College Football Rankings and Market Efficiency

The results in this paper show that various college football ranking systems have useful independent information for predicting the outcomes of games. Optimal weights for the systems are estimated, and the use of these weights produces a predictive system that is more accurate than any of the individual systems. The results also provide a fairly precise estimate of the size of the home field advantage. These results may be of interest to the Bowl Championship Series in choosing which teams to play in the national championship game. The results also show, however, that none of the systems, including the optimal combination, contains any useful information that is not in the final Las Vegas point spread. It is argued in the paper that this is a fairly strong test of the efficiency of the college football betting market.Football rankings, Predictive information

Speleothem Paleoclimatology for the Caribbean, Central America, and North America

Speleothem oxygen isotope records from the Caribbean, Central, and North America reveal climatic controls that include orbital variation, deglacial forcing related to ocean circulation and ice sheet retreat, and the influence of local and remote sea surface temperature variations. Here, we review these records and the global climate teleconnections they suggest following the recent publication of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis (SISAL) database. We find that low-latitude records generally reflect changes in precipitation, whereas higher latitude records are sensitive to temperature and moisture source variability. Tropical records suggest precipitation variability is forced by orbital precession and North Atlantic Ocean circulation driven changes in atmospheric convection on long timescales, and tropical sea surface temperature variations on short timescales. On millennial timescales, precipitation seasonality in southwestern North America is related to North Atlantic climate variability. Great Basin speleothem records are closely linked with changes in Northern Hemisphere summer insolation. Although speleothems have revealed these critical global climate teleconnections, the paucity of continuous records precludes our ability to investigate climate drivers from the whole of Central and North America for the Pleistocene through modern. This underscores the need to improve spatial and temporal coverage of speleothem records across this climatically variable region

Queen control of a key life-history event in a eusocial insect

In eusocial insects, inclusive fitness theory predicts potential queen–worker conflict over the timing of events in colony life history. Whether queens or workers control the timing of these events is poorly understood. In the bumble-bee Bombus terrestris, queens exhibit a ‘switch point’ in which they switch from laying diploid eggs yielding females (workers and new queens) to laying haploid eggs yielding males. By rearing foundress queens whose worker offspring were removed as pupae and sexing their eggs using microsatellite genotyping, we found that queens kept in the complete absence of adult workers still exhibit a switch point. Moreover, the timing of their switch points relative to the start of egg-laying did not differ significantly from that of queens allowed to produce normal colonies. The finding that bumble-bee queens can express the switch point in the absence of workers experimentally demonstrates queen control of a key life-history event in eusocial insects. In addition, we found no evidence that workers affect the timing of the switch point either directly or indirectly via providing cues to queens, suggesting that workers do not fully express their interests in queen–worker conflicts over colony life history

Generation of Correlated Photon Pairs in a Quantum System with Broken Inversion Symmetry

The aim of our work is to investigate a pumped two-level system with broken inversion symmetry (intrinsic dipole moments of the two levels differ). We choose a semiclassical description for the interaction with the laser and additionally take into account a quantized environment giving rise to effects of spontaneous emission. We further choose a perturbative approach to derive the equations of motion in a master equation approach. An off-resonant laser induces the emission of a THz-photon and the emission of an optical photon, whose quantum intensity-intensity correlation function we calculate. This function gives a measure for the probability of detecting one photon right after the other. Moreover, we observe the violation of a Cauchy-Schwarz inequality that brings us to the conclusion that we are dealing with a non-classical pair of correlated photons, which are important in the emerging field of quantum information science. This theoretical model may, for example, be applied to gamma globulin molecules or quantum dots. In this thesis we perform the numerical calculations with the parameters of gamma globulin molecules

A mechanical model for biological pattern formation: A nonlinear bifurcation analysis

We present a mechanical model for cell aggregation in embryonic development. The model is based on the large traction forces exerted by fibroblast cells which deform the extracellular matrix (ECM) on which they move. It is shown that the subsequent changes in the cell environment can combine to produce pattern. A linear analysis is carried out for this model. This reveals a wide spectrum of different types of dispersion relations. A non-linear bifurcation analysis is presented for a simple version of the field equations: a non-standard element is required. Biological applications are briefly discussed

A modified Oster-Murray-Harris mechanical model of morphogenesis

There are two main modeling paradigms for biological pattern formation in developmental biology: chemical prepattern models and cell aggregation models. This paper focuses on an example of a cell aggregation model, the mechanical model developed by Oster, Murray, and Harris [Development, 78 (1983), pp. 83--125]. We revisit the Oster--Murray--Harris model and find that, due to the infinitesimal displacement assumption made in the original version of this model, there is a restriction on the types of boundary conditions that can be prescribed. We derive a modified form of the model which relaxes the infinitesimal displacement assumption. We analyze the dynamics of this model using linear and multiscale nonlinear analysis and show that it has the same linear behavior as the original Oster--Murray--Harris model. Nonlinear analysis, however, predicts that the modified model will allow for a wider range of parameters where the solution evolves to a bounded steady state. The results from both analyses are verified through numerical simulations of the full nonlinear model in one and two dimensions. The increased range of boundary conditions that are well-posed, as well as a wider range of parameters that yield bounded steady states, renders the modified model more applicable to, and more robust for, comparisons with experiments

Spatial and spatio-temporal patterns in a cell-haptotaxis model

We investigate a cell-haptotaxis model for the generation of spatial and spatio-temporal patterns in one dimension. We analyse the steady state problem for specific boundary conditions and show the existence of spatially hetero-geneous steady states. A linear analysis shows that stability is lost through a Hopf bifurcation. We carry out a nonlinear multi-time scale perturbation procedure to study the evolution of the resulting spatio-temporal patterns. We also analyse the model in a parameter domain wherein it exhibits a singular dispersion relation

An analysis of one- and two-dimensional patterns in a mechanical model for morphogenesis

In early embryonic development, fibroblast cells move through an extracellular matrix (ECM) exerting large traction forces which deform the ECM. We model these mechanical interactions mathematically and show that the various effects involved can combine to produce pattern in cell density. A linear analysis exhibits a wide selection of dispersion relations, suggesting a richness in pattern forming capability of the model. A nonlinear bifurcation analysis is presented for a simple version of the governing field equations. The one-dimensional analysis requires a non-standard element. The two-dimensional analysis shows the possibility of roll and hexagon pattern formation. A realistic biological application to the formation of feather germ primordia is briefly discussed