Equivalence between Hypergraph Convexities

Let G be a connected graph on V. A subset X of V is all-paths convex (or ap -convex) if X contains each vertex on every path joining two vertices in X and is monophonically convex (or m-convex) if X contains each vertex on every chordless path joining two vertices in X. First of all, we prove that ap -convexity and m-convexity coincide in G if and only if G is a tree. Next, in order to generalize this result to a connected hypergraph H, in addition to the hypergraph versions of ap -convexity and m-convexity, we consider canonical convexity (or c-convexity) and simple-path convexity (or sp -convexity) for which it is well known that m-convexity is finer than both c-convexity and sp -convexity and sp -convexity is finer than ap -convexity. After proving sp -convexity is coarser than c-convexity, we characterize the hypergraphs in which each pair of the four convexities above is equivalent. As a result, we obtain a convexity-theoretic characterization of Berge-acyclic hypergraphs and of γ-acyclic hypergraphs

A study of rainfall in the Roman area in the years 1951--2000

The daily rainfall data collected in the second half of the last century at 31 climatic stations in Lazio, Italy, have been subjected to statistical analysis in order to describe the pluviometric regime of the whole area on a multi-decadal time scale. The stations, for their geographical distribution within the region under study, are apt to represent different climatic zones, namely, a coastal, a rural, a suburban and an urban zone. The data have been treated both as time series and as geographicalstatisticalv ariates with the double aim, first, to verify if in the area under study any changes in the yearly precipitation rate, frequency and its distribution over different classes of rain intensity, have occurred in the last 50 years; second, to evidence a possible correlation between the intensity of precipitation and any of some environmental variables such as altitude, distance from the coastline and distance from the urban site. As for the first issue, it can be concluded that the precipitations over the Roman area in the period 1951–2000 show no significant trend; in particular, no trend is visible in any of the single classes of rain intensity, both absolute and percentile-based, considering either their frequency or their percent contribution to the total. As for the second issue, significant correlations have been found in the spatial distribution of rainfall with any of the relevant environmental variables mentioned above. The results of the analysis also show that in the urban area a less amount of rain seem to fall than in the surroundings zones, a result that seems rather anomalous in consideration of the several known factors that favour the intensification of the rainfall in the city with respect to its surroundings. A detailed statistical characterization of all the single 31 stations over the whole period is also given via a separate study of the durations of droughts and of the statistics of rainy days, using best fits based on the Weibull probability distribution

Evidence for Strong Itinerant Spin Fluctuations in the Normal State of CeFeAsO(0.89)F(0.11) Iron-Oxypnictides

The electronic structure in the normal state of CeFeAsO0.89F0.11 oxypnictide superconductors has been investigated with x-ray absorption and photoemission spectroscopy. All the data exhibit signatures of Fe d-electron itinerancy. Exchange multiplets appearing in the Fe 3s core level indicate the presence of itinerant spin fluctuations. These findings suggest that the underlying physics and the origin of superconductivity in these materials are likely to be quite different from those of the cuprate high-temperature superconductors. These materials provide opportunities for elucidating the role of magnetic fluctuations in high-temperature superconductivity.Comment: Shorter version. Accepted in Phys. Rev. Let

Discovering a junction tree behind a Markov network by a greedy algorithm

In an earlier paper we introduced a special kind of k-width junction tree, called k-th order t-cherry junction tree in order to approximate a joint probability distribution. The approximation is the best if the Kullback-Leibler divergence between the true joint probability distribution and the approximating one is minimal. Finding the best approximating k-width junction tree is NP-complete if k>2. In our earlier paper we also proved that the best approximating k-width junction tree can be embedded into a k-th order t-cherry junction tree. We introduce a greedy algorithm resulting very good approximations in reasonable computing time. In this paper we prove that if the Markov network underlying fullfills some requirements then our greedy algorithm is able to find the true probability distribution or its best approximation in the family of the k-th order t-cherry tree probability distributions. Our algorithm uses just the k-th order marginal probability distributions as input. We compare the results of the greedy algorithm proposed in this paper with the greedy algorithm proposed by Malvestuto in 1991.Comment: The paper was presented at VOCAL 2010 in Veszprem, Hungar

