3,964 research outputs found
Rhetoric in the language of real estate marketing
“Des. Res.”, “rarely available”, “viewing essential” – these are all part of the peculiar parlance of housing advertisements which contain a heady mix of euphemism, hyperbole and superlative. Of interest is whether the selling agent’s penchant for rhetoric is spatially uniform or whether there are variations across the urban system. We are also interested in how the use of superlatives varies over the market cycle and over the selling season. For example, are estate agents more inclined to use hyperbole when the market is buoyant or when it is flat, and does it matter whether a house is marketed in the summer or winter? This paper attempts to answer these questions by applying textual analysis to a unique dataset of 49,926 records of real estate transactions in the Strathclyde conurbation over the period 1999 to 2006. The analysis opens up a new avenue of research into the use of real estate rhetoric and its interaction with agency behaviour and market dynamics
Reducing the linewidth of a diode laser below 30 Hz by stabilization to a reference cavity with finesse above 10^5
An extended cavity diode laser operating in the Littrow configuration
emitting near 657 nm is stabilized via its injection current to a reference
cavity with a finesse of more than 10^5 and a corresponding resonance linewidth
of 14 kHz. The laser linewidth is reduced from a few MHz to a value below 30
Hz. The compact and robust setup appears ideal for a portable optical frequency
standard using the Calcium intercombination line.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures on 3 additional pages, corrected version,
submitted to Optics Letter
Gradient-Free Kernel Stein Discrepancy
Stein discrepancies have emerged as a powerful statistical tool, being
applied to fundamental statistical problems including parameter inference,
goodness-of-fit testing, and sampling. The canonical Stein discrepancies
require the derivatives of a statistical model to be computed, and in return
provide theoretical guarantees of convergence detection and control. However,
for complex statistical models, the stable numerical computation of derivatives
can require bespoke algorithmic development and render Stein discrepancies
impractical. This paper focuses on posterior approximation using Stein
discrepancies, and introduces a collection of non-canonical Stein discrepancies
that are gradient free, meaning that derivatives of the statistical model are
not required. Sufficient conditions for convergence detection and control are
established, and applications to sampling and variational inference are
presented
High accuracy measure of atomic polarizability in an optical lattice clock
Despite being a canonical example of quantum mechanical perturbation theory,
as well as one of the earliest observed spectroscopic shifts, the Stark effect
contributes the largest source of uncertainty in a modern optical atomic clock
through blackbody radiation. By employing an ultracold, trapped atomic ensemble
and high stability optical clock, we characterize the quadratic Stark effect
with unprecedented precision. We report the ytterbium optical clock's
sensitivity to electric fields (such as blackbody radiation) as the
differential static polarizability of the ground and excited clock levels:
36.2612(7) kHz (kV/cm)^{-2}. The clock's fractional uncertainty due to room
temperature blackbody radiation is reduced an order of magnitude to 3 \times
10^{-17}.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 table
Measurement of excited-state transitions in cold calcium atoms by direct femtosecond frequency-comb spectroscopy
We apply direct frequency-comb spectroscopy, in combination with precision cw
spectroscopy, to measure the transition
frequency in cold calcium atoms. A 657 nm ultrastable cw laser was used to
excite atoms on the narrow ( Hz) clock transition, and the direct output of the frequency comb was
used to excite those atoms from the state to the state. The resonance of this second stage was detected by observing a
decrease in population of the ground state as a result of atoms being optically
pumped to the metastable states. The transition frequency is measured to be kHz; which is an improvement by almost four orders of magnitude over
the previously measured value. In addition, we demonstrate spectroscopy on
magnetically trapped atoms in the state.Comment: 4 pages 5 figure
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