20,454 research outputs found
Kitchen-Sink Enlightenment: A Review of “Grace for Amateurs”
Excerpt: Here’s an honest admission: Several times while reading Lily Burana’s new book Grace for Amateurs: Field Notes on a Journey Back to Faith, I consulted the copyright page, confirming again that Grace for Amateurs was really published by Thomas Nelson, the notoriously evangelical (and, in my mind, notoriously traditional) press. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Thomas Nelson asked another writer to remove the word “vagina” from her book, well aware that Christian readers would balk at language so closely associated with women and S-E-X. Would this same publisher be willing to support a memoir as edgy and progressive as Burana’s
Multilayer Complex Network Descriptors for Color-Texture Characterization
A new method based on complex networks is proposed for color-texture
analysis. The proposal consists on modeling the image as a multilayer complex
network where each color channel is a layer, and each pixel (in each color
channel) is represented as a network vertex. The network dynamic evolution is
accessed using a set of modeling parameters (radii and thresholds), and new
characterization techniques are introduced to capt information regarding within
and between color channel spatial interaction. An automatic and adaptive
approach for threshold selection is also proposed. We conduct classification
experiments on 5 well-known datasets: Vistex, Usptex, Outex13, CURet and MBT.
Results among various literature methods are compared, including deep
convolutional neural networks with pre-trained architectures. The proposed
method presented the highest overall performance over the 5 datasets, with 97.7
of mean accuracy against 97.0 achieved by the ResNet convolutional neural
network with 50 layers.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures and 4 table
The -parameter in 3-flavour QCD and by the ALPHA collaboration
We present results by the ALPHA collaboration for the -parameter in
3-flavour QCD and the strong coupling constant at the electroweak scale,
, in terms of hadronic quantities computed on the CLS gauge
configurations. The first part of this proceedings contribution contains a
review of published material \cite{Brida:2016flw,DallaBrida:2016kgh} and yields
the -parameter in units of a low energy scale, . We
then discuss how to determine this scale in physical units from experimental
data for the pion and kaon decay constants. We obtain MeV which translates to
using perturbation theory to match between 3-, 4- and 5-flavour QCD.Comment: 21 pages. Collects contributions of A. Ramos, S. Sint and R. Sommer
to the 34th annual International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory; LaTeX
input encoding problem fixe
Calorimetric and magnetic study for NiMnIn and relative cooling power in paramagnetic inverse magnetocaloric systems
The non-stoichiometric Heusler alloy NiMnIn undergoes a
martensitic phase transformation in the vicinity of 345 K, with the high
temperature austenite phase exhibiting paramagnetic rather than ferromagnetic
behavior, as shown in similar alloys with lower-temperature transformations.
Suitably prepared samples are shown to exhibit a sharp transformation, a
relatively small thermal hysteresis, and a large field-induced entropy change.
We analyzed the magnetocaloric behavior both through magnetization and direct
field-dependent calorimetry measurements. For measurements passing through the
first-order transformation, an improved method for heat-pulse relaxation
calorimetry was designed. The results provide a firm basis for the analytic
evaluation of field-induced entropy changes in related materials. An analysis
of the relative cooling power (RCP), based on the integrated field-induced
entropy change and magnetizing behavior of the Mn spin system with
ferromagnetic correlations, shows that a significant RCP may be obtained in
these materials by tuning the magnetic and structural transformation
temperatures through minor compositional changes or local order changes
Entanglement Trapping in Structured Environments
The entanglement dynamics of two independent qubits each embedded in a
structured environment under conditions of inhibition of spontaneous emission
is analyzed, showing entanglement trapping. We demonstrate that entanglement
trapping can be used efficiently to prevent entanglement sudden death. For the
case of realistic photonic band-gap materials, we show that high values of
entanglement trapping can be achieved. This result is of both fundamental and
applicative interest since it provides a physical situation where the
entanglement can be preserved and manipulated, e.g. by Stark-shifting the qubit
transition frequency outside and inside the gap.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Lett. on Friday 16 May
200
Theory of interlayer exchange interactions in magnetic multilayers
This paper presents a review of the phenomenon of interlayer exchange
coupling in magnetic multilayers. The emphasis is put on a pedagogical
presentation of the mechanism of the phenomenon, which has been successfully
explained in terms of a spin-dependent quantum confinement effect. The
theoretical predictions are discussed in connection with corresponding
experimental investigations.Comment: 18 pages, 4 PS figures, LaTeX with IOP package; v2: ref. added.
