3,979 research outputs found
Retrieving information from a noisy "knowledge network"
We address the problem of retrieving information from a noisy version of the
``knowledge networks'' introduced by Maslov and Zhang. We map this problem onto
a disordered statistical mechanics model, which opens the door to many
analytical and numerical approaches. We give the replica symmetric solution,
compare with numerical simulations, and finally discuss an application to real
datas from the United States Senate.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Writing of the last section improved; version
accepted in JSTA
Phase separation frustrated by the long range Coulomb interaction II: Applications
The theory of first order density-driven phase transitions with frustration
due to the long range Coulomb (LRC) interaction develop on paper I of this
series is applied to the following physical systems: i) the low density
electron gas ii) electronic phase separation in the low density three
dimensional model iii) in the manganites near the charge ordered phase.
We work in the approximation that the density within each phase is uniform and
we assume that the system separates in spherical drops of one phase hosted by
the other phase with the distance between drops and the drop radius much larger
than the interparticle distance. For i) we study a well known apparent
instability related to a negative compressibility at low densities. We show
that this does not lead to macroscopic drop formation as one could expect
naively and the system is stable from this point of view. For ii) we find that
the LRC interaction significantly modifies the phase diagram favoring uniform
phases and mixed states of antiferromagnetic (AF) regions surrounded by
metallic regions over AF regions surrounded by empty space. For iii) we show
that the dependence of local densities of the phases on the overall density
found in paper I gives a non-monotonous behavior of the Curie temperature on
doping in agreement with experiments.Comment: Second part of cond-mat/0010092 12 pages, 12 figure
Phase separation frustrated by the long range Coulomb interaction I: Theory
We analyze the combined effect of the long range Coulomb (LRC) interaction
and of surface energy on first order density-driven phase transitions in the
presence of a compensating rigid background. We study mixed states formed by
regions of one phase surrounded by the other in the case in which the scale of
the inhomogeneities is much larger than the interparticle distance. Two
geometries are studied in detail: spherical drops of one phase into the other
and a layered structure of one phase alternating with the other. We find the
optimum density profile in an approximation in which the free energy is a
functional of the local density (LDA). It is shown that an approximation in
which the density is assumed to be uniform (UDA) within each phase region gives
results very similar to those of the more involved LDA approach. Within the UDA
we derive the general equations for the chemical potential and the pressures of
each phase which generalize the Maxwell construction to this situation. The
equations are valid for a rather arbitrary geometry. We find that the
transition to the mixed state is quite abrupt i.e. inhomogeneities of the first
phase appear with a finite value of the radius and of the phase volume
fraction. The maximum size of the inhomogeneities is found to be on the scale
of a few electric field screening lengths. Contrary to the ordinary Maxwell
construction, the inverse specific volume of each phase depends here on the
global density in the coexistence region and can decrease as the global density
increases. The range of densities in which coexistence is observed shrinks as
the LRC interaction increases until it reduces to a singular point. We argue
that close to this singular point the system undergoes a lattice instability as
long as the inverse lattice compressibility is finite.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures. We added a section were the density profile of
inhomogeneities is arbitrary and included other geometries. The applications
of the original version are in a separate pape
Finite-density corrections to the Unitary Fermi gas: A lattice perspective from Dynamical Mean-Field Theory
We investigate the approach to the universal regime of the dilute unitary
Fermi gas as the density is reduced to zero in a lattice model. To this end we
study the chemical potential, superfluid order parameter and internal energy of
the attractive Hubbard model in three different lattices with densities of
states (DOS) which share the same low-energy behavior of fermions in
three-dimensional free space: a cubic lattice, a "Bethe lattice" with a
semicircular DOS, and a "lattice gas" with parabolic dispersion and a sharp
energy cut-off that ensures the normalization of the DOS. The model is solved
using Dynamical Mean-Field Theory, that treats directly the thermodynamic limit
and arbitrarily low densities, eliminating finite-size effects. At densities of
the order of one fermion per site the lattice and its specific form dominate
the results. The evolution to the low-density limit is smooth and it does not
