7,456 research outputs found
Revisiting Local Campaign Effects: An Experiment Involving Literature Mail Drops in the 2007 Ontario Election
An invariant feature of constituency election campaigns is the literature mail drop, usually a one-page leaflet or card left at the door profiling the candidate and appealing for electoral support. In this article, we report on a field experiment designed to assess the effects of such mail drops. The experiment was conducted during the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign in the constituency of Cambridge and entailed distributing literature for the Green party candidate in that constituency. After randomly assigning constituency polls to treatment and control groups, and delivering the Green candidate’s partisan literature only to the selected treatment group polls, we compared the candidate’s support levels in the treated polls with those in the control group. Our research detected a modest effect associated with the literature drop. The effect was largely limited to constituency neighbourhoods fitting at least part of the Green party’s traditional demographic, that is, those with higher than average socio-economic status
The 2007 Provincial Election and Electoral System Referendum in Ontario
Ontario’s general election in Oct. 10, 2007, was unprecedented for several reasons. The election was held on a date fixed by legislation and not one set by the premier or his caucus, something new to Ontario and relatively new to Canadian politics. Turnout declined to 53%, the lowest ever in Ontario history. The incumbent Liberals won a second consecutive majority government, something the party had not achieved since 1937. And finally, the election featured a referendum question that asked voters in Ontario to approve reforms to the electoral system, a proposal that was overwhelmingly rejected. This article explores each of the above-stated elements as they unfolded in the election
Timescales of spike-train correlation for neural oscillators with common drive
We examine the effect of the phase-resetting curve (PRC) on the transfer of
correlated input signals into correlated output spikes in a class of neural
models receiving noisy, super-threshold stimulation. We use linear response
theory to approximate the spike correlation coefficient in terms of moments of
the associated exit time problem, and contrast the results for Type I vs. Type
II models and across the different timescales over which spike correlations can
be assessed. We find that, on long timescales, Type I oscillators transfer
correlations much more efficiently than Type II oscillators. On short
timescales this trend reverses, with the relative efficiency switching at a
timescale that depends on the mean and standard deviation of input currents.
This switch occurs over timescales that could be exploited by downstream
circuits
Ruling out Stellar Companions and Resolving the Innermost Regions of Transitional Disks with the Keck Interferometer
With the Keck Interferometer, we have studied at 2 um the innermost regions
of several nearby, young, dust depleted "transitional" disks. Our observations
target five of the six clearest cases of transitional disks in the
Taurus/Auriga star-forming region (DM Tau, GM Aur, LkCa 15, UX Tau A, and RY
Tau) to explore the possibility that the depletion of optically thick dust from
the inner disks is caused by stellar companions rather than the more typical
planet-formation hypothesis. At the 99.7% confidence level, the observed
visibilities exclude binaries with flux ratios of at least 0.05 and separations
ranging from 2.5 to 30 mas (0.35 - 4 AU) over >= 94% of the area covered by our
measurements. All targets but DM Tau show near-infrared excess in their SED
higher than our companion flux ratio detection limits. While a companion has
previously been detected in the candidate transitional disk system CoKu Tau/4,
we can exclude similar mass companions as the typical origin for the clearing
of inner dust in transitional disks and of the near-infrared excess emission.
Unlike CoKu Tau/4, all our targets show some evidence of accretion. We find
that all but one of the targets are clearly spatially resolved, and UX Tau A is
marginally resolved. Our data is consistent with hot material on small scales
(0.1 AU) inside of and separated from the cooler outer disk, consistent with
the recent SED modeling. These observations support the notion that some
transitional disks have radial gaps in their optically thick material, which
could be an indication for planet formation in the habitable zone (~ a few AU)
of a protoplanetary disk.Comment: 36 pages, 7 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Long-term chromospheric activity in southern M dwarfs: Gl 229 A and Gl 752 A
Several late-type stars present activity cycles similar to that of the Sun.
