2,365 research outputs found
A critical analysis of the hydrino model
Recently, spectroscopic and calorimetric observations of hydrogen plasmas and
chemical reactions with them have been interpreted as evidence for the
existence of electronic states of the hydrogen atom with a binding energy of
more than 13.6 eV. The theoretical basis for such states, that have been dubbed
hydrinos, is investigated. We discuss both, the novel deterministic model of
the hydrogen atom, in which the existence of hydrinos was predicted, and
standard quantum mechanics. Severe inconsistencies in the deterministic model
are pointed out and the incompatibility of hydrino states with quantum
mechanics is reviewed.Comment: 9 page
Deconvolving Instrumental and Intrinsic Broadening in Excited State X-ray Spectroscopies
Intrinsic and experimental mechanisms frequently lead to broadening of
spectral features in excited-state spectroscopies. For example, intrinsic
broadening occurs in x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) measurements of heavy
elements where the core-hole lifetime is very short. On the other hand,
nonresonant x-ray Raman scattering (XRS) and other energy loss measurements are
more limited by instrumental resolution. Here, we demonstrate that the
Richardson-Lucy (RL) iterative algorithm provides a robust method for
deconvolving instrumental and intrinsic resolutions from typical XAS and XRS
data. For the K-edge XAS of Ag, we find nearly complete removal of ~9.3 eV FWHM
broadening from the combined effects of the short core-hole lifetime and
instrumental resolution. We are also able to remove nearly all instrumental
broadening in an XRS measurement of diamond, with the resulting improved
spectrum comparing favorably with prior soft x-ray XAS measurements. We present
a practical methodology for implementing the RL algorithm to these problems,
emphasizing the importance of testing for stability of the deconvolution
process against noise amplification, perturbations in the initial spectra, and
uncertainties in the core-hole lifetime.Comment: 35 pages, 13 figure
Succinct Indexable Dictionaries with Applications to Encoding -ary Trees, Prefix Sums and Multisets
We consider the {\it indexable dictionary} problem, which consists of storing
a set for some integer , while supporting the
operations of \Rank(x), which returns the number of elements in that are
less than if , and -1 otherwise; and \Select(i) which returns
the -th smallest element in . We give a data structure that supports both
operations in O(1) time on the RAM model and requires bits to store a set of size , where {\cal B}(n,m) = \ceil{\lg
{m \choose n}} is the minimum number of bits required to store any -element
subset from a universe of size . Previous dictionaries taking this space
only supported (yes/no) membership queries in O(1) time. In the cell probe
model we can remove the additive term in the space bound,
answering a question raised by Fich and Miltersen, and Pagh.
We present extensions and applications of our indexable dictionary data
structure, including:
An information-theoretically optimal representation of a -ary cardinal
tree that supports standard operations in constant time,
A representation of a multiset of size from in bits that supports (appropriate generalizations of) \Rank
and \Select operations in constant time, and
A representation of a sequence of non-negative integers summing up to
in bits that supports prefix sum queries in constant
time.Comment: Final version of SODA 2002 paper; supersedes Leicester Tech report
2002/1
Contrasting trends in floods for two sub-arctic catchments in northern Sweden – does glacier presence matter?
