Bloch electron in a magnetic field and the Ising model

The spectral determinant det(H-\epsilon I) of the Azbel-Hofstadter Hamiltonian H is related to Onsager's partition function of the 2D Ising model for any value of magnetic flux \Phi=2\pi P/Q through an elementary cell, where P and Q are coprime integers. The band edges of H correspond to the critical temperature of the Ising model; the spectral determinant at these (and other points defined in a certain similar way) is independent of P. A connection of the mean of Lyapunov exponents to the asymptotic (large Q) bandwidth is indicated.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, REVTE

The Roles of ‘Conventional’ and Demand-Responsive Bus Services

Purpose - The roles of ‘conventional’ (fixed-route and fixed-timetable) bus services is examined and compared to demand-responsive services, taking rural areas in England as the basis for comparison. It adopts a ‘rural’ definition of settlements under a population of 10,000. Design/methodology/approach - Evidence from the National Travel Survey, technical press reports and academic work is brought together to examine the overall picture. Findings - Inter-urban services between towns can provide a cost-effective way of serving rural areas where smaller settlements are suitably located. The cost structures of both fixed-route and demand-responsive services indicate that staff time and cost associated with vehicle provision are the main elements. Demand-responsive services may enable larger areas to be covered, to meet planning objectives of ensuring a minimum of level of service, but experience often shows high unit cost and public expenditure per passenger trip. Economic evaluation indicates user benefits per passenger trip of similar magnitude to existing average public expenditure per trip on fixed-route services. Considerable scope exists for improvements to conventional services through better marketing and service reliability. Practical implications - The main issue in England is the level of funding for rural services in general, and the importance attached to serving those without access to cars in such areas. Social implications - The boundary between fixed-route and demand-responsive operation may lie at relatively low population densities. Originality/value - The chapter uses statistical data, academic research and operator experience of enhanced conventional bus services to provide a synthesis of outcomes in rural areas

Are the attitudes and beliefs of Australian exercise-based practitioners associated with their use of, and confidence in, treatment modalities for people with chronic low back pain?

Background: Practitioners' attitudes and beliefs towards chronic low back pain (CLBP) influence their clinical decision making, but few studies have investigated decision making outside the context of patient vignettes for a range of first- and second-line treatment options for CLBP, or in accredited exercise physiologists (AEPs). Methods: Using an online survey, Australian AEPs and physiotherapists rated their use of different treatments for CLBP (exercise, education, manual therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy) and their confidence in these treatments for reducing pain and disability. Their biomedical and biopsychosocial beliefs were also assessed using the Pain and Attitudes Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists. Differences between disciplines in treatment use and confidence were analysed using Mann–Whitney U tests and independent t-tests, respectively. Multiple linear regression was used to explore factors associated with treatment choices. Results: Two-hundred thirty-three practitioners (n = 143 physiotherapists, n = 90 AEPs) completed the survey. Most practitioners were confident in treating CLBP, had a moderate—high level of confidence in the different treatments, and regularly used them in practice. Practitioners with higher biomedical beliefs had greater use of, and confidence in, specific exercise, manual therapy, and combined exercise and manual therapy. Practitioners with higher biopsychosocial beliefs were more confident in general exercise, cognitive behavioural therapy, pain education and combined exercise and pain education. Conclusion: Practitioner beliefs influence their use of, and confidence in different treatments for CLBP. These findings suggest a need for strategies to enhance biopsychosocial beliefs/reduce biomedical beliefs in Australian exercise-based practitioners

Suppressed spin dephasing for 2D and bulk electrons in GaAs wires due to engineered cancellation of spin-orbit interaction terms

We report a study of suppressed spin dephasing for quasi-one-dimensional electron ensembles in wires etched into a GaAs/AlGaAs heterojunction system. Time-resolved Kerr-rotation measurements show a suppression that is most pronounced for wires along the [110] crystal direction. This is the fingerprint of a suppression that is enhanced due to a strong anisotropy in spin-orbit fields that can occur when the Rashba and Dresselhaus contributions are engineered to cancel each other. A surprising observation is that this mechanisms for suppressing spin dephasing is not only effective for electrons in the heterojunction quantum well, but also for electrons in a deeper bulk layer.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Double butterfly spectrum for two interacting particles in the Harper model

We study the effect of interparticle interaction $U$ on the spectrum of the Harper model and show that it leads to a pure-point component arising from the multifractal spectrum of non interacting problem. Our numerical studies allow to understand the global structure of the spectrum. Analytical approach developed permits to understand the origin of localized states in the limit of strong interaction $U$ and fine spectral structure for small $U$.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, 5 figure

Acceptance conditions in automated negotiation

In every negotiation with a deadline, one of the negotiating parties has to accept an offer to avoid a break off. A break off is usually an undesirable outcome for both parties, therefore it is important that a negotiator employs a proficient mechanism to decide under which conditions to accept. When designing such conditions one is faced with the acceptance dilemma: accepting the current offer may be suboptimal, as better offers may still be presented. On the other hand, accepting too late may prevent an agreement from being reached, resulting in a break off with no gain for either party. Motivated by the challenges of bilateral negotiations between automated agents and by the results and insights of the automated negotiating agents competition (ANAC), we classify and compare state-of-the-art generic acceptance conditions. We focus on decoupled acceptance conditions, i.e. conditions that do not depend on the bidding strategy that is used. We performed extensive experiments to compare the performance of acceptance conditions in combination with a broad range of bidding strategies and negotiation domains. Furthermore we propose new acceptance conditions and we demonstrate that they outperform the other conditions that we study. In particular, it is shown that they outperform the standard acceptance condition of comparing the current offer with the offer the agent is ready to send out. We also provide insight in to why some conditions work better than others and investigate correlations between the properties of the negotiation environment and the efficacy of acceptance condition

Enhanced ionization in small rare gas clusters

A detailed theoretical investigation of rare gas atom clusters under intense short laser pulses reveals that the mechanism of energy absorption is akin to {\it enhanced ionization} first discovered for diatomic molecules. The phenomenon is robust under changes of the atomic element (neon, argon, krypton, xenon), the number of atoms in the cluster (16 to 30 atoms have been studied) and the fluency of the laser pulse. In contrast to molecules it does not dissappear for circular polarization. We develop an analytical model relating the pulse length for maximum ionization to characteristic parameters of the cluster

Band spectra of rectangular graph superlattices

We consider rectangular graph superlattices of sides l1, l2 with the wavefunction coupling at the junctions either of the delta type, when they are continuous and the sum of their derivatives is proportional to the common value at the junction with a coupling constant alpha, or the "delta-prime-S" type with the roles of functions and derivatives reversed; the latter corresponds to the situations where the junctions are realized by complicated geometric scatterers. We show that the band spectra have a hidden fractal structure with respect to the ratio theta := l1/l2. If the latter is an irrational badly approximable by rationals, delta lattices have no gaps in the weak-coupling case. We show that there is a quantization for the asymptotic critical values of alpha at which new gap series open, and explain it in terms of number-theoretic properties of theta. We also show how the irregularity is manifested in terms of Fermi-surface dependence on energy, and possible localization properties under influence of an external electric field. KEYWORDS: Schroedinger operators, graphs, band spectra, fractals, quasiperiodic systems, number-theoretic properties, contact interactions, delta coupling, delta-prime coupling.Comment: 16 pages, LaTe