The Entropy-Driven X-ray Evolution of Galaxy Clusters

Observations of the evolution of the galaxy cluster X-ray luminosity function suggest that the entropy of the intra-cluster medium plays a significant role in determining the development of cluster X-ray properties. I present a theoretical framework in which the evolution of the entropy of the central intra-cluster gas is explicitly taken into account. The aim of this work is to develop a theoretical context within which steadily improving measurements of the X-ray luminosities and temperatures of distant galaxy clusters can be interpreted. I discuss the possible range of entropy evolution parameters and relate these to the physical processes heating and cooling the intra-cluster medium. The practical application of this work is demonstrated by combining currently available evolutionary constraints on the X-ray luminosity function and the luminosity--temperature correlation to determine the best-fitting model parameters.Comment: 9 pages Tex including 4 postscript figures. To be appear in MNRAS. minor miss-quote correcte

Framework Programmable Platform for the Advanced Software Development Workstation: Preliminary system design document

The Framework Programmable Software Development Platform (FPP) is a project aimed at combining effective tool and data integration mechanisms with a model of the software development process in an intelligent integrated software environment. Guided by the model, this system development framework will take advantage of an integrated operating environment to automate effectively the management of the software development process so that costly mistakes during the development phase can be eliminated. The focus here is on the design of components that make up the FPP. These components serve as supporting systems for the Integration Mechanism and the Framework Processor and provide the 'glue' that ties the FPP together. Also discussed are the components that allow the platform to operate in a distributed, heterogeneous environment and to manage the development and evolution of software system artifacts

Modeling the Internet's Large-Scale Topology

Network generators that capture the Internet's large-scale topology are crucial for the development of efficient routing protocols and modeling Internet traffic. Our ability to design realistic generators is limited by the incomplete understanding of the fundamental driving forces that affect the Internet's evolution. By combining the most extensive data on the time evolution, topology and physical layout of the Internet, we identify the universal mechanisms that shape the Internet's router and autonomous system level topology. We find that the physical layout of nodes form a fractal set, determined by population density patterns around the globe. The placement of links is driven by competition between preferential attachment and linear distance dependence, a marked departure from the currently employed exponential laws. The universal parameters that we extract significantly restrict the class of potentially correct Internet models, and indicate that the networks created by all available topology generators are significantly different from the Internet

Measuring non-Markovianity of processes with controllable system-environment interaction

Non-Markovian processes have recently become a central topic in the study of open quantum systems. We realize experimentally non-Markovian decoherence processes of single photons by combining time delay and evolution in a polarization-maintaining optical fiber. The experiment allows the identification of the process with strongest memory effects as well as the determination of a recently proposed measure for the degree of quantum non-Markovianity based on the exchange of information between the open system and its environment. Our results show that an experimental quantification of memory in quantum processes is indeed feasible which could be useful in the development of quantum memory and communication devices.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. V2: Minor modifications, title change

The Problem of Adhesion Methods and Locomotion Mechanism Development for Wall-Climbing Robots

This review considers a problem in the development of mobile robot adhesion methods with vertical surfaces and the appropriate locomotion mechanism design. The evolution of adhesion methods for wall-climbing robots (based on friction, magnetic forces, air pressure, electrostatic adhesion, molecular forces, rheological properties of fluids and their combinations) and their locomotion principles (wheeled, tracked, walking, sliding framed and hybrid) is studied. Wall-climbing robots are classified according to the applications, adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms. The advantages and disadvantages of various adhesion methods and locomotion mechanisms are analyzed in terms of mobility, noiselessness, autonomy and energy efficiency. Focus is placed on the physical and technical aspects of the adhesion methods and the possibility of combining adhesion and locomotion methods

The Economics and Politics of Women's Rights

Women's rights and economic development are highly correlated. Today, the discrepancy between the legal rights of women and men is much larger in developing compared to developed countries. Historically, even in countries that are now rich women had few rights before economic development took off. Is development the cause of expanding women's rights, or conversely, do women's rights facilitate development? We argue that there is truth to both hypotheses. The literature on the economic consequences of women's rights documents that more rights for women lead to more spending on health and children, which should benefit development. The political-economy literature on the evolution of women's rights finds that technological change increased the costs of patriarchy for men, and thus contributed to expanding women's rights. Combining these perspectives, we discuss the theory of Doepke and Tertilt (2009), where an increase in the return to human capital induces men to vote for women's rights, which in turn promotes growth in human capital and income per capita.

Business on television: continuity, change and risk in the development of television’s ‘business entertainment format’

This article traces the evolution of what has become known as the business entertainment format on British television. Drawing on interviews with channel controllers, commissioners and producers from across the BBC, Channel 4 and the independent sector this research highlights a number of key individuals who have shaped the development of the business entertainment format and investigates some of the tensions that arise from combining entertainment values with more journalistic or educational approaches to factual television. While much work has looked at docusoaps and reality programming, this area of television output has remained largely unexamined by television scholars. The research argues that as the television industry has itself developed into a business, programme-makers have come to view themselves as [creative] entrepreneurs thus raising the issue of whether the development off-screen of a more commercial, competitive and entrepreneurial TV marketplace has impacted on the way the medium frames its onscreen engagement with business, entrepreneurship, risk and wealth creation

NLO corrections in the initial-state parton shower Monte Carlo

The decade-old technique of combining NLO-corrected hard process with LO-level parton shower Monte Carlo is now mature and used in practice of the QCD calculations in the LHC data analysis. The next step, its extension to an NNLO-corrected hard process combined with the NLO-level parton shower Monte Carlo, will require development of the latter component. It does not exist yet in a complete form. In this note we describe recent progress in developing the NLO parton shower for the initial-state hadron beams. The technique of adding NLO corrections in the fully exclusive form (defined in recent years) is now simplified and tested numerically, albeit for a limited set of NLO diagrams in the evolution kernels.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Hungary: The Janus-faced Success Story

This paper offers a broad overview of the Hungarian development strategy over the past two decades. Combining historical and functional analysis, some major strengths and weaknesses are identified, with special emphasis on the country.s open-door policies and the role played by the European Union. The paper investigates why the impetus of institutional and financial integration was lost by about 2004 when policy drifting took over the role of strategies. Some ideas on how to remedy the situation are being offered. Paradoxically, the Hungarian success and failure both testify to the relevance of a neo-institutionalist/political economy approach to sustainable development. It also examines the limitations of external anchoring by the EU as well as of the spontaneous bottom-up evolution of institutions when policy drifting continues.structural reform, sustainability, EU accession, regulation, FDI, trust