A Categorical Framework for Quantum Theory

Underlying any theory of physics is a layer of conceptual frames. They connect the mathematical structures used in theoretical models with physical phenomena, but they also constitute our fundamental assumptions about reality. Many of the discrepancies between quantum physics and classical physics (including Maxwell's electrodynamics and relativity) can be traced back to these categorical foundations. We argue that classical physics corresponds to the factual aspects of reality and requires a categorical framework which consists of four interdependent components: boolean logic, the linear-sequential notion of time, the principle of sufficient reason, and the dichotomy between observer and observed. None of these can be dropped without affecting the others. However, in quantum theory the reduction postulate also addresses the "status nascendi" of facts, i.e., their coming into being. Therefore, quantum phyics requires a different conceptual framework which will be elaborated in this article. It is shown that many of its components are already present in the standard formalisms of quantum physics, but in most cases they are highlighted not so much from a conceptual perspective but more from their mathematical structures. The categorical frame underlying quantum physics includes a profoundly different notion of time which encompasses a crucial role for the present.Comment: 35 pages, 1 figur

A Thermodynamical Approach to Quantifying Quantum Correlations

We consider the amount of work which can be extracted from a heat bath using a bipartite state shared by two parties. In general it is less then the amount of work extractable when one party is in possession of the entire state. We derive bounds for this "work deficit" and calculate it explicitly for a number of different cases. For pure states the work deficit is exactly equal to the distillable entanglement of the state, and this is also achievable for maximally correlated states. In these cases a form of complementarity exists between physical work which can be extracted and distillable entanglement. The work deficit is a good measure of the quantum correlations in a state and provides a new paradigm for understanding quantum non-locality.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex4, title changed, caveat added to theore

Spooky action at a distance in general probabilistic theories

We call a probabilistic theory "complete" if it cannot be further refined by no-signaling hidden-variable models, and name a theory "spooky" if every equivalent hidden-variable model violates Shimony's Outcome Independence. We prove that a complete theory is spooky if and only if it admits a pure steering state in the sense of Schr\"odinger. Finally we show that steering of complementary states leads to a Schr\"odinger's cat-like paradox.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, elsart, significantly revised versio

Secrets in the Library: Protected Scholarship and Professional Identity in Late Babylonian Uruk

Injunctions to secrecy in the colophons of scholarly cuneiform tablets offer potential insights into the classification and protection of knowledge in Mesopotamia. However, most models of a body of “secret knowledge” defined by the so-called “Geheimwissen colophons” have found it difficult to account for a seemingly disparate corpus of protected texts. This study argues first for an expanded definition of intellectual protection, which leads to a larger corpus of protected texts. Through a case study of Late Babylonian colophons from Uruk, it is suggested that there is a strong correlation between texts related to the professional specialism of the tablet owner, and the occurrence of protective formulae in the colophon. This implies that it is fruitful to consider “secret knowledge” less as an abstracted corpus of esoteric texts and more as a mutable categorisation strongly linked to professional and individual intellectual identity

Time-of-arrival distributions from position-momentum and energy-time joint measurements

The position-momentum quasi-distribution obtained from an Arthurs and Kelly joint measurement model is used to obtain indirectly an ``operational'' time-of-arrival (TOA) distribution following a quantization procedure proposed by Kocha\'nski and W\'odkiewicz [Phys. Rev. A 60, 2689 (1999)]. This TOA distribution is not time covariant. The procedure is generalized by using other phase-space quasi-distributions, and sufficient conditions are provided for time covariance that limit the possible phase-space quasi-distributions essentially to the Wigner function, which, however, provides a non-positive TOA quasi-distribution. These problems are remedied with a different quantization procedure which, on the other hand, does not guarantee normalization. Finally an Arthurs and Kelly measurement model for TOA and energy (valid also for arbitrary conjugate variables when one of the variables is bounded from below) is worked out. The marginal TOA distribution so obtained, a distorted version of Kijowski's distribution, is time covariant, positive, and normalized

