On the Minimum Degree up to Local Complementation: Bounds and Complexity

The local minimum degree of a graph is the minimum degree reached by means of a series of local complementations. In this paper, we investigate on this quantity which plays an important role in quantum computation and quantum error correcting codes. First, we show that the local minimum degree of the Paley graph of order p is greater than sqrt{p} - 3/2, which is, up to our knowledge, the highest known bound on an explicit family of graphs. Probabilistic methods allows us to derive the existence of an infinite number of graphs whose local minimum degree is linear in their order with constant 0.189 for graphs in general and 0.110 for bipartite graphs. As regards the computational complexity of the decision problem associated with the local minimum degree, we show that it is NP-complete and that there exists no k-approximation algorithm for this problem for any constant k unless P = NP.Comment: 11 page

Another argument for values-based medicine

There is a contemporary dialectic concerning the status of evidence-based medicine, criticising it for being ‘scientistic’, epistemologically inconsistent, rigid and dismissive of non-numerical sources of knowledge. A host of alternative frameworks has been proposed, including values-based medicine, narrative medicine, patient-centered care and personcentered medicine. Person-centered medicine is amongst the most persuasive and well-argued models. Miles and Mezzich [1] have argued in a major article that person-centered medicine employs theories of personhood to elaborate and justify its epistemology and praxis. At the same time, they claim that person-centered medicine is an ‘emergent’ concept that needs no base or foundation to justify it. We believe, however, that without some foundational values to underpin the status claimed for personhood, the arguments for person-centered medicine are incomplete. We therefore propose a set of foundational values – survival, security and flourishing – that underpin individual and social functioning transculturally. While these values are the same in all cultures, their expressions differ from culture to culture. Importantly, our notion of values is only modestly foundational. Modest foundationalism recognises that foundational propositions are only ‘warrantable assertions’ that may very well change in time and place. Foundational values in this sense are pragmatic and heuristic in kind and not normative. We enter a plea for their recognition in the form of the values-based medicine we describe. Keywords Evidence-based medicine, medical epistemology, modest foundationalism, person-centered medicine, values-based medicin

Integrated Diamond Optics for Single Photon Detection

Optical detection of single defect centers in the solid state is a key element of novel quantum technologies. This includes the generation of single photons and quantum information processing. Unfortunately the brightness of such atomic emitters is limited. Therefore we experimentally demonstrate a novel and simple approach that uses off-the-shelf optical elements. The key component is a solid immersion lens made of diamond, the host material for single color centers. We improve the excitation and detection of single emitters by one order of magnitude, as predicted by theory.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Another argument for values-based medicine

There is a contemporary dialectic concerning the status of evidence-based medicine, criticising it for being ‘scientistic’, epistemologically inconsistent, rigid and dismissive of non-numerical sources of knowledge. A host of alternative frameworks has been proposed, including values-based medicine, narrative medicine, patient-centered care and personcentered medicine. Person-centered medicine is amongst the most persuasive and well-argued models. Miles and Mezzich [1] have argued in a major article that person-centered medicine employs theories of personhood to elaborate and justify its epistemology and praxis. At the same time, they claim that person-centered medicine is an ‘emergent’ concept that needs no base or foundation to justify it. We believe, however, that without some foundational values to underpin the status claimed for personhood, the arguments for person-centered medicine are incomplete. We therefore propose a set of foundational values – survival, security and flourishing – that underpin individual and social functioning transculturally. While these values are the same in all cultures, their expressions differ from culture to culture. Importantly, our notion of values is only modestly foundational. Modest foundationalism recognises that foundational propositions are only ‘warrantable assertions’ that may very well change in time and place. Foundational values in this sense are pragmatic and heuristic in kind and not normative. We enter a plea for their recognition in the form of the values-based medicine we describe. Keywords Evidence-based medicine, medical epistemology, modest foundationalism, person-centered medicine, values-based medicin

Making decisions in the mechanistic, probabilistic and scientific domains of medicine: a qualitative study of medical practitioners

