2,173 research outputs found
Quantum black hole entropy and Newton constant renormalization
We discuss the status of the black hole entropy formula in low energy effective field theory. The low energy expansion of the
black hole entropy is studied in a non-equilibrium situation: the semiclassical
decay of hot flat space by black hole nucleation. In this context the entropy
can be defined as an enhancement factor in the semiclassical decay rate, which
is dominated by a sphaleron-like saddle point. We find that all perturbative
divergences appearing in Euclidean calculations of the entropy can be
renormalized in low energy couplings. We also discuss some formal aspects of
the relation between the Euclidean and Hamiltonian approaches to the one loop
corrections to black hole entropy and geometric entropy, and we emphasize the
virtues of the use of covariant regularization prescriptions. In fact, the
definition of black hole entropy in terms of decay rates {\it requires} the use
of covariant measures and accordingly, covariant regularizations in path
integrals. Finally, we speculate on the possibility that low energy effective
field theory could be sufficient to understand the microscopic degrees of
freedom underlying black hole entropy. We propose a qualitative physical
picture in which black hole entropy refers to a space of quasi-coherent states
of infalling matter, together with its gravitational field. We stress that this
scenario might provide a low energy explanation of both the black hole entropy
and the information puzzle.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX. Several points have been clarified, though results
remain the same. Minor typos corrected, and references updated. Version to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Generic 3D Representation via Pose Estimation and Matching
Though a large body of computer vision research has investigated developing
generic semantic representations, efforts towards developing a similar
representation for 3D has been limited. In this paper, we learn a generic 3D
representation through solving a set of foundational proxy 3D tasks:
object-centric camera pose estimation and wide baseline feature matching. Our
method is based upon the premise that by providing supervision over a set of
carefully selected foundational tasks, generalization to novel tasks and
abstraction capabilities can be achieved. We empirically show that the internal
representation of a multi-task ConvNet trained to solve the above core problems
generalizes to novel 3D tasks (e.g., scene layout estimation, object pose
estimation, surface normal estimation) without the need for fine-tuning and
shows traits of abstraction abilities (e.g., cross-modality pose estimation).
In the context of the core supervised tasks, we demonstrate our representation
achieves state-of-the-art wide baseline feature matching results without
requiring apriori rectification (unlike SIFT and the majority of learned
features). We also show 6DOF camera pose estimation given a pair local image
patches. The accuracy of both supervised tasks come comparable to humans.
Finally, we contribute a large-scale dataset composed of object-centric street
view scenes along with point correspondences and camera pose information, and
conclude with a discussion on the learned representation and open research
questions.Comment: Published in ECCV16. See the project website
http://3drepresentation.stanford.edu/ and dataset website
https://github.com/amir32002/3D_Street_Vie
A new measurement of the properties of the rare decay K -> pi+ e+ e-
A large low-background sample of events (10300) has been collected for the
rare decay of kaons in flight K+ -> pi+ e+ e- by experiment E865 at the
Brookhaven AGS. The decay products were accepted by a broad band
high-resolution charged particle spectrometer with particle identification. The
branching ratio (2.94 +- 0.05(stat.) +- 0.13(syst.) +- 0.05(model))*10**{-7}
was determined normalizing to events from the decay chain K+ -> pi+ pi0; pi0 ->
e+ e- gamma. From the analysis of the decay distributions the vector nature of
this decay is firmly established now, and limits on scalar and tensor
contributions are deduced. From the (e+ e-) invariant mass distribution the
decay form factor f(z)=f0(1+ delta*z) (z=M(ee)**2/m(K)**2) is determined with
delta=2.14 +- 0.13 +- 0.15. Chiral QCD perturbation theory predictions for the
form factor are also tested, and terms beyond leading order O(p**4) are found
to be important.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
One-loop Quantum Corrections to the Entropy for an Extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om Black Hole
The first quantum corrections to the entropy for an eternal 4-dimensional
extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole is investigated at one-loop level, in
the large mass limit of the black hole, making use of the conformal techniques
related to the optical metric. A leading cubic horizon divergence is found and
other divergences appear due to the singular nature of the optical manifold.
