Frame-Covariant Formulation of Inflation in Scalar-Curvature Theories

We develop a frame-covariant formulation of inflation in the slow-roll approximation by generalizing the inflationary attractor solution for scalar-curvature theories. Our formulation gives rise to new generalized forms for the potential slow-roll parameters, which enable us to examine the effect of conformal transformations and inflaton reparameterizations in scalar-curvature theories. We find that cosmological observables, such as the power spectrum, the spectral indices and their runnings, can be expressed in a concise manner in terms of the generalized potential slow-roll parameters which depend on the scalar-curvature coupling function, the inflaton wavefunction, and the inflaton potential. We show how the cosmological observables of inflation are frame-invariant in this generalized potential slow-roll formalism, as long as the end-of-inflation condition is appropriately extended to become frame-invariant as well. We then apply our formalism to specific scenarios, such as the induced gravity inflation, Higgs inflation and $F(R)$ models of inflation, and obtain more accurate results, without making additional approximations to the potential. Our results are shown to be consistent to lowest order with those presented in the literature. Finally, we outline how our frame-covariant formalism can be naturally extended beyond the tree-level approximation, within the framework of the Vilkovisky--DeWitt effective action.Comment: 40 pages, a couple of comments and reference to the 1962 paper by R.H. Dicke were added, to appear in Nuclear Physics

Home Not Found: The Cost of Homelessness In Silicon Valley

This report analyzes comprehensive cross-sector information about the entire population of residents who experienced homelessness in Santa Clara County at any point during a six year period -- a total of 104,206 individuals. This information includes the demographic and medical attributes of each person, justice system history, services received, and the cost of those services. Records for this population were linked across all justice system, health care, social service, nonprofit, and housing agencies. With information about over one hundred thousand people over the six years from 2007 to 2012, including detailed records from each service provider, this is the largest and most comprehensive body of information that has been assembled in the United States to understand the public costs of homelessness

Accelerated Neural Networks on OpenCL Devices Using SYCL-DNN

Over the past few years machine learning has seen a renewed explosion of interest, following a number of studies showing the effectiveness of neural networks in a range of tasks which had previously been considered incredibly hard. Neural networks' effectiveness in the fields of image recognition and natural language processing stems primarily from the vast amounts of data available to companies and researchers, coupled with the huge amounts of compute power available in modern accelerators such as GPUs, FPGAs and ASICs. There are a number of approaches available to developers for utilizing GPGPU technologies such as SYCL, OpenCL and CUDA, however many applications require the same low level mathematical routines. Libraries dedicated to accelerating these common routines allow developers to easily make full use of the available hardware without requiring low level knowledge of the hardware themselves, however such libraries are often provided by hardware manufacturers for specific hardware such as cuDNN for Nvidia hardware or MIOpen for AMD hardware. SYCL-DNN is a new open-source library dedicated to providing accelerated routines for neural network operations which are hardware and vendor agnostic. Built on top of the SYCL open standard and written entirely in standard C++, SYCL-DNN allows a user to easily accelerate neural network code for a wide range of hardware using a modern C++ interface. The library is tested on AMD's OpenCL for GPU, Intel's OpenCL for CPU and GPU, ARM's OpenCL for Mali GPUs as well as ComputeAorta's OpenCL for R-Car CV engine and host CPU. In this talk we will present performance figures for SYCL-DNN on this range of hardware, and discuss how high performance was achieved on such a varied set of accelerators with such different hardware features.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. In International Workshop on OpenCL (IWOCL '19), May 13-15, 2019, Bosto

Maternity and Paternity Leave: A Guided Approach for Employers With Employees Utilizing Surrogate Births and Other Reproductive Methods

[Excerpt] Forty-one-year-old mother Ms. Kara Krill (“Krill”) filed suit[1] in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts on August 26, 2011 against her former employer, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Cubist), for refusing to provide Krill with certain fringe employment benefits, including “thirteen weeks of paid maternity leave for the birth and care of a child.”[2] These employment benefits were originally stipulated in Krill’s employment contract with Cubist.[3] Krill has suffered from Asherman’s syndrome since the birth of her first child in June 2007.[4] According to Krill’s complaint, Asherman’s syndrome is a “reproductive disability that substantially and prematurely limits . . . [a woman’s] ability to carry a child to birth.”[5] This debilitating disease caused, among several other negative side effects, Krill’s infertility.[6] Due to her reproductive incapacity, Krill and her husband opted to employ the services of a gestational surrogate to give birth to their biological child.[7] However, although the two originally planned for the birth of just one child, in September 2010, the couple was surprised to learn that the hired surrogate was actually pregnant with twins.[8] The couple, to substantiate the twins carried by their surrogate were biologically theirs, jointly obtained a pre-birth order from a Pennsylvania judge.[9] The pre-birth order establishes “legal and genetic parentages [of the twins] without having to institute adoption proceedings” and ensures the Krills were listed on the twins’ birth certificates.[10] Although employers in Massachusetts “are not required to provide paid maternity leave,”[11] Krill’s written employment contract with Cubist provided four variations of paid leave for the birth and care of a child.[12] However, the precise issue to be litigated in Krill’s pending case focuses on the disparity between two particular internal Cubist employment policies. This conflict stems specifically from the difference between the thirteen weeks of paid maternity leave sought by Krill under Cubist’s “Maternity Leave Policy,” intended for “female employees . . . for the birth of a child,” and a mere five days of paid maternity leave sought by Cubist under its “Adoption Leave Policy” intended for “employees . . . for the adoption of a child.[13