26,382 research outputs found
Tweed in Martensites: A Potential New Spin Glass
We've been studying the ``tweed'' precursors above the martensitic transition
in shape--memory alloys. These characteristic cross--hatched modulations occur
for hundreds of degrees above the first--order shape--changing transition. Our
two--dimensional model for this transition, in the limit of infinite elastic
anisotropy, can be mapped onto a spin--glass Hamiltonian in a random field. We
suggest that the tweed precursors are a direct analogy of the spin--glass
phase. The tweed is intermediate between the high--temperature cubic phase and
the low--temperature martensitic phase in the same way as the spin--glass phase
can be intermediate between ferromagnet and antiferromagnet.Comment: 18 pages and four figures (included
Theoretical Properties of Projection Based Multilayer Perceptrons with Functional Inputs
Many real world data are sampled functions. As shown by Functional Data
Analysis (FDA) methods, spectra, time series, images, gesture recognition data,
etc. can be processed more efficiently if their functional nature is taken into
account during the data analysis process. This is done by extending standard
data analysis methods so that they can apply to functional inputs. A general
way to achieve this goal is to compute projections of the functional data onto
a finite dimensional sub-space of the functional space. The coordinates of the
data on a basis of this sub-space provide standard vector representations of
the functions. The obtained vectors can be processed by any standard method. In
our previous work, this general approach has been used to define projection
based Multilayer Perceptrons (MLPs) with functional inputs. We study in this
paper important theoretical properties of the proposed model. We show in
particular that MLPs with functional inputs are universal approximators: they
can approximate to arbitrary accuracy any continuous mapping from a compact
sub-space of a functional space to R. Moreover, we provide a consistency result
that shows that any mapping from a functional space to R can be learned thanks
to examples by a projection based MLP: the generalization mean square error of
the MLP decreases to the smallest possible mean square error on the data when
the number of examples goes to infinity
Weight Vectors of the Basic A_1^(1)-Module and the Littlewood-Richardson Rule
The basic representation of \A is studied. The weight vectors are
represented in terms of Schur functions. A suitable base of any weight space is
given. Littlewood-Richardson rule appears in the linear relations among weight
vectors.Comment: February 1995, 7pages, Using AMS-Te
Progress in Lunar Laser Ranging Tests of Relativistic Gravity
Analyses of laser ranges to the Moon provide increasingly stringent limits on
any violation of the Equivalence Principle (EP); they also enable several very
accurate tests of relativistic gravity. We report the results of our recent
analysis of Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) data giving an EP test of \Delta
(M_G/M_I)_{EP} =(-1.0 +/- 1.4) x 10^{-13}. This result yields a Strong
Equivalence Principle (SEP) test of \Delta (M_G/M_I)_{SEP} =(-2.0 +/- 2.0) x
10^{-13}. Also, the corresponding SEP violation parameter \eta is (4.4 +/- 4.5)
x 10^{-4}, where \eta=4\beta-\gamma-3 and both \beta and \gamma are
parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) parameters. Using the recent Cassini result
for the parameter \gamma, PPN parameter \beta is determined to be \beta-1=(1.2
+/- 1.1) x 10^{-4}. The geodetic precession test, expressed as a relative
deviation from general relativity, is K_{gp}=-0.0019 +/- 0.0064. The search for
a time variation in the gravitational constant results in \dot G/G=(4 +/- 9) x
10^{-13} yr^{-1}, consequently there is no evidence for local (~1AU) scale
expansion of the solar system.Comment: 4 pages, revtex4, minor changes made for publicatio
New Measurements of the Motion of the Zodiacal Dust
Using the Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper (WHAM), we have measured at high spectral
resolution and high signal-to-noise the profile of the scattered solar Mg I
5184 absorption line in the zodiacal light. The observations were carried out
toward 49 directions that sampled the ecliptic equator from solar elongations
of 48\dg (evening sky) to 334\dg (morning sky) plus observations near +47\dg
and +90\dg ecliptic latitude. The spectra show a clear prograde kinematic
signature that is inconsistent with dust confined to the ecliptic plane and in
circular orbits influenced only by the sun's gravity. In particular, the
broadened widths of the profiles, together with large amplitude variations in
the centroid velocity with elongation angle, indicate that a significant
population of dust is on eccentric orbits. In addition, the wide, flat-bottomed
line profile toward the ecliptic pole indicates a broad distribution of orbital
inclinations extending up to about 30\dg - 40\dg with respect to the ecliptic
plane. The absence of pronounced asymmetries in the shape of the profiles
limits the retrograde population to less than 10% of the prograde population
and also places constraints on the scattering phase function of the particles.