The area law is shown to be violated.Comment: 10 pages, LaTe
Incident venous thromboembolic events in the Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER)
<p>Background: Venous thromboembolic events (VTE), including deep venous thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, are common in older age. It has been suggested that statins might reduce the risk of VTE however positive results from studies of middle aged subjects may not be generalisable to elderly people. We aimed to determine the effect of pravastatin on incident VTE in older people; we also studied the impact of clinical and plasma risk variables.</p>
<p>Methods: This study was an analysis of incident VTE using data from the Prospective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk (PROSPER), a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of pravastatin in men and women aged 70-82. Mean follow-up was 3.2 years. Risk for VTE was examined in non-warfarin treated pravastatin (n = 2834) and placebo (n = 2865) patients using a Cox's proportional hazard model, and the impact of other risk factors assessed in a multivariate forward stepwise regression analysis. Baseline clinical characteristics, blood biochemistry and hematology variables, plasma levels of lipids and lipoproteins, and plasma markers of inflammation and adiposity were compared. Plasma markers of thrombosis and hemostasis were assessed in a nested case (n = 48) control (n = 93) study where the cohort was those participants, not on warfarin, for whom data were available.</p>
<p>Results: There were 28 definite cases (1.0%) of incident VTE in the pravastatin group recipients and 20 cases (0.70%) in placebo recipients. Pravastatin did not reduce VTE in PROSPER compared to placebo [unadjusted hazard ratio (95% confidence interval) 1.42 (0.80, 2.52) p = 0.23]. Higher body mass index (BMI) [1.09 (1.02, 1.15) p = 0.0075], country [Scotland vs Netherlands 4.26 (1.00, 18.21) p = 0.050 and Ireland vs Netherlands 6.16 (1.46, 26.00) p = 0.013], lower systolic blood pressure [1.35 (1.03, 1.75) p = 0.027] and lower baseline Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score [1.19 (1.01, 1.41) p = 0.034] were associated with an increased risk of VTE, however only BMI, country and systolic blood pressure remained significant on multivariate analysis. In a nested case control study of definite VTE, plasma Factor VIII levels were associated with VTE [1.52 (1.01, 2.28), p = 0.044]. However no other measure of thrombosis and haemostasis was associated with increased risk of VTE.</p>
<p>Conclusions: Pravastatin does not prevent VTE in elderly people at risk of vascular disease. Blood markers of haemostasis and inflammation are not strongly predictive of VTE in older age however BMI, country and lower systolic blood pressure are independently associated with VTE risk.</p>
Tips for implementing multigrid methods on domains containing holes
As part of our development of a computer code to perform 3D `constrained
evolution' of Einstein's equations in 3+1 form, we discuss issues regarding the
efficient solution of elliptic equations on domains containing holes (i.e.,
excised regions), via the multigrid method. We consider as a test case the
Poisson equation with a nonlinear term added, as a means of illustrating the
principles involved, and move to a "real world" 3-dimensional problem which is
the solution of the conformally flat Hamiltonian constraint with Dirichlet and
Robin boundary conditions. Using our vertex-centered multigrid code, we
demonstrate globally second-order-accurate solutions of elliptic equations over
domains containing holes, in two and three spatial dimensions. Keys to the
success of this method are the choice of the restriction operator near the
holes and definition of the location of the inner boundary. In some cases (e.g.
two holes in two dimensions), more and more smoothing may be required as the
mesh spacing decreases to zero; however for the resolutions currently of
interest to many numerical relativists, it is feasible to maintain second order
convergence by concentrating smoothing (spatially) where it is needed most.
