Statistical Modelling of Information Sharing: Community, Membership and Content

File-sharing systems, like many online and traditional information sharing communities (e.g. newsgroups, BBS, forums, interest clubs), are dynamical systems in nature. As peers get in and out of the system, the information content made available by the prevailing membership varies continually in amount as well as composition, which in turn affects all peers' join/leave decisions. As a result, the dynamics of membership and information content are strongly coupled, suggesting interesting issues about growth, sustenance and stability. In this paper, we propose to study such communities with a simple statistical model of an information sharing club. Carrying their private payloads of information goods as potential supply to the club, peers join or leave on the basis of whether the information they demand is currently available. Information goods are chunked and typed, as in a file sharing system where peers contribute different files, or a forum where messages are grouped by topics or threads. Peers' demand and supply are then characterized by statistical distributions over the type domain. This model reveals interesting critical behaviour with multiple equilibria. A sharp growth threshold is derived: the club may grow towards a sustainable equilibrium only if the value of an order parameter is above the threshold, or shrink to emptiness otherwise. The order parameter is composite and comprises the peer population size, the level of their contributed supply, the club's efficiency in information search, the spread of supply and demand over the type domain, as well as the goodness of match between them.Comment: accepted in International Symposium on Computer Performance, Modeling, Measurements and Evaluation, Juan-les-Pins, France, October-200

Perturbation Calculation of the Axial Anomaly of a Ginsparg-Wilson lattice Dirac operator

A recent proposal suggests that even if a Ginsparg-Wilson lattice Dirac operator does not possess any topological zero modes in topologically-nontrivial gauge backgrounds, it can reproduce correct axial anomaly for sufficiently smooth gauge configurations, provided that it is exponentially-local, doublers-free, and has correct continuum behavior. In this paper, we calculate the axial anomaly of this lattice Dirac operator in weak coupling perturbation theory, and show that it recovers the topological charge density in the continuum limit.Comment: 25 pages, v2: calculation up to O(g^4) for nonabelian gauge backgroun

Damage coefficients in low resistivity silicon

Electron and proton damage coefficients are determined for low resistivity silicon based on minority-carrier lifetime measurements on bulk material and diffusion length measurements on solar cells. Irradiations were performed on bulk samples and cells fabricated from four types of boron-doped 0.1 ohm-cm silicon ingots, including the four possible combinations of high and low oxygen content and high and low dislocation density. Measurements were also made on higher resistivity boron-doped bulk samples and solar cells. Major observations and conclusions from the investigation are discussed

Case Report: Spinal Anesthesia by Mini-laminotomy for a Patient with Ankylosing Spondylitis who was Difficult to Anesthetize

Case reportBackground: Orthopaedic surgeons frequently encounter patients with ankylosing spondylitis who would benefit from various types of lower limb operations; however, some of these patients present challenges for anesthesiologists. Case Description: We report the case of a 65-year-old patient with a fractured femoral component 30 years after a cemented THA. The patient had severe tracheal stenosis and ankylosing spondylitis making general endotracheal and conventional neuraxial anesthesia nearly impossible. Literature Review: Possible alternative anesthetic approaches described in the literature include awake fiberoptic bronchoscopic guided intubation, laryngeal mask airway, and caudal anesthesia. Purposes and Clinical Relevance: We achieved successful anesthesia using spinal laminotomy with the patient under local anesthesia followed by insertion of a spinal catheter and injection of an anesthetic agent. The loosened component was revised to a cementless THA. © 2010 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 31 May 201

Domain wall fermion and CP symmetry breaking

We examine the CP properties of chiral gauge theory defined by a formulation of the domain wall fermion, where the light field variables $q$ and $\bar q$ together with Pauli-Villars fields $Q$ and $\bar Q$ are utilized. It is shown that this domain wall representation in the infinite flavor limit $N=\infty$ is valid only in the topologically trivial sector, and that the conflict among lattice chiral symmetry, strict locality and CP symmetry still persists for finite lattice spacing $a$. The CP transformation generally sends one representation of lattice chiral gauge theory into another representation of lattice chiral gauge theory, resulting in the inevitable change of propagators. A modified form of lattice CP transformation motivated by the domain wall fermion, which keeps the chiral action in terms of the Ginsparg-Wilson fermion invariant, is analyzed in detail; this provides an alternative way to understand the breaking of CP symmetry at least in the topologically trivial sector. We note that the conflict with CP symmetry could be regarded as a topological obstruction. We also discuss the issues related to the definition of Majorana fermions in connection with the supersymmetric Wess-Zumino model on the lattice.Comment: 33 pages. Note added and a new reference were added. Phys. Rev.D (in press