2,586 research outputs found
Crime and Deterrence: Correlation Analysis
A correlation analysis of the severity and certainty of punish ment and offense rates for the major index crimes produces results consistent with the predictions of deterrence theory. Certainty of punishment proves to be the chief deterrent for most crimes. Homicide, however, is influenced by severity, pos sibly reflecting the differences between homicide and other of fenses. Little evidence of interaction is found between certainty and severity in effects on crime rate. A powerfunction proves to better describe the relationship between the punishment varia bles and crime rates than a rectilinear equation-a conclusion which, even apart from the date, appears more reasonable than the reverse
The Acoustic Peak in the Lyman Alpha Forest
We present the first simulation of the signature of baryonic acoustic
oscillations (BAO) in Lyman alpha forest data containing 180,000 mock quasar
sight-lines. We use eight large dark-matter only simulations onto which we
paint the Lyman alpha field using the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation.
We argue that this approach should be sufficient for the mean signature on the
scales of interest. Our results indicate that Lyman alpha flux provides a good
tracer of the underlying dark matter field on large scales and that redshift
space distortions are well described by a simple linear theory prescription. We
compare Fourier and configuration space approaches to describing the signal and
argue that configuration space statistics provide useful data compression. We
also investigate the effect of a fluctuating photo-ionizing background using a
simplified model and find that such fluctuations do add smooth power on large
scales. The acoustic peak position is, however, unaffected for small amplitude
fluctuations (<10%). Larger amplitude fluctuations make the recovery of the BAO
signal more difficult and may degrade the achievable significance of the
measurement.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures; v2: minor revision matching version accepted by
JCAP (new references, better figures, clarifications
A robotic honeycomb for interaction with a honeybee colony
Abstract: Robotic technologies have shown the capability to interact with living organisms and even to form integrated mixed societies comprised of living and artificial agents. Bio-compatible robots, incorporating sensing and actuation capable of generating and responding to relevant stimuli, can be a tool to study collective behaviors previously unattainable with traditional techniques. To investigate collective behaviors of the western honeybee (Apis mellifera), we designed a robotic system capable of observing and modulating the bee cluster using an array of thermal sensors and actuators. We initially integrated the system into a beehive populated with approximately 4,000 bees for several months. The robotic system was able to observe the colony by continuously collecting spatio- temporal thermal profiles of the winter cluster. Furthermore, we found that our robotic device reliably modulated the superorganism’s response to dynamic thermal stimulation, influencing its spatiotemporal re-organization. In addition, after identifying the thermal collapse of a colony, we used the robotic system in a “life-support” mode via its thermal actuators. Ultimately, we demonstrated a robotic device capable of autonomous closed-loop interaction with a cluster comprising thousands of individual bees. Such biohybrid societies open the door to investigation of collective behaviors that necessitate observing and interacting with the animals within a complete social context, as well as for potential applications in augmenting the survivability of these pollinators crucial to our ecosystems and our food supply.
This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here by permission of the AAAS for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Science Robotics, Vol. 8, 76, Mar 2023, DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.add7385
https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.add738
Molecular crystal approach for pi-conjugated polymers: from PPP Hamiltonian to Holstein model for polaron states
Starting from the -electron Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) Hamiltonian which
includes both strong electron-phonon and electron-electron interactions, we
propose some strongly correlated wave functions of increasing quality for the
ground state of conjugated polymers. These wavefunctions are built by combining
different finite sets of local configurations extended at most over two
nearest-neighbour monomers. With this picture, the doped case with one
additional particle is expressed in terms of quasi-particle. Thus, the polaron
formation problem goes back to the study of a Holstein like model.Comment: 27 pages, 6 eps figs, Revtex; enlarged version. Submitted to Journal
of Physics: Condensed Matte
Robust And Scalable Learning Of Complex Dataset Topologies Via Elpigraph
Large datasets represented by multidimensional data point clouds often
possess non-trivial distributions with branching trajectories and excluded
regions, with the recent single-cell transcriptomic studies of developing
embryo being notable examples. Reducing the complexity and producing compact
and interpretable representations of such data remains a challenging task. Most
of the existing computational methods are based on exploring the local data
point neighbourhood relations, a step that can perform poorly in the case of
multidimensional and noisy data. Here we present ElPiGraph, a scalable and
robust method for approximation of datasets with complex structures which does
not require computing the complete data distance matrix or the data point
neighbourhood graph. This method is able to withstand high levels of noise and
is capable of approximating complex topologies via principal graph ensembles
that can be combined into a consensus principal graph. ElPiGraph deals
efficiently with large and complex datasets in various fields from biology,
where it can be used to infer gene dynamics from single-cell RNA-Seq, to
astronomy, where it can be used to explore complex structures in the
distribution of galaxies.Comment: 32 pages, 14 figure
6D Effective Action of Heterotic Compactification on K3 with nontrivial Gauge Bundles
We compute the six-dimensional effective action of the heterotic string
compactified on K3 for the standard embedding and for a class of backgrounds
with line bundles and appropriate Yang-Mills fluxes. We compute the couplings
of the charged scalars and the bundle moduli as functions of the geometrical K3
moduli from a Kaluza-Klein analysis. We derive the D-term potential and show
that in the flux backgrounds U(1) vector multiplets become massive by a
Stuckelberg mechanism.Comment: 41 pages, typos corrected, references adde
The effect of early versus late treatment initiation after diagnosis on the outcomes of patients treated for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis: a systematic review.