This paper, and our publicly available source code, are intended to serve as
semi-pedagogical guides for those who may wish to implement similar schemes.Comment: 18 pages, 11 figures, LaTeX. Added clarifications and references re.
scope of paper, mathematical foundations, relevance of work. Accepted for
publication in Classical & Quantum Gravit
Zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in adults and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis
In developing countries, deficiencies of micronutrients are thought to have a major impact on child development; however, a consensus on the specific relationship between dietary zinc intake and cognitive function remains elusive. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the relationship between zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in children and adults. A systematic literature search was conducted using EMBASE, MEDLINE and Cochrane Library databases from inception to March 2014. Included studies were those that supplied zinc as supplements or measured dietary zinc intake. A meta-analysis of the extracted data was performed where sufficient data were available. Of all of the potentially relevant papers, 18 studies met the inclusion criteria, 12 of which were randomised controlled trials (RCTs; 11 in children and 1 in adults) and 6 were observational studies (2 in children and 4 in adults). Nine of the 18 studies reported a positive association between zinc intake or status with one or more measure of cognitive function. Meta-analysis of data from the adult’s studies was not possible because of limited number of studies. A meta-analysis of data from the six RCTs conducted in children revealed that there was no significant overall effect of zinc intake on any indices of cognitive function: intelligence, standard mean difference of <0.001 (95% confidence interval (CI) –0.12, 0.13) P=0.95; executive function, standard mean difference of 0.08 (95% CI, –0.06, 022) P=0.26; and motor skills standard mean difference of 0.11 (95% CI –0.17, 0.39) P=0.43. Heterogeneity in the study designs was a major limitation, hence only a small number (n=6) of studies could be included in the meta-analyses. Meta-analysis failed to show a significant effect of zinc supplementation on cognitive functioning in children though, taken as a whole, there were some small indicators of improvement on aspects of executive function and motor development following supplementation but high-quality RCTs are necessary to investigate this further
Turning molecular springs into nano-shock absorbers: the effect of macroscopic morphology and crystal size on the dynamic hysteresis of water intrusion-extrusion into-from hydrophobic nanopores
Controlling the pressure at which liquids intrude (wet) and extrude (dry) a nanopore is of paramount importance for a broad range of applications, such as energy conversion, catalysis, chromatography, separation, ionic channels, and many more. To tune these characteristics, one typically acts on the chemical nature of the system or pore size. In this work, we propose an alternative route for controlling both intrusion and extrusion pressures via proper arrangement of the grains of the nanoporous material. To prove the concept, dynamic intrusion-extrusion cycles for powdered and monolithic ZIF-8 metal-organic framework were conducted by means of water porosimetry and in operando neutron scattering. We report a drastic increase in intrusion-extrusion dynamic hysteresis when going from a fine powder to a dense monolith configuration, transforming an intermediate performance of the ZIF-8 + water system (poor molecular spring) into a desirable shock-absorber with more than 1 order of magnitude enhancement of dissipated energy per cycle. The obtained results are supported by MD simulations and pave the way for an alternative methodology of tuning intrusion-extrusion pressure using a macroscopic arrangement of nanoporous material
The holographic principle
There is strong evidence that the area of any surface limits the information
content of adjacent spacetime regions, at 10^(69) bits per square meter. We
review the developments that have led to the recognition of this entropy bound,
placing special emphasis on the quantum properties of black holes. The
construction of light-sheets, which associate relevant spacetime regions to any
given surface, is discussed in detail. We explain how the bound is tested and
demonstrate its validity in a wide range of examples.
A universal relation between geometry and information is thus uncovered. It
has yet to be explained. The holographic principle asserts that its origin must
lie in the number of fundamental degrees of freedom involved in a unified
description of spacetime and matter. It must be manifest in an underlying
quantum theory of gravity. We survey some successes and challenges in
implementing the holographic principle.Comment: 52 pages, 10 figures, invited review for Rev. Mod. Phys; v2:
reference adde
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