89 research outputs found
Maximising Consent: Operationalising Reciprocity in Secession Referenda
A constitutional referendum on secession from Indonesia was held in East Timor
in 1999, with a pro-independence vote triggering widespread violence by the
Indonesian army and pro-union militia. Montenegro underwent a similar process in
2006, also opting for independence but with much smoother results. This article will
suggest that the deliberative democratic principle of reciprocity can help deliver
referendum law based on justifications that can be accepted by all parties concerned. In
particular, it proposes that reciprocity can be operationalised in referendum law if the
participants in the negotiations that formulate the laws accept fair terms of social
cooperation (FTSCs) and resolve disagreements using economy of moral disagreement
(EMD). Respectively, these mean parties to negotiations should be willing to justify
their position in mutually acceptable terms and if consensus is impossible, agreements
should minimise their rejection of other parties’ views. This argument will be made
using the negotiations that created East Timor and Montenegro’s referendum laws as
case studies
Fractional topological superconductors with fractionalized Majorana fermions
In this paper, we introduce a two-dimensional fractional topological
superconductor (FTSC) as a strongly correlated topological state which can be
achieved by inducing superconductivity into an Abelian fractional quantum Hall
state, through the proximity effect. When the proximity coupling is weak, the
FTSC has the same topological order as its parent state and is thus Abelian.
However, upon increasing the proximity coupling, the bulk gap of such an
Abelian FTSC closes and reopens resulting in a new topological order: a
non-Abelian FTSC. Using several arguments we will conjecture that the conformal
field theory (CFT) that describes the edge state of the non-Abelian FTSC is
orbifold theory and use this to write down the ground-state wave
function. Further, we predict FTSC based on the Laughlin state at
filling to host fractionalized Majorana zero modes bound to superconducting
vortices. These zero modes are non-Abelian quasiparticles which is evident in
their quantum dimension of . Using the multi-quasi-particle wave
function based on the edge CFT, we derive the projective braid matrix for the
zero modes. Finally, the connection between the non-Abelian FTSCs and the
rotor model with a similar topological order is illustrated.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure
Ghost-tree: creating hybrid-gene phylogenetic trees for diversity analyses.
BackgroundFungi play critical roles in many ecosystems, cause serious diseases in plants and animals, and pose significant threats to human health and structural integrity problems in built environments. While most fungal diversity remains unknown, the development of PCR primers for the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) combined with next-generation sequencing has substantially improved our ability to profile fungal microbial diversity. Although the high sequence variability in the ITS region facilitates more accurate species identification, it also makes multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis unreliable across evolutionarily distant fungi because the sequences are hard to align accurately. To address this issue, we created ghost-tree, a bioinformatics tool that integrates sequence data from two genetic markers into a single phylogenetic tree that can be used for diversity analyses. Our approach starts with a "foundation" phylogeny based on one genetic marker whose sequences can be aligned across organisms spanning divergent taxonomic groups (e.g., fungal families). Then, "extension" phylogenies are built for more closely related organisms (e.g., fungal species or strains) using a second more rapidly evolving genetic marker. These smaller phylogenies are then grafted onto the foundation tree by mapping taxonomic names such that each corresponding foundation-tree tip would branch into its new "extension tree" child.ResultsWe applied ghost-tree to graft fungal extension phylogenies derived from ITS sequences onto a foundation phylogeny derived from fungal 18S sequences. Our analysis of simulated and real fungal ITS data sets found that phylogenetic distances between fungal communities computed using ghost-tree phylogenies explained significantly more variance than non-phylogenetic distances. The phylogenetic metrics also improved our ability to distinguish small differences (effect sizes) between microbial communities, though results were similar to non-phylogenetic methods for larger effect sizes.ConclusionsThe Silva/UNITE-based ghost tree presented here can be easily integrated into existing fungal analysis pipelines to enhance the resolution of fungal community differences and improve understanding of these communities in built environments. The ghost-tree software package can also be used to develop phylogenetic trees for other marker gene sets that afford different taxonomic resolution, or for bridging genome trees with amplicon trees.Availabilityghost-tree is pip-installable. All source code, documentation, and test code are available under the BSD license at https://github.com/JTFouquier/ghost-tree
Model Checking with Program Slicing Based on Variable Dependence Graphs
In embedded control systems, the potential risks of software defects have
been increasing because of software complexity which leads to, for example,
timing related problems. These defects are rarely found by tests or
simulations. To detect such defects, we propose a modeling method which can
generate software models for model checking with a program slicing technique
based on a variable dependence graph. We have applied the proposed method to
one case in automotive control software and demonstrated the effectiveness of
the method. Furthermore, we developed a software tool to automate model
generation and achieved a 35% decrease in total verification time on model
checking.Comment: In Proceedings FTSCS 2012, arXiv:1212.657
Signatures of Parafermion Zero Modes in Fractional Quantum Hall-Superconductor Heterostructures
Parafermion zero modes can arise in hybrid structures composed of
fractional quantum Hall edges proximitized with an s-wave superconductor. Here
we consider parafermion and Cooper pair tunneling, and backscattering in a
junction formed in such hybrid structures. We find that the
periodicity due to parafermion-only tunneling reduces, in the presence of
backscattering, to -periodic at zero temperature and -periodic at
finite temperature unless the fermion parity is fixed. Nevertheless, a clear
signature of parafermion tunneling remains in the shape of the current-phase
relation.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
A Formal Model For Real-Time Parallel Computation
The imposition of real-time constraints on a parallel computing environment-
specifically high-performance, cluster-computing systems- introduces a variety
of challenges with respect to the formal verification of the system's timing
properties. In this paper, we briefly motivate the need for such a system, and
we introduce an automaton-based method for performing such formal verification.
We define the concept of a consistent parallel timing system: a hybrid system
consisting of a set of timed automata (specifically, timed Buchi automata as
well as a timed variant of standard finite automata), intended to model the
timing properties of a well-behaved real-time parallel system. Finally, we give
a brief case study to demonstrate the concepts in the paper: a parallel matrix
multiplication kernel which operates within provable upper time bounds. We give
the algorithm used, a corresponding consistent parallel timing system, and
empirical results showing that the system operates under the specified timing
constraints.Comment: In Proceedings FTSCS 2012, arXiv:1212.657
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