Anatomy of relativistic pion loop corrections to the electromagnetic nucleon coupling

We present a relativistic formulation of pion loop corrections to the coupling of photons with nucleons on the light front. Vertex and wave function renormalization constants are computed to lowest order in the pion field, including their nonanalytic behavior in the chiral limit, and studied numerically as a function of the ultraviolet cutoff. Particular care is taken to explicitly verify gauge invariance and Ward-Takahashi identity constraints to all orders in the mπ expansion. The results are used to compute the chiral corrections to matrix elements of local operators, related to moments of deep-inelastic structure functions. Finally, comparison of results for pseudovector and pseudoscalar coupling allows the resolution of a longstanding puzzle in the computation of pion cloud corrections to structure function moments.Chueng-Ryong Ji, W. Melnitchouk, and A.W. Thoma

What Close Cases and Reversals Reveal About Claim Construction at the Federal Circuit, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 583 (2013)

Claim construction is central to patent litigation and has been the focus of a voluminous body of scholarship. Researchers have collected data from all aspects of claim construction cases, looking for answers to questions such as why the Federal Circuit reverses district courts’ claim constructions so frequently, why Federal Circuit judges reach different conclusions from one another, and what methodologies these judges are utilizing. This paper takes a novel approach to analyze these questions. Rather than focus on all claim construction cases, this paper focuses only on cases where the Federal Circuit was divided and a dissent was written, and cases in which the Federal Circuit reversed the district courts’ constructions. By looking at these two subsets of claim construction cases, we can glean insights from the data that are unapparent when looking at all cases. Specifically, we can observe trends in voting behavior, then compare those trends to different methodologies Federal Circuit judges utilize, whether expressly or impliedly. The data shows that, for reform to claim construction procedures to be meaningful, either the Federal Circuit or the Supreme Court must first address and definitively settle whether it is appropriate to determine “what the inventor actually invented” as a first step to claim construction. Once settled, ideas for reform can be debated. One such idea might involve applying an algorithm for construing claims, an example of which is provided in Appendix C

Parallelizing Exploration-Exploitation Tradeoffs in Gaussian Process Bandit Optimization

How can we take advantage of opportunities for experimental parallelization in exploration-exploitation tradeoffs? In many experimental scenarios, it is often desirable to execute experiments simultaneously or in batches, rather than only performing one at a time. Additionally, observations may be both noisy and expensive. We introduce Gaussian Process Batch Upper Confidence Bound (GP-BUCB), an upper confidence bound-based algorithm, which models the reward function as a sample from a Gaussian process and which can select batches of experiments to run in parallel. We prove a general regret bound for GP-BUCB, as well as the surprising result that for some common kernels, the asymptotic average regret can be made independent of the batch size. The GP-BUCB algorithm is also applicable in the related case of a delay between initiation of an experiment and observation of its results, for which the same regret bounds hold. We also introduce Gaussian Process Adaptive Upper Confidence Bound (GP-AUCB), a variant of GP-BUCB which can exploit parallelism in an adaptive manner. We evaluate GP-BUCB and GP-AUCB on several simulated and real data sets. These experiments show that GP-BUCB and GP-AUCB are competitive with state-of-the-art heuristics

Compression of Multi-frequency Eddy Current Data using Principal Components Analysis for Pressure Tube to Calandria Tube Gap Measurement

Inspection of components with multi-variable influential parameters may result in a loss of accuracy for the measurement of the target variable. A particular example occurs in the case of a pressure tube (PT) that is contained within a calandria tube (CT) in the fuel channels of CANDU® nuclear reactors. Eddy current (EC) based measurement of gap between PT and CT, as required by nuclear regulators, is affected by variation of PT wall thickness and resistivity, which may confound the accurate gap measurement. In this work principal components analysis (PCA) is examined as a means of simplifying changes in multi-frequency EC data so that the effect on EC signals from multiple parameters may be identified. PCA of analytical model and laboratory results are examined and redundant information in the multi-frequency EC data is removed. An additional benefit of PCA is compressed data acquisition, which permits increased inspection speed and monitoring of multi-parameter variation using a reduced number of variables

