1,920 research outputs found
Functional anatomy of the middle and inner ears of the red fox, in comparison to domestic dogs and cats
Anatomical middle and inner ear parameters are often used to predict hearing sensitivities of mammalian species. Given that ear morphology is substantially affected both by phylogeny and body size, it is interesting to consider whether the relatively small anatomical differences expected in related species of similar size have a noticeable impact on hearing. We present a detailed anatomical description of the middle and inner ears of the red fox Vulpes vulpes, a widespread, wild carnivore for which a behavioural audiogram is available. We compare fox ears to those of the well‐studied and similarly sized domestic dog and cat, taking data for dogs and cats from the literature as well as providing new measurements of basilar membrane (BM) length and hair cell numbers and densities in these animals. Our results show that the middle ear of the red fox is very similar to that of dogs. The most obvious difference from that of the cat is the lack of a fully formed bony septum in the bulla tympanica of the fox. The cochlear structures of the fox, however, are very like those of the cat, whereas dogs have a broader BM in the basal cochlea. We further report that the mass of the middle ear ossicles and the bulla volume increase with age in foxes. Overall, the ear structures of foxes, dogs and cats are anatomically very similar, and their behavioural audiograms overlap. However, the results of several published models and correlations that use middle and inner ear measurements to predict aspects of hearing were not always found to match well with audiogram data, especially when it came to the sharper tuning in the fox audiogram. This highlights that, although there is evidently a broad correspondence between structure and function, it is not always possible to draw direct links when considering more subtle differences between related species
A Random Matrix Approach to VARMA Processes
We apply random matrix theory to derive spectral density of large sample
covariance matrices generated by multivariate VMA(q), VAR(q) and VARMA(q1,q2)
processes. In particular, we consider a limit where the number of random
variables N and the number of consecutive time measurements T are large but the
ratio N/T is fixed. In this regime the underlying random matrices are
asymptotically equivalent to Free Random Variables (FRV). We apply the FRV
calculus to calculate the eigenvalue density of the sample covariance for
several VARMA-type processes. We explicitly solve the VARMA(1,1) case and
demonstrate a perfect agreement between the analytical result and the spectra
obtained by Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed method is purely algebraic
and can be easily generalized to q1>1 and q2>1.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, submitted to New Journal of Physic
Wilson Fermions on a Randomly Triangulated Manifold
A general method of constructing the Dirac operator for a randomly
triangulated manifold is proposed. The fermion field and the spin connection
live, respectively, on the nodes and on the links of the corresponding dual
graph. The construction is carried out explicitly in 2-d, on an arbitrary
orientable manifold without boundary. It can be easily converted into a
computer code. The equivalence, on a sphere, of Majorana fermions and Ising
spins in 2-d is rederived. The method can, in principle, be extended to higher
dimensions.Comment: 18 pages, latex, 6 eps figures, fig2 corrected, Comment added in the
conclusion sectio
Maximal entropy random walk in community finding
The aim of this paper is to check feasibility of using the maximal-entropy
random walk in algorithms finding communities in complex networks. A number of
such algorithms exploit an ordinary or a biased random walk for this purpose.
Their key part is a (dis)similarity matrix, according to which nodes are
grouped. This study encompasses the use of the stochastic matrix of a random
walk, its mean first-passage time matrix, and a matrix of weighted paths count.
We briefly indicate the connection between those quantities and propose
substituting the maximal-entropy random walk for the previously chosen models.
