9,250 research outputs found
Parallel Exhaustive Search without Coordination
We analyze parallel algorithms in the context of exhaustive search over
totally ordered sets. Imagine an infinite list of "boxes", with a "treasure"
hidden in one of them, where the boxes' order reflects the importance of
finding the treasure in a given box. At each time step, a search protocol
executed by a searcher has the ability to peek into one box, and see whether
the treasure is present or not. By equally dividing the workload between them,
searchers can find the treasure times faster than one searcher.
However, this straightforward strategy is very sensitive to failures (e.g.,
crashes of processors), and overcoming this issue seems to require a large
amount of communication. We therefore address the question of designing
parallel search algorithms maximizing their speed-up and maintaining high
levels of robustness, while minimizing the amount of resources for
coordination. Based on the observation that algorithms that avoid communication
are inherently robust, we analyze the best running time performance of
non-coordinating algorithms. Specifically, we devise non-coordinating
algorithms that achieve a speed-up of for two searchers, a speed-up of
for three searchers, and in general, a speed-up of
for any searchers. Thus, asymptotically, the speed-up is only four
times worse compared to the case of full-coordination, and our algorithms are
surprisingly simple and hence applicable. Moreover, these bounds are tight in a
strong sense as no non-coordinating search algorithm can achieve better
speed-ups. Overall, we highlight that, in faulty contexts in which coordination
between the searchers is technically difficult to implement, intrusive with
respect to privacy, and/or costly in term of resources, it might well be worth
giving up on coordination, and simply run our non-coordinating exhaustive
search algorithms
Schwinger model on a half-line
We study the Schwinger model on a half-line in this paper. In particular, we
investigate the behavior of the chiral condensate near the edge of the line.
The effect of the chosen boundary condition is emphasized. The extension to the
finite temperature case is straightforward in our approach.Comment: 4 pages, no figure. Final version to be published on Phys. Rev.
Universal saturation of electron dephasing in three-dimensional disordered metals
We have systematically investigated the low-temperature electron dephasing
times in more than 40 three-dimensional polycrystalline impure
metals with distinct material characteristics. In all cases, a saturation of
the dephasing time is observed below about a (few) degree(s) Kelvin, depending
on samples. The value of the saturated dephasing time [] falls basically in the range 0.005 to 0.5 ns for
all samples. Particularly, we find that scales with the electron
diffusion constant as , with close to or
slightly larger than 1, for over two decades of from about 0.1 to 10
cm/s. Our observation suggests that the saturation behavior of
is universal and intrinsic in three-dimensional polycrystalline impure metals.
A complete theoretical explanation is not yet available.Comment: 4 pages, 3 eps figure
Translation of the first upstream ORF in the hepatitis B virus pregenomic RNA modulates translation at the core and polymerase initiation codons
The human hepatitis B virus (HBV) has a compact genome encoding four major overlapping coding regions: the core, polymerase, surface and X. The polymerase initiation codon is preceded by the partially overlapping core and four or more upstream initiation codons. There is evidence that several mechanisms are used to enable the synthesis of the polymerase protein, including leaky scanning and ribosome reinitiation. We have examined the first AUG in the pregenomic RNA, it precedes that of the core. It initiates an uncharacterized short upstream open reading frame (uORF), highly conserved in all HBV subtypes, we designated the C0 ORF. This arrangement suggested that expression of the core and polymerase may be affected by this uORF. Initiation at the C0 ORF was confirmed in reporter constructs in transfected cells. The C0 ORF had an inhibitory role in downstream expression from the core initiation site in HepG2 cells and in vitro, but also stimulated reinitiation at the polymerase start when in an optimal context. Our results indicate that the C0 ORF is a determinant in balancing the synthesis of the core and polymerase proteins
Knowledge-based monitoring of the pointing control system on the Hubble space telescope
A knowledge-based system for the real time monitoring of telemetry data from the Pointing and Control System (PCS) of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) that enables the retention of design expertise throughout the three decade project lifespan by means other than personnel and documentation is described. The system will monitor performance, vehicle status, success or failure of various maneuvers, and in some cases diagnose problems and recommend corrective actions using a knowledge base built using mission scenarios and the more than 4,500 telemetry monitors from the HST
Phase structure of the (1+1)-dimensional massive Thirring model from matrix product states
Employing matrix product states as an ansatz, we study the non-thermal phase
structure of the (1+1)-dimensional massive Thirring model in the sector of
vanishing total fermion number with staggered regularization. In this paper,
details of the implementation for this project are described. To depict the
phase diagram of the model, we examine the entanglement entropy, the fermion
bilinear condensate and two types of correlation functions. Our investigation
shows the existence of two phases, with one of them being critical and the
other gapped. An interesting feature of the phase structure is that the theory
with non-zero fermion mass can be conformal. We also find clear numerical
evidence that these phases are separated by a transition of the
Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type. Results presented in this paper establish
the possibility of using the matrix product states for probing this type of
phase transition in quantum field theories. They can provide information for
further exploration of scaling behaviour, and serve as an important ingredient
for controlling the continuum extrapolation of the model.Comment: 31 pages, 18 figures; minor changes to the text, typos corrected,
references added; version published in Physical Review
The Chern-Simons Coefficient in Supersymmetric Non-abelian Chern-Simons Higgs Theories
By taking into account the effect of the would be Chern-Simons term, we
calculate the quantum correction to the Chern-Simons coefficient in
supersymmetric Chern-Simons Higgs theories with matter fields in the
fundamental representation of SU(n). Because of supersymmetry, the corrections
in the symmetric and Higgs phases are identical. In particular, the correction
is vanishing for N=3 supersymmetric Chern-Simons Higgs theories. The result
should be quite general, and have important implication for the more
interesting case when the Higgs is in the adjoint representation.Comment: more references and explanation about rgularization dpendence are
included, 13 pages, 1 figure, latex with revte
How Unsplittable-Flow-Covering helps Scheduling with Job-Dependent Cost Functions
Generalizing many well-known and natural scheduling problems, scheduling with
job-specific cost functions has gained a lot of attention recently. In this
setting, each job incurs a cost depending on its completion time, given by a
private cost function, and one seeks to schedule the jobs to minimize the total
sum of these costs. The framework captures many important scheduling objectives
such as weighted flow time or weighted tardiness. Still, the general case as
well as the mentioned special cases are far from being very well understood
yet, even for only one machine. Aiming for better general understanding of this
problem, in this paper we focus on the case of uniform job release dates on one
machine for which the state of the art is a 4-approximation algorithm. This is
true even for a special case that is equivalent to the covering version of the
well-studied and prominent unsplittable flow on a path problem, which is
interesting in its own right. For that covering problem, we present a
quasi-polynomial time -approximation algorithm that yields an
-approximation for the above scheduling problem. Moreover, for
the latter we devise the best possible resource augmentation result regarding
speed: a polynomial time algorithm which computes a solution with \emph{optimal
}cost at speedup. Finally, we present an elegant QPTAS for the
special case where the cost functions of the jobs fall into at most
many classes. This algorithm allows the jobs even to have up to many
distinct release dates.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figur
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