Rationale, aims and objectives: To find out how medical practitioners perceive the processes of decision-making in the context of the individual patient and to examine the importance of decision- making in the development and identity of medical practitioners throughout their clinical lives and to suggest how these perceptions might influence medical pedagogy. Method:A qualitative study of medical practitioners of varying ages and specialties, using loosely structured biographical interviews that were read to determine the different ways in which decisions were constructed and recalled and the impact these decisions were felt to have onboth the decision-maker and othersfor whom the decision was salient. Results: Personal decisions about career choice were important because they shaped the life of the practitioner and made a significant impact on those around them. Professional decisions were made in the domains of the mechanistic and probabilistic scientific world of medicine and in the domain of human relationships, emotions and suffering. There was often a tension between the different domains and the context of the life-world often modified decisions that might logically have been determined by evidence-based medicine and its bio-knowledge. Conclusions: Decisions had a strong effect on the development of identity within the field of practice. Individuals came to see themselves as doctors who made certain kinds of decisions of immediate relevance to the individual patient. Teaching medical students and graduates how to apply evidence to their decisions and how to use formal computational decision aids may well have a useful place in pedagogy, but the impact of decision-making on the lives of doctors and their individual patients deserves at least equal emphasis. Keywords Bio-knowledge, decisions, identity, life-world, personal developmen

Values as ‘modest foundations’ for medicine

Medicine and healthcare have been around for thousands of years, but we seldom ask why they are so important. It seems self-evident that we should seek relief of suffering from some institution in the society in which we live and equally selfevident that each society should provide healthcare for its people at some level. Yet when we inquire further, we are driven to seek foundational answers to iterative questions, seeking answers at deeper and deeper levels. Ultimately, it seems best to accept the Humean refuge [1] and finish with some such statement as "Humans are like that" or "Societies can't function in any other way". These Humean questions suggest that survival, security and flourishing are endpoints for such an inquiry and that medical (and many other) systems are built on these implicit foundations. The ways in which societies build relevant systems (such as medicine, welfare, law, transport, housing and so on) will differ strikingly, but common ground will still exist at the foundational level. Acknowledging a commonality of foundations does not commit one either to a conservative normativity, nor to a loose relativism. Increasing activity at the level of the International Court of Justice makes clear that there is a possibility of consensus for judging the validity of the interpretations and enactments of foundational values in any society. The ideals of the American Declaration of Independence — life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — are principles very similar to the foundational values of survival, security and flourishing. Person-centered medicine is inescapably based on theories of the person and must therefore be able to offer an account of what personhood is. Values underpin the philosophy and practice of medicine, including person-centered medicine, because they are foundations of personhood, as well as foundations of the societies in which each person lives. Keywords: Discourse, evidence-based medicine, foundationalism, medical epistemology, narrative-based medicine, person-centered medicine, reform, values-based medicinen/

Reducing Sexual Risk among Racial/ethnic-minority Ninth Grade Students: Using Intervention Mapping to Modify an Evidenced-based Curriculum

Background: Racial/ethnic-minority 9th graders are at increased risk for teen pregnancy, HIV, and STIs compared to their White peers. Yet, few effective sexual health education programs exist for this population. Purpose: To apply IM Adapt—a systematic theory- and evidence-based approach to program adaptation—to modify an effective middle school sexual health education curriculum, It’s Your Game…Keep It Real! (IYG), for racial/ethnic-minority 9th graders. Methods: Following the six steps of IM Adapt, we conducted a needs assessment to describe the health problems and risk behaviors of the new population; reviewed existing evidence-based programs; assessed the fit of IYG for the new population regarding behavioral outcomes, determinants, change methods, delivery, and implementation; modified materials and activities; planned for implementation and evaluation. Results: Needs assessment findings indicated that IYG targeted relevant health and risk behaviors for racial/ethnic-minority 9th graders but required additional focus on contraceptive use, dating violence prevention, active consent, and access to healthcare services. Behavioral outcomes and matrices of change objectives for IYG were modified accordingly. Theoretical methods and practical applications were identified to address these behavioral outcomes, and new activities developed. Youth provided input on activity modifications. School personnel guided modifications to IYG’s scope and sequence, and delivery. The adapted program, Your Game, Your Life, comprised fifteen 30-minute lessons targeting determinants of sexual behavior and healthy dating relationships. Pilot-test data from 9th graders in two urban high schools indicate promising results. Conclusion: IM Adapt provides a systematic theory- and evidence-based approach for adapting existing evidence-based sexual health education curricula for a new population whilst retaining essential elements that made the original program effective. Youth and school personnel input ensured that the adapted program was age-appropriate, culturally sensitive, and responsive to the needs of the new population. IM Adapt contributes to the limited literature on systematic approaches to program adaptation

