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On Birthing Dancing Stars: The Need for Bounded Chaos in Information Interaction
While computers causing chaos is acommon social trope, nearly the entirety of the history of computing is dedicated to generating order. Typical interactive information retrieval tasks ask computers to support the traversal and exploration of large, complex information spaces. The implicit assumption is that they are to support users in simplifying the complexity (i.e. in creating order from chaos). But for some types of task, particularly those that involve the creative application or synthesis of knowledge or the creation of new knowledge, this assumption may be incorrect. It is increasingly evident that perfect order—and the systems we create with it—support highly-structured information tasks well, but provide poor support for less-structured tasks.We need digital information environments that help create a little more chaos from order to spark creative thinking and knowledge creation. This paper argues for the need for information systems that offerwhat we term ‘bounded chaos’, and offers research directions that may support the creation of such interface
Bacteriology in Veterinary Practice
In the past undergraduates in veterinary medicine were not able to envisage any practical use for their laboratory training in bacteriology. When a practitioner required a cultural examination it was necessary to submit the specimen to an established laboratory and three or more days would elapse before a reply was received. There has been a marked change in this approach to bacteriology within the last few years and it is the purpose of this presentatioll to explain how bacteriological methods can be used in a clinical practice
Electric-field noise from carbon-adatom diffusion on a Au(110) surface: first-principles calculations and experiments
The decoherence of trapped-ion quantum gates due to heating of their motional
modes is a fundamental science and engineering problem. This heating is
attributed to electric-field noise arising from the trap-electrode surfaces. In
this work, we investigate the source of this noise by focusing on the diffusion
of carbon-containing adsorbates on the surface of Au(110). We show by density
functional theory, based on detailed scanning probe microscopy, how the carbon
adatom diffusion on the gold surface changes the energy landscape, and how the
adatom dipole moment varies with the diffusive motion. A simple model for the
diffusion noise, which varies quadratically with the variation of the dipole
moment, qualitatively reproduces the measured noise spectrum, and the estimate
of the noise spectral density is in accord with measured values.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
Entropy measures for complex networks: Toward an information theory of complex topologies
The quantification of the complexity of networks is, today, a fundamental
problem in the physics of complex systems. A possible roadmap to solve the
problem is via extending key concepts of information theory to networks. In
this paper we propose how to define the Shannon entropy of a network ensemble
and how it relates to the Gibbs and von Neumann entropies of network ensembles.
The quantities we introduce here will play a crucial role for the formulation
of null models of networks through maximum-entropy arguments and will
contribute to inference problems emerging in the field of complex networks.Comment: (4 pages, 1 figure
Multi-parameter approach to R-parity violating SUSY couplings
We introduce and implement a new, extended approach to placing bounds on
trilinear R-parity violating couplings. We focus on a limited set of leptonic
and semi-leptonic processes involving neutrinos, combining multidimensional
plotting and cross-checking constraints from different experiments. This allows
us to explore new regions of parameter space and to relax a number of bounds
given in the literature. We look for qualitatively different results compared
to those obtained previously using the assumption that a single coupling
dominates the R-parity violating contributions to a process (SCD). By combining
results from several experiments, we identify regions in parameter space where
two or more parameters approach their maximally allowed values. In the same
vein, we show a circumstance where consistency between independent bounds on
the same combinations of trilinear coupling parameters implies mass constraints
among slepton or squark masses. Though our new bounds are in most cases weaker
than the SCD bounds, the largest deviations we find on individual parameters
are factors of two, thus indicating that a conservative, order of magnitude
bound on an individual coupling is reliably estimated by making the SCD
assumption.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables. Typos fixed, two references added and
references updated. Eq. (41) removed, Eq. (40) and text modified. Published
versio
High-throughput 3-dimensional time-resolved spectroscopy: Simultaneous characterisation of luminescence properties in spectral and temporal domains
Lanthanide luminescence is presented in full spectral and temporal detail by challenging the limits of low-light sensing and high-speed data acquisition. A robust system is demonstrated, capable of constructing high-resolution time-resolved spectra with high throughput processing. This work holds real value in advancing characterisation capability to decode interesting insights within lanthanide materials. © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013
Comparative study of radio pulses from simulated hadron-, electron-, and neutrino-initiated showers in ice in the GeV-PeV range
High energy particle showers produce coherent Cherenkov radio emission in
dense, radio-transparent media such as cold ice. Using PYTHIA and GEANT
simulation tools, we make a comparative study among electromagnetic (EM) and
hadronic showers initiated by single particles and neutrino showers initiated
by multiple particles produced at the neutrino-nucleon event vertex. We include
all the physics processes and do a complete 3-D simulation up to 100 TeV for
all showers and to 1 PeV for electron and neutrino induced showers. We
calculate the radio pulses for energies between 100 GeV and 1 PeV and find
hadron showers, and consequently neutrino showers, are not as efficient below 1
PeV at producing radio pulses as the electromagnetic showers. The agreement
improves as energy increases, however, and by a PeV and above the difference
disappears. By looking at the 3-D structure of the showers in time, we show
that the hadronic showers are not as compact as the EM showers and hence the
radiation is not as coherent as EM shower emission at the same frequency. We
show that the ratio of emitted pulse strength to shower tracklength is a
function only of a single, coherence parameter, independent of species and
energy of initiating particle.Comment: a few comments added, to bo published in PRD Nov. issue, 10 pages, 3
figures in tex file, 3 jpg figures in separate files, and 1 tabl
The Evolving Activity of the Dynamically Young Comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd)
We used the UltraViolet-Optical Telescope on board Swift to observe the
dynamically young comet C/2009 P1 (Garradd) from a heliocentric distance of 3.5
AU pre-perihelion until 4.0 AU outbound. At 3.5 AU pre-perihelion, comet
Garradd had one of the highest dust-to-gas ratios ever observed, matched only
by comet Hale-Bopp. The evolving morphology of the dust in its coma suggests an
outburst that ended around 2.2 AU pre-perihelion. Comparing slit-based
measurements and observations acquired with larger fields of view indicated
that between 3 AU and 2 AU pre-perihelion a significant extended source started
producing water in the coma. We demonstrate that this source, which could be
due to icy grains, disappeared quickly around perihelion. Water production by
the nucleus may be attributed to a constantly active source of at least 75
km, estimated to be more than 20 percent of the surface. Based on our
measurements, the comet lost kg of ice and dust during this
apparition, corresponding to at most a few meters of its surface.Even though
this was likely not Garradd's first passage through the inner solar system, the
activity of the comet was complex and changed significantly during the time it
was observed
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