4,715 research outputs found
State Cycles, Quasipositive Modification, and Constructing H-thick Knots in Khovanov Homology
We study Khovanov homology classes which have state cycle representatives,
and examine how they interact with Jacobsson homomorphisms and Lee's map
. As an application, we describe a general procedure, quasipositive
modification, for constructing H-thick knots in rational Khovanov homology.
Moreover, we show that specific families of such knots cannot be detected by
Khovanov's thickness criteria. We also exhibit a sequence of prime links
related by quasipositive modification whose width is increasing.Comment: 42 pages, color figures. Version 2 revisions: an error was corrected
in Proposition 4.3, which requires a stronger hypothesis. This slightly
widens the classification theorem of section 4, and has led to small
revisions throughout. Theorem 4.7, which involved even all-1 state cycles,
has been removed, as it has grown into a forthcoming pape
Historical spaces as narrative: mapping collective memory onto cinematic space
The following article proposes and develops a single theory: that unlike written history which tends to privilege chronology, teleology and consequentiality, historical films have increasingly abandoned overt means of narration and instead inscribe historical meanings onto cinematic spaces in historical films. The reason for this shift, I argue, is that recent advances in historiography have begun to encourage scepticism towards the human element in reconstructing narratives. In a world bombarded with media rhetoric from all directions, persuasion from traditionally “authoritative” sources such as voiceovers, prologues, marketing material proclaiming the use of historical experts and research, individual viewpoints, eyewitness accounts, etc, all become open to criticism. In the absence of authorial authenticity, and the gradual erosion of trust in both grand narratives and individual insights, the historical film nevertheless still requires some means by which the viewer can be persuaded of its veracity through shared or collective memory, history proper and lived social experience. It is to answer this need, then, that history and historical narratives have begun to place an emphasis on historical spaces as a means to retell history by creating a “cognitive map”, which offers recourse to an intertextual “representational legacy”
Explaining Classifiers using Adversarial Perturbations on the Perceptual Ball
We present a simple regularization of adversarial perturbations based upon
the perceptual loss. While the resulting perturbations remain imperceptible to
the human eye, they differ from existing adversarial perturbations in that they
are semi-sparse alterations that highlight objects and regions of interest
while leaving the background unaltered. As a semantically meaningful adverse
perturbations, it forms a bridge between counterfactual explanations and
adversarial perturbations in the space of images. We evaluate our approach on
several standard explainability benchmarks, namely, weak localization,
insertion deletion, and the pointing game demonstrating that perceptually
regularized counterfactuals are an effective explanation for image-based
classifiers.Comment: CVPR 202
Intrinsic and Cosmological Signatures in Gamma-Ray Burst Time Profiles: Time Dilation
The time profiles of many gamma-ray bursts consist of distinct pulses, which
offers the possibility of characterizing the temporal structure of these bursts
using a relatively small set of pulse shape parameters. We have used a pulse
decomposition procedure to analyze the Time-to-Spill (TTS) data for all bursts
observed by BATSE up through trigger number 2000, in all energy channels for
which TTS data is available. We obtain amplitude, rise and decay timescales, a
pulse shape parameter, and the fluences of individual pulses in all of the
bursts. We investigate the correlations between brightness measures (amplitude
and fluence) and timescale measures (pulse width and separation) which may
result from cosmological time dilation of bursts, or from intrinsic properties
of burst sources or from selection effects. The effects of selection biases are
evaluated through simulations. The correlations between these parameters among
pulses within individual bursts give a measure of the intrinsic effects while
the correlations among bursts could result both from intrinsic and cosmological
effects. We find that timescales tend to be shorter in bursts with higher peak
fluxes, as expected from cosmological time dilation effects, but also find that
there are non-cosmological effects contributing to this inverse correlation. We
find that timescales tend to be longer in bursts with higher total fluences,
contrary to what is expected from cosmological effects. We also find that peak
fluxes and total fluences of bursts are uncorrelated, indicating that they
cannot both be good distance indicators for bursts.Comment: 39 pages, 17 figures composed of 30 EPS files. Submitted to
Astrophysical Journal. PostScript and PDF with un-bitmapped figures available
at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/8000/slac-pub-8365.html .
Accompanies astro-ph/000221
Properties of Gamma-Ray Burst Time Profiles Using Pulse Decomposition Analysis
The time profiles of many gamma-ray bursts consist of distinct pulses, which
offers the possibility of characterizing the temporal structure of these bursts
using a relatively small set of pulse shape parameters. This pulse
decomposition analysis has previously been performed on a small sample of
bright long bursts using binned data from BATSE, which comes in several data
types, and on a sample of short bursts using the BATSE Time-Tagged Event (TTE)
data type. We have developed an interactive pulse-fitting program using the
phenomenological pulse model of Norris, et al. and a maximum-likelihood fitting
routine. We have used this program to analyze the Time-to-Spill (TTS) data for
all bursts observed by BATSE up through trigger number 2000, in all energy
channels for which TTS data is available. We present statistical information on
the attributes of pulses comprising these bursts, including relations between
pulse characteristics in different energy channels and the evolution of pulse
characteristics through the course of a burst. We carry out simulations to
determine the biases that our procedures may introduce. We find that pulses
tend to have shorter rise times than decay times, and tend to be narrower and
peak earlier at higher energies. We also find that pulse brightness, pulse
width, and pulse hardness ratios do not evolve monotonically within bursts, but
that the ratios of pulse rise times to decay times tend to decrease with time
within bursts.Comment: 40 pages, 19 figures. Submitted to Astrophysical Journal. PostScript
and PDF with un-bitmapped figures available at
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/8000/slac-pub-8364.html .
Accompanying paper astro-ph/0002218 available at
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/8000/slac-pub-8365.htm
A comparative analysis of two different analysers used for determination of the Total Organic Carbon in pharmaceutical grade water
Total Organic Carbon (TOC) is a routine test for pharmaceutical grade water. Several manufacturers supply equipment of different designs but there is a dearth of published, peer-reviewed, information evaluating the various analysers. In this study, we compared two TOC analysers, both validated to the same pharmacopoeial criteria, but with different oxidation and detection methods. The results in this paper show that there were no unexplained out-of-specification results and that both analysers operated equivalently in terms of the pharmacopoeial 500ppb pass/fail limits. However, significant differences between the TOC levels reported from paired samples were observed, two paired samples recorded a pass/fail conflict (albeit flagged with an overestimation warning), as well as differences in analyser responses between spiked samples that contained low levels of nitro- and chloro-carbon compounds
Mass mortalities in bivalve populations: A review of the edible cockle Cerastoderma edule (L.)
Mass mortalities in bivalve populations have long been of particular concern, especially when the species supports a commercial fishery or is of conservation interest. Here we consider the evidence of mass mortalities of the edible cockle, Cerastoderma edule (L.). Through the construction of a conceptual model eight potential factors (or groups of factors) which may cause mass mortalities are identified and reviewed. These include: food limitation; density; oxygen depletion and organic loadings; temperature and salinity; parasites, pathogens and commensals; toxicants and other persistent pollutants; predation, and changes in sediment, suspended solids, topography and bathymetry. The interplay between factors in recognized and discussed based on evidence mainly from the published literature relating to temperate edible cockle beds. Anecdotal evidence is also reported from a structured survey of site-specific evidence provided by fisheries managers in England and Wales. Case studies from the UK and Europe indicate that there is often no single, clear generic cause of mass mortalities in cockle populations. The importance of linked site-specific scientific investigations and laboratory-based experiments to fill the gaps in our current understanding of mass mortalities in bivalve species is highlighted as necessary to take account of both local extrinsic and intrinsic factors
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