allow to define an unambiguous low-density regime. Such finite-density effects
are significantly reduced using the lattice gas, and they are maximal for the
three-dimensional cubic lattice. Even though dynamical mean-field theory is
bound to reduce to the more standard static mean field in the limit of zero
density due to the local nature of the self-energy and of the vertex functions,
it compares well with accurate Monte Carlo simulations down to the lowest
densities accessible to the latter.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure
Towards an expanded model of litigation
Introduction: The call for contributions for this workshop describes the important new challenges for the legal search
community this domain brings. Rather than just understanding the challenges this domain poses in terms of
their technical properties, we would like to suggest that understanding these challenges as socio-technical
challenges will be important. That is, as well as calling for research on a technical level to address these
challenges we are also calling for work to understand the social practices of those involved in e-discovery
(ED) and related legal work. A particularly interesting feature of this field is that it is likely that search
technologies will (at least semi-)automate responsiveness review in the relatively near term and this will
change the way that the work is organised and done in many ways – offering new possibilities for new
ways of organising the work. As well as designing those technologies for automating responsiveness
review we need to be envisioning how the work will be done in the future, how these technologies will
impact the organisation of the case and so on. In this position paper we therefore outline the importance of
understanding the wider social context of ED when designing tools and technologies to support and change
the work. We would like to reinforce and expand on Conrad’s call for IR researchers to understand just
what ED entails [2], include the stages that come both before and after core retrieval activities.
The importance of considering the social aspects of work in the design of the technology has been
established for some time. Ushering in this ‘turn to the social,’ and focusing on interface design, Gentner
and Grudin [4] described how the GUI has already changed from an interface for engineers, representing
the engineering model of the machine to one that supported single ‘everyman’ users (based on ideas from
psychology). From then onwards the interface has evolved to support groups of users, taking into account
the social and organisational contexts of use. This has particular resonance for the design of ED
technologies: during ED in particular and the wider legal process there are often many lawyers involved –
reviewing documents, determining issues, etc. Even if the way that their work is organised currently is not
seen as collaborative in the traditional sense – with individual lawyers working on individual document sets
to review them - their work needs to be coordinated and it seems likely that their work could be enhanced
by, for example, knowledge of what their colleagues had found, how the case was shaping up, new key
terms and facts turned up and so on. Work is often modelled for the purposes of design using process
models, but this misses out on the richness and variety actually found when one examines how the work is
carried out [3]. Technologies which strictly enforce the process models can often hinder the work, or end
up being worked around as was the case with workflow systems since people interpret processes very
flexibly to get the work done ([1], [3]). Other studies in other fields have found similar problems when
systems are designed on for example cognitive models of how the work is done; they often do not take into
account the situated nature of the work and thus they can be very difficult to use [5]. We believe, like [2],
that a clear understanding of the social practices of ED is vital for the creation of high-quality, meaningful
tools and technologies. We furthermore propose that work practice studies, to be used in combination with
other methods, are a central part of getting the detailed understanding of the work practices central to
designing useful and intelligent tools. Work practice studies would involve ethnographies, consisting
primarily of observation, undertaken of practitioners engaging in the work of ED
Theoretical insights into the RR Lyrae K-band Period-Luminosity relation
Based on updated nonlinear, convective pulsation models computed for several
values of stellar mass, luminosity and metallicity, theoretical constraints on
the K-band Period-Luminosity (PLK) relation of RR Lyrae stars are presented. We
show that for each given metal content the predicted PLK is marginally
dependent on uncertainties of the stellar mass and/or luminosity. Then, by
considering the RR Lyrae masses suggested by evolutionary computations for the
various metallicities, we obtain that the predicted infrared magnitude M_K over
the range 0.0001< Z <0.02 is given by the relation
MK=0.568-2.071logP+0.087logZ-0.778logL/Lo, with a rms scatter of 0.032 mag.
