Chronicles of Oklahoma

Article describes life in territorial Skullyville, Oklahoma, a town that was the original location of the first agency for the Choctaws in Indian Territory. G. E. Hartshorne, M.D. uses personal recollections of the town to describe its layout and people

Small bound for birational automorphism groups of algebraic varieties (with an Appendix by Yujiro Kawamata)

We give an effective upper bound of |Bir(X)| for the birational automorphism group of an irregular n-fold (with n = 3) of general type in terms of the volume V = V(X) under an ''albanese smoothness and simplicity'' condition. To be precise, |Bir(X)| < d_3 V^{10}. An optimum linear bound |Bir(X)|-1 < (1/3)(42)^3 V is obtained for those 3-folds with non-maximal albanese dimension. For all n > 2, a bound |Bir(X)| < d_n V^{10} is obtained when alb_X is generically finite, alb(X) is smooth and Alb(X) is simple.Comment: Mathematische Annalen, to appea

Generating multimedia presentations: from plain text to screenplay

In many Natural Language Generation (NLG) applications, the output is limited to plain text – i.e., a string of words with punctuation and paragraph breaks, but no indications for layout, or pictures, or dialogue. In several projects, we have begun to explore NLG applications in which these extra media are brought into play. This paper gives an informal account of what we have learned. For coherence, we focus on the domain of patient information leaflets, and follow an example in which the same content is expressed first in plain text, then in formatted text, then in text with pictures, and finally in a dialogue script that can be performed by two animated agents. We show how the same meaning can be mapped to realisation patterns in different media, and how the expanded options for expressing meaning are related to the perceived style and tone of the presentation. Throughout, we stress that the extra media are not simple added to plain text, but integrated with it: thus the use of formatting, or pictures, or dialogue, may require radical rewording of the text itself

Five-year study assessing the clinical utility of anti-Müllerian hormone measurements in reproductive-age women with cancer

An important discussion point before chemotherapy is ovarian toxicity, a side-effect that profoundly affects young women with cancer. Their quality of life after successful treatment, including the ability to conceive, is a major concern. We asked whether serum anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) measurements before chemotherapy for two most common malignancies are predictive of long-term changes in ovarian reserve? A prospective cohort study measured serum AMH in 66 young women with lymphoma and breast cancer, before and at 1 year and 5 years after chemotherapy, compared with 124 healthy volunteers of the same age range (18-43 years). Contemporaneously, patients reported their menses and live births during 5-year follow-up. After adjustment for age, serum AMH was 1.4 times higher (95% CI 1.1 to 1.9; P < 0.02) in healthy volunteers than in cancer patients before chemotherapy. A strong correlation was observed between baseline and 5-year AMH in the breast cancer group (P < 0.001, regression coefficient = 0.58, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.89). No significant association was found between presence of menses at 5 years and serum AMH at baseline (likelihood ratio test from logistics regression analysis). Reproductive-age women with malignancy have lower serum AMH than healthy controls even before starting chemotherapy. Pre-chemotherapy AMH was significantly associated with long-term ovarian function in women with breast cancer. At key time points, AMH measurements could be used as a reproductive health advisory tool for young women with cancer. Our results highlight the unsuitability of return of menstruation as a clinical indicator of ovarian reserve after chemotherapy. [Abstract copyright: Crown Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Constraining the Kahler Moduli in the Heterotic Standard Model

Phenomenological implications of the volume of the Calabi-Yau threefolds on the hidden and observable M-theory boundaries, together with slope stability of their corresponding vector bundles, constrain the set of Kaehler moduli which give rise to realistic compactifications of the strongly coupled heterotic string. When vector bundles are constructed using extensions, we provide simple rules to determine lower and upper bounds to the region of the Kaehler moduli space where such compactifications can exist. We show how small these regions can be, working out in full detail the case of the recently proposed Heterotic Standard Model. More explicitely, we exhibit Kaehler classes in these regions for which the visible vector bundle is stable. On the other hand, there is no polarization for which the hidden bundle is stable.Comment: 28 pages, harvmac. Exposition improved, references and one figure added, minor correction

Uhlenbeck-Donaldson compactification for framed sheaves on projective surfaces

We construct a compactification $M^{\mu ss}$ of the Uhlenbeck-Donaldson type for the moduli space of slope stable framed bundles. This is a kind of a moduli space of slope semistable framed sheaves. We show that there exists a projective morphism $\gamma \colon M^{ss} \to M^{\mu ss}$, where $M^{ss}$ is the moduli space of S-equivalence classes of Gieseker-semistable framed sheaves. The space $M^{\mu ss}$ has a natural set-theoretic stratification which allows one, via a Hitchin-Kobayashi correspondence, to compare it with the moduli spaces of framed ideal instantons.Comment: 18 pages. v2: a few very minor changes. v3: 27 pages. Several proofs have been considerably expanded, and more explanations have been added. v4: 28 pages. A few minor changes. Final version accepted for publication in Math.

Internet self-efficacy does not predict student use of Internet-mediated educational technology

Two studies tested the hypothesis that use of learning technologies among undergraduate psychology students was associated with higher Internet self-efficacy (ISE). In Study 1, the ISE scores of 86 students were found not to be associated with either attitudes towards, or measured use of, blogs and wikis as part of an IT skills course. ISE was associated with time spent online, and positive attitudes to wikis were associated with higher use. Study 2 measured 163 students’ ISE scores at the beginning and end of the same course. ISE was again not correlated with attitudes towards, or actual measured use of, learning technologies used in the course. However, ISE was shown to increase during the course. Positive attitudes towards wikis and discussion boards were associated with higher use of each. Overall, ISE scores did not influence measured use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE, including blogs, wikis and a discussion board), or attitudes towards those technologies. This implies that while ISE is linked to aspects of online behaviour (time spent online) and can be modified by online activity or training, it does not predict student use of educational Internet technologies

Analytic curves in algebraic varieties over number fields

We establish algebraicity criteria for formal germs of curves in algebraic varieties over number fields and apply them to derive a rationality criterion for formal germs of functions, which extends the classical rationality theorems of Borel-Dwork and P\'olya-Bertrandias valid over the projective line to arbitrary algebraic curves over a number field. The formulation and the proof of these criteria involve some basic notions in Arakelov geometry, combined with complex and rigid analytic geometry (notably, potential theory over complex and $p$-adic curves). We also discuss geometric analogues, pertaining to the algebraic geometry of projective surfaces, of these arithmetic criteria.Comment: 55 pages. To appear in "Algebra, Arithmetic, and Geometry: In Honor of Y.i. Manin", Y. Tschinkel & Yu. Manin editors, Birkh\"auser, 200

Big Line Bundles over Arithmetic Varieties

We prove a Hilbert-Samuel type result of arithmetic big line bundles in Arakelov geometry, which is an analogue of a classical theorem of Siu. An application of this result gives equidistribution of small points over algebraic dynamical systems, following the work of Szpiro-Ullmo-Zhang. We also generalize Chambert-Loir's non-archimedean equidistribution

Stability conditions and positivity of invariants of fibrations

We study three methods that prove the positivity of a natural numerical invariant associated to $1-$parameter families of polarized varieties. All these methods involve different stability conditions. In dimension 2 we prove that there is a natural connection between them, related to a yet another stability condition, the linear stability. Finally we make some speculations and prove new results in higher dimension.Comment: Final version, to appear in the Springer volume dedicated to Klaus Hulek on the occasion of his 60-th birthda