5,922 research outputs found
Solomonoff Induction Violates Nicod's Criterion
Nicod's criterion states that observing a black raven is evidence for the
hypothesis H that all ravens are black. We show that Solomonoff induction does
not satisfy Nicod's criterion: there are time steps in which observing black
ravens decreases the belief in H. Moreover, while observing any computable
infinite string compatible with H, the belief in H decreases infinitely often
when using the unnormalized Solomonoff prior, but only finitely often when
using the normalized Solomonoff prior. We argue that the fault is not with
Solomonoff induction; instead we should reject Nicod's criterion.Comment: ALT 201
Milieu-adopted in vitro and in vivo differentiation of mesenchymal tissues derived from different adult human CD34-negative progenitor cell clones
Adult mesenchymal stem cells with multilineage differentiation potentially exist in the bone marrow, but have also been isolated from the peripheral blood. The differentiation of stem cells after leaving their niches depends predominately on the local milieu and its new microenvironment, and is facilitated by soluble factors but also by the close cell-cell interaction in a three-dimensional tissue or organ system. We have isolated CD34-negative, mesenchymal stem cell lines from human bone marrow and peripheral blood and generated monoclonal cell populations after immortalization with the SV40 large T-antigen. The cultivation of those adult stem cell clones in an especially designed in vitro environment, including self-constructed glass capillaries with defined growth conditions, leads to the spontaneous establishment of pleomorphic three-dimensional cell aggregates ( spheroids) from the monoclonal cell population, which consist of cells with an osteoblast phenotype and areas of mineralization along with well-vascularized tissue areas. Modifications of the culture conditions favored areas of bone-like calcifications. After the transplantation of the at least partly mineralized human spheroids into different murine soft tissue sites but also a dorsal skinfold chamber, no further bone formation could be observed, but angiogenesis and neovessel formation prevailed instead, enabling the transplanted cells and cell aggregates to survive. This study provides evidence that even monoclonal adult human CD34-negative stem cells from the bone marrow as well as peripheral blood can potentially differentiate into different mesenchymal tissues depending on the local milieu and responding to the needs within the microenvironment. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel
Fermionic Molecular Dynamics for nuclear dynamics and thermodynamics
A new Fermionic Molecular Dynamics (FMD) model based on a Skyrme functional
is proposed in this paper. After introducing the basic formalism, some first
applications to nuclear structure and nuclear thermodynamics are presentedComment: 5 pages, Proceedings of the French-Japanese Symposium, September
2008. To be published in Int. J. of Mod. Phys.
MDL Convergence Speed for Bernoulli Sequences
The Minimum Description Length principle for online sequence
estimation/prediction in a proper learning setup is studied. If the underlying
model class is discrete, then the total expected square loss is a particularly
interesting performance measure: (a) this quantity is finitely bounded,
implying convergence with probability one, and (b) it additionally specifies
the convergence speed. For MDL, in general one can only have loss bounds which
are finite but exponentially larger than those for Bayes mixtures. We show that
this is even the case if the model class contains only Bernoulli distributions.