The Dogs of Ninkilim, part two: Babylonian rituals to counter field pests

This article presents editions of all the extant Babylonian incantations against field pests. The sources date to the first millennium BC and many have not been published before. They are mostly tablets of the Neo-Assyrian period, from Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh, but the corpus also contains some Neo-Babylonian fragments from Nineveh, as well as a tablet from Sultantepe (ancient Huzirina) and two Late Babylonian tablets from southern Mesopotamia. Some of the pieces certainly belong to a series called in antiquity Zu-buru-dabbeda “To Seize the Locust-Tooth”, a compendium of incantations and rituals designed to combat by magic means the destruction of crops by locusts, insect larvae and other pests; other pieces are parts of related and similar texts. Some of the rituals require the observation of the Goat-star rising above the eastern horizon, which suggests they were performed at night as a precautionary measure during the winter months of the barley-growing season

IL-23 suppresses innate immune response independently of IL-17A during carcinogenesis and metastasis

IL-23 is an important molecular driver of Th17 cells and has strong tumor-promoting proinflammatory activity postulated to occur via adaptive immunity. Conversely, more recently it has been reported that IL-17A elicits a protective inflammation that promotes the activation of tumor-specific CD8(+) T cells. Here we show the much broader impact of IL-23 in antagonizing antitumor immune responses primarily mediated by innate immunity. Furthermore, the majority of this impact was independent of IL-17A, which did not appear critical for many host responses to tumor initiation or metastases. IL-23-deficient mice were resistant to experimental tumor metastases in three models where host NK cells controlled disease. Immunotherapy with IL-2 was more effective in mice lacking IL-23, and again the protection afforded was NK cell mediated and independent of IL-17A. Further investigation revealed that loss of IL-23 promoted perforin and IFN-gamma antitumor effector function in both metastasis models examined. IL-23-deficiency also strikingly protected mice from tumor formation in two distinct mouse models of carcinogenesis where the dependence on host IL-12p40 and IL-17A was quite different. Notably, in the 3'-methylcholanthrene (MCA) induction of fibrosarcoma model, this protection was completely lost in the absence of NK cells. Overall, these data indicate the general role that IL-23 plays in suppressing natural or cytokine-induced innate immunity, promoting tumor development and metastases independently of IL-17A

Pneumococcal carriage in sub-Saharan Africa--a systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Pneumococcal epidemiology varies geographically and few data are available from the African continent. We assess pneumococcal carriage from studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa (sSA) before and after the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) era. METHODS: A search for pneumococcal carriage studies published before 2012 was conducted to describe carriage in sSA. The review also describes pneumococcal serotypes and assesses the impact of vaccination on carriage in this region. RESULTS: Fifty-seven studies were included in this review with the majority (40.3%) from South Africa. There was considerable variability in the prevalence of carriage between studies (I-squared statistic = 99%). Carriage was higher in children and decreased with increasing age, 63.2% (95% CI: 55.6-70.8) in children less than 5 years, 42.6% (95% CI: 29.9-55.4) in children 5-15 years and 28.0% (95% CI: 19.0-37.0) in adults older than 15 years. There was no difference in the prevalence of carriage between males and females in 9/11 studies. Serotypes 19F, 6B, 6A, 14 and 23F were the five most common isolates. A meta-analysis of four randomized trials of PCV vaccination in children aged 9-24 months showed that carriage of vaccine type (VT) serotypes decreased with PCV vaccination; however, overall carriage remained the same because of a concomitant increase in non-vaccine type (NVT) serotypes. CONCLUSION: Pneumococcal carriage is generally high in the African continent, particularly in young children. The five most common serotypes in sSA are among the top seven serotypes that cause invasive pneumococcal disease in children globally. These serotypes are covered by the two PCVs recommended for routine childhood immunization by the WHO. The distribution of serotypes found in the nasopharynx is altered by PCV vaccination

On Babylonian lavatories and sewers

This study begins by examining the archaeological and documentary evidence for lavatories (toilets) and foul-water drains in ancient Mesopotamian dwelling houses. It goes on to investigate the use, etymology and history of the Akkadian word asurrû: in the Old Babylonian period it served mainly as a term for a kind of foul-water drain or “sewer” but later shed that meaning