5,138 research outputs found
Calabi-Yau threefolds with large h^{2, 1}
We carry out a systematic analysis of Calabi-Yau threefolds that are
elliptically fibered with section ("EFS") and have a large Hodge number h^{2,
1}. EFS Calabi-Yau threefolds live in a single connected space, with regions of
moduli space associated with different topologies connected through transitions
that can be understood in terms of singular Weierstrass models. We determine
the complete set of such threefolds that have h^{2, 1} >= 350 by tuning
coefficients in Weierstrass models over Hirzebruch surfaces. The resulting set
of Hodge numbers includes those of all known Calabi-Yau threefolds with h^{2,
1} >= 350, as well as three apparently new Calabi-Yau threefolds. We speculate
that there are no other Calabi-Yau threefolds (elliptically fibered or not)
with Hodge numbers that exceed this bound. We summarize the theoretical and
practical obstacles to a complete enumeration of all possible EFS Calabi-Yau
threefolds and fourfolds, including those with small Hodge numbers, using this
approach.Comment: 44 pages, 5 tables, 5 figures; v2: minor corrections; v3: minor
corrections, moved figure; v4: typo in Table 2 correcte
Geometric constraints in dual F-theory and heterotic string compactifications
We systematically analyze a broad class of dual heterotic and F-theory models
that give four-dimensional supergravity theories, and compare the geometric
constraints on the two sides of the duality. Specifically, we give a complete
classification of models where the heterotic theory is compactified on a smooth
Calabi-Yau threefold that is elliptically fibered with a single section and
carries smooth irreducible vector bundles, and the dual F-theory model has a
corresponding threefold base that has the form of a P^1 bundle. We formulate
simple conditions for the geometry on the F-theory side to support an
elliptically fibered Calabi-Yau fourfold. We match these conditions with
conditions for the existence of stable vector bundles on the heterotic side,
and show that F-theory gives new insight into the conditions under which such
bundles can be constructed. In particular, we find that many allowed F-theory
models correspond to vector bundles on the heterotic side with exceptional
structure groups, and determine a topological condition that is only satisfied
for bundles of this type. We show that in many cases the F-theory geometry
imposes a constraint on the extent to which the gauge group can be enhanced,
corresponding to limits on the way in which the heterotic bundle can decompose.
We explicitly construct all (4962) F-theory threefold bases for dual
F-theory/heterotic constructions in the subset of models where the common
twofold base surface is toric, and give both toric and non-toric examples of
the general results.Comment: 81 pages, 2 figures; v2, v3: references added, minor corrections; v4:
minor errors, Table 5 correcte
Matter in transition
We explore a novel type of transition in certain 6D and 4D quantum field
theories, in which the matter content of the theory changes while the gauge
group and other parts of the spectrum remain invariant. Such transitions can
occur, for example, for SU(6) and SU(7) gauge groups, where matter fields in a
three-index antisymmetric representation and the fundamental representation are
exchanged in the transition for matter in the two-index antisymmetric
representation. These matter transitions are realized by passing through
superconformal theories at the transition point. We explore these transitions
in dual F-theory and heterotic descriptions, where a number of novel features
arise. For example, in the heterotic description the relevant 6D SU(7) theories
are described by bundles on K3 surfaces where the geometry of the K3 is
constrained in addition to the bundle structure. On the F-theory side,
non-standard representations such as the three-index antisymmetric
representation of SU(N) require Weierstrass models that cannot be realized from
the standard SU(N) Tate form. We also briefly describe some other situations,
with groups such as Sp(3), SO(12), and SU(3), where analogous matter
transitions can occur between different representations. For SU(3), in
particular, we find a matter transition between adjoint matter and matter in
the symmetric representation, giving an explicit Weierstrass model for the
F-theory description of the symmetric representation that complements another
recent analogous construction.Comment: 107 pages, 3 figures, 32 tables. In version 2, one figure and
comments added on the geometry of matter transition
An Analysis of the Spatio-Temporal Factors Affecting Aircraft Conflicts Based on Simulation Modelling
The demand for air travel worldwide continues to grow at a rapid rate, especially in Europe and the United States. In Europe, the demand exceeded predictions with a real annual growth of 7.1% in the period 1985-1990, against a prediction of 2.4%. By the year 2010, the demand is expected to double from the 1990 level. Within the UK international scheduled passenger traffic is predicted to increase, on average, by 5.8 per cent per year between 1999 and 2003. The demand has not been matched by availability of capacity. In Western Europe many of the largest airports suffer from runway capacity constraints. Europe also suffers from an en-route airspace capacity constraint, which is determined by the workload of the air traffic controllers, i.e. the physical and mental work that controllers must undertake to safely conduct air traffic under their jurisdiction through en-route airspace. The annual cost to Europe due to air traffic inefficiency and congestion in en-route airspace is estimated to be 5 billion US Dollars, primarily due to delays caused by non-optimal route structures and reduced productivity of controllers due to equipment inefficiencies. Therefore, to in order to decrease the total delay, an increase in en-route capacity is of paramount importance. At a global scale and in the early 1980s, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recognised that the traditional air traffic control (ATC) systems would not cope with the growth in demand for capacity. Consequently new technologies and procedures have been proposed to enable ATC to cope with this