15,003 research outputs found
Comment: Citation Statistics
We discuss the paper "Citation Statistics" by the Joint Committee on
Quantitative Assessment of Research [arXiv:0910.3529]. In particular, we focus
on a necessary feature of "good" measures for ranking scientific authors: that
good measures must able to accurately distinguish between authors.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-STS285B the Statistical
Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Spatial Corrections of ROSAT HRI Observations
X-ray observations with the ROSAT High Resolution Imager (HRI) often have
spatial smearing on the order of 10 arcsec (Morse 1994). This degradation of
the intrinsic resolution of the instrument (5 arcsec) can be attributed to
errors in the aspect solution associated with the wobble of the space craft or
with the reacquisition of the guide stars. We have developed a set of IRAF/PROS
and MIDAS/EXSAS routines to minimize these effects. Our procedure attempts to
isolate aspect errors that are repeated through each cycle of the wobble. The
method assigns a 'wobble phase' to each event based on the 402 second period of
the ROSAT wobble. The observation is grouped into a number of phase bins and a
centroid is calculated for each sub-image. The corrected HRI event list is
reconstructed by adding the sub-images which have been shifted to a common
source position. This method has shown approx. 30% reduction of the full width
half maximum (FWHM) of an X-ray observation of the radio galaxy 3C 120.
Additional examples are presented.Comment: AandA latex (6 pages with 7 embedded postscript figures). Scheduled
for publication in the 1 Dec issue of Astron. Astrophys. Suppl. Serie
Proton Lifetime and Baryon Number Violating Signatures at the LHC in Gauge Extended Models
There exist a number of models in the literature in which the weak
interactions are derived from a chiral gauge theory based on a larger group
than SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y. Such theories can be constructed so as to be
anomaly-free and consistent with precision electroweak measurements, and may be
interpreted as a deconstruction of an extra dimension. They also provide
interesting insights into the issues of flavor and dynamical electroweak
symmetry breaking, and can help to raise the mass of the Higgs boson in
supersymmetric theories. In this work we show that these theories can also give
rise to baryon and lepton number violating processes, such as nucleon decay and
spectacular multijet events at colliders, via the instanton transitions
associated with the extended gauge group. For a particular model based on
SU(2)_1 x SU(2)_2, we find that the violating scattering cross sections
are too small to be observed at the LHC, but that the lower limit on the
lifetime of the proton implies an upper bound on the gauge couplings.Comment: 36 page
Gibrat's law for cities: uniformly most powerful unbiased test of the Pareto against the lognormal
We address the general problem of testing a power law distribution versus a
log-normal distribution in statistical data. This general problem is
illustrated on the distribution of the 2000 US census of city sizes. We provide
definitive results to close the debate between Eeckhout (2004, 2009) and Levy
(2009) on the validity of Zipf's law, which is the special Pareto law with tail
exponent 1, to describe the tail of the distribution of U.S. city sizes.
Because the origin of the disagreement between Eeckhout and Levy stems from the
limited power of their tests, we perform the {\em uniformly most powerful
unbiased test} for the null hypothesis of the Pareto distribution against the
lognormal. The -value and Hill's estimator as a function of city size lower
threshold confirm indubitably that the size distribution of the 1000 largest
cities or so, which include more than half of the total U.S. population, is
Pareto, but we rule out that the tail exponent, estimated to be ,
is equal to 1. For larger ranks, the -value becomes very small and Hill's
estimator decays systematically with decreasing ranks, qualifying the lognormal
distribution as the better model for the set of smaller cities. These two
results reconcile the opposite views of Eeckhout (2004, 2009) and Levy (2009).
We explain how Gibrat's law of proportional growth underpins both the Pareto
and lognormal distributions and stress the key ingredient at the origin of
their difference in standard stochastic growth models of cities
\cite{Gabaix99,Eeckhout2004}.Comment: 7 pages + 2 figure
A quantitative analysis of measures of quality in science
Condensing the work of any academic scientist into a one-dimensional measure
of scientific quality is a difficult problem. Here, we employ Bayesian
statistics to analyze several different measures of quality. Specifically, we
determine each measure's ability to discriminate between scientific authors.
Using scaling arguments, we demonstrate that the best of these measures require
approximately 50 papers to draw conclusions regarding long term scientific
performance with usefully small statistical uncertainties. Further, the
approach described here permits the value-free (i.e., statistical) comparison
of scientists working in distinct areas of science.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 4 table
Encroachment diminishes herbaceous plant diversity in grassy ecosystems worldwide
Woody encroachment is ubiquitous in grassy ecosystems worldwide, but its global impacts on the diversity of herbaceous plants that characterise and define these ecosystems remain unquantified. The pervasiveness of encroachment is relatively easily observed via remote sensing, but its impacts on plant diversity and richness below the canopy can only be observed via field‐based studies. Via a meta‐analysis of 42 field studies across tropical to temperate grassy ecosystems, we quantified how encroachment altered herbaceous species richness, and the richness of forbs, C(3) graminoids and C(4) graminoids. Across studies, the natural logarithm of the response ratio (lnRR) of herbaceous species richness ranged from −3.33 to 0.34 with 87% of encroached ecosystems negatively impacted. Assessment of the extent of encroachment, duration of encroachment, mean annual rainfall, latitude, and continent demonstrated that only extent of encroachment had relevance in the data (univariate model including a random effect of study explained 45.4% of variance). The global weighted mean lnRR of species richness decreased from −0.245 at 66%. Continued encroachment results in substantial loss of herbaceous diversity at medium and high extents, with a loss of richness that is not replaced. Although all functional groups are significantly negatively impacted by encroachment, forb richness is relatively more sensitive than graminoid richness, and C(4) graminoid richness relatively more than C(3) graminoid richness. Although no geographic or climatic correlates had relevance in the data, encroachment as an emergent product of global change coalesces to decrease ground layer light availability, lead to loss of fire and grazers, and alter hydrology and soils. Encroachment is accelerating and grassy ecosystems require urgent attention to determine critical woody cover thresholds that facilitate diverse and resilient grassy ecosystems
Resolution of Nested Neuronal Representations Can Be Exponential in the Number of Neurons
Collective computation is typically polynomial in the number of computational elements, such as transistors or neurons, whether one considers the storage capacity of a memory device or the number of floating-point operations per second of a CPU. However, we show here that the capacity of a computational network to resolve real-valued signals of arbitrary dimensions can be exponential in N, even if the individual elements are noisy and unreliable. Nested, modular codes that achieve such high resolutions mirror the properties of grid cells in vertebrates, which underlie spatial navigation
Investigating plywood behaviour in outdoor conditions
Moisture behaviour of plywood is investigated in combination with detailed structural analysis. In the lab, neutron radiography and X-ray computed tomography (X-ray CT) were used to map the moisture distribution and internal structure of plywood respectively. In an outdoor natural weathering test, the average moisture content (MC) and moisture distribution of plywood were monitored using a continuous moisture measurement set-up and an adapted electrical method, respectively. The structural changes of the specimens during weathering were recorded by using X-ray CT. Based on the interrelationship of moisture behaviour and structure, suggestions are given for improving the water resistance of plywood by optimising structure
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