Our understanding is limited to how transient changes in glacier response to climate warming will influence the catchment hydrology in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. This understanding is particularly incomplete for flooding extremes because understanding the frequency of such unusual events requires long records of observation not often available for the Arctic and Sub-Arctic. This study presents a statistical analysis of trends in the magnitude and timing of flood extremes and the mean summer discharge in two sub-arctic catchments, Tarfala and Abisko, in northern Sweden. The catchments have different glacier covers (30% and 1%, respectively). Statistically significant trends (at the 5% level) were identified for both catchments on an annual and on a seasonal scale (3-months averages) using the Mann-Kendall trend test. Stationarity of flood records was tested by analyzing trends in the flood quantiles, using generalized least squares regression. Hydrologic trends were related to observed changes in the precipitation and air temperature, and were correlated with 3-months averaged climate pattern indices (e.g. North Atlantic oscillation). Both catchments showed a statistically significant increase in the annual mean air temperature over the comparison time period of 1985–2009 (Tarfala and Abisko <i>p</i><0.01), but did not show significant trends in the total precipitation (Tarfala <i>p</i> = 0.91, Abisko <i>p</i> = 0.44). Despite the similar climate evolution over the studied period in the two catchments, data showed contrasting trends in the magnitude and timing of flood peaks and the mean summer discharge. Hydrologic trends indicated an amplification of the streamflow and flood response in the highly glacierized catchment and a dampening of the response in the non-glacierized catchment. The glacierized mountain catchment showed a statistically significant increasing trend in the flood magnitudes (<i>p</i> = 0.04) that is clearly correlated to the occurrence of extreme precipitation events. It also showed a significant increase in mean summer discharge (<i>p</i> = 0.0002), which is significantly correlated to the decrease in glacier mass balance and the increase in air temperature (<i>p</i> = 0.08). Conversely, the non-glacierized catchment showed a significant decrease in the mean summer discharge (<i>p</i> = 0.01), the flood magnitudes (<i>p</i> = 0.07) and an insignificant trend towards earlier flood occurrences (<i>p</i> = 0.53). These trends are explained by a reduction of the winter snow pack due to higher temperatures in the winter and spring and an increasing soil water storage capacity or catchment storage due to progressively thawing permafrost
Beginning of the End of Cost Competitiveness in CEE Countries - Analysis of Dependence between Labor Costs and Internationalization of the Region
In order to exemplify the above econometric model I carried out empirical analysis of the companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, identifying the companies for which efficiency-seeking is the main internationalization motive. The analysis of internationalization of 26 companies during the years 1990-2010 clearly shows that a significant part of investments is located outside the territory of Poland, in the countries with lower labor costs. This fact confirms that CEE countries will gradually become less and less attractive in terms of costs not only for MNEs from developed countries but also for the companies originating from transition economies.Głównym celem artykułu jest weryfikacja, czy niski poziom kosztów pracy w Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej będący do tej pory jednym z czynników wpływających na konkurencyjność tego regionu pozostanie nim w dłuższej perspektywie czasowej. W pracy na podstawie próby wszystkich państw UE zbadano zależność pomiędzy poziomem internacjonalizacji (stan odpływu BIZ per capita) a kosztami pracy w sektorze przedsiębiorstw i GNP per capita. Analiza regresji potwierdziła istnienie zależności pomiędzy wyżej wymienionymi czynnikami. Oznacza to, że stopniowy wzrost kosztów pracy w państwach Europy Środkowej i Wschodniej prowadził będzie do stopniowego odpływu BIZ z tego regionu do państw bardziej konkurencyjnych kosztowo. W celu egzemplifikacji powyższych zależności w pracy dodatkowo przedstawiono analizę inwestycji zagranicznych polskich spółek notowanych na GPW, z których to 26 dokonało inwwestycji zagranicznych o wyraźnych motywach związanych z obniżeniem kosztów produkcji. Fakt ten potwierdza powolny spadek konkurencyjności kosztowej polskiej gospodarki, tym samym zmusza do poszukiwania nowych rozwiązań instytucjonalnych mogących utrzymać konkurencyjność polskiej gospodarki w długim okresie
In situ visualization of large-scale turbulence simulations in Nek5000 with ParaView Catalyst
In situ visualization on high-performance computing systems allows us to analyze simulation results that would otherwise be impossible, given the size of the simulation data sets and offline post-processing execution time. We develop an in situ adaptor for Paraview Catalyst and Nek5000, a massively parallel Fortran and C code for computational fluid dynamics. We perform a strong scalability test up to 2048 cores on KTH’s Beskow Cray XC40 supercomputer and assess in situ visualization’s impact on the Nek5000 performance. In our study case, a high-fidelity simulation of turbulent flow, we observe that in situ operations significantly limit the strong scalability of the code, reducing the relative parallel efficiency to only ≈ 21 % on 2048 cores (the relative efficiency of Nek5000 without in situ operations is ≈ 99 %). Through profiling with Arm MAP, we identified a bottleneck in the image composition step (that uses the Radix-kr algorithm) where a majority of the time is spent on MPI communication. We also identified an imbalance of in situ processing time between rank 0 and all other ranks. In our case, better scaling and load-balancing in the parallel image composition would considerably improve the performance of Nek5000 with in situ capabilities. In general, the result of this study highlights the technical challenges posed by the integration of high-performance simulation codes and data-analysis libraries and their practical use in complex cases, even when efficient algorithms already exist for a certain application scenario
