32,289 research outputs found
Archetypal analysis of galaxy spectra
Archetypal analysis represents each individual member of a set of data
vectors as a mixture (a constrained linear combination) of the pure types or
archetypes of the data set. The archetypes are themselves required to be
mixtures of the data vectors. Archetypal analysis may be particularly useful in
analysing data sets comprising galaxy spectra, since each spectrum is,
presumably, a superposition of the emission from the various stellar
populations, nebular emissions and nuclear activity making up that galaxy, and
each of these emission sources corresponds to a potential archetype of the
entire data set. We demonstrate archetypal analysis using sets of composite
synthetic galaxy spectra, showing that the method promises to be an effective
and efficient way to classify spectra. We show that archetypal analysis is
robust in the presence of various types of noise.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, 1 style-file. Accepted for publication by MNRA
Archetypal Analysis: Mining Weather and Climate Extremes
Conventional analysis methods in weather and climate science (e.g., EOF analysis) exhibit a number of drawbacks including scaling and mixing. These methods focus mostly on the bulk of the probability distribution of the system in state space and overlook its tail. This paper explores a different method, the archetypal analysis (AA), which focuses precisely on the extremes. AA seeks to approximate the convex hull of the data in state space by finding “corners” that represent “pure” types or archetypes through computing mixture weight matrices. The method is quite new in climate science, although it has been around for about two decades in pattern recognition. It encompasses, in particular, the virtues of EOFs and clustering. The method is presented along with a new manifold-based optimization algorithm that optimizes for the weights simultaneously, unlike the conventional multistep algorithm based on the alternating constrained least squares. The paper discusses the numerical solution and then applies it to the monthly sea surface temperature (SST) from HadISST and to the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) using sea level pressure (SLP) from ERA-40 over the Asian monsoon region. The application to SST reveals, in particular, three archetypes, namely, El Niño, La Niña, and a third pattern representing the western boundary currents. The latter archetype shows a particular trend in the last few decades. The application to the ASM SLP anomalies yields archetypes that are consistent with the ASM regimes found in the literature. Merits and weaknesses of the method along with possible future development are also discussed
In-vivo magnetic resonance imaging of hyperpolarized silicon particles
Silicon-based micro and nanoparticles have gained popularity in a wide range
of biomedical applications due to their biocompatibility and biodegradability
in-vivo, as well as a flexible surface chemistry, which allows drug loading,
functionalization and targeting. Here we report direct in-vivo imaging of
hyperpolarized 29Si nuclei in silicon microparticles by MRI. Natural physical
properties of silicon provide surface electronic states for dynamic nuclear
polarization (DNP), extremely long depolarization times, insensitivity to the
in-vivo environment or particle tumbling, and surfaces favorable for
functionalization. Potential applications to gastrointestinal, intravascular,
and tumor perfusion imaging at sub-picomolar concentrations are presented.
These results demonstrate a new background-free imaging modality applicable to
a range of inexpensive, readily available, and biocompatible Si particles.Comment: Supplemental Material include
Mass Hierarchy, Mixing, CP-Violation and Higgs Decay---or Why Rotation is Good for Us
The idea of a rank-one rotating mass matrix (R2M2) is reviewed detailing how
it leads to ready explanations both for the fermion mass hierarchy and for the
distinctive mixing patterns between up and down fermion states, which can be
and have been tested against experiment and shown to be fully consistent with
existing data. Further, R2M2 is seen to offer, as by-products: (i) a new
solution of the strong CP problem in QCD by linking the theta-angle there to
the Kobayashi-Maskawa CP-violating phase in the CKM matrix, and (ii) some novel
predictions of possible anomalies in Higgs decay observable in principle at the
LHC. A special effort is made to answer some questions raised.Comment: 47 pages, 9 figure
The Dynamics of Charges Induced by a Charged Particle Traversing a Dielectric Slab
We studied the dynamics of surfacea and wake charges induced by a charged
particle traversing a dielectric slab. It is shown that after the crossing of
the slab first boundary, the induced on the slab surface charge (image charge)
is transformed into the wake charge, which overflows to the second boundary
when the particle crosses it. It is also shown, that the polarization of the
slab is of an oscillatory nature, and the net induced charge in a slab remains
zero at all stages of the motion.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figur
An Algebra of Pieces of Space -- Hermann Grassmann to Gian Carlo Rota
We sketch the outlines of Gian Carlo Rota's interaction with the ideas that
Hermann Grassmann developed in his Ausdehnungslehre of 1844 and 1862, as
adapted and explained by Giuseppe Peano in 1888. This leads us past what Rota
variously called 'Grassmann-Cayley algebra', or 'Peano spaces', to the Whitney
algebra of a matroid, and finally to a resolution of the question "What,
really, was Grassmann's regressive product?". This final question is the
subject of ongoing joint work with Andrea Brini, Francesco Regonati, and
William Schmitt.
The present paper was presented at the conference "The Digital Footprint of
Gian-Carlo Rota: Marbles, Boxes and Philosophy" in Milano on 17 Feb 2009. It
will appear in proceedings of that conference, to be published by Springer
Verlag.Comment: 28 page
Scale-free networks with tunable degree distribution exponents
We propose and study a model of scale-free growing networks that gives a
degree distribution dominated by a power-law behavior with a model-dependent,
hence tunable, exponent. The model represents a hybrid of the growing networks
based on popularity-driven and fitness-driven preferential attachments. As the
network grows, a newly added node establishes new links to existing nodes
with a probability based on popularity of the existing nodes and a
probability based on fitness of the existing nodes. An explicit form of
the degree distribution is derived within a mean field approach. For
reasonably large , , where the
function is dominated by the behavior of for small
values of and becomes -independent as , and is a
model-dependent exponent. The degree distribution and the exponent
are found to be in good agreement with results obtained by extensive numerical
simulations.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, submitted to PR
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