However, these cycles have been mostly studied in F to K stars. Due to their
small intrinsic brightness, M dwarfs are not usually the targets of long-term
observational studies of stellar activity, and their long-term variability is
generally not known. In this work, we study the long-term activity of two M
dwarf stars: Gl 229 A (M1/2) and Gl 752 A (M2.5). We employ medium resolution
echelle spectra obtained at the 2.15 m telescope at the Argentinian observatory
CASLEO between the years 2000 and 2010 and photometric observations obtained
from the ASAS database. We analyzed Ca \II K line-core fluxes and the mean V
magnitude with the Lomb-Scargle periodogram, and we obtain possible activity
cycles of 4 yr and 7 yr for Gl 229 A and Gl 752 A respectively.Comment: Accepted for publication by Astronomical Journal (AJ
Impact of Burrowing Shrimp Populations on C, N Cycling and Water Quality in Western North American Temperate Estuaries(INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM:ECOLOGY OF LARGE BIOTURBATORS IN TIDAL FLATS AND SHALLOW SUBLITTORAL SEDIMENTS - FROM INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR TO THEIR ROLE AS ECOSYSTEM ENGINEERS)
The METCRAX II Field Experiment: A Study of Downslope Windstorm-Type Flows in Arizona\u2019s Meteor Crater
The second Meteor Crater Experiment (METCRAX II) was conducted in October 2013 at Arizona\u2019s Meteor Crater. The experiment was designed to investigate nighttime downslope windstorm 12type flows that form regularly above the inner southwest sidewall of the 1.2-km diameter crater as a southwesterly mesoscale katabatic flow cascades over the crater rim. The objective of METCRAX II is to determine the causes of these strong, intermittent, and turbulent inflows that bring warm-air intrusions into the southwest part of the crater. This article provides an overview of the scientific goals of the experiment; summarizes the measurements, the crater topography, and the synoptic meteorology of the study period; and presents initial analysis results
ABJM Dibaryon Spectroscopy
We extend the proposal for a detailed map between wrapped D-branes in Anti-de
Sitter space and baryon-like operators in the associated dual conformal field
theory provided in hep-th/0202150 to the recently formulated AdS_4 \times
CP^3/ABJM correspondence. In this example, the role of the dibaryon operator of
the 3-dimensional CFT is played by a D4-brane wrapping a CP^2 \subset CP^3.
This topologically stable D-brane in the AdS_4 \times CP^3 is nothing but
one-half of the maximal giant graviton on CP^3.Comment: 26 page
Quantizing higher-spin gravity in free-field variables
We study the formulation of massless higher-spin gravity on AdS in a
gauge in which the fundamental variables satisfy free field Poisson brackets.
This gauge choice leaves a small portion of the gauge freedom unfixed, which
should be further quotiented out. We show that doing so leads to a bulk version
of the Coulomb gas formalism for CFT's: the generators of the residual
gauge symmetries are the classical limits of screening charges, while the
gauge-invariant observables are classical charges. Quantization in these
variables can be carried out using standard techniques and makes manifest a
remnant of the triality symmetry of . This symmetry can be
used to argue that the theory should be supplemented with additional matter
content which is precisely that of the Prokushkin-Vasiliev theory. As a further
application, we use our formulation to quantize a class of conical surplus
solutions and confirm the conjecture that these are dual to specific degenerate
primaries, to all orders in the large central charge expansion.Comment: 31 pages + appendices. V2: typos corrected, reference adde
Kepler Observations of Transiting Hot Compact Objects
Kepler photometry has revealed two unusual transiting companions orbiting an
early A-star and a late B-star. In both cases the occultation of the companion
is deeper than the transit. The occultation and transit with follow-up optical
spectroscopy reveal a 9400 K early A-star, KOI-74 (KIC 6889235), with a
companion in a 5.2 day orbit with a radius of 0.08 Rsun and a 10000 K late
B-star KOI-81 (KIC 8823868) that has a companion in a 24 day orbit with a
radius of 0.2 Rsun. We infer a temperature of 12250 K for KOI-74b and 13500 K
for KOI-81b.
We present 43 days of high duty cycle, 30 minute cadence photometry, with
models demonstrating the intriguing properties of these object, and speculate
on their nature.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, submitted to ApJL (updated to correct KOI74
lightcurve
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