4,612 research outputs found
Current thinking and practices in family life and sex education in the secondary schools of the United States.
Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit
Restoring the sting to metric preheating
The relative growth of field and metric perturbations during preheating is
sensitive to initial conditions set in the preceding inflationary phase. Recent
work suggests this may protect super-Hubble metric perturbations from resonant
amplification during preheating. We show that this possibility is fragile and
sensitive to the specific form of the interactions between the inflaton and
other fields. The suppression is naturally absent in two classes of preheating
in which either (1) the vacua of the non-inflaton fields during inflation are
deformed away from the origin, or (2) the effective masses of non-inflaton
fields during inflation are small but during preheating are large. Unlike the
simple toy model of a coupling, most realistic particle
physics models contain these other features. Moreover, they generically lead to
both adiabatic and isocurvature modes and non-Gaussian scars on super-Hubble
scales. Large-scale coherent magnetic fields may also appear naturally.Comment: 6 pages, 3 ps figures, RevTex, revised discussion of backreaction and
new figure. To appear Phys. Rev. D (Rapid Communication
Choosing Wavelet Methods, Filters, and Lengths for Functional Brain Network Construction
Wavelet methods are widely used to decompose fMRI, EEG, or MEG signals into
time series representing neurophysiological activity in fixed frequency bands.
Using these time series, one can estimate frequency-band specific functional
connectivity between sensors or regions of interest, and thereby construct
functional brain networks that can be examined from a graph theoretic
perspective. Despite their common use, however, practical guidelines for the
choice of wavelet method, filter, and length have remained largely
undelineated. Here, we explicitly explore the effects of wavelet method (MODWT
vs. DWT), wavelet filter (Daubechies Extremal Phase, Daubechies Least
Asymmetric, and Coiflet families), and wavelet length (2 to 24) - each
essential parameters in wavelet-based methods - on the estimated values of
network diagnostics and in their sensitivity to alterations in psychiatric
disease. We observe that the MODWT method produces less variable estimates than
the DWT method. We also observe that the length of the wavelet filter chosen
has a greater impact on the estimated values of network diagnostics than the
type of wavelet chosen. Furthermore, wavelet length impacts the sensitivity of
the method to detect differences between health and disease and tunes
classification accuracy. Collectively, our results suggest that the choice of
wavelet method and length significantly alters the reliability and sensitivity
of these methods in estimating values of network diagnostics drawn from graph
theory. They furthermore demonstrate the importance of reporting the choices
utilized in neuroimaging studies and support the utility of exploring wavelet
parameters to maximize classification accuracy in the development of biomarkers
of psychiatric disease and neurological disorders.Comment: working pape
AN IRRIGATION MODEL FOR MANAGEMENT OF LIMITED WATER SUPPLIES
A two-stage simulation/mathematical programming model is presented for determining the optimal intraseasonal allocation of irrigation water under conditions of limited water supply. The model is applied to a series of water shortage scenarios under both surface and center pivot irrigation. Economically efficient irrigation management is shown to involve the coordination of a number of managerial decisions, including irrigation scheduling, crop substitution, the adoption of improved irrigation labor practices, and idling land. The results indicate that significant opportunities exist for conserving water in the study area under both surface and center pivot irrigation.Crop Production/Industries, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
Gravitational waves in preheating
We study the evolution of gravitational waves through the preheating era that
follows inflation. The oscillating inflaton drives parametric resonant growth
of scalar field fluctuations, and although super-Hubble tensor modes are not
strongly amplified, they do carry an imprint of preheating. This is clearly
seen in the Weyl tensor, which provides a covariant description of
gravitational waves.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, Revte
The connection between the peaks in velocity dispersion and star-forming clumps of turbulent galaxies
We present Keck/OSIRIS adaptive optics observations with 150-400 pc spatial
sampling of 7 turbulent, clumpy disc galaxies from the DYNAMO sample
(). DYNAMO galaxies have previously been shown to be well matched
in properties to main sequence galaxies at . Integral field
spectroscopy observations using adaptive optics are subject to a number of
systematics including a variable PSF and spatial sampling, which we account for
in our analysis. We present gas velocity dispersion maps corrected for these
effects, and confirm that DYNAMO galaxies do have high gas velocity dispersion
(\kms), even at high spatial sampling. We find statistically
significant structure in 6 out of 7 galaxies. The most common distance between
the peaks in velocity dispersion and emission line peaks is ~kpc, we
note this is very similar to the average size of a clump measured with HST
H maps. This could suggest that the peaks in velocity dispersion in
clumpy galaxies likely arise due to some interaction between the clump and the
surrounding ISM of the galaxy, though our observations cannot distinguish
between outflows, inflows or velocity shear. Observations covering a wider area
of the galaxies will be needed to confirm this result.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRA
Primordial black hole production due to preheating
During the preheating process at the end of inflation the amplification of
field fluctuations can lead to the amplification of curvature perturbations. If
the curvature perturbations on small scales are sufficiently large, primordial
black holes (PBHs) will be overproduced. In this paper we study PBH production
in the two-field preheating model with quadratic inflaton potential. We show
that for many values of the inflaton mass m, and coupling g, small scale
perturbations will be amplified sufficiently, before backreaction can shut off
preheating, so that PBHs will be overproduced during the subsequent radiation
dominated era.Comment: 5 pages, 3 eps figures. Minor changes to match version to appear in
PRD as a rapid communicatio
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