Binary Pulsar Tests of General Relativity in the Presence of Low-Frequency Noise

The influence of the low-frequency timing noise on the precision of measurements of the Keplerian and post-Keplerian orbital parameters in binary pulsars is studied. Fundamental limits on the accuracy of tests of alternative theories of gravity in the strong-field regime are established. The gravitational low-frequency timing noise formed by an ensemble of binary stars is briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, contributed paper to the proceedings of the IAU167 colloquium on pulsars, Bonn, August-September 199

Wildlife disease elimination and 1 density dependence

Disease control by managers is a crucial response to emerging wildlife epidemics, yet the means of control may be limited by the method of disease transmission. In particular, it is widely held that population reduction, while effective for controlling diseases that are subject to density-dependent transmission, is ineffective for controlling diseases that are subject to frequency-dependent transmission. We investigate control for horizontally transmitted diseases with frequency-dependent transmission where the control is via nonselective (for infected animals) culling or harvesting and the population can compensate through density-dependent recruitment or survival. Using a mathematical model, we show that culling or harvesting can eradicate the disease, even when transmission dynamics are frequency-dependent. E 24 radication can be achieved under frequency-dependent transmission when density-dependent population regulation induces compensatory growth of new, healthy individuals, which has the net effect of reducing disease prevalence by dilution. We also show that if harvest is used simultaneously with vaccination and there is high enough transmission coefficient, application of both controls may be less efficient than when vaccination alone is used. We illustrate the effects of these control approaches on disease prevalence using assumed parameters for chronic wasting disease in deer where the disease is transmitted directly among deer and through the environment

Revisiting perfect fluid dark matter: Observational constraints from our galaxy

We revisit certain features of an assumed spherically symmetric perfect fluid dark matter halo in the light of the observed data of our galax

Taylor approximations of operator functions

This survey on approximations of perturbed operator functions addresses recent advances and some of the successful methods.Comment: 12 page

dimer paramagnetic centers in lead germanate crystals doped with iron and halogen (Cl-, Br-, F-) ions

The dimer complexes Fe3+-Cl-, Fe3+-Br-, and Fe3+-O2- in ferroelectric lead germanate crystals doped with iron and annealed in chlorine-, bromine-, and fluorine-containing atmospheres have been studied using the electron paramagnetic resonance method. These complexes are formed by Fe3+ ions in the trigonal position of lead and their associated anions located in the interstitial channel of the structure. The positions of the charge-compensating anions in the channel have been discussed based on the analysis of the parameters of the spin Hamiltonian and their temperature dependence. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Photosensitive bismuth ions in lead tungstate

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) signals of Bi2+ ions have been detected in the EPR spectrum of manganese-, bismuth-, and tin-doped PbWO4 single-crystals irradiated by xenon and mercury lamps at 100 K. The parameters of the Zeeman, hyperfine, and superhyperfine interactions and the localization of Bi2+ ions have been determined. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Improving Sequential Determinantal Point Processes for Supervised Video Summarization

It is now much easier than ever before to produce videos. While the ubiquitous video data is a great source for information discovery and extraction, the computational challenges are unparalleled. Automatically summarizing the videos has become a substantial need for browsing, searching, and indexing visual content. This paper is in the vein of supervised video summarization using sequential determinantal point process (SeqDPP), which models diversity by a probabilistic distribution. We improve this model in two folds. In terms of learning, we propose a large-margin algorithm to address the exposure bias problem in SeqDPP. In terms of modeling, we design a new probabilistic distribution such that, when it is integrated into SeqDPP, the resulting model accepts user input about the expected length of the summary. Moreover, we also significantly extend a popular video summarization dataset by 1) more egocentric videos, 2) dense user annotations, and 3) a refined evaluation scheme. We conduct extensive experiments on this dataset (about 60 hours of videos in total) and compare our approach to several competitive baselines

Electron paramagnetic resonance of Gd3+ ions in Ca1-x-yYxGdyF2+x+y crystals

Electron paramagnetic resonance of Ca1-x-yYxGdyF2+x+y single crystals has revealed spectra that are not typical of gadolinium-doped CaF2 crystals. These spectra have a nearly tetragonal symmetry and are most probably caused by Gd3+ ions localized in yttrium clusters. Weak spectra of tetragonal Gd3+ centers, whose parameters are close to those of a cubic gadolinium center caused by an isolated Gd3+ ion, have been also detected. These centers are attributed to isolated Gd3+ ions localized near octahedral rare-earth clusters or their associations. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

Paramagnetic defects in manganese-doped lead tungstate

In manganese-doped PbWO4 crystals, low-intensity signals of triclinic clusters Mn4+-VO and Fe3+-VPb have been revealed in addition to signals of Mn2+ tetragonal centers. The Mn4+-VO cluster is formed by a Mn4+ ion in the W6+ position, which is associated with a vacancy of the nearest neighbor O2-ion, and the Fe3+-VPb cluster consists of a Fe3+ ion substituting for Pb2+ with a local compensation of by a lead vacancy. It has been shown that, in PbWO4: Mn, there is also a small amount of Mn4+ tetragonal centers located in the Pb2+ position with a nonlocal compensation of an excess charge. © 2013 Pleiades Publishing, Ltd

On the structure of non-full-rank perfect codes

The Krotov combining construction of perfect 1-error-correcting binary codes from 2000 and a theorem of Heden saying that every non-full-rank perfect 1-error-correcting binary code can be constructed by this combining construction is generalized to the $q$-ary case. Simply, every non-full-rank perfect code $C$ is the union of a well-defined family of $\mu$-components $K_\mu$, where $\mu$ belongs to an "outer" perfect code $C^*$, and these components are at distance three from each other. Components from distinct codes can thus freely be combined to obtain new perfect codes. The Phelps general product construction of perfect binary code from 1984 is generalized to obtain $\mu$-components, and new lower bounds on the number of perfect 1-error-correcting $q$-ary codes are presented.Comment: 8 page