Letters of William Cullen Bryant from Florida

In 1843; on the invitation of William Gilmore Sims, Bryant had taken a journey to the South. He visited Richmond, watched the sale of tobacco, and inspected a typical tobacco factory. Later, while enjoying the ‘hospitality of some planters in the Barnwell district of South Carolina, he had the good ” fortune of witnessing a corn shucking and attending a racoon hunt. But of far greater interest to him was the life of the negro observed at first hand. He listened to negro ballads and the lively music of the banjo and heard, perhaps for the first time, the hearty, extravagant laughter of the slaves on the plantation. From personal observation he, judged that the blacks of that region were “a cheerful, careless, dirty race, not hard-worked, and in many respects indulgently treated.

Precompact noncompact reflexive abelian groups

We present a series of examples of precompact, noncompact, reflexive topological Abelian groups. Some of them are pseudocompact or even countably compact, but we show that there exist precompact non-pseudocompact reflexive groups as well. It is also proved that every pseudocompact Abelian group is a quotient of a reflexive pseudocompact group with respect to a closed reflexive pseudocompact subgroup

Quantum strategies

We consider game theory from the perspective of quantum algorithms. Strategies in classical game theory are either pure (deterministic) or mixed (probabilistic). We introduce these basic ideas in the context of a simple example, closely related to the traditional Matching Pennies game. While not every two-person zero-sum finite game has an equilibrium in the set of pure strategies, von Neumann showed that there is always an equilibrium at which each player follows a mixed strategy. A mixed strategy deviating from the equilibrium strategy cannot increase a player's expected payoff. We show, however, that in our example a player who implements a quantum strategy can increase his expected payoff, and explain the relation to efficient quantum algorithms. We prove that in general a quantum strategy is always at least as good as a classical one, and furthermore that when both players use quantum strategies there need not be any equilibrium, but if both are allowed mixed quantum strategies there must be.Comment: 8 pages, plain TeX, 1 figur

Nash embedding and equilibrium in pure quantum states

With respect to probabilistic mixtures of the strategies in non-cooperative games, quantum game theory provides guarantee of fixed-point stability, the so-called Nash equilibrium. This permits players to choose mixed quantum strategies that prepare mixed quantum states optimally under constraints. In this letter, we show that fixed-point stability of Nash equilibrium can also be guaranteed for pure quantum strategies via an application of the Nash embedding theorem, permitting players to prepare pure quantum states optimally under constraints.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1609.0836

Artificial Intelligence and Cardiovascular Genetics

Polygenic diseases, which are genetic disorders caused by the combined action of multiple genes, pose unique and significant challenges for the diagnosis and management of affected patients. A major goal of cardiovascular medicine has been to understand how genetic variation leads to the clinical heterogeneity seen in polygenic cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Recent advances and emerging technologies in artificial intelligence (AI), coupled with the ever-increasing availability of next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, now provide researchers with unprecedented possibilities for dynamic and complex biological genomic analyses. Combining these technologies may lead to a deeper understanding of heterogeneous polygenic CVDs, better prognostic guidance, and, ultimately, greater personalized medicine. Advances will likely be achieved through increasingly frequent and robust genomic characterization of patients, as well the integration of genomic data with other clinical data, such as cardiac imaging, coronary angiography, and clinical biomarkers. This review discusses the current opportunities and limitations of genomics; provides a brief overview of AI; and identifies the current applications, limitations, and future directions of AI in genomics.</jats:p

The Seduction of Thanatos : Gabriele D’Annunzio and the Decadent Death

Peer reviewe