Geometric origin of coincidences and hierarchies in the landscape

We show that the geometry of cutoffs on eternal inflation strongly constrains predictions for the timescales of vacuum domination, curvature domination, and observation. We consider three measure proposals: the causal patch, the fat geodesic, and the apparent horizon cutoff, which is introduced here for the first time. We impose neither anthropic requirements nor restrictions on landscape vacua. For vacua with positive cosmological constant, all three measures predict the double coincidence that most observers live at the onset of vacuum domination and just before the onset of curvature domination. The hierarchy between the Planck scale and the cosmological constant is related to the number of vacua in the landscape. These results require only mild assumptions about the distribution of vacua (somewhat stronger assumptions are required by the fat geodesic measure). At this level of generality, none of the three measures are successful for vacua with negative cosmological constant. Their applicability in this regime is ruled out unless much stronger anthropic requirements are imposed.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figure

Detailing spaces and processes of resistance: Working women in Dundee’s jute industry

Recent and ongoing calls within labour geography and social and cultural geography have highlighted the importance of resistance, its spatial productions and manifestations. However, within these, the geographical history of the factory system has been largely overlooked. Drawing upon Foucauldian theorisings in the fields of management and organisation, together with recent writings on the geographies of resistance, this paper takes Dundee’s jute industry at the turn of the twentieth century as its focus and explores how the workplace itself, and the very workplace discipline used to ensure a productive, efficient and hardworking workforce, engendered workplace protest among the industry’s working women. Writing through a number of modes and scales of protest within the workplace, within and between work groups, departments, mills and factories, and across the city, this paper adheres to an approach that carefully details the spaces and processes of resistance, paying careful attention to how union and non-union resistances operated and the geographies they worked through and created

Combining Coarse-Grained Protein Models with Replica-Exchange All-Atom Molecular Dynamics

We describe a combination of all-atom simulations with CABS, a well-established coarse-grained protein modeling tool, into a single multiscale protocol. The simulation method has been tested on the C-terminal beta hairpin of protein G, a model system of protein folding. After reconstructing atomistic details, conformations derived from the CABS simulation were subjected to replica-exchange molecular dynamics simulations with OPLS-AA and AMBER99sb force fields in explicit solvent. Such a combination accelerates system convergence several times in comparison with all-atom simulations starting from the extended chain conformation, demonstrated by the analysis of melting curves, the number of native-like conformations as a function of time and secondary structure propagation. The results strongly suggest that the proposed multiscale method could be an efficient and accurate tool for high-resolution studies of protein folding dynamics in larger systems.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Vacuum Structure and the Arrow of Time

We find ourselves in an extended era of entropy production. Unlike most other observations, the arrow of time is usually regarded as a constraint on initial conditions. I argue, however, that it primarily constrains the vacuum structure of the theory. I exhibit simple scalar field potentials in which low-entropy initial conditions are not necessary, or not sufficient, for an arrow of time to arise. I argue that the string theory landscape gives rise to an arrow of time independently of the initial entropy, assuming a plausible condition on the lifetime of its metastable vacua. The dynamical resolution of the arrow of time problem arises from the same structural properties of the string landscape that allow it to solve the cosmological constant problem without producing an empty universe, particularly its high dimensionality and the large difference in vacuum energy between neighboring vacua.Comment: 31 pages JHEP format, 3 figure

The blob and the block. When the rhetoric of the smooth and the striated went all wrong

This paper conforms to a view of architecture and the distribution of urban space as bio-political parameters of dominance and resistance. Using G. Deleuze & F. Guattari’s seminal essay on 1444. The Smooth and the Striated, I intend to show how Global Capitalism, by replicating the discourse of the smooth and the ungraspable, has voided Dialectics of its subversive potential.El presente artículo contempla la arquitectura y la distribución del espacio urbano como parámetros biopolíticos de dominación y resistencia. Valiéndose del ensayo 1444. Lo liso y lo estriado, de Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, se pretende demostrar cómo el capitalismo global, gracias a su capacidad para emular el discurso de lo fluido y lo intangible, habrá conseguido despojar a lo dialéctico de su potencial subversivo

Extracting, investigating and representing geographical concepts in Herodotus: the case of the Black Sea

In a short break from his preparations for the invasion of Scythia, Darius stops off where the Bosporus was bridged and sails to the Dark Rocks, apparently retracing the steps of the Argonauts.1 ‘There’, Herodotus reports, ‘he sat on the headland and viewed the Pontus, a wonderful sight’ (έζόμενος δέ έπί ρίω έθηεĩτο τόν Πόντον έόντα άξιοθέητον 4. 85. 1).2 In this paper, we aim to bring that wonderful sight to life using the latest digital technology, and to set out some of the ways in which the world that Herodotus describes can now be represented. At the same time, however, we will be concerned to show the potential of digital technologies for opening up new lines of enquiry, in particular the investigation of the ‘deep’ topological structures that underpin the Histories. After all, the Persian king is not the only figure to take an interest in the Pontus as a geographical concept: the historian too shows an interest in the Black Sea by extensively mapping the region and its place in the world, both before and after this episode (4. 37-45; 4. 99-101). The way that Herodotus articulates this space himself, which frames, and to a certain extent pre-empts, Darius’ invasion of Scythia, will be the concern of this paper

Building Damage-Resilient Dominating Sets in Complex Networks against Random and Targeted Attacks

We study the vulnerability of dominating sets against random and targeted node removals in complex networks. While small, cost-efficient dominating sets play a significant role in controllability and observability of these networks, a fixed and intact network structure is always implicitly assumed. We find that cost-efficiency of dominating sets optimized for small size alone comes at a price of being vulnerable to damage; domination in the remaining network can be severely disrupted, even if a small fraction of dominator nodes are lost. We develop two new methods for finding flexible dominating sets, allowing either adjustable overall resilience, or dominating set size, while maximizing the dominated fraction of the remaining network after the attack. We analyze the efficiency of each method on synthetic scale-free networks, as well as real complex networks