We derive a new upper bound on the prediction error for countable Bernoulli
classes. This implies a small bound (comparable to the one for Bayes mixtures)
for certain important model classes. We discuss the application to Machine
Learning tasks such as classification and hypothesis testing, and
generalization to countable classes of i.i.d. models.Comment: 28 page
Computation of a combined spherical-elastic and viscous-half-space earth model for ice sheet simulation
This report starts by describing the continuum model used by Lingle & Clark
(1985) to approximate the deformation of the earth under changing ice sheet and
ocean loads. That source considers a single ice stream, but we apply their
underlying model to continent-scale ice sheet simulation. Their model combines
Farrell's (1972) elastic spherical earth with a viscous half-space overlain by
an elastic plate lithosphere. The latter half-space model is derivable from
calculations by Cathles (1975). For the elastic spherical earth we use
Farrell's tabulated Green's function, as do Lingle & Clark. For the half-space
model, however, we propose and implement a significantly faster numerical
strategy, a spectral collocation method (Trefethen 2000) based directly on the
Fast Fourier Transform. To verify this method we compare to an integral formula
for a disc load. To compare earth models we build an accumulation history from
a growing similarity solution from (Bueler, et al.~2005) and and simulate the
coupled (ice flow)-(earth deformation) system. In the case of simple isostasy
the exact solution to this system is known. We demonstrate that the magnitudes
of numerical errors made in approximating the ice-earth system are
significantly smaller than pairwise differences between several earth models,
namely, simple isostasy, the current standard model used in ice sheet
simulation (Greve 2001, Hagdorn 2003, Zweck & Huybrechts 2005), and the Lingle
& Clark model. Therefore further efforts to validate different earth models
used in ice sheet simulations are, not surprisingly, worthwhile.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figures, 3 Matlab program
Geometry of Policy Improvement
We investigate the geometry of optimal memoryless time independent decision
making in relation to the amount of information that the acting agent has about
the state of the system. We show that the expected long term reward, discounted
or per time step, is maximized by policies that randomize among at most
actions whenever at most world states are consistent with the agent's
observation. Moreover, we show that the expected reward per time step can be
studied in terms of the expected discounted reward. Our main tool is a
geometric version of the policy improvement lemma, which identifies a
polyhedral cone of policy changes in which the state value function increases
for all states.Comment: 8 page
Relativistic jet models for the BL Lacertae object Mrk 421 during three epochs of observation
Coordinated observation of the nearby BL Lacertae object Mrk 421 obtained during May 1980, January 1984, and March 1984 are described. These observations give a time-frozen picture of the continuous spectrum of Mrk 421 at X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and radio wavelengths. The observed spectra have been fitted to an inhomogeneous relativistic jet model. In general, the models reproduce the data well. Many of the observed differences during the three epochs can be attributed to variations in the opening angle of the jet and in the angle that the jet makes to the line of sight. The jet models obtained here are compared with the homogeneous, spherically symmetric, synchrotron self-Compton models for this source. The models are also compared with the relativistic jet models obtained for other active galactic nuclei
Does early childbearing and a sterilization-focused family planning programme in India fuel population growth?
Recent stagnation in the reduction of infant mortality in India can arguably be attributed to early child bearing practices and the lack of progress in lengthening birth intervals. Meanwhile, family planning efforts have been particularly successful in the southern states such as Andhra Pradesh, although family limitation is almost exclusively by means of sterilisation at increasingly younger ages. This paper examines the population impact of the unprecedented convergence of early childbearing trajectories in India and quantifies the potential implications stemming from the neglect of strategies that encourage delaying and spacing of births. The effects of adopting a ‘later, longer and fewer’ family planning strategy are compared with the continuation of fertility concentrated in the younger age groups. Results from the cohort component population projections suggest that a policy encouraging later marriage and birth spacing would achieve a future total population which is about 52 million less in 2050 than if the current early fertility trajectory is continued.census, family planning, fertility, India, National Family Health Surveys, population policies, population projections, Sample Registration Systems, sterilisation
Waveguide containing a backward-wave slab
We have considered theoretically the waveguide properties of a plane
two-layered waveguide, whose one layer is a usual magnetodielectric
(forward-wave medium), but another one is a slab of so-called backward-wave
material (BW-material), whose both permittivity and permeability are negative.
We have analyzed the properties of eigenwaves in this waveguide. In particular,
it was found that there exist waves of both TE and TM polarizations, whose
fields decay exponentially from the interface of the two slabs inside both
layers, and their slow-wave factor tends to infinity at small frequencies.
Thus, this waveguiding system supports super-slow waves with extremely short
wavelengthes, as compared to the free-space wavelength and the cross section
size. Other peculiarities of the spectrum are also discussed
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