Information, information processing and gravity

I discuss fundamental limits placed on information and information processing by gravity. Such limits arise because both information and its processing require energy, while gravitational collapse (formation of a horizon or black hole) restricts the amount of energy allowed in a finite region. Specifically, I use a criterion for gravitational collapse called the hoop conjecture. Once the hoop conjecture is assumed a number of results can be obtained directly: the existence of a fundamental uncertainty in spatial distance of order the Planck length, bounds on information (entropy) in a finite region, and a bound on the rate of information processing in a finite region. In the final section I discuss some cosmological issues related to the total amount of information in the universe, and note that almost all detailed aspects of the late universe are determined by the randomness of quantum outcomes. This paper is based on a talk presented at a 2007 Bellairs Research Institute (McGill University) workshop on black holes and quantum information.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, revte

Entanglement in a Valence-Bond-Solid State

We study entanglement in Valence-Bond-Solid state. It describes the ground state of Affleck, Kennedy, Lieb and Tasaki quantum spin chain. The AKLT model has a gap and open boundary conditions. We calculate an entropy of a subsystem (continuous block of spins). It quantifies the entanglement of this block with the rest of the ground state. We prove that the entanglement approaches a constant value exponentially fast as the size of the subsystem increases. Actually we proved that the density matrix of the continuous block of spins depends only on the length of the block, but not on the total size of the chain [distance to the ends also not essential]. We also study reduced density matrices of two spins both in the bulk and on the boundary. We evaluated concurrencies.Comment: 4pages, no figure

Activation of σ28-dependent transcription inEscherichia coliby the cyclic AMP receptor protein requires an unusual promoter organization

The Escherichia coli aer regulatory region contains a single promoter that is recognized by RNA polymerase containing the flagellar sigma factor, σ28. Expression from this promoter is dependent on direct activation by the cyclic AMP receptor protein, which binds to a target centred 49.5 base pairs upstream from the transcript start. Activator-dependent transcription from the aer promoter was reconstituted in vitro, and a tethered inorganic nuclease was used to find the position of the C-terminal domains of the RNA polymerase α subunits in transcriptionally competent open complexes. We report that the ternary activator-RNA polymerase-aer promoter open complex is organized differently from complexes at previously characterized promoters. Among other E. coli promoters recognized by RNA polymerase containing σ28, only the trg promoter is activated directly by the cyclic AMP receptor protein. The organization of the different promoter elements and the activator binding site at the trg promoter is the same as at the aer promoter, suggesting a common activation mechanism

Superdense coding of quantum states

We describe a method to non-obliviously communicate a 2l-qubit quantum state by physically transmitting l+o(l) qubits of communication, and by consuming l ebits of entanglement and some shared random bits. In the non-oblivious scenario, the sender has a classical description of the state to be communicated. Our method can be used to communicate states that are pure or entangled with the sender's system; l+o(l) and 3l+o(l) shared random bits are sufficient respectively.Comment: 5 pages, revtex

Validity, reliability, acceptability, and utility of the Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE): a clinical tool to facilitate social inclusion amongst people with severe mental health problems.

BACKGROUND: Individuals with severe mental health problems are at risk of social exclusion, which may complicate their recovery. Mental health and social care staff have, until now, had no valid or reliable way of assessing their clients' social inclusion. The Social Inclusion Questionnaire User Experience (SInQUE) was developed to address this. It assesses five domains: social integration; productivity; consumption; access to services; and political engagement, in the year prior to first psychiatric admission (T1) and the year prior to interview (T2) from which a total score at each time point can be calculated. AIMS: To establish the validity, reliability, and acceptability of the SInQUE in individuals with a broad range of psychiatric diagnoses receiving care from community mental health services and its utility for mental health staff. METHOD: Participants were 192 mental health service users with psychosis, personality disorder, or common mental disorder (e.g., depression, anxiety) who completed the SInQUE alongside other validated outcome measures. Test-retest reliability was assessed in a sub-sample of 30 participants and inter-rater reliability was assessed in 11 participants. SInQUE ratings of 28 participants were compared with those of a sibling with no experience of mental illness to account for shared socio-cultural factors. Acceptability and utility of the tool were assessed using completion rates and focus groups with staff. RESULTS: The SInQUE demonstrated acceptable convergent validity. The total score and the Social Integration domain score were strongly correlated with quality of life, both in the full sample and in the three diagnostic groups. Discriminant validity and test-retest reliability were established across all domains, although the test-retest reliability on scores for the Service Access and Political Engagement domains prior to first admission to hospital (T1) was lower than other domains. Inter-rater reliability was excellent for all domains at T1 and T2. CONCLUSIONS: The component of the SInQUE that assesses current social inclusion has good psychometric properties and can be recommended for use by mental health staff

Compressing Word Embeddings

Recent methods for learning vector space representations of words have succeeded in capturing fine-grained semantic and syntactic regularities using vector arithmetic. However, these vector space representations (created through large-scale text analysis) are typically stored verbatim, since their internal structure is opaque. Using word-analogy tests to monitor the level of detail stored in compressed re-representations of the same vector space, the trade-offs between the reduction in memory usage and expressiveness are investigated. A simple scheme is outlined that can reduce the memory footprint of a state-of-the-art embedding by a factor of 10, with only minimal impact on performance. Then, using the same `bit budget', a binary (approximate) factorisation of the same space is also explored, with the aim of creating an equivalent representation with better interpretability.Comment: 10 pages, 0 figures, submitted to ICONIP-2016. Previous experimental results were submitted to ICLR-2016, but the paper has been significantly updated, since a new experimental set-up worked much bette