11,343 research outputs found
Instant restore after a media failure
Media failures usually leave database systems unavailable for several hours
until recovery is complete, especially in applications with large devices and
high transaction volume. Previous work introduced a technique called
single-pass restore, which increases restore bandwidth and thus substantially
decreases time to repair. Instant restore goes further as it permits read/write
access to any data on a device undergoing restore--even data not yet
restored--by restoring individual data segments on demand. Thus, the restore
process is guided primarily by the needs of applications, and the observed mean
time to repair is effectively reduced from several hours to a few seconds.
This paper presents an implementation and evaluation of instant restore. The
technique is incrementally implemented on a system starting with the
traditional ARIES design for logging and recovery. Experiments show that the
transaction latency perceived after a media failure can be cut down to less
than a second and that the overhead imposed by the technique on normal
processing is minimal. The net effect is that a few "nines" of availability are
added to the system using simple and low-overhead software techniques
Network Inference via the Time-Varying Graphical Lasso
Many important problems can be modeled as a system of interconnected
entities, where each entity is recording time-dependent observations or
measurements. In order to spot trends, detect anomalies, and interpret the
temporal dynamics of such data, it is essential to understand the relationships
between the different entities and how these relationships evolve over time. In
this paper, we introduce the time-varying graphical lasso (TVGL), a method of
inferring time-varying networks from raw time series data. We cast the problem
in terms of estimating a sparse time-varying inverse covariance matrix, which
reveals a dynamic network of interdependencies between the entities. Since
dynamic network inference is a computationally expensive task, we derive a
scalable message-passing algorithm based on the Alternating Direction Method of
Multipliers (ADMM) to solve this problem in an efficient way. We also discuss
several extensions, including a streaming algorithm to update the model and
incorporate new observations in real time. Finally, we evaluate our TVGL
algorithm on both real and synthetic datasets, obtaining interpretable results
and outperforming state-of-the-art baselines in terms of both accuracy and
scalability
Adaptive homodyne phase discrimination and qubit measurement
Fast and accurate measurement is a highly desirable, if not vital, feature of
quantum computing architectures. In this work we investigate the usefulness of
adaptive measurements in improving the speed and accuracy of qubit measurement.
We examine a particular class of quantum computing architectures, ones based on
qubits coupled to well controlled harmonic oscillator modes (reminiscent of
cavity-QED), where adaptive schemes for measurement are particularly
appropriate. In such architectures, qubit measurement is equivalent to phase
discrimination for a mode of the electromagnetic field, and we examine adaptive
techniques for doing this. In the final section we present a concrete example
of applying adaptive measurement to the particularly well-developed circuit-QED
architecture.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Published versio
Systematically improvable optimized atomic basis sets for {\it ab inito} calculations
We propose a unique scheme to construct fully optimized atomic basis sets for
density-functional calculations. The shapes of the radial functions are
optimized by minimizing the {\it spillage} of the wave functions between the
atomic orbital calculations and the converged plane wave calculations for dimer
systems. The quality of the bases can be systematically improved by increasing
the size of the bases within the same framework. The scheme is easy to
implement and very flexible. We have done extensive tests of this scheme for
wide variety of systems. The results show that the obtained atomic basis sets
are very satisfactory for both accuracy and transferability
Exploration of the Genetic Epidemiology of Asthma: A Review, With a Focus on Prevalence in Children and Adolescents in the Caribbean
Asthma is a chronic disease caused by the inflammation of the main air passages of the lungs. This paper outlines a review of the published literature on asthma. While a few studies show a trend of rising asthma cases in the Caribbean region, even fewer have explored the genetic epidemiological factors of asthma. This is a literature review that seeks to sum the body of knowledge on the epidemiology of asthma. Specifically, the major objective of the literature review is to provide a unified information base on the current state of factors involved in the genetic epidemiology of asthma. The review is a simple, yet detailed summary of the literature sources and their methodology and findings on the genetic epidemiology of asthma. Further, it seeks to direct this effort to the Caribbean region. The paper then reviews a summarized and synthesized collection of the body of previous research. Of specific interest are peer-reviewed sources that have been published in recent times. The paper provides more recent insight and recapitulates on the previous research, while tracing the intellectual progress on the debate. Where possible, reviewing and discussing the results of the previous literature, this review singles out the gaps and potential future research directions for studying the genetic epidemiology of asthma. Overall, we hope to contribute to a more synthesized knowledge and improved understanding of the previous literature and future potential direction of genetic and epidemiological asthma research
Electronic structure interpolation via atomic orbitals
We present an efficient scheme for accurate electronic structure
interpolations based on the systematically improvable optimized atomic
orbitals. The atomic orbitals are generated by minimizing the spillage value
between the atomic basis calculations and the converged plane wave basis
calculations on some coarse -point grid. They are then used to calculate the
band structure of the full Brillouin zone using the linear combination of
atomic orbitals (LCAO) algorithms. We find that usually 16 -- 25 orbitals per
atom can give an accuracy of about 10 meV compared to the full {\it ab initio}
calculations. The current scheme has several advantages over the existing
interpolation schemes. The scheme is easy to implement and robust which works
equally well for metallic systems and systems with complex band structures.