BACKGROUND: Globally it is estimated that 480 000 people developed multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in 2014 and 190 000 people died from the disease. Successful treatment outcomes are achieved in only 50 % of patients with MDR-TB, compared to 86 % for drug susceptible disease. It is widely held that delay in time to initiation of treatment for MDR-TB is an important predictor of treatment outcome. The objective of this review was to assess the existing evidence on the outcomes of multidrug- and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis patients treated early (≤4 weeks) versus late (>4 weeks) after diagnosis of drug resistance. METHODS: Eight sources providing access to 17 globally representative electronic health care databases, indexes, sources of evidence-based reviews and grey literature were searched using terms incorporating time to treatment and MDR-TB. Two-stage sifting in duplicate was employed to assess studies against pre-specified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Only those articles reporting WHO-defined treatment outcomes were considered for inclusion. Articles reporting on fewer than 10 patients, published before 1990, or without a comparison of outcomes in patient groups experiencing different delays to treatment initiation were excluded. RESULTS: The initial search yielded 1978 references, of which 1475 unique references remained after removal of duplicates and 28 articles published pre-1990. After title and abstract sifting, 64 papers underwent full text review. None of these articles fulfilled the criteria for inclusion in the review. CONCLUSIONS: Whilst there is an inherent logic in the theory that treatment delay will lead to poorer treatment outcomes, no published evidence was identified in this systematic review to support this hypothesis. Reports of programmatic changes leading to reductions in treatment delay exist in the literature, but attribution of differences in outcomes specifically to treatment delay is confounded by other contemporaneous changes. Further primary research on this question is not considered a high priority use of limited resources, though where data are available, improved reporting of outcomes by time to treatment should be encouraged
Air-ice carbon pathways inferred from a sea ice tank experiment
Air-ice CO2 fluxes were measured continuously using automated chambers from the initial freezing of a sea ice cover until its decay. Cooling seawater prior to sea ice formation acted as a sink for atmospheric CO2, but as soon as the first ice crystals started to form, sea ice turned to a source of CO2, which lasted throughout the whole ice growth phase. Once ice decay was initiated by warming the atmosphere, the sea ice shifted back again to a sink of CO2. Direct measurements of outward ice-atmosphere CO2 fluxes were consistent with the depletion of dissolved inorganic carbon in the upper half of sea ice. Combining measured air-ice CO2 fluxes with the partial pressure of CO2 in sea ice, we determined strongly different gas transfer coefficients of CO2 at the air-ice interface between the growth and the decay phases (from 2.5 to 0.4 mol m−2 d−1 atm−1). A 1D sea ice carbon cycle model including gas physics and carbon biogeochemistry was used in various configurations in order to interpret the observations. All model simulations correctly predicted the sign of the air-ice flux. By contrast, the amplitude of the flux was much more variable between the different simulations. In none of the simulations was the dissolved gas pathway strong enough to explain the large fluxes during ice growth. This pathway weakness is due to an intrinsic limitation of ice-air fluxes of dissolved CO2 by the slow transport of dissolved inorganic carbon in the ice. The best means we found to explain the high air-ice carbon fluxes during ice growth is an intense yet uncertain gas bubble efflux, requiring sufficient bubble nucleation and upwards rise. We therefore call for further investigation of gas bubble nucleation and transport in sea ice
The Least Luminous Galaxy: Spectroscopy of the Milky Way Satellite Segue 1
We present Keck/DEIMOS spectroscopy of Segue 1, an ultra-low luminosity (M_V
= -1.5) Milky Way satellite companion. While the combined size and luminosity
of Segue 1 are consistent with either a globular cluster or a dwarf galaxy, we
present spectroscopic evidence that this object is a dark matter-dominated
dwarf galaxy. We identify 24 stars as members of Segue 1 with a mean
heliocentric recession velocity of 206 +/- 1.3 kms. We measure an internal
velocity dispersion of 4.3+/-1.2 kms. Under the assumption that these stars are
in dynamical equilibrium, we infer a total mass of 4.5^{+4.7}_{-2.5} x 10^5
Msun in the case where mass-follow-light; using a two-component maximum
likelihood model, we determine a similar mass within the stellar radius of 50
pc. This implies a mass-to-light ratio of ln(M/L_V) = 7.2^{+1.1}_{-1.2} or
M/L_V = 1320^{+2680}_{-940}. The error distribution of the mass-to-light ratio
is nearly log-normal, thus Segue 1 is dark matter-dominated at a high
significance. Using spectral synthesis modeling, we derive a metallicity for
the single red giant branch star in our sample of [Fe/H]=-3.3 +/- 0.2 dex.
Finally, we discuss the prospects for detecting gamma-rays from annihilation of
dark matter particles and show that Segue 1 is the most promising satellite for
indirect dark matter detection. We conclude that Segue 1 is the least luminous
of the ultra-faint galaxies recently discovered around the Milky Way, and is
thus the least luminous known galaxy.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures, ApJ accepte
A Pedagogical Review of Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Scenarios
We review different avenues of electroweak symmetry breaking explored over
the years. This constitutes a timely exercise as the world's largest and the
highest energy particle accelerator, namely, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at
CERN near Geneva, has started running whose primary mission is to find the
Higgs or some phenomena that mimic the effects of the Higgs, i.e. to unravel
the mysteries of electroweak phase transition. In the beginning, we discuss the
Standard Model Higgs mechanism. After that we review the Higgs sector of the
Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. Then we take up three relatively recent
ideas: Little Higgs, Gauge-Higgs Unification, and Higgsless scenarios. For the
latter three cases, we first present the basic ideas and restrict our
illustration to some instructive toy models to provide an intuitive feel of the
underlying dynamics, and then discuss, for each of the three cases, how more
realistic scenarios are constructed and how to decipher their experimental
signatures. Wherever possible, we provide enough pedagogical details, which the
beginners might find useful.Comment: 45 pages, Review based on a series of lectures; v2: 63 pages,
substantially expanded, references added, to appear in `Reports on Progress
in Physics
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