10,014 research outputs found
Diffraction-limited CCD imaging with faint reference stars
By selecting short exposure images taken using a CCD with negligible readout
noise we obtained essentially diffraction-limited 810 nm images of faint
objects using nearby reference stars brighter than I=16 at a 2.56 m telescope.
The FWHM of the isoplanatic patch for the technique is found to be 50
arcseconds, providing ~20% sky coverage around suitable reference stars.Comment: 4 page letter accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Error correcting code using tree-like multilayer perceptron
An error correcting code using a tree-like multilayer perceptron is proposed.
An original message \mbi{s}^0 is encoded into a codeword \boldmath{y}_0
using a tree-like committee machine (committee tree) or a tree-like parity
machine (parity tree). Based on these architectures, several schemes featuring
monotonic or non-monotonic units are introduced. The codeword \mbi{y}_0 is
then transmitted via a Binary Asymmetric Channel (BAC) where it is corrupted by
noise. The analytical performance of these schemes is investigated using the
replica method of statistical mechanics. Under some specific conditions, some
of the proposed schemes are shown to saturate the Shannon bound at the infinite
codeword length limit. The influence of the monotonicity of the units on the
performance is also discussed.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, Content has been extended and revise
Measuring the effective complexity of cosmological models
We introduce a statistical measure of the effective model complexity, called
the Bayesian complexity. We demonstrate that the Bayesian complexity can be
used to assess how many effective parameters a set of data can support and that
it is a useful complement to the model likelihood (the evidence) in model
selection questions. We apply this approach to recent measurements of cosmic
microwave background anisotropies combined with the Hubble Space Telescope
measurement of the Hubble parameter. Using mildly non-informative priors, we
show how the 3-year WMAP data improves on the first-year data by being able to
measure both the spectral index and the reionization epoch at the same time. We
also find that a non-zero curvature is strongly disfavored. We conclude that
although current data could constrain at least seven effective parameters, only
six of them are required in a scheme based on the Lambda-CDM concordance
cosmology.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, revised version accepted for publication in PRD,
updated with WMAP3 result
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The multisensory attentional consequences of tool use : a functional magnetic resonance imaging study
Background: Tool use in humans requires that multisensory information is integrated across different locations, from objects
seen to be distant from the hand, but felt indirectly at the hand via the tool. We tested the hypothesis that using a simple tool
to perceive vibrotactile stimuli results in the enhanced processing of visual stimuli presented at the distal, functional part of the
tool. Such a finding would be consistent with a shift of spatial attention to the location where the tool is used.
Methodology/Principal Findings: We tested this hypothesis by scanning healthy human participants’ brains using
functional magnetic resonance imaging, while they used a simple tool to discriminate between target vibrations,
accompanied by congruent or incongruent visual distractors, on the same or opposite side to the tool. The attentional
hypothesis was supported: BOLD response in occipital cortex, particularly in the right hemisphere lingual gyrus, varied
significantly as a function of tool position, increasing contralaterally, and decreasing ipsilaterally to the tool. Furthermore,
these modulations occurred despite the fact that participants were repeatedly instructed to ignore the visual stimuli, to
respond only to the vibrotactile stimuli, and to maintain visual fixation centrally. In addition, the magnitude of multisensory
(visual-vibrotactile) interactions in participants’ behavioural responses significantly predicted the BOLD response in occipital
cortical areas that were also modulated as a function of both visual stimulus position and tool position.
Conclusions/Significance: These results show that using a simple tool to locate and to perceive vibrotactile stimuli is
accompanied by a shift of spatial attention to the location where the functional part of the tool is used, resulting in
enhanced processing of visual stimuli at that location, and decreased processing at other locations. This was most clearly
observed in the right hemisphere lingual gyrus. Such modulations of visual processing may reflect the functional
importance of visuospatial information during human tool use
Towards gravitationally assisted negative refraction of light by vacuum
Propagation of electromagnetic plane waves in some directions in
gravitationally affected vacuum over limited ranges of spacetime can be such
that the phase velocity vector casts a negative projection on the time-averaged
Poynting vector. This conclusion suggests, inter alia, gravitationally assisted
negative refraction by vacuum.Comment: 6 page
The Apparent Madness of Crowds: Irrational collective behavior emerging from interactions among rational agents
Standard economic theory assumes that agents in markets behave rationally.
