Unbounded randomness certification using sequences of measurements

Unpredictability, or randomness, of the outcomes of measurements made on an entangled state can be certified provided that the statistics violate a Bell inequality. In the standard Bell scenario where each party performs a single measurement on its share of the system, only a finite amount of randomness, of at most $4 log_2 d$ bits, can be certified from a pair of entangled particles of dimension $d$. Our work shows that this fundamental limitation can be overcome using sequences of (nonprojective) measurements on the same system. More precisely, we prove that one can certify any amount of random bits from a pair of qubits in a pure state as the resource, even if it is arbitrarily weakly entangled. In addition, this certification is achieved by near-maximal violation of a particular Bell inequality for each measurement in the sequence.Comment: 4 + 5 pages (1 + 3 images), published versio

“some kind of thing it aint us but yet its in us”: David Mitchell, Russell Hoban, and metafiction after the millennium

This article appraises the debt that David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas owes to the novels of Russell Hoban, including, but not limited to, Riddley Walker. After clearly mapping a history of Hoban’s philosophical perspectives and Mitchell’s inter-textual genre-impersonation practice, the article assesses the degree to which Mitchell’s metatextual methods indicate a nostalgia for by-gone radical aesthetics rather than reaching for new modes of its own. The article not only proposes several new backdrops against which Mitchell’s novel can be read but also conducts the first in-depth appraisal of Mitchell’s formal linguistic replication of Riddley Walker

Readings in program control

Under the heading of Program Control, a number of related topics are discussed: cost estimating methods; planning and scheduling; cost overruns in the defense industry; the history of estimating; the advantages of cost plus award fee contracts; and how program control techniques led to the success of a NASA development project

Generalized Bell Inequality Experiments and Computation

We consider general settings of Bell inequality experiments with many parties, where each party chooses from a finite number of measurement settings each with a finite number of outcomes. We investigate the constraints that Bell inequalities place upon the correlations possible in a local hidden variable theories using a geometrical picture of correlations. We show that local hidden variable theories can be characterized in terms of limited computational expressiveness, which allows us to characterize families of Bell inequalities. The limited computational expressiveness for many settings (each with many outcomes) generalizes previous results about the many-party situation each with a choice of two possible measurements (each with two outcomes). Using this computational picture we present generalizations of the Popescu-Rohrlich non-local box for many parties and non-binary inputs and outputs at each site. Finally, we comment on the effect of pre-processing on measurement data in our generalized setting and show that it becomes problematic outside of the binary setting, in that it allows local hidden variable theories to simulate maximally non-local correlations such as those of these generalised Popescu-Rohrlich non-local boxes.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, supplemental material available upon request. Typos corrected and references adde

Non-adaptive Measurement-based Quantum Computation and Multi-party Bell Inequalities

Quantum correlations exhibit behaviour that cannot be resolved with a local hidden variable picture of the world. In quantum information, they are also used as resources for information processing tasks, such as Measurement-based Quantum Computation (MQC). In MQC, universal quantum computation can be achieved via adaptive measurements on a suitable entangled resource state. In this paper, we look at a version of MQC in which we remove the adaptivity of measurements and aim to understand what computational abilities still remain in the resource. We show that there are explicit connections between this model of computation and the question of non-classicality in quantum correlations. We demonstrate this by focussing on deterministic computation of Boolean functions, in which natural generalisations of the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) paradox emerge; we then explore probabilistic computation, via which multipartite Bell Inequalities can be defined. We use this correspondence to define families of multi-party Bell inequalities, which we show to have a number of interesting contrasting properties.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, final version accepted for publicatio

Pharmacodynamic Activity of Ceftobiprole Compared with Vancomycin versus Methicillin-Resistant \u3cem\u3eStaphylococcus aureus\u3c/em\u3e (MRSA), Vancomycin-Intermediate \u3cem\u3eStaphylococcus aureus\u3c/em\u3e (VISA) and Vancomycin-Resistant \u3cem\u3eStaphylococcus aureus\u3c/em\u3e (VRSA) Using an In Vitro Model

Background This study compared the pharmacodynamics of ceftobiprole and vancomycin against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA) and vancomycin-resistant S. aureus (VRSA) using an in vitro model. Methods Two methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), two community-associated (CA)-MRSA, one healthcare-associated (HA)-MRSA, three VISA and two VRSA were studied. The pharmacodynamic model was inoculated with a concentration of 1 × 106 cfu/mL and ceftobiprole dosed every 8 h (at 0, 8 and 16 h) to simulate the fCmax and t1/2 obtained after 500 mg intravenous (iv) every 8 h dosing (fCmax, 30 mg/L; t1/2, 3.5 h). Vancomycin was dosed every 12 h (at 0 and 12 h) to simulate fCmax and t1/2 obtained after 1 g iv every 12 h dosing (fCmax, 20 mg/L; t1/2, 8 h). Samples were collected over 24 h to assess viable growth. Results Ceftobiprole T \u3e MIC of ≥100% (ceftobiprole MICs, ≤2 mg/L) was bactericidal (≥3 log10 killing) against MSSA, CA-MRSA, HA-MRSA, VISA and VRSA at 16 and 24 h. Vancomycin fAUC24/MIC of 340 (vancomycin MIC, 1 mg/L for MSSA and MRSA) resulted in a 1.8–2.6 log10 reduction in colony count at 24 h. Vancomycin fAUC24/MIC of 85–170 (vancomycin MIC, 2–4 mg/L for VISA) resulted in a 0.4–0.7 log10 reduction at 24 h. Vancomycin fAUC24/MIC of 5.3 (vancomycin MIC, 64 mg/L for VRSA) resulted in a limited effect. Conclusions Ceftobiprole T \u3e MIC of ≥100% (ceftobiprole MICs, ≤2 mg/L) was bactericidal (≥3 log10 killing) against MSSA, CA-MRSA, HA-MRSA, VISA and VRSA at 16 and 24 h. Vancomycin was bacteriostatic against MSSA, MRSA and VISA, while demonstrating no activity against VRSA