Interpretive discourses in South Africa\'s Education White Paper No. 6: Special Needs Education

No Abstract. South African Journal of EducationVol. 23(2) 2003: pp. 152-15

Minimax Estimation of Nonregular Parameters and Discontinuity in Minimax Risk

When a parameter of interest is nondifferentiable in the probability, the existing theory of semiparametric efficient estimation is not applicable, as it does not have an influence function. Song (2014) recently developed a local asymptotic minimax estimation theory for a parameter that is a nondifferentiable transform of a regular parameter, where the nondifferentiable transform is a composite map of a continuous piecewise linear map with a single kink point and a translation-scale equivariant map. The contribution of this paper is two fold. First, this paper extends the local asymptotic minimax theory to nondifferentiable transforms that are a composite map of a Lipschitz continuous map having a finite set of nondifferentiability points and a translation-scale equivariant map. Second, this paper investigates the discontinuity of the local asymptotic minimax risk in the true probability and shows that the proposed estimator remains to be optimal even when the risk is locally robustified not only over the scores at the true probability, but also over the true probability itself. However, the local robustification does not resolve the issue of discontinuity in the local asymptotic minimax risk

Radiation of Optical Angular Momentum from a Dipole Source in a Magneto-birefringent Environment

We investigate the radiation of optical angular momentum by a dipole gas under uniform magnetic field with an unpolarized source at its center. Conservation of angular momentum implies that the radiation of angular momentum results in a torque on both the source and the surrounding environment. Moreover, we study the spin and orbital contributions to the radiated angular momentum

Numerical Simulation of Radiative Transfer of Electromagnetic Angular Momentum

We present numerical simulations of light emitted by a source and scattered by surrounding electric dipoles with Zeeman splitting. We calculate the leakage of electromagnetic angular momentum to infinity.Comment: submitted to Acta Physica Polonica A: Conference Proceedings of 11th Workshop on Quantum Chaos and Localisation Phenomena, May 202

Relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms

Using the operator representation of the Dirac Coulomb Green function the analytical method in perturbation theory is employed in obtaining solutions of the Dirac equation for a hydrogen-like atom in a time-dependent electric field. The relativistic dynamical polarizability of hydrogen-like atoms is calculated and analysed.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures (not included, but hard copies are available upon request

Imaging the dust sublimation front of a circumbinary disk

We present the first near-IR milli-arcsecond-scale image of a post-AGB binary that is surrounded by hot circumbinary dust. A very rich interferometric data set in six spectral channels was acquired of IRAS08544-4431 with the new RAPID camera on the PIONIER beam combiner at the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). A broadband image in the \textit{H} band was reconstructed by combining the data of all spectral channels using the SPARCO method. We spatially separate all the building blocks of the IRAS08544-4431 system in our milliarcsecond-resolution image. Our dissection reveals a dust sublimation front that is strikingly similar to that expected in early-stage protoplanetary disks, as well as an unexpected flux signal of $\sim$4\% from the secondary star. The energy output from this companion indicates the presence of a compact circum-companion accretion disk, which is likely the origin of the fast outflow detected in H$\alpha$. Our image provides the most detailed view into the heart of a dusty circumstellar disk to date. Our results demonstrate that binary evolution processes and circumstellar disk evolution can be studied in detail in space and over time.Comment: PR @ http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1608