These results do not show the radial outflow or evening--morning velocity
amplitude asymmetry reported in some earlier investigations. The reduction of
the spectra included the discovery and removal of extremely faint, unidentified
terrestrial emission lines that contaminate and distort the underlying Mg I
profile. This atmospheric emission is too weak to have been seen in earlier,
lower signal-to-noise observations, but it probably affected the line centroid
measurements of previous investigations.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, 1 table, to appear in ApJ v612; figures appear
low-res only on scree
A Survey for Low-Surface-Brightness Galaxies Around M31. I. The Newly Discovered Dwarf Andromeda V
We present images and a color-magnitude diagram for And V, a new dwarf
spheroidal companion to M31 that was found using a digital filtering technique
applied to 1550 square degrees of the second Palomar Sky Survey. And V resolves
into stars easily in follow-up 4-m V- and I-band images, from which we deduce a
distance of 810 +/- 45 kpc using the tip of the red giant branch method. Within
the uncertainties, this distance is identical to the Population II distances
for M31 and, combined with a projected separation of 112 kpc, provides strong
support for a physical association between the two galaxies. There is no
emission from And V detected in H alpha, 1.4 GHz radio continuum, or IRAS
bandpasses, and there is no young population seen in the color-magnitude
diagram that might suggest that And V is an irregular. Thus, the classification
as a new dwarf spheroidal member of the Local Group seems secure. With an
extinction-corrected central surface brightness of 25.2 V mag per square
arcsec, a mean metal abundance of [Fe/H] approximately -1.5, and no evidence
for upper AGB stars, And V resembles And I & III.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal, November 1998
issue; 4 embedded PostScript figures, 4 JPEG figures; see
http://aloe.tuc.noao.edu/jacoby/dwarfs.html for a complete full-resolution
PostScript versio
Biological Records Centre Annual Report 2005-2006
The period covered by this report is the first year of a new six-year partnership between CEH and JNCC. For this period, there is increased emphasis on targeted survey, on analysis and interpretation and on communications and outreach. These activities were always part of BRC’s work, but they have been given greater prominence as a result of rapid developments in information technology. Data are increasingly reaching BRC in electronic form, so that the effort of data entry and collation is reduced.
The data, collected by many volunteers and then collated and analysed at BRC, document the changing status and distribution of plants and animals in Britain. Distribution maps are published in atlases and are available via the internet through the NBN Gateway. The effects of change or loss of habitats, the influence of climate change and the consequences of changing water quality are all examples of the environmental factors that affect our biodiversity and which BRC aims to document and understand. The results are vital for developing environmental policies, to support conservation, and for fundamental ecological research.
BRC is funded jointly by JNCC and NERC through a partnership based on a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). The partnership started in 1973 when the Nature Conservancy was divided to form the successor bodies Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and Institute of Terrestrial Ecology (ITE). NCC was in turn divided further to form JNCC and three Country Agencies, while ITE was merged with other NERC units to form CEH. Through all these changes, the partnership has been maintained. A six-year memorandum of agreement ended on 31 January 2005 (Hill et al. 2005). The present report covers the first full year, 2005-6, of the new agreement for 2005-2010.
Rapid progress in information technology continues to be highly beneficial for BRC, whose data are increasingly used by the UK country conservation agencies, environmental consultants, NGOs, research workers, policy makers and volunteers. It is gratifying to know that, through our ability to display data on the National Biodiversity Network (NBN) Gateway, some of our data suppliers now have immediate access to their own data in a convenient form.
The year 2005-6 has been one of steady progress, with new datasets added to BRC, substantial additions to existing data, and improved communication with the NBN Gateway. The most high profile activity of the year has been the Harlequin Ladybird Survey, which has enabled us to observe the early stages of colonization by a mobile insect in greater detail than has been possible in any previous case
Cosmic Censorship and the Dilaton
We investigate extremal electrically charged black holes in
Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory with a cosmological constant inspired by string
theory. These solutions are not static, and a timelike singularity eventually
appears which is not surrounded by an event horizon. This suggests that cosmic
censorship may be violated in this theory.Comment: 16 pages, NSF-ITP-93-9
Athena: A New Code for Astrophysical MHD
A new code for astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is described. The
code has been designed to be easily extensible for use with static and adaptive
mesh refinement. It combines higher-order Godunov methods with the constrained
transport (CT) technique to enforce the divergence-free constraint on the
magnetic field. Discretization is based on cell-centered volume-averages for
mass, momentum, and energy, and face-centered area-averages for the magnetic
field. Novel features of the algorithm include (1) a consistent framework for
computing the time- and edge-averaged electric fields used by CT to evolve the
magnetic field from the time- and area-averaged Godunov fluxes, (2) the
extension to MHD of spatial reconstruction schemes that involve a
dimensionally-split time advance, and (3) the extension to MHD of two different
dimensionally-unsplit integration methods. Implementation of the algorithm in
both C and Fortran95 is detailed, including strategies for parallelization
using domain decomposition. Results from a test suite which includes problems
in one-, two-, and three-dimensions for both hydrodynamics and MHD are given,
not only to demonstrate the fidelity of the algorithms, but also to enable
comparisons to other methods. The source code is freely available for download
on the web.Comment: 61 pages, 36 figures. accepted by ApJ
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