A photon loss tolerant Zeno CSIGN gate

We model an optical implementation of a CSIGN gate that makes use of the Quantum Zeno effect [1,2] in the presence of photon loss. The raw operation of the gate is severely affected by this type of loss. However, we show that by using the same photon loss codes that have been proposed for linear optical quantum computation (LOQC), the performance is greatly enhanced and such gates can outperform LOQC equivalents. The technique can be applied to other types of nonlinearities, making the implementation of nonlinear optical gates much more attractive

Research on computational and display requirements for human control of space vehicle boosters. Part 1 - Theory and results Final report, 22 Jun. - 22 Oct. 1966

Computational and display requirements for man-computer guidance and control techniques for reusable manned spacecraf

Magic for the dead? The archaeology of magic in later medieval burials

This paper examines patterns in the placement of apotropaic objects and materials in high- to late-medieval burials in Britain (11th to 15th centuries). It develops an interdisciplinary classification to identify: (1) healing charms and protective amulets; (2) objects perceived to have occult natural power; (3) 'antique' items that were treated as possessing occult power; and (4) rare practices that may have been associated with the demonic magic of divination or sorcery. Making comparisons with amulets deposited in conversion-period graves of the 7th to 9th centuries it is argued that the placement of amulets with the dead was strategic to Christian belief, intended to transform or protect the corpse. The conclusion is that material traces of magic in later medieval graves have a connection to folk magic, performed by women in the care of their families, and drawing on knowledge of earlier traditions. This popular magic was integrated with Christian concerns and tolerated by local clergy, and was perhaps meant to heal or reconstitute the corpse, to ensure its reanimation on judgement day, and to protect the vulnerable dead on their journey through purgatory

Self-knowledge, self-regulation and ambivalence: the production of female desire in the US-UK popular cultural imaginary

This article examines how media texts are curbing and conditioning female desire in the contemporary US-UK cultural moment. It analyses eight popular cultural texts: fictional TV shows Sex/Life (2021-), Wanderlust (2018), Gypsy (2017), film Hello, My Name is Doris (2015); factual TV shows Sex, Love & Goop (2021) and The Principles of Pleasure (2022); short story Cat Person (2017); and non-fiction book Three Women (2019). These media call on women to identify and regulate their desires in ways that sustain patriarchal ideals of femininity. Celebrations of female sexuality as a vehicle for self-knowledge are tied up in psychological, physiological and medicalised discourses which pathologise female desire in a binary of low/excessive, or confused and complex. Such discourses mask sexual trauma and present female sexual liberation as a reparative solution to violence. However, transformative understandings of desire as unknowable, contextual and culturally conditioned, which allow for a reworking of gendered relations, also emerge. Bringing together philosophical, psychological and popular debates on female desire with cultural representation, the article concludes that representations largely ignore the relationality of desire as always located within the violence of gender, race and class power structures

Dysfunction, Deviancy, and Sexual Autonomy: The Single Female Detective in Primetime TV

As the number of single women has grown within Anglo-American society, there has been a proliferation of discourses around single women within popular culture. At the same time, there has been a resurgence in female-centered media representations of detectives. This article asks what cultural work the convergence of the single woman with the unconventional figure of the detective performs, and what this means for contemporary feminine subjectivities, exploring how she is constructed in three primetime TV crime dramas: The Bridge, The Good Wife and Fargo. I argue that while the single female detective foregrounds discourses of professionalism, rationality, and sexual autonomy, she simultaneously reinscribes patriarchal discourses of heteronormative coupledom and normative femininity through her social dysfunction, vulnerability and deviance, rendering the single woman a threat to femininity. Yet, at times, her liminal positioning allows her to occupy a more transgressive feminine subjectivity and subversively trouble the gender binary

Silencing the single woman: Negotiating the ‘failed’ feminine subject in contemporary UK society

Despite a growth in single women in UK society over the past two decades, single femininity continues to be highly stigmatised. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of the heterosexual matrix and applying this to qualitative interview data with 25 single women, I argue that single femininity is produced as abject through processes of silencing which render the single female a ‘failed’ subject and reinscribe heteronormative coupled femininity. Yet while deeply painful, such ‘failures’ may also be productive, offering moments where the boundaries of heteronormative feminine subjectivity and hierarchies of intimate life are troubled and transformed. This article complicates understandings of stigma and resistance through a nuanced analysis of processes of abjectification and ambivalence