marcus said:
It is not obvious why one would WANT to "unify LQG with SMT". One might lose valuable/interesting features of both. So it makes sense, when reading the papers, to look for each author's stated motivation---what they hope to achieve.
Smolin is another one that worked hard on these matters. A few years ago he gave a long list of such papers:
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/000855.html#c003826
Pay attention at the end of it.
"For attempts to use LQG methods to discover the background independent formulation of string and M theory:
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0002009 :
Title: M theory as a matrix extension of Chern-Simons theory
Authors: Lee Smolin
Comments: Latex, 17 pages, no figures
Journal-ref: Nucl.Phys. B591 (2000) 227-242
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0104050 :
Title: The exceptional Jordan algebra and the matrix string
Authors: Lee Smolin
Comments: LaTex 15 pages, no figures
Subj-class: High Energy Physics - Theory; Quantum Algebra
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0006137 [abs, ps, pdf, other] :
Title: The cubic matrix model and a duality between strings and loops
Authors: Lee Smolin
Comments: Latex, 32 pages, 7 figures
Subj-class: High Energy Physics - Theory; Quantum Algebra
http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9712148 :
Title: Nonperturbative dynamics for abstract (p,q) string networks
Authors: Fotini Markopoulou, Lee Smolin
Comments: Latex, 12 pages, epsfig, 7 figures, min"