This unique random walk maximises the entropy of ensembles of paths of given
length and endpoints, which results in equiprobability of those paths. We
compare performance of the selected algorithms on LFR benchmark graphs. The
results show that the change in performance depends very strongly on the
particular algorithm, and can lead to slight improvements as well as
significant deterioration.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, submitted to European Physical Journal Special
Topics following the 4-th Conference on Statistical Physics: Modern Trends
and Applications, July 3-6, 2012 Lviv, Ukrain
18O isotope effect in the photosynthetic water splitting process
AbstractIn mass spectroscopic experiments of oxygen evolution in Photosystem II at 50% enrichment of H218O, one expects equal signals of 18O2 and 16O2 unless one of the isotopes is favored by the oxygen evolving complex (OEC). We have observed a deviation from this expectation, being a clear indication of an isotope effect. We have measured the effect to be 1.14–1.30, which is higher than the theoretically predicted value of 1.014–1.06. This together with the strong temperature variation of the measured effect with a discontinuity at 11 °C observed for wild-type tobacco and at 9 °C for a yellow-green tobacco mutant suggest that an additional mechanism is responsible for the observed high isotope effect. The entry of a finite size of water clusters to the cleavage site of the OEC can explain the observation
Portfolio Optimization and the Random Magnet Problem
Diversification of an investment into independently fluctuating assets
reduces its risk. In reality, movement of assets are are mutually correlated
and therefore knowledge of cross--correlations among asset price movements are
of great importance. Our results support the possibility that the problem of
finding an investment in stocks which exposes invested funds to a minimum level
of risk is analogous to the problem of finding the magnetization of a random
magnet. The interactions for this ``random magnet problem'' are given by the
cross-correlation matrix {\bf \sf C} of stock returns. We find that random
matrix theory allows us to make an estimate for {\bf \sf C} which outperforms
the standard estimate in terms of constructing an investment which carries a
minimum level of risk.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, revte
Emergence of a 4D World from Causal Quantum Gravity
Causal Dynamical Triangulations in four dimensions provide a
background-independent definition of the sum over geometries in nonperturbative
quantum gravity, with a positive cosmological constant. We present evidence
that a macroscopic four-dimensional world emerges from this theory dynamically.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; some short clarifying comments added; final
version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
On the top eigenvalue of heavy-tailed random matrices
We study the statistics of the largest eigenvalue lambda_max of N x N random
matrices with unit variance, but power-law distributed entries, P(M_{ij})~
|M_{ij}|^{-1-mu}. When mu > 4, lambda_max converges to 2 with Tracy-Widom
fluctuations of order N^{-2/3}. When mu < 4, lambda_max is of order
N^{2/mu-1/2} and is governed by Fr\'echet statistics. The marginal case mu=4
provides a new class of limiting distribution that we compute explicitely. We
extend these results to sample covariance matrices, and show that extreme
events may cause the largest eigenvalue to significantly exceed the
Marcenko-Pastur edge. Connections with Directed Polymers are briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
Ordered assembly of the asymmetrically branched lipid-linked oligosaccharide in the endoplasmic reticulum is ensured by the substrate specificity of the individual glycosyltransferases
The assembly of the lipid-linked core oligosaccharide Glc3Man9GlcNAc2, the substrate for N-linked glycosylation of proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), is catalyzed by different glycosyltransferases located at the membrane of the ER. We report on the identification and characterization of the ALG12 locus encoding a novel mannosyltransferase responsible for the addition of the α-1,6 mannose to dolichollinked Man7GlcNAc2. The biosynthesis of the highly branched oligosaccharide follows an ordered pathway which ensures that only completely assembled oligosaccharide is transferred from the lipid anchor to proteins. Using the combination of mutant strains affected in the assembly pathway of lipid-linked oligosaccharides and overexpression of distinct glycosyltransferases, we were able to define the substrate specificities of the transferases that are critical for branching. Our results demonstrate that branched oligosaccharide structures can be specifically recognized by the ER glycosyltransferases. This substrate specificity of the different transferases explains the ordered assembly of the complex structure of lipid-linked Glc3Man9GlcNAc2 in the endoplasmic reticulu
Levy targeting and the principle of detailed balance
We investigate confined L\'{e}vy flights under premises of the principle of
detailed balance. The master equation admits a transformation to L\'{e}vy -
Schr\"{o}dinger semigroup dynamics (akin to a mapping of the Fokker-Planck
equation into the generalized diffusion equation). We solve a stochastic
targeting problem for arbitrary stability index of L\'{e}vy drivers:
given an invariant probability density function (pdf), specify the jump - type
dynamics for which this pdf is a long-time asymptotic target. Our
("-targeting") method is exemplified by Cauchy family and Gaussian target
pdfs. We solve the reverse engineering problem for so-called L\'{e}vy
oscillators: given a quadratic semigroup potential, find an asymptotic pdf for
the associated master equation for arbitrary
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