We show that a regular locally compact quantum group $\mathbb{G}$ is discrete if and only if $\mathcal{L}^{\infty}(\mathbb{G})$ contains non-zero compact operators on $\mathcal{L}^{2}(\mathbb{G})$. As a corollary we classify all discrete quantum groups among regular locally compact quantum groups $\mathbb{G}$ where $\mathcal{L}^{1}(\mathbb{G})$ has the Radon--Nikodym property.

In this short note we introduce a notion called ``quantum injectivity'' of locally compact quantum groups, and prove that it is equivalent to amenability of the dual. Particularly, this provides a new characterization of amenability of locally compact groups.

We present a new approach to noncommutative real algebraic geometry based on the representation theory of $C^\ast$-algebras. An important result in commutative real algebraic geometry is Jacobi's representation theorem for archimedean quadratic modules on commutative rings. We show that this theorem is a consequence of the Gelfand--Naimark representation theorem for commutative $C^\ast$-algebras. A noncommutative version of Gelfand--Naimark theory was studied by I. Fujimoto. We use his results to generalize Jacobi's theorem to associative rings with involution.