only been left under the colonial rule until 1975, but it has not yet reached independence. When Spain left the territory, it was “recovered” by Moroccan-Mauritanian joint control against the Sahrawi’s will. At the point, half of the Sahrawi population took refuge in Tindouf, southwestern Algeria and established the Sahara Democratic Republic (SADR) through the leadership of the Polisario Front in 1976. At the same time, the other half of the Sahrawi were left under the Moroccan occupation. Here Sahrawi ethnic diaspora is found. After the diaspora, the Western Sahara conflict became more complicated. Despite of the approach by the international organizations, including the United Nations, the Sahrawi people have not yet used the right of self-determination and the conflict has not yet reached a solution. Thirty-eight years have already gone since the diaspora. While the Sahrawi are found in the different political spaces between Tindouf and Western Sahara (Moroccan controlled zone), the political opinion of the Sahrawi, particularly the future status of the territory, have varied considerably. Not all of them agree with total independence, but some might be able to accept autonomous plan under the Moroccan authority. At this point, it could be said that new political division within the ethnic group has emerged. Taking the above situation into consideration, I will analyze the relation between political opinion and national identity in this paper. With reference the theory “National Identity” (1990) by Anthony Smith, the difference between ethnic and national identities, and the strength of nationalism are discussed. For example, one Sahrawi man from the Polisario talked about other Sahrawi who can accept the autonomous plan by the Moroccan authorities. The man said “do they become Moroccans?” In this case, it seems that one’s political opinion can determine his/her national identity. While referring my field work data, the discussion is focused on; 1) transformation process of national identity, and 2) dilemma within Sahrawi national unity. According to the points, I describe what kind of crisis Sahrawi national unity has now and what will be a solution to overcome the crisis

Subspace Variational Quantum Simulator

Quantum simulation is one of the key applications of quantum computing, which can accelerate research and development in chemistry, material science, etc. Here, we propose an efficient method to simulate the time evolution driven by a static Hamiltonian, named subspace variational quantum simulator (SVQS). SVQS employs the subspace-search variational eigensolver (SSVQE) to find a low-energy subspace and further extends it to simulate dynamics within the low-energy subspace. More precisely, using a parameterized quantum circuit, the low-energy subspace of interest is encoded into a computational subspace spanned by a set of computational basis, where information processing can be easily done. After the information processing, the computational subspace is decoded to the original low-energy subspace. This allows us to simulate the dynamics of low-energy subspace with lower overhead compared to existing schemes. While the dimension is restricted for feasibility on near-term quantum devices, the idea is similar to quantum phase estimation and its applications such as quantum linear system solver and quantum metropolis sampling. Because of this simplicity, we can successfully demonstrate the proposed method on the actual quantum device using Regetti Quantum Cloud Service. Furthermore, we propose a variational initial state preparation for SVQS, where the initial states are searched from the simulatable eigensubspace. Finally, we demonstrate SVQS on Rigetti Quantum Cloud Service

Exercise therapy improves quality of life in patients with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS)

A clinical decision report using George SA, Bivens TB, Howden EJ, et al. The international POTS registry: Evaluating the efficacy of an exercise training intervention in a community setting. Heart Rhythm. 2016;13(4):943-950. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrthm.2015.12.012 for exercise efficacy in patients with POTS

Potencial forestal, forrajero y bioenergético de especies maderables del matorral espinoso tamaulipeco en el noreste de México

La actual crisis energética mundial ha generado el interés siempre creciente de buscar alternativas al uso de combustibles fósiles, presentándose los materiales lignocelulósicos y particularmente la madera, como un recurso prometedor para la producción sustentable de energía. Los matorrales del noreste de México constituyen una importante fuente de recursos forestales para la satisfacción de las necesidades de las poblaciones de estas zonas. En esta formación vegetal, se determinó el potencial forrajero para establecer estrategias factibles de un aprovechamiento óptimo de la vegetación por el ganado y la fauna silvestre; el potencial forestal para evaluar la productividad de biomasa en diferentes estructuras, clave de un manejo sustentable exitoso; y el potencial bioenergético para incentivar un uso nuevo y prometedor de este recurso, y promover un aprovechamiento integral de dicho recurso

ZZ-Interaction-Free Single-Qubit-Gate Optimization in Superconducting Qubits

Overcoming the issue of qubit-frequency fluctuations is essential to realize stable and practical quantum computing with solid-state qubits. Static ZZ interaction, which causes a frequency shift of a qubit depending on the state of neighboring qubits, is one of the major obstacles to integrating fixed-frequency transmon qubits. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate ZZ-interaction-free single-qubit-gate operations on a superconducting transmon qubit by utilizing a semi-analytically optimized pulse based on a perturbative analysis. The gate is designed to be robust against slow qubit-frequency fluctuations. The robustness of the optimized gate spans a few MHz, which is sufficient for suppressing the adverse effects of the ZZ interaction. Our result paves the way for an efficient approach to overcoming the issue of ZZ interaction without any additional hardware overhead.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures plus Supplementary Information (4 pages, 2 figures