Retrieval of characteristic parameters for water vapour transmittance in the development of ground based Sun-Sky radiometric measurements of columnar water vapour

Sunsky radiometers are instruments created for aerosol study, but they can measure in the water vapour absorption band allowing the estimation of columnar water vapour in clear sky simultaneously with aerosol characteristics, with high temporal resolution. A new methodology is presented for estimating calibration parameters (i.e. characteristic parameters of the atmospheric transmittance and solar calibration constant) directly from the sunsky radiometer measurements. The methodology is based on the hypothesis that characteristic parameters of the atmospheric transmittance are dependent on vertical profiles of pressure, temperature and moisture occurring at each site of measurement. To obtain the parameters from the proposed methodology some seasonal independent measurements of columnar water vapour taken over a large range of solar zenith angle simultaneously with the sunsky radiometer measurements, are needed. In this work high time resolution columnar water vapour measurements by GPS were used as independent data set, but also the case when such measurements are not available was considered by developing the surface humidity method (SHM). This methodology makes it possible to retrieve the needed independent data set of columnar water vapour using the standard surface meteorological observations (temperature, pressure and relative humidity) more readily available. The time pattern of columnar water vapour from sunsky radiometer retrieved using both the methodologies was compared with simultaneous measurements from microwave radiometer, radiosondings and GPS. Water vapour from sunsky radiometer, obtained using GPS independent measurements, was characterized by an error varying from 1% up to 5%, whereas water vapour from SHM showed an error from 1% up to 11%, depending on the local columnar water occurring at the site during the year. These errors were estimated by comparing water vapour series from sunsky radiometer against measurements taken by GPS at a nearby station. The accordance between retrievals from sunsky radiometer and simultaneous measurements from the other instruments was found always within the error both in the case of SHM and of the GPS independent data set. Water vapour obtained using characteristic parameters of the atmospheric transmittance dependent on water vapour was also compared against GPS retrievals, showing a clear improvement with respect to the case when these parameters are kept fixed

Electronic Structure of CeFeAsO1-xFx (x=0, 0.11/x=0.12) compounds

We report an extensive study on the intrinsic bulk electronic structure of the high-temperature superconductor CeFeAsO0.89F0.11 and its parent compound CeFeAsO by soft and hard x-ray photoemission, x-ray absorption and soft-x-ray emission spectroscopies. The complementary surface/bulk probing depth, and the elemental and chemical sensitivity of these techniques allows resolving the intrinsic electronic structure of each element and correlating it with the local structure, which has been probed by extended-x-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy. The measurements indicate a predominant 4f1 (i.e. Ce3+) initial state configuration for Cerium and an effective valence-band-to-4f charge-transfer screening of the core hole. The spectra also reveal the presence of a small Ce f0 initial state configuration, which we assign to the occurrence of an intermediate valence state. The data reveal a reasonably good agreement with the partial density of states as obtained in standard density functional calculations over a large energy range. Implications for the electronic structure of these materials are discussed.Comment: Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Ultrafast Ge-Te bond dynamics in a phase-change superlattice

A long-standing question for avant-garde data storage technology concerns the nature of the ultrafast photoinduced phase transformations in the wide class of chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs). Overall, a comprehensive understanding of the microstructural evolution and the relevant kinetics mechanisms accompanying the out-of-equilibrium phases is still missing. Here, after overheating a phase-change chalcogenide superlattice by an ultrafast laser pulse, we indirectly track the lattice relaxation by time resolved x-ray absorption spectroscopy (tr-XAS) with a sub-ns time resolution. The approach to the tr-XAS experimental results reported in this work provides an atomistic insight of the mechanism that takes place during the cooling process; meanwhile a first-principles model mimicking the microscopic distortions accounts for a straightforward representation of the observed dynamics. Finally, we envisage that our approach can be applied in future studies addressing the role of dynamical structural strain in PCMs.M.M. acknowledges the support of the BACH beamline staff during the synchrotron experiments and Roberta Ciprian for insightful discussions. This work was supported by EU within FP7 project PASTRY [GA 317764]