Further evidence of the absence of Replica Symmetry Breaking in Random Bond Potts Models

In this short note, we present supporting evidence for the replica symmetric approach to the random bond q-state Potts models. The evidence is statistically strong enough to reject the applicability of the Parisi replica symmetry breaking scheme to this class of models. The test we use is a generalization of one formerly proposed by Dotsenko et al. and consists in measuring scaling laws of disordered-averaged moments of the spin-spin correlation functions. Numerical results, obtained via Monte Carlo simulations for several values of q, are shown to be in fair agreement with the replica symmetric values computed by using perturbative CFT for the second and third moments of the q=3 model. RSB effects, which should increase in strength with moment, are unobserved.Comment: 7 pages, some minor modifications (mainly misprints). To Appear in Europhysics Letter

Wage differentials for temporary services work: evidence from administrative data

We use administrative data from the unemployment insurance system State of Washington to study the magnitude of the wage differential associated with work in the temporary services industry. We find that temp wage rates are 15% to 20% below the levels that might have been expected based on trends during other periods in workers' careers even after controlling for differences between temps and other workers. Comparing temp wages immediately before and after temp work or to the wages on non-temp jobs begun during the same period as workers were in the temp industry yields estimates of the temp work penalty as low as 10%.Wages ; Temporary employees

The temporary labor force

Labor market ; Temporary employees

Embodying functionally relevant action sounds in patients with spinal cord injury

Growing evidence indicates that perceptual-motor codes may be associated with and influenced by actual bodily states. Following a spinal cord injury (SCI), for example, individuals exhibit reduced visual sensitivity to biological motion. However, a dearth of direct evidence exists about whether profound alterations in sensorimotor traffic between the body and brain influence audio-motor representations. We tested 20 wheelchair-bound individuals with lower skeletal-level SCI who were unable to feel and move their lower limbs, but have retained upper limb function. In a two-choice, matching-to-sample auditory discrimination task, the participants were asked to determine which of two action sounds matched a sample action sound presented previously. We tested aural discrimination ability using sounds that arose from wheelchair, upper limb, lower limb, and animal actions. Our results indicate that an inability to move the lower limbs did not lead to impairment in the discrimination of lower limb-related action sounds in SCI patients. Importantly, patients with SCI discriminated wheelchair sounds more quickly than individuals with comparable auditory experience (i.e. physical therapists) and inexperienced, able-bodied subjects. Audio-motor associations appear to be modified and enhanced to incorporate external salient tools that now represent extensions of their body schema

Atmospheric modelling for NOMAD-UVIS on board the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter mission

The Ultraviolet and Visible Spectrometer (UVIS) instrument development process requires the construction of an atmospheric model to provide synthetic UV transmission spectra. We discuss the requirements of the model to enable observational limits to be found, and the potential for certain atmospheric parameters to be further constrained

Improving CMB non-Gaussianity estimators using tracers of local structure

Local non-Gaussianity causes correlations between large scale perturbation modes and the small scale power. The large-scale CMB signal has contributions from the integrated Sachs Wolfe (ISW) effect, which does not correlate with the small scale power. If this ISW contribution can be removed, the sensitivity to local non-Gaussianity is improved. Gravitational lensing and galaxy counts can be used to trace the ISW contribution; in particular we show that the CMB lensing potential is highly correlated with the ISW signal. We construct a nearly-optimal estimator for the local non-Gaussianity parameter \fnl and investigate to what extent we can use this to decrease the variance on {\fnl}. We show that the variance can be decreased by up to $20\%$ at Planck sensitivity using galaxy counts. CMB lensing is a good bias-independent ISW tracer for future more sensitive observations, though the fractional decrease in variance is small if good polarization data is also available.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Comments welcom