Trip-Based Public Transit Routing Using Condensed Search Trees

We study the problem of planning Pareto-optimal journeys in public transit networks. Most existing algorithms and speed-up techniques work by computing subjourneys to intermediary stops until the destination is reached. In contrast, the trip-based model focuses on trips and transfers between them, constructing journeys as a sequence of trips. In this paper, we develop a speed-up technique for this model inspired by principles behind existing state-of-the-art speed-up techniques, Transfer Pattern and Hub Labelling. The resulting algorithm allows us to compute Pareto-optimal (with respect to arrival time and number of transfers) 24-hour profiles on very large real-world networks in less than half a millisecond. Compared to the current state of the art for bicriteria queries on public transit networks, this is up to two orders of magnitude faster, while increasing preprocessing overhead by at most one order of magnitude

Two-photon annihilation in the pair formation cascades in pulsar polar caps

The importance of the photon-photon pair production process ($\gamma+ \gamma^{\prime}\to e^{+}+e^{-}$) to form pair production cascades in pulsar polar caps is investigated within the framework of the Ruderman-Sutherland vacuum gap model. It is found that this process is unimportant if the polar caps are not hot enough, but will play a non-negligible role in the pair formation cascades when the polar cap temperatures are in excess of the critical temperatures, $T_{cri}$, which are around $4\times 10^6K$ when $P=0.1$s and will slowly increase with increasing periods. Compared with the $\gamma-B$ process, it is found that the two-photon annihilation process may ignite a central spark near the magnetic pole, where $\gamma-B$ sparks can not be formed due to the local weak curvatures. This central spark is large if the gap is dominated by the ``resonant ICS mode''. The possible connection of these central sparks with the observed pulsar ``core'' emission components is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 3 Postscript figures, LaTex, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

A neutron star progenitor for FRBs? Insights from polarisation measurements

Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are intense, millisecond-duration broadband radio transients, the emission mechanisms of which are not understood. Masui et al. recently presented Green Bank Telescope observations of FRB 110523, which displayed temporal variation of the linear polarisation position angle (PA). This effect is commonly seen in radio pulsars and is attributed to a changing projected magnetic field orientation in the emission region as the star rotates. If a neutron star is the progenitor of this FRB, and the emission mechanism is pulsar-like, we show that the progenitor is either rapidly rotating, or the emission originates from a region of complex magnetic field geometry. The observed PA variation could also be caused by propagation effects within a neutron-star magnetosphere, or by spatially varying magnetic fields if the progenitor lies in a dense, highly magnetised environment. Although we urge caution in generalising results from FRB 110523 to the broader FRB population, our analysis serves as a guide to interpreting future polarisation measurements of FRBs, and presents another means of elucidating the origins of these enigmatic ephemera.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to MNRA

The Shortest Path to Happiness: Recommending Beautiful, Quiet, and Happy Routes in the City

When providing directions to a place, web and mobile mapping services are all able to suggest the shortest route. The goal of this work is to automatically suggest routes that are not only short but also emotionally pleasant. To quantify the extent to which urban locations are pleasant, we use data from a crowd-sourcing platform that shows two street scenes in London (out of hundreds), and a user votes on which one looks more beautiful, quiet, and happy. We consider votes from more than 3.3K individuals and translate them into quantitative measures of location perceptions. We arrange those locations into a graph upon which we learn pleasant routes. Based on a quantitative validation, we find that, compared to the shortest routes, the recommended ones add just a few extra walking minutes and are indeed perceived to be more beautiful, quiet, and happy. To test the generality of our approach, we consider Flickr metadata of more than 3.7M pictures in London and 1.3M in Boston, compute proxies for the crowdsourced beauty dimension (the one for which we have collected the most votes), and evaluate those proxies with 30 participants in London and 54 in Boston. These participants have not only rated our recommendations but have also carefully motivated their choices, providing insights for future work.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, Proceedings of ACM Hypertext 201