MAPPING NATIVE MODERNS: EUROPE AND SPACE IN THE NATIVE AMERICAN NOVEL

This dissertation, “Mapping Native Moderns,” analyzes Native American literature for its settings in England, France, and Italy. Examples include an unpublished manuscript written in the late 1920s by D’Arcy McNickle (Confederated Salish and Kootenai), as well as late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century novels by Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo), James Welch (Gros Ventre/Blackfeet), and Gerald Vizenor (Anishinaabe). I argue that the latter three writers turned to historical fiction to envision complex, counterhegemonic depictions of American Indians in Europe set in the modernist era and during the Columbian Quincentenary. From the late 1880s to the early 1920s, often referred to as the assimilation and/or allotment era, U.S. federal Indian policies stressed forced cultural assimilation, fee simple land ownership, and Americanization as the means of survival for Native Americans at the onset of modernity. Like the myth of the “vanishing Indian” that attended them, these policies and their destructive effects have influenced writing by and about Indians, from the nineteenth century to 1992 and into the present day. As a result, Native absence is more common than Native presence in modernist and contemporary fiction, and rarer still in settings outside the United States. Drawing on scholarship by Gaston Bachelard, Amy Kaplan, Bertrand Westphal, Scott Richard Lyons (Ojibwe/Dakota), Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca), Vizenor, and others, I explore how McNickle, Silko, Vizenor, and Welch have written American Indian characters into European literary geographies and histories from which Indians have been wrongfully separated. How the novelists studied in this dissertation arrange, compare, contrast, and interpret space in America and Europe, from the American Southwest to Corsica, is a forceful rebuke to the cartographic, historical, and literary making of Euro-American spaces and the erasure and removal of Indians from them

Plasma arginine vasopressin concentrations in epileptics under monotherapy

Plasma arginine vasopressin concentrations were determined by radio-immunoassay in 112 adult epileptics who were taking carbamazepine, phenytoin, primidone, or sodium valproate in long-term monotherapy, and in 19 controls. No significant difference was found between the groups, but some epileptics taking carbamazepine and primidone showed low values. Serum concentrations of carbamazepine did not correlate with the concentrations of plasma arginine vasopressin. In conclusion, there was no evidence of a stimulating effect of chronic carbamazepine medication or a special inhibiting effect of phenytoin on the release of vasopressin arginine from the posterior pituitary

Recovery of Methanotrophic Activity Is Not Reflected in the Methane-Driven Interaction Network after Peat Mining

Aerobic methanotrophs are crucial in ombrotrophic peatlands, driving the methane and nitrogen cycles. Peat mining adversely affects methanotrophs, but activity and community composition/abundances may recover after restoration. Considering that the methanotrophic activity and growth are significantly stimulated in the presence of other microorganisms, the methane-driven interaction network, which encompasses methanotrophs and nonmethanotrophs (i.e., the methanotrophic interactome), may also be relevant in conferring community resilience. Yet, little is known of the methanotrophic interactome's response to and recovery from disturbances. Here, we determined the recovery of the methanotrophic interactome as inferred by a co-occurrence network analysis comparing pristine and restored peatlands. We coupled a DNA-based stable isotope probing (SIP) approach using [13C]CH4 to a co-occurrence network analysis derived from the 13C-enriched 16S rRNA gene sequences to relate the response in methanotrophic activity to the structuring of the interaction network. Methanotrophic activity and abundances recovered after peat restoration since 2000. “Methylomonaceae” taxa were the predominantly active methanotrophs in both peatlands, but the peatlands differed in the relative abundances of Methylacidiphilaceae and Methylocystis. However, bacterial community compositions were distinct in both peatlands. Likewise, the methanotrophic interactome was profoundly altered in the restored peatland. Structuring of the interaction network after peat mining resulted in the loss of complexity and modularity, indicating a less connected and efficient network, which may have consequences in the event of recurring/future disturbances. Therefore, determining the response of the methane-driven interaction network, in addition to relating methanotrophic activity to community composition/abundances, provided a more comprehensive understanding of the resilience of the methanotrophs

Community Seismic Network

The article describes the design of the Community Seismic Network, which is a dense open seismic network based on low cost sensors. The inputs are from sensors hosted by volunteers from the community by direct connection to their personal computers, or through sensors built into mobile devices. The server is cloud-based for robustness and to dynamically handle the load of impulsive earthquake events. The main product of the network is a map of peak acceleration, delivered within seconds of the ground shaking. The lateral variations in the level of shaking will be valuable to first responders, and the waveform information from a dense network will allow detailed mapping of the rupture process. Sensors in buildings may be useful for monitoring the state-of-health of the structure after major shaking