Further (p)reprints available from http://www.mpi-halle.de/~theory
Orbital symmetry fingerprints for magnetic adatoms in graphene
In this paper, we describe the formation of local resonances in graphene in
the presence of magnetic adatoms containing localized orbitals of arbitrary
symmetry, corresponding to any given angular momentum state. We show that
quantum interference effects which are naturally inbuilt in the honeycomb
lattice in combination with the specific orbital symmetry of the localized
state lead to the formation of fingerprints in differential conductance curves.
In the presence of Jahn-Teller distortion effects, which lift the orbital
degeneracy of the adatoms, the orbital symmetries can lead to distinctive
signatures in the local density of states. We show that those effects allow
scanning tunneling probes to characterize adatoms and defects in graphene.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Added discussion about the multi-orbital case
and the validity of the single orbital picture. Published versio
Using Community-Owned Resource Persons to Provide Early Diagnosis and Treatment and Estimate Malaria Burden at Community Level in North-Eastern Tanzania.
Although early diagnosis and prompt treatment is an important strategy for control of malaria, using fever to initiate presumptive treatment with expensive artemisinin combination therapy is a major challenge; particularly in areas with declining burden of malaria. This study was conducted using community-owned resource persons (CORPs) to provide early diagnosis and treatment of malaria, and collect data for estimation of malaria burden in four villages of Korogwe district, north-eastern Tanzania.In 2006, individuals with history of fever within 24 hours or fever (axillary temperature ≥37.5°C) at presentation were presumptively treated using sulphadoxine/pyrimethamine. Between 2007 and 2010, individuals aged five years and above, with positive rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) were treated with artemether/lumefantrine (AL) while under-fives were treated irrespective of RDT results. Reduction in anti-malarial consumption was determined by comparing the number of cases that would have been presumptively treated and those that were actually treated based on RDTs results. Trends of malaria incidence and slide positivity rates were compared between lowlands and highlands. Of 15,729 cases attended, slide positivity rate was 20.4% and declined by >72.0% from 2008, reaching <10.0% from 2009 onwards; and the slide positivity rates were similar in lowlands and highlands from 2009 onwards. Cases with fever at presentation declined slightly, but remained at >40.0% in under-fives and >20.0% among individuals aged five years and above. With use of RDTs, cases treated with AL decreased from <58.0% in 2007 to <11.0% in 2010 and the numbers of adult courses saved were 3,284 and 1,591 in lowlands and highlands respectively. Malaria incidence declined consistently from 2008 onwards; and the highest incidence of malaria shifted from children aged <10 years to individuals aged 10-19 years from 2009. With basic training, supervision and RDTs, CORPs successfully provided early diagnosis and treatment and reduced consumption of anti-malarials. Progressively declining malaria incidence and slide positivity rates suggest that all fever cases should be tested with RDTs before treatment. Data collected by CORPs was used to plan phase 1b MSP3 malaria vaccine trial and will be used for monitoring and evaluation of different health interventions. The current situation indicates that there is a remarkable changing pattern of malaria and these areas might be moving from control to pre-elimination levels
Human dynamics revealed through Web analytics
When the World Wide Web was first conceived as a way to facilitate the
sharing of scientific information at the CERN (European Center for Nuclear
Research) few could have imagined the role it would come to play in the
following decades. Since then, the increasing ubiquity of Internet access and
the frequency with which people interact with it raise the possibility of using
the Web to better observe, understand, and monitor several aspects of human
social behavior. Web sites with large numbers of frequently returning users are
ideal for this task. If these sites belong to companies or universities, their
usage patterns can furnish information about the working habits of entire
populations. In this work, we analyze the properly anonymized logs detailing
the access history to Emory University's Web site. Emory is a medium size
university located in Atlanta, Georgia. We find interesting structure in the
activity patterns of the domain and study in a systematic way the main forces
behind the dynamics of the traffic. In particular, we show that both linear
preferential linking and priority based queuing are essential ingredients to
understand the way users navigate the Web.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure
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