12,444 research outputs found
Freund-Rubin Revisited
We utilise the duality between M theory and Type IIA string theory to show
the existence of Freund-Rubin compactifications of M theory on 7-manifolds with
singularities supporting chiral fermions. This leads to a concrete way to study
phenomenologically interesting quantum gravity vacua using a holographically
dual three dimensional field theory.Comment: reference adde
Bringing self assessment home: repository profiling and key lines of enquiry within DRAMBORA
Digital repositories are a manifestation of complex organizational, financial, legal, technological, procedural, and political interrelationships. Accompanying each of these are innate uncertainties, exacerbated by the relative immaturity of understanding prevalent within the digital preservation domain. Recent efforts have sought to identify core characteristics that must be demonstrable by successful digital repositories, expressed in the form of check-list documents, intended to support the processes of repository accreditation and certification. In isolation though, the available guidelines lack practical applicability; confusion over evidential requirements and difficulties associated with the diversity that exists among repositories (in terms of mandate, available resources, supported content and legal context) are particularly problematic. A gap exists between the available criteria and the ways and extent to which conformity can be demonstrated. The Digital Repository Audit Method Based on Risk Assessment (DRAMBORA) is a methodology for undertaking repository self assessment, developed jointly by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC) and DigitalPreservationEurope (DPE). DRAMBORA requires repositories to expose their organization, policies and infrastructures to rigorous scrutiny through a series of highly structured exercises, enabling them to build a comprehensive registry of their most pertinent risks, arranged into a structure that facilitates effective management. It draws on experiences accumulated throughout 18 evaluative pilot assessments undertaken in an internationally diverse selection of repositories, digital libraries and data centres (including institutions and services such as the UK National Digital Archive of Datasets, the National Archives of Scotland, Gallica at the National Library of France and the CERN Document Server). Other organizations, such as the British Library, have been using sections of DRAMBORA within their own risk assessment procedures.
Despite the attractive benefits of a bottom up approach, there are implicit challenges posed by neglecting a more objective perspective. Following a sustained period of pilot audits undertaken by DPE, DCC and the DELOS Digital Preservation Cluster aimed at evaluating DRAMBORA, it was stated that had respective project members not been present to facilitate each assessment, and contribute their objective, external perspectives, the results may have been less useful. Consequently, DRAMBORA has developed in a number of ways, to enable knowledge transfer from the responses of comparable repositories, and incorporate more opportunities for structured question sets, or key lines of enquiry, that provoke more comprehensive awareness of the applicability of particular threats and opportunities
Improving sustainability through intelligent cargo and adaptive decision making
In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange.In the current society, logistics is faced with the challenge to meet more stringent sustainability goals. Shippers and transport service providers both aim to reduce the carbon footprint of their logistic operations. To do so, optimal use of logistics resources and physical infrastructure should be aimed for. An adaptive decision making process for the selection of a specific transport modality, transport provider and timeslot (aimed at minimisation of the carbon footprint) enables shippers to achieve this. This requires shippers to have access to up-to-date capacity information from transport providers (e.g. current and scheduled loading status of the various transport means and information on carbon footprint) and traffic information (e.g. city logistics and current traffic information). A prerequisite is an adequate infrastructure for collaboration and open exchange of information between the various stakeholders in the logistics value chain to obtain the up-to-date information. This paper gives a view on how such an advanced information infrastructure can be realised, currently being developed within the EU iCargo project. The paper describes a reference logistics value chain, including business benefits for each of the roles in the logistics value chain of aiming for sustainability. A case analysis is presented that reflects a practical situation in which the various roles collaborate and exchange information for realizing sustainability goals, using adaptive decision making for selecting a transport modality, transport provider, and timeslot. A high-level overview is provided of the requirements on and technical implementation of the supporting advanced infrastructure for collaboration and open information exchange
On Central Charges and Hamiltonians for 0-brane dynamics
We consider general properties of central charges of zero branes and
associated duality invariants, in view of their double role, on the bulk and on
the world volume (quantum-mechanical) theory. A detailed study of the BPS
condition for the mass spectrum arising from toroidal compactifications is
given for 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 BPS states in any dimensions. As a byproduct, we
retreive the U-duality invariant conditions on the charge (zero mode) spectrum
and the orbit classification of BPS states preserving different fractions of
supersymmetry. The BPS condition for 0-branes in theories with 16
supersymmetries in any dimension is also discussed.Comment: 23 pages, latex fil
GP-Unet: Lesion Detection from Weak Labels with a 3D Regression Network
We propose a novel convolutional neural network for lesion detection from
weak labels. Only a single, global label per image - the lesion count - is
needed for training. We train a regression network with a fully convolutional
architecture combined with a global pooling layer to aggregate the 3D output
into a scalar indicating the lesion count. When testing on unseen images, we
first run the network to estimate the number of lesions. Then we remove the
global pooling layer to compute localization maps of the size of the input
image. We evaluate the proposed network on the detection of enlarged
perivascular spaces in the basal ganglia in MRI. Our method achieves a
sensitivity of 62% with on average 1.5 false positives per image. Compared with
four other approaches based on intensity thresholding, saliency and class maps,
our method has a 20% higher sensitivity.Comment: Article published in MICCAI 2017. We corrected a few errors from the
first version: padding, loss, typos and update of the DOI numbe
Cohomological Yang-Mills theories on KĂ€hler 3-folds
We study topological gauge theories with Nc = (2; 0) supersymmetry based on stable bundles
on general KĂ€hler 3-folds. In order to have a theory that is well defined and well behaved,
we consider a model based on an extension of the usual holomorphic bundle by including a
holomorphic 3-form. The correlation functions of the model describe complex 3-dimensional
generalizations of Donaldson-Witten type invariants. We show that the path integral can be
written as a sum of contributions from stable bundles and a complex 3-dimensional version
of Seiberg-Witten monopoles. We study certain deformations of the theory, which allow us
to consider the situation of reducible connections. We shortly discuss situations of reduced
holonomy. After dimensional reduction to a KĂ€hler 2-fold, the theory reduces to Vafa-Witten
theory. On a Calabi-Yau 3-fold, the supersymmetry is enhanced to Nc = (2; 2). This model
may be used to describe classical limits of certain compactifications of (matrix) string theory
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