Relevance of axion-like particles for very-high-energy astrophysics
Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of ALPs, which
are very light spin-zero bosons with a two-photon coupling. Photon-ALP
oscillations occur in the presence of an external magnetic field, and ALPs can
lead to observable effects on the measured photon spectrum of astrophysical
sources. An intriguing situation arises when blazars are observed with the
Cherenkov Telescopes H.E.S.S., MAGIC, CANGAROO III and VERITAS. The
extragalactic background light (EBL) produced by galaxies during cosmic
evolution gives rise to a source dimming which becomes important in the VHE
band. This dimming can be considerably reduced by photon-ALP oscillations in
the large-scale magnetic fields, and the resulting blazar spectra become harder
than expected. We find that for ALPs lighter than 5 x 10^{-10} eV the photon
survival probability is larger than predicted by conventional physics above a
few hundred GeV. This is a clear-cut prediction which can be tested with the
planned Cherenkov Telescope Array and HAWC. Moreover, we offer a new
interpretation of the VHE blazars detected so far, according to which the large
spread in the values of the observed spectral index is mainly due to the wide
spread in the source distances rather than to large variations of their
internal physical properties.Comment: Equations (8), (104) and (134) have been corrected for misprints; see
the erratum published in Phys. Rev. D 87, 109903(E) (2013). Numerical results
in the article are not affected, since they were based on the correct
formula
Efficient LZ78 factorization of grammar compressed text
We present an efficient algorithm for computing the LZ78 factorization of a
text, where the text is represented as a straight line program (SLP), which is
a context free grammar in the Chomsky normal form that generates a single
string. Given an SLP of size representing a text of length , our
algorithm computes the LZ78 factorization of in time
and space, where is the number of resulting LZ78 factors.
We also show how to improve the algorithm so that the term in the
time and space complexities becomes either , where is the length of the
longest LZ78 factor, or where is a quantity
which depends on the amount of redundancy that the SLP captures with respect to
substrings of of a certain length. Since where
is the alphabet size, the latter is asymptotically at least as fast as
a linear time algorithm which runs on the uncompressed string when is
constant, and can be more efficient when the text is compressible, i.e. when
and are small.Comment: SPIRE 201
Benthic response to sedimentation events during autumn to spring at a shallow-water station in the Western Kiel Bight
The response of the benthos to the break up of anoxia in the Kiel Bight (Western Baltic Sea), and to three succeeding events of “external” food supply, consisting of a settled autumn plankton bloom, resuspended matter and macrophyte input during winter, and of a sedimented spring phytoplankton bloom, is described on a community level. The first input of oxygen broke up anoxic conditions and made stored food resources available to decomposition. This “internal” food supply, mainly consisting of protein (folin positive matter), was followed by a drastic increase in heat production and ATP-biomass and caused a period of low redox potential, which lasted for several weeks. During this phase, a plankton bloom (dinoflagellates and diatoms) settled to the sea floor. Although there was an immediate response of benthic activity, this food input was not completely consumed by the strongly disturbed benthic community. During winter resuspended matter and the input of macrophyte debris caused another maximum in benthic activity and biomass despite the low temperature. The response to sedimentation of cells from a diatom bloom during mid March was also without any time lag and was consumed within 5–6 wk. A comparison of the amount of particles collected in a sediment trap with the increase of organic matter in the sediment demonstrated that the sediment collected four times (autumn) and seven to eight times (spring) more than measured by the sediment trap. Strong indications of food limitation of benthic activity were found. During autumn and winter these indications were caused more by physical than by biological processes. The three events of “external” food supply caused a temporary shift in the type of metabolism towards fermentation processes and reduced the redox potential. In spring the development of the benthic community was still being strongly influenced by the events of the preceding summer and autumn
Reduced basis isogeometric mortar approximations for eigenvalue problems in vibroacoustics
We simulate the vibration of a violin bridge in a multi-query context using
reduced basis techniques. The mathematical model is based on an eigenvalue
problem for the orthotropic linear elasticity equation. In addition to the nine
material parameters, a geometrical thickness parameter is considered. This
parameter enters as a 10th material parameter into the system by a mapping onto
a parameter independent reference domain. The detailed simulation is carried
out by isogeometric mortar methods. Weakly coupled patch-wise tensorial
structured isogeometric elements are of special interest for complex geometries
with piecewise smooth but curvilinear boundaries. To obtain locality in the
detailed system, we use the saddle point approach and do not apply static
condensation techniques. However within the reduced basis context, it is
natural to eliminate the Lagrange multiplier and formulate a reduced eigenvalue
problem for a symmetric positive definite matrix. The selection of the
snapshots is controlled by a multi-query greedy strategy taking into account an
error indicator allowing for multiple eigenvalues
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