The uses and functions of ageing celebrity war reporters

This article starts from the premise that recognition of professional authority and celebrity status depends on the embodiment and performance of field-specific dispositional practices: there’s no such thing as a natural, though we often talk about journalistic instinct as something someone simply has or doesn’t have. Next, we have little control over how we are perceived by peers and publics, and what we think are active positioning or subjectifying practices are in fact, after Bourdieu, revelations of already-determined delegation. The upshot is that two journalists can arrive at diametrically opposed judgements on the basis of observation of the same actions of a colleague, and as individuals we are blithely hypocritical in forming (or reciting) evaluations of the professional identity of celebrities. Nowhere is this starker than in the discourse of age-appropriate behaviour, which this paper addresses using the examples of ‘star’ war reporters John Simpson, Kate Adie and Martin Bell. A certain rough-around-the-edges irreverence is central to dispositional authenticity amongst war correspondents, and for ageing hacks this incorporates gendered attitudes to sex and alcohol as well as indifference to protocol. And yet perceived age-inappropriate sexual behaviour is also used to undermine professional integrity, and the paper ends by outlining the phenomenological context that makes possible this effortless switching between amoral and moralising recognition by peers and audiences alike

Use of tri-axial accelerometers to assess terrestrial mammal behaviour in the wild

Tri-axial accelerometer tags provide quantitative data on body movement that can be used to characterize behaviour and understand species ecology in ways that would otherwise be impossible. Using tags on wild terrestrial mammals, especially smaller species, in natural settings has been limited. Poor battery power also reduced the amount of data collected, which limits what can be derived about animal behaviour. Another challenge using wild animals, is acquiring observations of actual behaviours with which to compare tag data and create an adequate training set to reliably identify behavioural states. Brown hares were fitted with accelerometers for 5 weeks to evaluate their use in collecting detailed behaviour data and activity levels. Collared hares were filmed to associate actual behaviours with tag data. Observed behaviours were classified using Random Forests (ensemble learning method) to create a supervised model and then used to classify hare behaviour from the tags. Increased tag longevity allowed acquisition of large quantities of data from each individual and direct observation of tagged hare's behaviour. Random Forests accurately classified observed behaviours from tag data with an 11% error rate. Individual accuracy of behaviours varied with running (100% accuracy), feeding (94.7%) and vigilance (98.3%) having the highest classification accuracy. Hares spent 46% of their time being vigilant and 25% feeding when active. The combination of our tags and Random Forests facilitated large amounts of behavioural data to be collected on animals where observational studies could be limited, or impossible. The same method could be used on a range of terrestrial mammals to create models to investigate behaviour from tag data, to learn more about their behaviour and be used to answer many ecological questions. However, further development of methods for analysing tag data is needed to make the process quicker, simpler and more accurate

Outcome determinism in measurement-based quantum computation with qudits

In measurement-based quantum computing (MBQC), computation is carried out by a sequence of measurements and corrections on an entangled state. Flow, and related concepts, are powerful techniques for characterising the dependence of the corrections on previous measurement outcomes. We introduce flow-based methods for MBQC with qudit graph states, which we call Z d -flow, when the local dimension is an odd prime. Our main results are a proof that Z d -flow is a necessary and sufficient condition for a strong form of outcome determinism. Along the way, we find a suitable generalisation of the concept of measurement planes to this setting and characterise the allowed measurements in a qudit MBQC. We also provide a polynomial-time algorithm for finding an optimal Z d -flow whenever one exists