The human story behind Everettian quantum mechanics

Hugh Everett III was an unappealing character with a remarkable mind. His Princeton doctoral thesis on the foundations of physics transformed our understanding of quantum-mechanical reality, and he made original contributions to military operations research and to game theory. His domestic life was less inspiring; he died young after a lifetime of over-indulgence in food, alcohol, tobacco and sex, leaving behind a somewhat dysfunctional family with which he had little emotional connection

A representation of a compressed de Bruijn graph for pan-genome analysis that enables search

Recently, Marcus et al. (Bioinformatics 2014) proposed to use a compressed de Bruijn graph to describe the relationship between the genomes of many individuals/strains of the same or closely related species. They devised an $O(n \log g)$ time algorithm called splitMEM that constructs this graph directly (i.e., without using the uncompressed de Bruijn graph) based on a suffix tree, where $n$ is the total length of the genomes and $g$ is the length of the longest genome. In this paper, we present a construction algorithm that outperforms their algorithm in theory and in practice. Moreover, we propose a new space-efficient representation of the compressed de Bruijn graph that adds the possibility to search for a pattern (e.g. an allele - a variant form of a gene) within the pan-genome.Comment: Submitted to Algorithmica special issue of CPM201

Fast, Scalable, and Interactive Software for Landau-de Gennes Numerical Modeling of Nematic Topological Defects

Numerical modeling of nematic liquid crystals using the tensorial Landau-de Gennes (LdG) theory provides detailed insights into the structure and energetics of the enormous variety of possible topological defect configurations that may arise when the liquid crystal is in contact with colloidal inclusions or structured boundaries. However, these methods can be computationally expensive, making it challenging to predict (meta)stable configurations involving several colloidal particles, and they are often restricted to system sizes well below the experimental scale. Here we present an open-source software package that exploits the embarrassingly parallel structure of the lattice discretization of the LdG approach. Our implementation, combining CUDA/C++ and OpenMPI, allows users to accelerate simulations using both CPU and GPU resources in either single- or multiple-core configurations. We make use of an efficient minimization algorithm, the Fast Inertial Relaxation Engine (FIRE) method, that is well-suited to large-scale parallelization, requiring little additional memory or computational cost while offering performance competitive with other commonly used methods. In multi-core operation we are able to scale simulations up to supra-micron length scales of experimental relevance, and in single-core operation the simulation package includes a user-friendly GUI environment for rapid prototyping of interfacial features and the multifarious defect states they can promote. To demonstrate this software package, we examine in detail the competition between curvilinear disclinations and point-like hedgehog defects as size scale, material properties, and geometric features are varied. We also study the effects of an interface patterned with an array of topological point-defects.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, 1 youtube link. The full catastroph

The RSBH value-judgment inventory:preliminary analysis of the Portuguese version

The belief that sports build character has been held across the centuries. However, the scientific scrutiny of these beliefs is only a few decades old. The RSBH Value-judgment Inventory (RSBH VI; Rudd, Stoll, Beller, & Hahm, 1996) was developed to assess moral (α = .82-.88) and social (α = .70-.77) reasoning. The former is based the principles of honesty, responsibility, and justice. By applying the defined principles, any abused or confused situation should be solved within moral standards (see Lumpkin, Stoll & Beller, 2003). The latter is about weighing a social value against a moral value which is more important. The purpose of this study is to validate the Portuguese version of RSBH Value-judgment Inventory (RSBH VI-P). To investigate for construct validity, it was anticipated that moral reasoning would be negatively associated with ego-involvement, but positively associated with task-involvement

Looks Can Be Deceiving—A Comparison of Initial Public Offering Procedures Under Japanese and U.S. Securities Laws

In order to examine the divergent administration of statutes that are by their terms similar, the initial public offering procedures that a non-sovereign domestic issuer follows in the US and Japan are described