Nonequilibrium Quantum Landauer Principle

Using the operational framework of completely positive, trace preserving operations and thermodynamic fluctuation relations, we derive a lower bound for the heat exchange in a Landauer erasure process on a quantum system. Our bound comes from a nonphenomenological derivation of the Landauer principle which holds for generic nonequilibrium dynamics. Furthermore, the bound depends on the nonunitality of dynamics, giving it a physical significance that differs from other derivations. We apply our framework to the model of a spin-1/2 system coupled to an interacting spin chain at finite temperature.

Constitutional Questions

Constitutional Questions
Professor John Morison MRIA School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast
How should we live together? Is there any ethical question more fundamental than this?
Is a constitution only about who does what in government or is it about what is to be done? Does a constitution provide the ground rules for deciding this or is it part of the answer itself? Is it the repository of fundamental values about how to live? What is the good life anyway? Is it about the preservation of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Or something more? What about preserving (or radically reordering) the distribution of property? Or ensuring that everyone has the same chances? Is it the job of the constitution to simply promise dignity, equality and freedom, or to deliver these values?
If the constitution is the place where the state undertakes “to promote the welfare of the whole people”, what does this actually mean in practical terms? And who pays for it? Should a constitution give us an entitlement to at least a basic minimum by way of a lifestyle? Or is it the job only of the political process to decide issues about the allocation of resources? What do we do if we feel that we cannot trust our politicians? Are there basic rules that should govern the operation of politics and are there fundamental values that should not be overridden? Are these “sacred and undeniable”? Or to be interpreted in line with modern conditions and within a “margin of appreciation”? Who decides on this in individual cases?
Who is entitled to any of this, and on what basis? Is everyone equal? Is the constitution about making it clear that no-one is better than you, and that in turn, you are better than no-one? Is a constitution about ensuring that you will always be an end in yourself and never simply a means to anyone else’s end? Or does it simply reinforce the existing distribution of power and wealth?
Are citizens to be given more than those who are not citizens? Is more to be expected from them, and what might that be? Can the constitution tell us how we should treat those from outside who now live with us?
What is the relationship between a constitution and a nation? Who is in the nation anyway? Should we talk about “we the people” or “we the peoples”? Should a constitution confirm a nationality or facilitate diversity? Is the constitution the place to declare aspirations for a national territory? Or to confirm support for the idea of consent? What about all our neighbours – on the island of Ireland and in Great Britain? Or in Europe? And beyond?
What is the relationship between a constitution and democracy? Is a constitution simply the rules by which the powerful govern the powerless? In what sense does a constitution belong to everyone, across past, present and future generations? Is it the place where we state common values? Are there any? Do they change across time? Should the people be asked about changes they may want? How often should this be done? Should the constitution address the past and its problems? How might this be done? What do we owe future generations?
Finally, if we can agree that the constitution is about respecting human rights, striving for social justice and building a fair and democratic Ireland – North and South – how do we make it happen in practice?

Human rights and traditional values

A series of ‘traditional values’ resolutions, passed by the UN Human Rights Council in 2009, 2011, and 2012, were the result of a highly controversial initiative spearheaded by Russia. Do these ‘traditional values’ underpin human rights? If not, why are religious traditions or, indeed, any traditional values worth preserving at all? Why are they valuable from the point of view of adherents to that tradition? Should the larger society take into account the fact that a practice is based on tradition in deciding whether or not to override it in the name of human rights? Put more technically, in what does the normativity of tradition lie, for adherents and non-adherents of that tradition? These are the questions that this essay explores, in the context of the recent debates over the scope and meaning of human rights stimulated by the Human Rights Council Resolutions. Much of the support for the Resolutions comes from what can broadly be called the global South. In several books, particularly Human Rights, Southern Voices, and General Jurisprudence: Understanding Law from a Global Perspective William Twining has explored the question of how to reconcile human rights norms and belief systems embedded in the global South (including ‘traditional values’), and in doing so has drawn particular attention to intellectuals from that part of the world, in particular Francis Deng, Yash Ghai, Abdullahi An-Na’im, and Upendra Baxi. I suggest that those concerned to recognize the legitimate concerns that significant sections of the global South have about the human rights project, concerns reflected in the ‘traditional values’ Resolutions would do well to pay more attention to the ‘Southern voices’ on whom Twining rightly focuses attention.

Gleason Upgrading with Time in a Large Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance Cohort

PURPOSE: We report the percentage of patients on active surveillance who had disease pathologically upgraded and factors that predict for upgrading on surveillance biopsies.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients in our active surveillance database with at least 1 repeat prostate biopsy were included. Histological upgrading was defined as any increase in primary or secondary Gleason grade on repeat biopsy. Multivariate analysis was used to determine baseline and dynamic factors associated with Gleason upgrading. This information was used to develop a nomogram to predict for upgrading or treatment in patients electing for active surveillance.

RESULTS: Of 862 patients in our cohort 592 had 2 or more biopsies. Median followup was 6.4 years. Of the patients 20% were intermediate risk, 0.3% were high risk and all others were low risk. During active surveillance 31.3% of cases were upgraded. On multivariate analysis clinical stage T2, higher prostate specific antigen and higher percentage of cores involved with disease at the time of diagnosis predicted for upgrading. A total of 27 cases (15% of those upgraded) were Gleason 8 or higher at upgrading, and 62% of all 114 upgraded cases went on to have active treatment. The nomogram incorporated clinical stage, age, prostate specific antigen, core positivity and Gleason score. The concordance index was 0.61.

CONCLUSIONS: In this large re-biopsy cohort with medium-term followup, most cases have not been pathologically upgraded to date. A model predicting for upgrading or radical treatment was developed which could be useful in counseling patients considering active surveillance for prostate cancer.

