2,017 research outputs found
A4_9 It’s not just Smoke and Mirrors
This paper looks at the feasbility of using wires too thin to be resolved by the human eye as a means ofmaking a stage magician float. It is found that for the two configurations tested, a stresses of 4.9 GPaand 3.51 GPa would be exerted upon the wire. These are both notably more than the tensile strengthof steel, but not so high as to be unfeasable in the future. This doesn’t rule out wire in total though asother combinations of wire and methods of consealment may be used
SCAN: Learning Hierarchical Compositional Visual Concepts
The seemingly infinite diversity of the natural world arises from a
relatively small set of coherent rules, such as the laws of physics or
chemistry. We conjecture that these rules give rise to regularities that can be
discovered through primarily unsupervised experiences and represented as
abstract concepts. If such representations are compositional and hierarchical,
they can be recombined into an exponentially large set of new concepts. This
paper describes SCAN (Symbol-Concept Association Network), a new framework for
learning such abstractions in the visual domain. SCAN learns concepts through
fast symbol association, grounding them in disentangled visual primitives that
are discovered in an unsupervised manner. Unlike state of the art multimodal
generative model baselines, our approach requires very few pairings between
symbols and images and makes no assumptions about the form of symbol
representations. Once trained, SCAN is capable of multimodal bi-directional
inference, generating a diverse set of image samples from symbolic descriptions
and vice versa. It also allows for traversal and manipulation of the implicit
hierarchy of visual concepts through symbolic instructions and learnt logical
recombination operations. Such manipulations enable SCAN to break away from its
training data distribution and imagine novel visual concepts through
symbolically instructed recombination of previously learnt concepts
Graphical augmentations to the funnel plot assess the impact of additional evidence on a meta-analysis
AbstractObjectiveWe aim to illustrate the potential impact of a new study on a meta-analysis, which gives an indication of the robustness of the meta-analysis.Study Design and SettingA number of augmentations are proposed to one of the most widely used of graphical displays, the funnel plot. Namely, 1) statistical significance contours, which define regions of the funnel plot in which a new study would have to be located to change the statistical significance of the meta-analysis; and 2) heterogeneity contours, which show how a new study would affect the extent of heterogeneity in a given meta-analysis. Several other features are also described, and the use of multiple features simultaneously is considered.ResultsThe statistical significance contours suggest that one additional study, no matter how large, may have a very limited impact on the statistical significance of a meta-analysis. The heterogeneity contours illustrate that one outlying study can increase the level of heterogeneity dramatically.ConclusionThe additional features of the funnel plot have applications including 1) informing sample size calculations for the design of future studies eligible for inclusion in the meta-analysis; and 2) informing the updating prioritization of a portfolio of meta-analyses such as those prepared by the Cochrane Collaboration
Variation of plagioclase shape with size in intermediate magmas : a window into incipient plagioclase crystallisation
This work was funded by UK Natural Environment Research Council grant NE/T000430/1.Volcanic rocks commonly display complex textures acquired both in the magma reservoir and during ascent to the surface. While variations in mineral compositions, sizes and number densities are routinely analysed to reconstruct pre-eruptive magmatic histories, crystal shapes are often assumed to be constant, despite experimental evidence for the sensitivity of crystal habit to magmatic conditions. Here, we develop a new program (ShapeCalc) to calculate 3D shapes from 2D crystal intersection data and apply it to study variations of crystal shape with size for plagioclase microlites (l 5–10 µm) show progressively more tabular habits. Crystal growth modelling and experimental constraints indicate that this trend reflects shape evolution during plagioclase growth, with initial growth as prismatic rods and subsequent preferential overgrowth of the intermediate dimension to form tabular shapes. Because overgrowth of very small crystals can strongly affect the external morphology, plagioclase microlite shapes are dependent on the available growth volume per crystal, which decreases during decompression-driven crystallisation as crystal number density increases. Our proposed growth model suggests that the range of crystal shapes developed in a magma is controlled by the temporal evolution of undercooling and total crystal numbers, i.e., distinct cooling/decompression paths. For example, in cases of slow to moderate magma ascent rates and quasi-continuous nucleation, early-formed crystals grow larger and develop tabular shapes, whereas late-stage nucleation produces smaller, prismatic crystals. In contrast, rapid magma ascent may suppress nucleation entirely or, if stalled at shallow depth, may produce a single nucleation burst associated with tabular crystal shapes. Such variation in crystal shapes have diagnostic value and are also an important factor to consider when constructing CSDs and models involving magma rheology.Peer reviewe
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