Therefore, by allowing the luminosities of RR Lyrae stars to vary within the
range covered by current evolutionary predictions for metal-deficient (0.0001<
Z <0.006) horizontal branch models, we eventually find that the infrared
Period-Luminosity- Metallicity (PLZK) relation is
MK=0.139-2.071(logP+0.30)+0.167logZ, with a total intrinsic dispersion of 0.037
mag. As a consequence, the use of such a PLZK relation should constrain within
+-0.04 mag the infrared distance modulus of field and cluster RR Lyrae
variables, provided that accurate observations and reliable estimates of the
metal content are available. Moreover, we show that the combination of K and V
measurements can supply independent information on the average luminosity of RR
Lyrae stars, thus yielding tight constraints on the input physics of stellar
evolution computations. Finally, for globular clusters with a sizable sample of
first overtone variables, the reddening can be estimated by using the PLZK
relation together with the predicted MV-logP relation at the blue edge of the
instability strip (Caputo et al. 2000).Comment: 8 pages, including 5 postscript figures, accepted for publication on
MNRA
The Significance of Tau Aggregates in the Human Brain
Neurofibrillary degeneration has attracted the attention of neuroscientists as both a hallmark of the disease and a subject for experimentation for more than a century. Recent studies implicate phosphorylated tau (p-tau) directly in neurodegenerative disease pathogenesis, although the human data continue to raise questions. P-tau accumulates with age in a roughly hierarchical manner, but avoids abundance in the neocortex unless co-occurring with amyloid-β. Neurodegenerative tauopathies tend to have p-tau morphologies that differ from aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Tau isoforms (3R vs. 4R) have a tendency to vary with tauopathy phenotype for unknown reasons. Selective vulnerability to p-tau and spatial-temporal disconnect from amyloid-β are evident in aging. P-tau assessment at autopsy involves tissue decomposition, which may skew microanatomical observations toward limited biological meaning. Two major consensus guidelines for interpreting p-tau at autopsy emphasize the challenges of clinicopathologic correlation, and reinforce the observation that regional neurodegeneration is a better correlate of clinical signs than is proteinopathy. Despite the proliferation of interesting and novel theories related to tau-mediated pathogenesis, the weight of the human observations suggests that neurofibrillary degeneration is an epiphenomenal hallmark of aging and disease rather than an epicenter of neurotoxicity. This is consistent with numerous tau-targeted therapeutic strategies that have been unsuccessful to date
Screening of Nuclear Reactions in the Sun and Solar Neutrinos
We quantitatively determine the effect and the uncertainty on solar neutrino
production arising from the screening process. We present predictions for the
solar neutrino fluxes and signals obtained with different screening models
available in the literature and by using our stellar evolution code. We explain
these numerical results in terms of simple laws relating the screening factors
with the neutrino fluxes. Futhermore we explore a wider range of models for
screening, obtained from the Mitler model by introducing and varying two
phenomenological parameters, taking into account effects not included in the
Mitler prescription. Screening implies, with respect to a no-screening case, a
central temperat reduction of 0.5%, a 2% (8%) increase of Beryllium
(Boron)-neutrino flux and a 2% (12%) increase of the Gallium (Chlorine) signal.
We also find that uncertainties due to the screening effect ar at the level of
1% for the predicted Beryllium-neutrino flux and Gallium signal, not exceeding
3% for the Boron-neutrino flux and the Chlorine signal.Comment: postscript file 11 pages + 4 figures compressed and uuencoded we have
replaced the previous paper with a uuencoded file (the text is the same) for
any problem please write to [email protected]
Marginal Fermi liquid behavior from 2d Coulomb interaction
A full, nonperturbative renormalization group analysis of interacting
electrons in a graphite layer is performed, in order to investigate the
deviations from Fermi liquid theory that have been observed in the experimental
measures of a linear quasiparticle decay rate in graphite. The electrons are
coupled through Coulomb interactions, which remain unscreened due to the
semimetallic character of the layer. We show that the model flows towards the
noninteracting fixed-point for the whole range of couplings, with logarithmic
corrections which signal the marginal character of the interaction separating
Fermi liquid and non-Fermi liquid regimes.Comment: 7 pages, 2 Postscript figure
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