957 research outputs found
Gamma-Ray Bursts: Temporal Scales and the Bulk Lorentz Factor
For a sample of Swift and Fermi GRBs, we show that the minimum variability
timescale and the spectral lag of the prompt emission is related to the bulk
Lorentz factor in a complex manner: For small 's, the variability
timescale exhibits a shallow (plateau) region. For large 's, the
variability timescale declines steeply as a function of (). Evidence is also presented for an intriguing
correlation between the peak times, t, of the afterglow emission and the
prompt emission variability timescale.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
Corrections to Gravity due to a Sol Manifold Extra Dimensional Space
The corrections to the gravitational potential due to a Sol extra dimensional
compact manifold, denoted as , are studied. The total spacetime is of
the form . The range of the Sol corrections is investigated
and compared to the range of the corrections.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, published versio
Bluetongue virus infection creates light averse Culicoides vectors and serious errors in transmission risk estimates.
BackgroundPathogen manipulation of host behavior can greatly impact vector-borne disease transmission, but almost no attention has been paid to how it affects disease surveillance. Bluetongue virus (BTV), transmitted by Culicoides biting midges, is a serious disease of ruminant livestock that can cause high morbidity and mortality and significant economic losses. Worldwide, the majority of surveillance for Culicoides to assess BTV transmission risk is done using UV-light traps. Here we show that field infection rates of BTV are significantly lower in midge vectors collected using traps baited with UV light versus a host cue (CO2).MethodsWe collected Culicoides sonorensis midges in suction traps baited with CO2, UV-light, or CO2 + UV on three dairies in southern California to assess differences in the resulting estimated infection rates from these collections. Pools of midges were tested for BTV by qRT-PCR, and maximum likelihood estimates of infection rate were calculated by trap. Infection rate estimates were also calculated by trapping site within a dairy. Colonized C. sonorensis were orally infected with BTV, and infection of the structures of the compound eye was examined using structured illumination microscopy.ResultsUV traps failed entirely to detect virus both early and late in the transmission season, and underestimated virus prevalence by as much as 8.5-fold. CO2 + UV traps also had significantly lower infection rates than CO2-only traps, suggesting that light may repel infected vectors. We found very high virus levels in the eyes of infected midges, possibly causing altered vision or light perception. Collecting location also greatly impacts our perception of virus activity.ConclusionsBecause the majority of global vector surveillance for bluetongue uses only light-trapping, transmission risk estimates based on these collections are likely severely understated. Where national surveillance programs exist, alternatives to light-trapping should be considered. More broadly, disseminated infections of many arboviruses include infections in vectors' eyes and nervous tissues, and this may be causing unanticipated behavioral effects. Field demonstrations of pathogen-induced changes in vector behavior are quite rare, but should be studied in more systems to accurately predict vector-borne disease transmission
Seasonal variation and impact of waste-water lagoons as larval habitat on the population dynamics of Culicoides sonorensis (Diptera:Ceratpogonidae) at two dairy farms in northern California.
The Sacramento (northern Central) Valley of California (CA) has a hot Mediterranean climate and a diverse ecological landscape that is impacted extensively by human activities, which include the intensive farming of crops and livestock. Waste-water ponds, marshes, and irrigated fields associated with these agricultural activities provide abundant larval habitats for C. sonorensis midges, in addition to those sites that exist in the natural environment. Within this region, C. sonorensis is an important vector of bluetongue (BTV) and related viruses that adversely affect the international trade and movement of livestock, the economics of livestock production, and animal welfare. To characterize the seasonal dynamics of immature and adult C. sonorensis populations, abundance was monitored intensively on two dairy farms in the Sacramento Valley from August 2012- to July 2013. Adults were sampled every two weeks for 52 weeks by trapping (CDC style traps without light and baited with dry-ice) along N-S and E-W transects on each farm. One farm had large operational waste-water lagoons, whereas the lagoon on the other farm was drained and remained dry during the study. Spring emergence and seasonal abundance of adult C. sonorensis on both farms coincided with rising vernal temperature. Paradoxically, the abundance of midges on the farm without a functioning waste-water lagoon was increased as compared to abundance on the farm with a waste-water lagoon system, indicating that this infrastructure may not serve as the sole, or even the primary larval habitat. Adult midges disappeared from both farms from late November until May; however, low numbers of parous female midges were detected in traps set during daylight in the inter-seasonal winter period. This latter finding is especially critical as it provides a potential mechanism for the "overwintering" of BTV in temperate regions such as northern CA. Precise documentation of temporal changes in the annual abundance and dispersal of Culicoides midges is essential for the creation of models to predict BTV infection of livestock and to develop sound abatement strategies
An optimal linear solver for the Jacobian system of the extreme type-II Ginzburg--Landau problem
This paper considers the extreme type-II Ginzburg--Landau equations, a
nonlinear PDE model for describing the states of a wide range of
superconductors. Based on properties of the Jacobian operator and an AMG
strategy, a preconditioned Newton--Krylov method is constructed. After a
finite-volume-type discretization, numerical experiments are done for
representative two- and three-dimensional domains. Strong numerical evidence is
provided that the number of Krylov iterations is independent of the dimension
of the solution space, yielding an overall solver complexity of O(n)
Optimized Sparse Matrix Operations for Reverse Mode Automatic Differentiation
Sparse matrix representations are ubiquitous in computational science and
machine learning, leading to significant reductions in compute time, in
comparison to dense representation, for problems that have local connectivity.
The adoption of sparse representation in leading ML frameworks such as PyTorch
is incomplete, however, with support for both automatic differentiation and GPU
acceleration missing. In this work, we present an implementation of a CSR-based
sparse matrix wrapper for PyTorch with CUDA acceleration for basic matrix
operations, as well as automatic differentiability. We also present several
applications of the resulting sparse kernels to optimization problems,
demonstrating ease of implementation and performance measurements versus their
dense counterparts
On commensurable hyperbolic Coxeter groups
For Coxeter groups acting non-cocompactly but with finite covolume on real hyperbolic space Hn, new methods are presented to distinguish them up to (wide) commensurability. We exploit these ideas and determine the commensurability classes of all hyperbolic Coxeter groups whose fundamental polyhedra are pyramids over a product of two simplices of positive dimensions
On multiplicities in length spectra of arithmetic hyperbolic three-orbifolds
Asymptotic laws for mean multiplicities of lengths of closed geodesics in
arithmetic hyperbolic three-orbifolds are derived. The sharpest results are
obtained for non-compact orbifolds associated with the Bianchi groups SL(2,o)
and some congruence subgroups. Similar results hold for cocompact arithmetic
quaternion groups, if a conjecture on the number of gaps in their length
spectra is true. The results related to the groups above give asymptotic lower
bounds for the mean multiplicities in length spectra of arbitrary arithmetic
hyperbolic three-orbifolds. The investigation of these multiplicities is
motivated by their sensitive effect on the eigenvalue spectrum of the
Laplace-Beltrami operator on a hyperbolic orbifold, which may be interpreted as
the Hamiltonian of a three-dimensional quantum system being strongly chaotic in
the classical limit.Comment: 29 pages, uuencoded ps. Revised version, to appear in NONLINEARIT
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