Two dimensional unital Riesz algebras, their representations and norms

We describe all two dimensional unital Riesz algebras and study representations of them in Riesz algebras of regular operators. Although our results are not complete, we do demonstrate that very varied behaviour can occur even though all these algebras can be given a Banach lattice algebra norm.

Effect of ultraviolet-B light on lymphocyte activity at doses at which normal bone marrow stem cells are preserved

Ultraviolet B (UVB) light is known to be immunosuppressive, but, probably because of a small UVC component in the emission spectra of some of the UVB lamps used, reports vary on effective dose levels. To prevent potentially lethal graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, alloreactive donor T-cell activity must be suppressed. In this study, a narrow wavelength UVB lamp (TL01, 312 nm peak emission) was used to determine what doses of UVB were required to abolish rat lymphocyte proliferation while simultaneously preserving rat bone marrow progenitor cell and primitive hematopoietic stem cell viability. Lymphocyte proliferation, as measured by 3H-Thymidine incorporation, in response to lectin stimulation was abolished below detection at doses greater than 3,500 J/m2. When T-cell clonogenicity was measured in a limiting dilution assay, a small fraction (0.6%) was maintained at doses up to 4,000 J/m2. Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (CTL) activity was reduced after treatment with 4,000 J/m2, but a significant level of cytotoxicity was still maintained. Natural killer cell cytolytic activity was not affected by doses up to 4,000 J/m2. At 4,000 J+m2 there was a 10% survival of colony-forming units-granulocyte-macrophage; a 1% and 4% survival of day-8 and day-12 colony-forming units-spleen, respectively; and 11% survival of marrow repopulating ability cells. Up to 25% of late cobblestone area forming cells (4 to 5 weeks), reflecting the more immature hematopoietic stem cells, were preserved in bone marrow treated with 4,000 J/m2, indicating that early stem cells are less sensitive to UVB damage than are more committed progenitor cells. Thus, a potential therapeutic window was established at approximately 4,000 J/m2 using this light source, whereby the potentially GVHD-inducing T cells were suppressed, but a sufficient proportion of the cells responsible for engraftment was maintained.

Kernelized structural classification for 3D dogs body parts detection

Despite pattern recognition methods for human behavioral analysis has flourished in the last decade, animal behavioral analysis has been almost neglected. Those few approaches are mostly focused on preserving livestock economic value while attention on the welfare of companion animals, like dogs, is now emerging as a social need. In this work, following the analogy with human behavior recognition, we propose a system for recognizing body parts of dogs kept in pens. We decide to adopt both 2D and 3D features in order to obtain a rich description of the dog model. Images are acquired using the Microsoft Kinect to capture the depth map images of the dog. Upon depth maps a Structural Support Vector Machine (SSVM) is employed to identify the body parts using both 3D features and 2D images. The proposal relies on a kernelized discriminative structural classificator specifically tailored for dogs independently from the size and breed. The classification is performed in an online fashion using the LaRank optimization technique to obtaining real time performances. Promising results have emerged during the experimental evaluation carried out at a dog shelter, managed by IZSAM, in Teramo, Italy.

Low-grade malignant Triton tumor of the oral cavity:a case report

Malignant Triton tumor (MTT) is a malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor showing rhabdomyoblastic differentiation. It is considered a high-grade neoplasm with poor outcome. This report describes an MTT appearing in the oral cavity. On histologic examination the encapsulated lesion was composed of interlacing fascicles of spindle cells and scattered, large, strap-like pleomorphic cells with abundant eosinophilic cytoplasm. No cross striations were seen. Examination of levels through the tissue showed a total of only 4 normal mitoses and no necrosis. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated diffuse S100 positivity in the spindle cells. The large pleomorphic cells were weakly positive for alpha-sarcomeric actin and myoglobin, although variably but strongly positive for desmin. Management involved a small en bloc resection of the maxilla. After 33 months there was no sign of recurrence or distant metastasis. It was concluded that low-grade variants of MTT occur that do not have an aggressive clinical course.

The generation and amplification of intergalactic magnetic fields in analogue laboratory experiments with high power lasers

The advent of high-power laser facilities has, in the past two decades, opened a new field of research where astrophysical environments can be scaled down to laboratory dimensions, while preserving the essential physics. This is due to the invariance of the equations of magneto-hydrodynamics to a class of similarity transformations. Here we review the relevant scaling relations and their application in laboratory astrophysics experiments with a focus on the generation and amplification of magnetic fields in cosmic environment. The standard model for the origin of magnetic fields is a multi stage process whereby a vanishing magnetic seed is first generated by a rotational electric field and is then amplified by turbulent dynamo action to the characteristic values observed in astronomical bodies. We thus discuss the relevant seed generation mechanisms in cosmic environment including resistive mechanism, collision-less and fluid instabilities, as well as novel laboratory experiments using high power laser systems aimed at investigating the amplification of magnetic energy by magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. Future directions, including efforts to model in the laboratory the process of diffusive shock acceleration are also discussed, with an emphasis on the potential of laboratory experiments to further our understanding of plasma physics on cosmic scales.

Laser driven MeV proton beam focussing by auto-charged electrostatic lens configuration

Significant reduction of inherent large divergence of the laser driven MeV proton beams is achieved by strong (of the order of 10^9 V/m ) electrostatic focussing field generated in the confined region of a suitably shaped structure attached to the proton generating foil. The scheme exploits the positively charging of the target following an intense laser interaction. Reduction in the proton beam divergence, and commensurate increase in proton flux is observed while preserving the beam laminarity. The underlying mechanism has been established by the help of particle tracing simulations. Dynamic focussing power of the lens, mainly due to the target discharging, can also be exploited in order to bring up the desired chromaticity of the lens for the proton beams of broad energy range.