Furthermore, the atomic orbitals have much better transferability than the
Shirley's basis and Wannier functions, which is very useful for the
perturbation calculations
GRB000301C with peculiar afterglow emission
The CCD magnitudes in Johnson V and Cousins R and I photometric passbands are
determined for GRB 000301C afterglow starting ~ 1.5 day after the gamma-ray
burst. In fact we provide the earliest optical observations for this burst.
Light curves of the afterglow emissions in U, B, V, R, I, J and K' passbands
are obtained by combining the present measurements with the published data.
Flux decay shows a very uncommon variation relative to other well observed
GRBs. Overall, there is a steepening of the optical and near-infrared flux
decay caused by a geometric and sideways expanding jet. This is superimposed by
a short term variability especially during early time (Delta t < 8 days). The
cause of variability is not well understood, though it has occurred
simultaneously with similar amplitude in all the filters. We derive the early
and late time flux decay constants using jet model. The late time flux decay is
the steepest amongst the GRB OTs observed so far with alpha ~ 3. Steepening in
the flux decay seems to have started simultaneously around Delta t ~ 7.6 day in
all passbands. The value of spectral index in the optical-near IR region is ~
-1.0. Redshift determination with z=2.0335 indicates cosmological origin of the
GRB having a luminosity distance of 16.6 Gpc. Thus it becomes the second
farthest amongst the GRBs with known distances. An indirect estimate of the
fluence > 20 keV indicates, if isotropic,> =10^53 ergs of release of energy.
The enormous amount of released energy will be reduced, if the radiation is
beamed which is the case for this event. Using a jet break time of 7.6 days, we
infer a jet opening angle of ~ 0.15 radian. This means the energy released is
reduced by a factor of ~ 90 relative to the isotropic value.Comment: LaTeX file, 11 pages including 4 figures, uses psfig.sty, Bull.
Astron. Society of India(accepted, Sept, 2000 issue
Quantum non-demolition measurements of single donor spins in semiconductors
We propose a technique for measuring the state of a single donor electron
spin using a field-effect transistor induced two-dimensional electron gas and
electrically detected magnetic resonance techniques. The scheme is facilitated
by hyperfine coupling to the donor nucleus. We analyze the potential
sensitivity and outline experimental requirements. Our measurement provides a
single-shot, projective, and quantum non-demolition measurement of an
electron-encoded qubit state.Comment: 8+ pages. 4 figures. Published versio
Influence of spin fluctuations near the Mott transition: a DMFT study
Dynamics of magnetic moments near the Mott metal-insulator transition is
investigated by a combined slave-rotor and Dynamical Mean-Field Theory solution
of the Hubbard model with additional fully-frustrated random Heisenberg
couplings. In the paramagnetic Mott state, the spinon decomposition allows to
generate a Sachdev-Ye spin liquid in place of the collection of independent
local moments that typically occurs in the absence of magnetic correlations.
Cooling down into the spin-liquid phase, the onset of deviations from pure
Curie behavior in the spin susceptibility is found to be correlated to the
temperature scale at which the Mott transition lines experience a marked
bending. We also demonstrate a weakening of the effective exchange energy upon
approaching the Mott boundary from the Heisenberg limit, due to quantum
fluctuations associated to zero and doubly occupied sites.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. V3 was largely expande
Optical observations of the bright long duration peculiar GRB 021004 afterglow
The CCD magnitudes in Johnson and Cousins and photometric
passbands are determined for the bright long duration GRB 021004 afterglow from
2002 October 4 to 16 starting 3 hours after the ray burst.
Light curves of the afterglow emission in ,, and passbands are
obtained by combining these measurements with other published data. The
earliest optical emission appears to originate in a revese shock. Flux decay of
the afterglow shows a very uncommon variation relative to other well-observed
GRBs. Rapid light variations, especially during early times (
days) is superposed on an underlying broken power law decay typical of a jetted
afterglow. The flux decay constants at early and late times derived from least
square fits to the light curve are and respectively,
with a jet break at around 7 day. Comparison with a standard fireball model
indicates a total extinction of mag in the direction of the
burst. Our low-resolution spectra corrected for this extinction provide a
spectral slope . This value and the flux decay constants
agree well with the electron energy index used in the model. The
derived jet opening angle of about implies a total emitted
gamma-ray energy erg at a cosmological distance
of about 20 Gpc. Multiwavelength observations indicate association of this GRB
with a star forming region, supporting the case for collapsar origin of long
duration GRBs.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, BASI, 31, 1
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