demand, e.g. satellite-based system concept to meet the future civil aviation requirements for communication, navigation and surveillance/ air traffic management (CNS/ATM). In Europe, the organisation EUROCONTROL (established in 1960 to co-ordinate European ATM) proposed a variety of measures to increase the capacity of en-route airspace. A key change envisaged is the increasing delegation of responsibilities for control to flight crew, by the use of airborne separation assurance between aircraft, leading eventually to ?free flight? airspace. However, there are major concerns regarding the safety of operations in ?free flight? airspace. The safety of such airspace can be investigated by analysing the factors that affect conflict occurrence, i.e. a loss of the prescribed separation between two aircraft in airspace. This paper analyses the factors affecting conflict occurrence in current airspace and future free flight airspace by using a simulation model of air traffic controller workload, the RAMS model. The paper begins with a literature review of the factors that affect conflict occurrence. This is followed by a description of the RAMS model and of its use in this analysis. The airspace simulated is the Mediterranean Free Flight region, and the major attributes of this region and of the traffic demand patterns are outlined next. In particular a day?s air traffic is simulated in the two airspace scenarios, and rules for conflict detection and resolution are carefully defined. The following section outlines the framework for analysing the output from the simulations, using negative binomial (NB) and generalised negative binomial (GNB) regression, and discusses the estimation methods required. The next section presents the results of the regression analysis, taking into account the spatio-temporal nature of the data. The following section presents an analysis of the spatial and temporal pattern of conflicts in the two airspace scenarios across a day, highlighting possible metrics to indicate this. The paper concludes with future research directions based upon this analysis.
String universality in ten dimensions
We show that the supergravity theories in ten dimensions with
gauge groups and are not consistent
quantum theories. Cancellation of anomalies cannot be made compatible with
supersymmetry and abelian gauge invariance. Thus, in ten dimensions all
supersymmetric theories of gravity without known inconsistencies are realized
in string theory.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX. v2: typos corrected on version appearing in
PR
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A comparison of stage-specific all-cause mortality between testicular sex cord stromal tumors and germ cell tumors: results from the National Cancer Database.
BackgroundTesticular sex cord stromal tumors (SCSTs) are managed similarly to germ cell tumors (GCTs); however, few studies have directly compared outcomes between these tumor types. Using the National Cancer Database (NCDB), we sought to compare overall and stage-specific all-cause mortality (ACM) between SCSTs versus GCTs.MethodsNCDB was queried for patients diagnosed with SCSTs and GCTs between 2004 and 2013. Descriptive statistics were used to compare sociodemographic and clinical characteristics between groups. Univariable and multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were used to assess associations with ACM.ResultsWe identified 42,192 patients diagnosed with testicular cancer between 2004 and 2013, with 280 having SCSTs and 41,912 patients having GCTs. Median age for SCSTs and GCTs was 45 (interquartile range [IQR] 34-59) and 34 (IQR 27-43), respectively (p < 0.001). Median follow-up was 39 and 52 months, respectively. Overall, patients with SCSTs had greater risk of ACM compared to those with GCTs (HR 1.69, 95% CI 1.14-2.50). Private insurance, greater education, and fewer comorbidities were associated with reduced risk of ACM (p < 0.05 for all). Among those with stage I disease, tumor type was not associated with ACM on multivariable analysis. Among those with stage II/III disease, patients with SCSTs had increased risk of ACM compared to patients with GCTs (HR 3.29, 95% CI 1.89-5.72).ConclusionsPatients with advanced SCSTs had worse survival outcomes compared to those with advanced GCTs. These data suggest a need for further investigation to ascertain effective management recommendations for SCSTs
Practical Hidden Voice Attacks against Speech and Speaker Recognition Systems
Voice Processing Systems (VPSes), now widely deployed, have been made
significantly more accurate through the application of recent advances in
machine learning. However, adversarial machine learning has similarly advanced
and has been used to demonstrate that VPSes are vulnerable to the injection of
hidden commands - audio obscured by noise that is correctly recognized by a VPS
but not by human beings. Such attacks, though, are often highly dependent on
white-box knowledge of a specific machine learning model and limited to
specific microphones and speakers, making their use across different acoustic
hardware platforms (and thus their practicality) limited. In this paper, we
break these dependencies and make hidden command attacks more practical through
model-agnostic (blackbox) attacks, which exploit knowledge of the signal
processing algorithms commonly used by VPSes to generate the data fed into
machine learning systems. Specifically, we exploit the fact that multiple
source audio samples have similar feature vectors when transformed by acoustic
feature extraction algorithms (e.g., FFTs). We develop four classes of
perturbations that create unintelligible audio and test them against 12 machine
learning models, including 7 proprietary models (e.g., Google Speech API, Bing
Speech API, IBM Speech API, Azure Speaker API, etc), and demonstrate successful
attacks against all targets. Moreover, we successfully use our maliciously
generated audio samples in multiple hardware configurations, demonstrating
effectiveness across both models and real systems. In so doing, we demonstrate
that domain-specific knowledge of audio signal processing represents a
practical means of generating successful hidden voice command attacks
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