3,756 research outputs found
Analytic treatment of geodesics in five-dimensional Myers-Perry space--times
We present the complete set of analytical solutions of the geodesic equation
in the five-dimensional Myers-Perry space-time with equal rotation parameter in
terms of the Weierstra{\ss}' elliptic and Weierstra{\ss}' zeta and sigma
functions. We study the underlying polynomials in the polar and radial
equations which depend on the parameters of the metric and conserved quantities
of a test particle and characterize the motion by their zeros. We exemplify the
efficiency of the analytical method on the orbits of test particles.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, to be published in PRD. Version with improved
reference
A Sobolev Poincar\'e type inequality for integral varifolds
In this work a local inequality is provided which bounds the distance of an
integral varifold from a multivalued plane (height) by its tilt and mean
curvature. The bounds obtained for the exponents of the Lebesgue spaces
involved are shown to be sharp.Comment: v1: 27 pages, no figures; v2: replaced citations of the author's
dissertation by proofs, material of sections 1 and 3 reorganised, slightly
more general results in section 2, some remarks, some discussion and some
references added, 40 pages, no figure
Mueller Matrix Parameters for Radio Telescopes and their Observational Determination
Modern digital crosscorrelators permit the simultaneous measurement of all
four Stokes parameters. However, the results must be calibrated to correct for
the polarization transfer function of the receiving system. The transfer
function for any device can be expressed by its Mueller matrix. We express the
matrix elements in terms of fundamental system parameters that describe the
voltage transfer functions (known as the Jones matrix) of the various system
devices in physical terms and thus provide a means for comparing with
engineering calculations and investigating the effects of design changes. We
describe how to determine these parameters with astronomical observations. We
illustrate the method by applying it to some of the receivers at the Arecibo
Observatory.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures; accepted for PAS
XWeB: the XML Warehouse Benchmark
With the emergence of XML as a standard for representing business data, new
decision support applications are being developed. These XML data warehouses
aim at supporting On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP) operations that
manipulate irregular XML data. To ensure feasibility of these new tools,
important performance issues must be addressed. Performance is customarily
assessed with the help of benchmarks. However, decision support benchmarks do
not currently support XML features. In this paper, we introduce the XML
Warehouse Benchmark (XWeB), which aims at filling this gap. XWeB derives from
the relational decision support benchmark TPC-H. It is mainly composed of a
test data warehouse that is based on a unified reference model for XML
warehouses and that features XML-specific structures, and its associate XQuery
decision support workload. XWeB's usage is illustrated by experiments on
several XML database management systems
Basis-independent methods for the two-Higgs-doublet model II. The significance of tan(beta)
In the most general two-Higgs-doublet model (2HDM), there is no distinction
between the two complex hypercharge-one SU(2) doublet scalar fields, Phi_a
(a=1,2). Thus, any two orthonormal linear combinations of these two fields can
serve as a basis for the Lagrangian. All physical observables of the model must
therefore be basis-independent. For example, tan(beta)=/ is
basis-dependent and thus cannot be a physical parameter of the model. In this
paper, we provide a basis-independent treatment of the Higgs sector with
particular attention to the neutral Higgs boson mass-eigenstates, which
generically are not eigenstates of CP. We then demonstrate that all physical
Higgs couplings are indeed independent of tan(beta). In specialized versions of
the 2HDM, tan(beta) can be promoted to a physical parameter of the
Higgs-fermion interactions. In the most general 2HDM, the Higgs-fermion
couplings can be expressed in terms of a number of physical "tan(beta)--like"
parameters that are manifestly basis-independent. The minimal supersymmetric
extension of the Standard Model provides a simple framework for exhibiting such
effects.Comment: 56 pages, 5 tables, with Eq. (65) corrected (erratum to appear in
Physical Review D
Football and the Mysterious Nature of Global Capital: A Case Study of Birmingham City FC and Birmingham International Holdings
Experimental protocol for biodiesel production with isolation of alkenones as coproducts from commercial Isochrysis algal biomass
© The Author(s), 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Journal of Visualized Experiments 112 (2016): e54189, doi:10.3791/54189.The need to replace petroleum fuels with alternatives from renewable and more environmentally sustainable sources is of growing importance. Biomass-derived biofuels have gained considerable attention in this regard, however first generation biofuels from edible crops like corn ethanol or soybean biodiesel have generally fallen out of favor. There is thus great interest in the development of methods for the production of liquid fuels from domestic and superior non-edible sources. Here we describe a detailed procedure for the production of a purified biodiesel from the marine microalgae Isochrysis. Additionally, a unique suite of lipids known as polyunsaturated long-chain alkenones are isolated in parallel as potentially valuable coproducts to offset the cost of biodiesel production. Multi-kilogram