441 research outputs found
The persistence of self-employment across borders: new evidence on legal immigrants to the United States
Using recently-available data from the New Immigrant Survey, we find that previous self-employment experience in an immigrant’s country of origin is an important
determinant of their self-employment status in the U.S., increasing the probability of being self-employed by about 7 percent. Our results improve on the previous literature by measuring home-country self-employment directly rather than relying on proxy measures. We find little evidence to suggest that home-country self employment has a significant effect on U.S. wages in either paid employment or self employment
On the Exact Evaluation of Certain Instances of the Potts Partition Function by Quantum Computers
We present an efficient quantum algorithm for the exact evaluation of either
the fully ferromagnetic or anti-ferromagnetic q-state Potts partition function
Z for a family of graphs related to irreducible cyclic codes. This problem is
related to the evaluation of the Jones and Tutte polynomials. We consider the
connection between the weight enumerator polynomial from coding theory and Z
and exploit the fact that there exists a quantum algorithm for efficiently
estimating Gauss sums in order to obtain the weight enumerator for a certain
class of linear codes. In this way we demonstrate that for a certain class of
sparse graphs, which we call Irreducible Cyclic Cocycle Code (ICCC_\epsilon)
graphs, quantum computers provide a polynomial speed up in the difference
between the number of edges and vertices of the graph, and an exponential speed
up in q, over the best classical algorithms known to date
A microscopic 2D lattice model of dimer granular compaction with friction
We study by Monte Carlo simulation the compaction dynamics of hard dimers in
2D under the action of gravity, subjected to vertical and horizontal shaking,
considering also the case in which a friction force acts for horizontal
displacements of the dimers. These forces are modeled by introducing effective
probabilities for all kinds of moves of the particles. We analyze the dynamics
for different values of the time during which the shaking is applied to
the system and for different intensities of the forces. It turns out that the
density evolution in time follows a stretched exponential behavior if is
not very large, while a power law tail develops for larger values of .
Moreover, in the absence of friction, a critical value exists which
signals the crossover between two different regimes: for the
asymptotic density scales with a power law of , while for
it reaches logarithmically a maximal saturation value. Such behavior smears out
when a finite friction force is present. In this situation the dynamics is
slower and lower asymptotic densities are attained. In particular, for
significant friction forces, the final density decreases linearly with the
friction coefficient. We also compare the frictionless single tap dynamics to
the sequential tapping dynamics, observing in the latter case an inverse
logarithmic behavior of the density evolution, as found in the experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 15 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
Long-range effects in granular avalanching
We introduce a model for granular flow in a one-dimensional rice pile that
incorporates rolling effects through a long-range rolling probability for the
individual rice grains proportional to , being the distance
traveled by a grain in a single topling event. The exponent controls the
average rolling distance. We have shown that the crossover from power law to
stretched exponential behaviors observed experimentally in the granular
dynamics of rice piles can be well described as a long-range effect resulting
from a change in the transport properties of individual grains. We showed that
stretched exponential avalanche distributions can be associated with a
long-range regime for where the average rolling distance grows as a
power law with the system size, while power law distributions are associated
with a short range regime for , where the average rolling distance is
independent of the system size.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Entropic Tightening of Vibrated Chains
We investigate experimentally the distribution of configurations of a ring
with an elementary topological constraint, a ``figure-8'' twist. Using vibrated
granular chains, which permit controlled preparation and direct observation of
such a constraint, we show that configurations where one of the loops is tight
and the second is large are strongly preferred. This agrees with recent
predictions for equilibrium properties of topologically-constrained polymers.
However, the dynamics of the tightening process weakly violate detailed
balance, a signature of the nonequilibrium nature of this system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Phenomenological glass model for vibratory granular compaction
A model for weakly excited granular media is derived by combining the free
volume argument of Nowak et al. [Phys. Rev. E 57, 1971 (1998)] and the
phenomenological model for supercooled liquids of Adam and Gibbs [J. Chem.
Phys. 43, 139 (1965)]. This is made possible by relating the granular
excitation parameter \Gamma, defined as the peak acceleration of the driving
pulse scaled by gravity, to a temperature-like parameter \eta(\Gamma). The
resulting master equation is formally identical to that of Bouchaud's trap
model for glasses [J. Phys. I 2, 1705 (1992)]. Analytic and simulation results
are shown to compare favourably with a range of known experimental behaviour.
This includes the logarithmic densification and power spectrum of fluctuations
under constant \eta, the annealing curve when \eta is varied cyclically in
time, and memory effects observed for a discontinuous shift in \eta. Finally,
we discuss the physical interpretation of the model parameters and suggest
further experiments for this class of systems.Comment: 2 references added; some figure labels tweaked. To appear in PR
Stress Transmission through Three-Dimensional Ordered Granular Arrays
We measure the local contact forces at both the top and bottom boundaries of
three-dimensional face-centered-cubic and hexagonal-close-packed granular
crystals in response to an external force applied to a small area at the top
surface. Depending on the crystal structure, we find markedly different results
which can be understood in terms of force balance considerations in the
specific geometry of the crystal. Small amounts of disorder are found to create
additional structure at both the top and bottom surfaces.Comment: 9 pages including 9 figures (many in color) submitted to PR
Empirical Validation of MoDe4SLA; Approach for Managing Service Compositions
For companies managing complex Web service compositions, challenges arise which go far beyond simple bilateral contract monitoring. For example, it is not only important to determine whether or not a component (i.e., Web service) in a composition is performing properly, but also to understand what the impact of its performance is on the overall service composition. To tackle this challenge, in previous work we developed MoDe4SLA which allows managing and monitoring dependencies between services in a composition. This paper empirically validates MoDe4SLA through an extensive and interactive experiment among 34 participants
Compaction of Rods: Relaxation and Ordering in Vibrated, Anisotropic Granular Material
We report on experiments to measure the temporal and spatial evolution of
packing arrangements of anisotropic, cylindrical granular material, using
high-resolution capacitive monitoring. In these experiments, the particle
configurations start from an initially disordered, low-packing-fraction state
and under vertical vibrations evolve to a dense, highly ordered, nematic state
in which the long particle axes align with the vertical tube walls. We find
that the orientational ordering process is reflected in a characteristic, steep
rise in the local packing fraction. At any given height inside the packing, the
ordering is initiated at the container walls and proceeds inward. We explore
the evolution of the local as well as the height-averaged packing fraction as a
function of vibration parameters and compare our results to relaxation
experiments conducted on spherically shaped granular materials.Comment: 9 pages incl. 7 figure
Complementarity and the uncertainty relations
We formulate a general complementarity relation starting from any Hermitian
operator with discrete non-degenerate eigenvalues. We then elucidate the
relationship between quantum complementarity and the Heisenberg-Robertson's
uncertainty relation. We show that they are intimately connected. Finally we
exemplify the general theory with some specific suggested experiments.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, REVTeX, uses epsf.sty and multicol.st
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