However, the observation of extremely large fluctuations in the price of
financial assets that are not correlated to changes in their fundamental value,
as well as the extreme instance of financial bubbles and crashes, imply that
markets (at least occasionally) do display irrational behavior. In this paper,
we briefly outline our recent work demonstrating that a market with interacting
agents having bounded rationality can display price fluctuations that are {\em
quantitatively} similar to those seen in real markets.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Proceedings of International Workshop
on "Econophysics of Stock Markets and Minority Games" (Econophys-Kolkata II),
Feb 14-17, 200
Gaussian Approximation Potentials: the accuracy of quantum mechanics, without the electrons
We introduce a class of interatomic potential models that can be
automatically generated from data consisting of the energies and forces
experienced by atoms, derived from quantum mechanical calculations. The
resulting model does not have a fixed functional form and hence is capable of
modeling complex potential energy landscapes. It is systematically improvable
with more data. We apply the method to bulk carbon, silicon and germanium and
test it by calculating properties of the crystals at high temperatures. Using
the interatomic potential to generate the long molecular dynamics trajectories
required for such calculations saves orders of magnitude in computational cost.Comment: v3-4: added new material and reference
Surface disinfection challenges for Candida auris: an in-vitro study
The emerging pathogenic multidrug-resistant yeast Candida auris is an important source of healthcare-associated infections and of growing global clinical concern. The ability of this organism to survive on surfaces and withstand environmental stressors creates a challenge for eradicating it from hospitals. A panel of C. auris clinical isolates was evaluated on different surface environments against the standard disinfectant sodium hypochlorite and high-level disinfectant peracetic acid. C. auris was shown to selectively tolerate clinically relevant concentrations of sodium hypochlorite and peracetic acid in a surface-dependent manner, which may explain its ability to successfully persist within the hospital environment
The Statistical Physics of Regular Low-Density Parity-Check Error-Correcting Codes
A variation of Gallager error-correcting codes is investigated using
statistical mechanics. In codes of this type, a given message is encoded into a
codeword which comprises Boolean sums of message bits selected by two randomly
constructed sparse matrices. The similarity of these codes to Ising spin
systems with random interaction makes it possible to assess their typical
performance by analytical methods developed in the study of disordered systems.
The typical case solutions obtained via the replica method are consistent with
those obtained in simulations using belief propagation (BP) decoding. We
discuss the practical implications of the results obtained and suggest a
computationally efficient construction for one of the more practical
configurations.Comment: 35 pages, 4 figure
Bayesian stochastic blockmodeling
This chapter provides a self-contained introduction to the use of Bayesian
inference to extract large-scale modular structures from network data, based on
the stochastic blockmodel (SBM), as well as its degree-corrected and
overlapping generalizations. We focus on nonparametric formulations that allow
their inference in a manner that prevents overfitting, and enables model
selection. We discuss aspects of the choice of priors, in particular how to
avoid underfitting via increased Bayesian hierarchies, and we contrast the task
of sampling network partitions from the posterior distribution with finding the
single point estimate that maximizes it, while describing efficient algorithms
to perform either one. We also show how inferring the SBM can be used to
predict missing and spurious links, and shed light on the fundamental
limitations of the detectability of modular structures in networks.Comment: 44 pages, 16 figures. Code is freely available as part of graph-tool
at https://graph-tool.skewed.de . See also the HOWTO at
https://graph-tool.skewed.de/static/doc/demos/inference/inference.htm
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