12,760 research outputs found
âSchool Streetsâ and the Adaptation of Londonâs State-Led Tactical Urbanism During Covid-19
During the Covid-19 pandemic, London rapidly expanded its scheme of temporary School Streets closures. This represented an acceleration of pre-existing tendencies in the city towards using the methods of âTactical Urbanism.â Through a document review and a series of interviews with practitioners, this case study explores the varied ways in which different levels of government acted âtacticallyâ in the implementation Londonâs Covid-19 School Streets. It also considers the way this example of a state-led scheme intersects with debates around the concept of Tactical Urbanism and its increasing adoption by local and municipal governments
Consumption Growth and Agricultural Shocks in Rural Madagascar
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of rainfall and agricultural shocks on consumption growth in Madagascar. We are also interested in the impact of local endowments in infrastructures and social services on consumption growth. To achieve this goal, a micro model of household consumption growth is estimated thanks to household panel data collected by the Reseau des Observatoires Ruraux (ROR) between 1999 and 2004. Additional data sources include the 2001 communes census organized by the Ilo program of Cornell University. Altogether these different data sources make an unusually rich data set, at least when considered with developing country standards. We use panel data fixed effect estimation technique to remove unobserved household and community level time invariant heterogeneity. We find that production shocks have a substantial impact on consumption growth and we find sign of persistence of rainfall shocks. Roads and education seems to improve householdâs consumption growth and remotness decreases it.risks, growth, poverty, Food Security and Poverty,
Which groups are amenable to proving exponent two for matrix multiplication?
The Cohn-Umans group-theoretic approach to matrix multiplication suggests
embedding matrix multiplication into group algebra multiplication, and bounding
in terms of the representation theory of the host group. This
framework is general enough to capture the best known upper bounds on
and is conjectured to be powerful enough to prove , although
finding a suitable group and constructing such an embedding has remained
elusive. Recently it was shown, by a generalization of the proof of the Cap Set
Conjecture, that abelian groups of bounded exponent cannot prove
in this framework, which ruled out a family of potential constructions in the
literature.
In this paper we study nonabelian groups as potential hosts for an embedding.
We prove two main results:
(1) We show that a large class of nonabelian groups---nilpotent groups of
bounded exponent satisfying a mild additional condition---cannot prove in this framework. We do this by showing that the shrinkage rate of powers
of the augmentation ideal is similar to the shrinkage rate of the number of
functions over that are degree polynomials;
our proof technique can be seen as a generalization of the polynomial method
used to resolve the Cap Set Conjecture.
(2) We show that symmetric groups cannot prove nontrivial bounds on
when the embedding is via three Young subgroups---subgroups of the
form ---which is a
natural strategy that includes all known constructions in .
By developing techniques for negative results in this paper, we hope to
catalyze a fruitful interplay between the search for constructions proving
bounds on and methods for ruling them out.Comment: 23 pages, 1 figur
Measurements of noise in Josephson-effect mixers
We present new heterodyne receiver results obtained at 100 GHz using resistively-shunted Nb and NbN tunnel junctions. In addition, we have carried out accurate measurements of the available noise power of these devices at the L-band (1.5 GHz) IF frequency. Both the heterodyne and the output noise measurements show that the noise of these devices can be a factor of five or more higher than that predicted by the simple current-biased RSJ model. The noise approaches the appropriate thermal or thermal and shot noise limits for bias voltages where the nonlinearity is not strong (i.e., V>ICRN), but as expected from the RSJ model, can be significantly higher at the low voltages where the mixers are typically biased. The bias voltage dependence of the noise shows structure which is associated with resonances in the RF embedding circuit. Surprisingly, we find that changes in the high-frequency (100 GHz) impedance presented to the junction can dramatically affect the magnitude and voltage dependence of the low-frequency (1.5 GHz) noise. This emphasizes the necessity of very closely matching the junction to free space over a wide frequency range
Modelling aspects of oviduct fluid formation in vitro
© 2017 Society for Reproduction and Fertility. Oviduct fluid is the microenvironment that supports early reproductive processes including fertilisation, embryo cleavage and genome activation. However, the composition and regulation of this critical environment remain rather poorly defined. This study uses an in vitro preparation of the bovine oviduct epithelium to investigate the formation and composition of in vitro-derived oviduct fluid (ivDOF) within a controlled environment. We confirm the presence of oviduct-specific glycoprotein 1 in ivDOF and show that the amino acid and carbohydrate content resembles that of previously reported in vivo data. In parallel, using a different culture system, a panel of oviduct epithelial solute carrier genes and the corresponding flux of amino acids within ivDOF in response to steroid hormones were investigated. We next incorporated fibroblasts directly beneath the epithelium. This dual culture arrangement represents more faithfully the in vivo environment and impacts on ivDOF composition. Lastly, physiological and pathophysiological endocrine states were modelled and their impact on the in vitro oviduct preparation was evaluated. These experiments help clarify the dynamic function of the oviduct in vitro and suggest a number of future research avenues, such as investigating epithelial-fibroblast interactions, probing the molecular aetiologies of subfertility and optimising embryo culture media
Far-UV Emission from Elliptical Galaxies at z=0.55
The restframe UV-to-optical flux ratio, characterizing the ``UV upturn''
phenomenon, is potentially the most sensitive tracer of age in elliptical
galaxies; models predict that it may change by orders of magnitude over the
course of a few Gyr. In order to trace the evolution of the UV upturn as a
function of redshift, we have used the far-UV camera on the Space Telescope
Imaging Spectrograph to image the galaxy cluster CL0016+16 at z=0.55. Our
25''x25'' field includes four bright elliptical galaxies, spectroscopically
confirmed to be passively evolving cluster members. The weak UV emission from
the galaxies in our image demonstrates that the UV upturn is weaker at a
lookback time 5.6 Gyr earlier than our own, as compared to measurements of the
UV upturn in cluster E and S0 galaxies at z=0 and z=0.375. These images are the
first with sufficient depth to demonstrate the fading of the UV upturn expected
at moderate redshifts. We discuss these observations and the implications for
the formation history of galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, Latex. 2 figures. Uses corrected version of emulateapj.sty
and apjfonts.sty (included). Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Can simulations reproduce the observed temperature-mass relation for clusters of galaxies?
It has become increasingly apparent that traditional hydrodynamical
simulations of galaxy clusters are unable to reproduce the observed properties
of galaxy clusters, in particular overpredicting the mass corresponding to a
given cluster temperature. Such overestimation may lead to systematic errors in
results using galaxy clusters as cosmological probes, such as constraints on
the density perturbation normalization sigma_8. In this paper we demonstrate
that inclusion of additional gas physics, namely radiative cooling and a
possible preheating of gas prior to cluster formation, is able to bring the
temperature-mass relation in the innermost parts of clusters into good
agreement with recent determinations by Allen, Schmidt & Fabian using Chandra
data.Comment: 5 pages, submitted to MNRA
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