5,028 research outputs found
Failure of vaccination to prevent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease
Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease persist in dairy cattle herds in Saudi Arabia despite revaccination at intervals of 4-6 months. Vaccine trials provide data on antibody responses following vaccination. Using this information we developed a mathematical model of the decay of protective antibodies with which we estimated the fraction of susceptible animals at a given time after vaccination. The model describes the data well, suggesting over 95% take with an antibody half-life of 43 days. Farm records provided data on the time course of five outbreaks. We applied a 'SLIR' epidemiological model to these data, fitting a single parameter representing disease transmission rate. The analysis provides estimates of the basic reproduction number R(0), which may exceed 70 in some cases. We conclude that the critical intervaccination interval which would provide herd immunity against FMDV is unrealistically short, especially for heterologous challenge. We suggest that it may not be possible to prevent foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks on these farms using currently available vaccines
Abstract cluster expansion with applications to statistical mechanical systems
We formulate a general setting for the cluster expansion method and we discuss sufficient criteria for its convergence. We apply the results to systems of classical and quantum particles with stable interactions
Grassmann Integral Representation for Spanning Hyperforests
Given a hypergraph G, we introduce a Grassmann algebra over the vertex set,
and show that a class of Grassmann integrals permits an expansion in terms of
spanning hyperforests. Special cases provide the generating functions for
rooted and unrooted spanning (hyper)forests and spanning (hyper)trees. All
these results are generalizations of Kirchhoff's matrix-tree theorem.
Furthermore, we show that the class of integrals describing unrooted spanning
(hyper)forests is induced by a theory with an underlying OSP(1|2)
supersymmetry.Comment: 50 pages, it uses some latex macros. Accepted for publication on J.
Phys.
A Cluster Method for the Ashkin--Teller Model
A cluster Monte Carlo algorithm for the Ashkin-Teller (AT) model is
constructed according to the guidelines of a general scheme for such
algorithms. Its dynamical behaviour is tested for the square lattice AT model.
We perform simulations on the line of critical points along which the exponents
vary continuously, and find that critical slowing down is significantly
reduced. We find continuous variation of the dynamical exponent along the
line, following the variation of the ratio , in a manner which
satisfies the Li-Sokal bound , that was so far
proved only for Potts models.Comment: 18 pages, Revtex, figures include
"The Ising model on spherical lattices: dimer versus Monte Carlo approach"
We study, using dimer and Monte Carlo approaches, the critical properties and
finite size effects of the Ising model on honeycomb lattices folded on the
tetrahedron. We show that the main critical exponents are not affected by the
presence of conical singularities. The finite size scaling of the position of
the maxima of the specific heat does not match, however, with the scaling of
the correlation length, and the thermodynamic limit is attained faster on the
spherical surface than in corresponding lattices on the torus.Comment: 25 pages + 6 figures not included. Latex file. FTUAM 93-2
Dynamic Critical Behavior of the Swendsen-Wang Algorithm: The Two-Dimensional 3-State Potts Model Revisited
We have performed a high-precision Monte Carlo study of the dynamic critical
behavior of the Swendsen-Wang algorithm for the two-dimensional 3-state Potts
model. We find that the Li-Sokal bound ()
is almost but not quite sharp. The ratio seems to diverge
either as a small power () or as a logarithm.Comment: 35 pages including 3 figures. Self-unpacking file containing the
LaTeX file, the needed macros (epsf.sty, indent.sty, subeqnarray.sty, and
eqsection.sty) and the 3 Postscript figures. Revised version fixes a
normalization error in \xi (with many thanks to Wolfhard Janke for finding
the error!). To be published in J. Stat. Phys. 87, no. 1/2 (April 1997
Cluster expansion for abstract polymer models. New bounds from an old approach
We revisit the classical approach to cluster expansions, based on tree
graphs, and establish a new convergence condition that improves those by
Kotecky-Preiss and Dobrushin, as we show in some examples. The two ingredients
of our approach are: (i) a careful consideration of the Penrose identity for
truncated functions, and (ii) the use of iterated transformations to bound
tree-graph expansions.Comment: 16 pages. This new version, written en reponse to the suggestions of
the referees, includes more detailed introductory sections, a proof of the
generalized Penrose identity and some additional results that follow from our
treatmen
New Lower Bounds on the Self-Avoiding-Walk Connective Constant
We give an elementary new method for obtaining rigorous lower bounds on the
connective constant for self-avoiding walks on the hypercubic lattice .
The method is based on loop erasure and restoration, and does not require exact
enumeration data. Our bounds are best for high , and in fact agree with the
first four terms of the expansion for the connective constant. The bounds
are the best to date for dimensions , but do not produce good results
in two dimensions. For , respectively, our lower bound is within
2.4\%, 0.43\%, 0.12\%, 0.044\% of the value estimated by series extrapolation.Comment: 35 pages, 388480 bytes Postscript, NYU-TH-93/02/0
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