Comparing the correlation length of grain markets in China and France

In economics comparative analysis plays the same role as experimental research in physics. In this paper we closely examine several methodological problems related to comparative analysis by investigating the specific example of grain markets in China and France respectively. This enables us to answer a question in economic history which has so far remained pending, namely whether or not market integration progressed in the 18th century. In economics as in physics, before being accepted any new result has to be checked and re-checked by different researchers. This is what we call the replication and comparison procedures. We show how these procedures should (and can) be implemented.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures, to appear in International Journal of Modern Physics

A Non-Algebraic Patchwork

Itenberg and Shustin's pseudoholomorphic curve patchworking is in principle more flexible than Viro's original algebraic one. It was natural to wonder if the former method allows one to construct non-algebraic objects. In this paper we construct the first examples of patchworked real pseudoholomorphic curves in $\Sigma_n$ whose position with respect to the pencil of lines cannot be realised by any homologous real algebraic curve.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figur

Mach-Zehnder Interferometric device for spin filtering in a GaAs/AlGaAs electron gas

A spin filtering device using quantum spin interference is theoretically proposed in a GaAs/AlGaAs electron gas that has both Rashba and Dresselhaus spin-orbit couplings. The device achieves polarized electron currents by separating spin up and spin down components without a magnetic field gradient. We find two broad spin filtering regimes, one where the interferometer has symmetrical arms, where a small magnetic flux is needed to achieve spin separation, and the other with asymmetric arms where the change in path length renders an extra phase emulating the effects of a magnetic field. We identify operating points for the device where optimal electron polarization is achieved within value ranges found in a 2D electron gas. Both device setups apply for arbitrary incoming electron polarization and operate at broad energy ranges within the incoming electron band

Superintegrability in a two-dimensional space of nonconstant curvature

A Hamiltonian with two degrees of freedom is said to be superintegrable if it admits three functionally independent integrals of the motion. This property has been extensively studied in the case of two-dimensional spaces of constant (possibly zero) curvature when all the independent integrals are either quadratic or linear in the canonical momenta. In this article the first steps are taken to solve the problem of superintegrability of this type on an arbitrary curved manifold in two dimensions. This is done by examining in detail one of the spaces of revolution found by G. Koenigs. We determine that there are essentially three distinct potentials which when added to the free Hamiltonian of this space have this type of superintegrability. Separation of variables for the associated Hamilton–Jacobi and Schrödinger equations is discussed. The classical and quantum quadratic algebras associated with each of these potentials are determined

Satellite material contaminant optical properties

The Air Force Wright Research and Development Center and the Arnold Engineering Development Center are continuing a program for measuring optical effects of satellite material outgassing products on cryo-optic surfaces. Presented here are infrared (4000 to 700 cm(-1)) transmittance data for contaminant films condensed on a 77 K geranium window. From the transmittance data, the contaminant film refractive and absorptive indices (n, k) were derived using an analytical thin-film interference model with a nonlinear least-squares algorithm. To date 19 materials have been studied with the optical contents determined for 13 of those. The materials include adhesives, paints, composites, films, and lubricants. This program is continuing and properties for other materials will be available in the future

Conductivity tensor of striped quantum Hall phases

We study the transport properties of pinned striped quantum Hall phases. We show that under quite general assumptions, the macroscopic conductivity tensor satisfies a semicircle law. In particular, this result is valid for both smectic and nematic stripe phases, independent of the presence of topological defects such as dislocations and grain boundaries. As a special case, our results explain the experimental validity of a product rule for the dissipative part of the resistivity tensor, which was previously derived by MacDonald and Fisher for a perfect stripe structure.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

Probably Safe or Live

This paper presents a formal characterisation of safety and liveness properties \`a la Alpern and Schneider for fully probabilistic systems. As for the classical setting, it is established that any (probabilistic tree) property is equivalent to a conjunction of a safety and liveness property. A simple algorithm is provided to obtain such property decomposition for flat probabilistic CTL (PCTL). A safe fragment of PCTL is identified that provides a sound and complete characterisation of safety properties. For liveness properties, we provide two PCTL fragments, a sound and a complete one. We show that safety properties only have finite counterexamples, whereas liveness properties have none. We compare our characterisation for qualitative properties with the one for branching time properties by Manolios and Trefler, and present sound and complete PCTL fragments for characterising the notions of strong safety and absolute liveness coined by Sistla

Stimulation of tPA-dependent provisional extracellular fibrin matrix degradation by human recombinant soluble melanotransferrin

AbstractTissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) and its substrate plasminogen (Plg) are key components in the fibrinolytic system. We have recently demonstrated, that truncated human recombinant soluble melanotransferrin (sMTf) could stimulate the activation of Plg by urokinase plasminogen activator and inhibit angiogenesis. Since various angiogenesis inhibitors were shown to stimulate tPA-mediated plasminogen activation, we examined the effects of sMTf on tPA-dependent fibrinolysis. This study demonstrated that sMTf enhanced tPA-activation of Plg by 6-fold. sMTf also increased the release of [125I]-fibrin fragments by tPA-activated plasmin. Moreover, we observed that the interaction of sMTf with Plg provoked a change in the fibrin clot structure by cleaving the fibrin α and β chains. Overall, the present study shows that sMTf modulates tPA-dependent fibrinolysis by modifying the clot structure. These results also suggest that sMTf properties could involve enhanced dissolution of the provisional extracellular fibrin matrix

On calculating the mean values of quantum observables in the optical tomography representation

Given a density operator $\hat \rho$ the optical tomography map defines a one-parameter set of probability distributions $w_{\hat \rho}(X,\phi),\ \phi \in [0,2\pi),$ on the real line allowing to reconstruct $\hat \rho$. We introduce a dual map from the special class $\mathcal A$ of quantum observables $\hat a$ to a special class of generalized functions $a(X,\phi)$ such that the mean value $_{\hat \rho} =Tr(\hat \rho\hat a)$ is given by the formula $_{\hat \rho}= \int \limits_{0}^{2\pi}\int \limits_{-\infty}^{+\infty}w_{\hat \rho}(X,\phi)a(X,\phi)dXd\phi$. The class $\mathcal A$ includes all the symmetrized polynomials of canonical variables $\hat q$ and $\hat p$.Comment: 8 page