quantities of Isochrysis are purchased from two commercial sources, one as a wet paste (80% water) that is first dried prior to processing, and the other a dry milled powder (95% dry). Lipids are extracted with hexanes in a Soxhlet apparatus to produce an algal oil ("hexane algal oil") containing both traditional fats (i.e., triglycerides, 46-60% w/w) and alkenones (16-25% w/w). Saponification of the triglycerides in the algal oil allows for separation of the resulting free fatty acids (FFAs) from alkenone-containing neutral lipids. FFAs are then converted to biodiesel (i.e., fatty acid methyl esters, FAMEs) by acid-catalyzed esterification while alkenones are isolated and purified from the neutral lipids by crystallization. We demonstrate that biodiesel from both commercial Isochrysis biomasses have similar but not identical FAME profiles, characterized by elevated polyunsaturated fatty acid contents (approximately 40% w/w). Yields of biodiesel were consistently higher when starting from the Isochrysis wet paste (12% w/w vs. 7% w/w), which can be traced to lower amounts of hexane algal oil obtained from the powdered Isochrysis product.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (CHE-1151492), the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (fellowship to J. Wilson-Peltier), and through a private donation from friends of WHOI
Academic freedom in Europe: reviewing UNESCO’s recommendation
This paper examines the compliance of universities in the European Union with the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher–Education Teaching Personnel, which deals primarily with protection for academic freedom. The paper briefly surveys the European genesis of the modern research university and academic freedom, before evaluating compliance with the UNESCO recommendation on institutional autonomy, academic freedom, university governance and tenure. Following from this, the paper examines the reasons for the generally low level of compliance with the UNESCO Recommendation within the EU states, and considers how such compliance could be improved
Evaluating the Robustness of Learning Analytics Results Against Fake Learners
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) collect large amounts of rich data. A primary objective of Learning Analytics (LA) research is studying these data in order to improve the pedagogy of interactive
learning environments. Most studies make the underlying assumption that the data represent truthful and honest learning activity. However, previous studies showed that MOOCs can have large cohorts of users that
break this assumption and achieve high performance through behaviors such as Cheating Using Multiple Accounts or unauthorized collaboration, and we therefore denote them fake learners. Because of their aberrant
behavior, fake learners can bias the results of Learning Analytics (LA) models. The goal of this study is to evaluate the robustness of LA results when the data contain a considerable number of fake learners. Our
methodology follows the rationale of ‘replication research’. We challenge the results reported in a well-known, and one of the first LA/PedagogicEfficacy MOOC papers, by replicating its results with and without the fake learners (identified using machine learning algorithms). The results show that fake learners exhibit very different behavior compared to true learners. However, even though they are a significant portion of the student
population (∼15%), their effect on the results is not dramatic (does not change trends). We conclude that the LA study that we challenged was robust against fake learners. While these results carry an optimistic
message on the trustworthiness of LA research, they rely on data from one MOOC. We believe that this issue should receive more attention within the LA research community, and can explain some ‘surprising’ research results in MOOCs. Keywords: Learning Analytics, Educational Data Mining, MOOCs, Fake Learners, Reliability, IR
Decolorization improves the fuel properties of algal biodiesel from Isochrysis sp.
© The Author(s), 2016. This is the author's version of the work and is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Fuel 179 (2016): 229-234, doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2016.03.061.Results from the comprehensive fuel testing according to American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTM) standards of an alkenone-free and decolorized biodiesel produced from the industrially grown marine microalgae Isochrysis sp. are presented. Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profiles of the non-decolorized and subsequently decolorized biodiesel fuels were nearly identical, yet the fuel properties were remarkably different. Significant positive impacts on the cetane number, kinematic viscosity, and lubricity were observed, indicating a potential deleterious effect of pigments like chlorophylls and pheophytins on these fuel properties. The decolorization process using montmorillonite K10 gave on average 90% mass recovery, and allowed for an otherwise unobtainable cloud point determination. Oxidative stability of the decolorized Isochrysis biodiesel remained well below the minimum prescribed in biodiesel standards due to elevated content of highly polyunsaturated fatty acids, however other values were in the range of those prescribed in the ASTM standards. Overall, decolorization improved the fuel properties of biodiesel from Isochrysis and may provide a path toward improved biodiesel fuels from other algal species.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (CHE-1151492) and through a private donation from friends of WHOI.2017-03-2
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