35,100 research outputs found
Hipsters on Networks: How a Small Group of Individuals Can Lead to an Anti-Establishment Majority
The spread of opinions, memes, diseases, and "alternative facts" in a
population depends both on the details of the spreading process and on the
structure of the social and communication networks on which they spread. In
this paper, we explore how \textit{anti-establishment} nodes (e.g.,
\textit{hipsters}) influence the spreading dynamics of two competing products.
We consider a model in which spreading follows a deterministic rule for
updating node states (which describe which product has been adopted) in which
an adjustable fraction of the nodes in a network are hipsters,
who choose to adopt the product that they believe is the less popular of the
two. The remaining nodes are conformists, who choose which product to adopt by
considering which products their immediate neighbors have adopted. We simulate
our model on both synthetic and real networks, and we show that the hipsters
have a major effect on the final fraction of people who adopt each product:
even when only one of the two products exists at the beginning of the
simulations, a very small fraction of hipsters in a network can still cause the
other product to eventually become the more popular one. To account for this
behavior, we construct an approximation for the steady-state adoption fraction
on -regular trees in the limit of few hipsters. Additionally, our
simulations demonstrate that a time delay in the knowledge of the
product distribution in a population, as compared to immediate knowledge of
product adoption among nearest neighbors, can have a large effect on the final
distribution of product adoptions. Our simple model and analysis may help shed
light on the road to success for anti-establishment choices in elections, as
such success can arise rather generically in our model from a small number of
anti-establishment individuals and ordinary processes of social influence on
normal individuals.Comment: Extensively revised, with much new analysis and numerics The abstract
on arXiv is a shortened version of the full abstract because of space limit
Collision Integrals for the Transport Properties of Dissociating Air at High Temperatures
Collision integrals for the transport properties of dissociating air at high temperature
Strong absorption and selective thermal emission from a mid-infrared metamaterial
We demonstrate thin-film metamaterials with resonances in the mid-infrared
wavelength range. Our structures are numerically modeled and experimentally
characterized by reflection and angularly-resolved thermal emission
spectroscopy. We demonstrate strong and controllable absorption resonances
across the mid-infrared wavelength range. In addition, the polarized thermal
emission from these samples is shown to be highly selective and largely
independent of emission angles from normal to 45 degrees. Experimental results
are compared to numerical models with excellent agreement. Such structures hold
promise for large-area, low-cost metamaterial coatings for control of gray- or
black-body thermal signatures, as well as for possible mid-IR sensing
applications.Comment: The following article has been submitted to Appl. Phys. Lett. After
it is published, it will be found at http://apl.aip.org/. 14 pages including
4 figure page
An Improved Measurement of the Hubble Constant from the Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect
We present a determination of the Hubble constant from measurements of the
Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect (SZE) in an orientation-unbiased sample of 7 z < 0.1
galaxy clusters. With improved X-ray models and a more accurate 32-GHz
calibration, we obtain H_O = 64+14-11 +/- 14_sys km/s/Mpc. for a standard CDM
cosmology, or 66+14-11 +/- 15_sys km/s/Mpc for a flat LambdaCDM cosmology. In
combination with X-ray cluster measurements and the BBN value for Omega_B, we
find Omega_M = 0.32 +/- 0.05.Comment: 5 pp., Accepted for publication in ApJ
Stryker Osteonics: Prosthetic Knee Joint
We examine, within a simple bearing model of a knee joint that only consideres pure sliding, the effect of the presence of a small vertical hole in the load area on the fluid film properties. The calculations indicate that fluid is entrapped in such a hole, which, for constant load, causes a smaller minimal film separation of the two surfaces.
This will lower the horizontal friction, but may also bring about surface contact in high load situations
From 2D Integrable Systems to Self-Dual Gravity
We explain how to construct solutions to the self-dual Einstein vacuum
equations from solutions of various two-dimensional integrable systems by
exploiting the fact that the Lax formulations of both systems can be embedded
in that of the self-dual Yang--Mills equations. We illustrate this by
constructing explicit self-dual vacuum metrics on , where
is a homogeneous space for a real subgroup of SL(2, \C) associated
with the two-dimensional system.Comment: 9 pages, LaTex, no figure
High mass X-ray binaries in the NIRorbital solutions of two highly obscured systems
The maximum mass of a neutron star (NS) is poorly defined. Theoretical
attempts to define this mass have thus far been unsuccessful. Observational
results currently provide the only means of narrowing this mass range down.
Eclipsing X-ray binary (XRB) pulsar systems are the only interacting binaries
in which the mass of the NS may be measured directly. Only 10 such systems are
known to exist, 6 of which have yielded NS masses in the range 1.06 - 1.86
M.We present the first orbital solutions of two further eclipsing
systems, OAO 1657-415 and EXO 1722-363, whose donor stars have only recently
been identified. Using observations obtained using the VLT/ISAAC NIR
spectrograph, our initial work was concerned with providing an accurate
spectral classification of the two counterpart stars, leading to a consistent
explanation of the mechanism for spin period evolution of OAO 1657-415.
Calculating radial velocities allowed orbital solutions for both systems to be
computed. These are the first accurate determinations of the NS and counterpart
masses in XRB pulsar systems to be made employing NIR spectroscopy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, contribution to the proceedings of "The
multi-wavelength view of hot, massive stars", 39th Li`ege Int. Astroph.
Coll., 12-16 July 201
Modeling the lowest-cost splitting of a herd of cows by optimizing a cost function
Animals live in groups to defend against predation and to obtain food.
However, for some animals --- especially ones that spend long periods of time
feeding --- there are costs if a group chooses to move on before their
nutritional needs are satisfied. If the conflict between feeding and keeping up
with a group becomes too large, it may be advantageous to some animals to split
into subgroups of animals with similar nutritional needs. We model the costs
and benefits of splitting by a herd of cows using a cost function (CF) that
quantifies individual variation in hunger, desire to lie down, and predation
risk. We model the costs associated with hunger and lying desire as the
standard deviations of individuals within a group, and we model predation risk
as an inverse exponential function of group size. We minimize the cost function
over all plausible groups that can arise from a given herd and study the
dynamics of group splitting. We explore our model using two examples: (1) we
consider group switching and group fission in a herd of relatively homogeneous
cows; and (2) we examine a herd with an equal number of adult males (larger
animals) and adult females (smaller animals).Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure
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