11,365 research outputs found
Vacuum energy, spectral determinant and heat kernel asymptotics of graph Laplacians with general vertex matching conditions
We consider Laplace operators on metric graphs, networks of one-dimensional
line segments (bonds), with matching conditions at the vertices that make the
operator self-adjoint. Such quantum graphs provide a simple model of quantum
mechanics in a classically chaotic system with multiple scales corresponding to
the lengths of the bonds. For graph Laplacians we briefly report results for
the spectral determinant, vacuum energy and heat kernel asymptotics of general
graphs in terms of the vertex matching conditions.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to proceedings of QFEXT09, minor corrections made
Australian coder workforce survey 2002 - managers’ responses
In 1994–5, the Health Information Management Association of Australia (HIMAA) Ltd conducted a nation-wide survey of clinical coders working in Australian hospitals. The survey (National Coder Workforce Issues Project (NCWIP) funded by the then Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health) provided baseline data about the coder workforce in terms of its size, the educational backgrounds of coders, circumstances relating to their employment and their needs in terms of continuing support and training. Importantly, the survey was conducted before casemix-based classification and funding had been implemented by all states and territories. It has now been nearly eight years since the original survey was conducted and casemix is in use in some form in all states and territories
Growth Performance of Holstein Dairy Calves Supplemented with a Probiotic
Administration of antibiotics in both therapeutic
and sub-therapeutic doses has been the standard practice for dealing with pathogenic bacteria problems in
farm animals since the 1940s. Several types of antibiotics
are currently used to promote weight gain and feed
efficiency in domestic livestock. There is growing concern that the use of antibiotics as growth promoters may
result in the development of resistant populations of
pathogenic bacteria and, in turn, influence the therapeutic use of antibiotics. The indiscriminate and improper
use of antibiotics in food-producing animals could result
in the presence of residues in milk, meat, and other
animal food products consumed by humans. One possible alternative to antibiotics is the use of probiotics.
Probiotics can be defined as “live microbial feed supplements which beneficially affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance” (Fuller, 1989).
Probiotics introduce beneficial microorganisms into the
gut which act to maintain optimal conditions within the
gastrointestinal tract and inhibit the growth of pathogenic or other undesirable bacteria
On the Disambiguation of Weighted Automata
We present a disambiguation algorithm for weighted automata. The algorithm
admits two main stages: a pre-disambiguation stage followed by a transition
removal stage. We give a detailed description of the algorithm and the proof of
its correctness. The algorithm is not applicable to all weighted automata but
we prove sufficient conditions for its applicability in the case of the
tropical semiring by introducing the *weak twins property*. In particular, the
algorithm can be used with all acyclic weighted automata, relevant to
applications. While disambiguation can sometimes be achieved using
determinization, our disambiguation algorithm in some cases can return a result
that is exponentially smaller than any equivalent deterministic automaton. We
also present some empirical evidence of the space benefits of disambiguation
over determinization in speech recognition and machine translation
applications
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