176 research outputs found
Bounded Temporal Fairness for FIFO Financial Markets
Financial exchange operators cater to the needs of their users while
simultaneously ensuring compliance with the financial regulations. In this
work, we focus on the operators' commitment for fair treatment of all competing
participants. We first discuss unbounded temporal fairness and then investigate
its implementation and infrastructure requirements for exchanges. We find that
these requirements can be fully met only under ideal conditions and argue that
unbounded fairness in FIFO markets is unrealistic. To further support this
claim, we analyse several real-world incidents and show that subtle
implementation inefficiencies and technical optimizations suffice to give
unfair advantages to a minority of the participants. We finally introduce,
{\epsilon}-fairness, a bounded definition of temporal fairness and discuss how
it can be combined with non-continuous market designs to provide equal
participant treatment with minimum divergence from the existing market
operation
Development of Quantum Dot (QD) Based Color Converters for Multicolor Display.
Many displays involve the use of color conversion layers. QDs are attractive candidates as color converters because of their easy processability, tuneable optical properties, high photoluminescence quantum yield, and good stability. Here, we show that emissive QDs with narrow emission range can be made in-situ in a polymer matrix, with properties useful for color conversion. This was achieved by blending the blue-emitting pyridine based polymer with a cadmium selenide precursor and baking their films at different temperatures. To achieve efficient color conversion, blend ratio and baking temperature/time were varied. We found that thermal decomposition of the precursor leads to highly emissive QDs whose final size and emission can be controlled using baking temperature/time. The formation of the QDs inside the polymer matrix was confirmed through morphological studies using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Hence, our approach provides a cost-effective route to making highly emissive color converters for multi-color displays
Optical Properties of Layered Superconductors near the Josephson Plasma Resonance
We study the optical properties of crystals with spatial dispersion and show
that the usual Fresnel approach becomes invalid near frequencies where the
group velocity of the wave packets inside the crystal vanishes. Near these
special frequencies the reflectivity depends on the atomic structure of the
crystal provided that disorder and dissipation are very low. This is
demonstrated explicitly by a detailed study of layered superconductors with
identical or two different alternating junctions in the frequency range near
the Josephson plasma resonance. Accounting for both inductive and charge
coupling of the intrinsic junctions, we show that multiple modes are excited
inside the crystal by the incident light, determine their relative amplitude by
the microscopic calculation of the additional boundary conditions and finally
obtain the reflectivity.
Spatial dispersion also provides a novel method to stop light pulses, which
has possible applications for quantum information processing and the artificial
creation of event horizons in a solid.Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Exciton dephasing and biexciton binding in CdSe/ZnSe islands
The dephasing of excitons and the formation of biexcitons in self-organized CdSe/ZnSe islands grown by molecular-beam epitaxy is investigated using spectrally resolved four-wave mixing. A distribution of exciton-exciton scattering efficiencies and dephasing times in the range of 0.5–10 ps are observed. This indicates the presence of differently localized exciton states at comparable transition energies. Polarization-dependent measurements identify the formation of biexcitons with a biexciton binding energy of more than four times the bulk value. With decreasing exciton energy, the binding energy slightly increases from 21.5 to 23 meV, while its broadening decreases from 5.5 to 3 meV. This is attributed to a strong three-dimensional confinement with improving shape uniformity for decreasing exciton energy
Holographic rho mesons in an external magnetic field
We study the rho meson in a uniform magnetic field eB using a holographic
QCD-model, more specifically a D4/D8/Dbar8 brane setup in the confinement phase
at zero temperature with two quenched flavours. The parameters of the model are
fixed by matching to corresponding dual field theory parameters at zero
magnetic field. We show that the up- and down-flavour branes respond
differently to the presence of the magnetic field in the dual QCD-like theory,
as expected because of the different electromagnetic charge carried by up- and
down-quark. We discuss how to recover the Landau levels, indicating an
instability of the QCD vacuum at eB = m_rho^2 towards a phase where charged rho
mesons are condensed, as predicted by Chernodub using effective QCD-models. We
improve on these existing effective QCD-model analyses by also taking into
account the chiral magnetic catalysis effect, which tells us that the
constituent quark masses rise with eB. This turns out to increase the value of
the critical magnetic field for the onset of rho meson condensation to eB = 1.1
m_rho^2 = 0.67 GeV^2. We briefly discuss the influence of pions, which turn out
to be irrelevant for the condensation in the approximation made.Comment: 26 pages, 10 .pdf figures, v2: version accepted for publication in
JHE
Recent Advances in Graph Partitioning
We survey recent trends in practical algorithms for balanced graph
partitioning together with applications and future research directions
Behavioural Risk Factors in Mid-Life Associated with Successful Ageing, Disability, Dementia and Frailty in Later Life: A Rapid Systematic Review.
BACKGROUND: Smoking, alcohol consumption, poor diet and low levels of physical activity significantly contribute to the burden of illness in developed countries. Whilst the links between specific and multiple risk behaviours and individual chronic conditions are well documented, the impact of these behaviours in mid-life across a range of later life outcomes has yet to be comprehensively assessed. This review aimed to provide an overview of behavioural risk factors in mid-life that are associated with successful ageing and the primary prevention or delay of disability, dementia, frailty and non-communicable chronic conditions. METHODS: A literature search was conducted to identify cohort studies published in English since 2000 up to Dec 2014. Multivariate analyses and a minimum follow-up of five years were required for inclusion. Two reviewers screened titles, abstracts and papers independently. Studies were assessed for quality. Evidence was synthesised by mid-life behavioural risk for a range of late life outcomes. FINDINGS: This search located 10,338 individual references, of which 164 are included in this review. Follow-up data ranged from five years to 36 years. Outcomes include dementia, frailty, disability and cardiovascular disease. There is consistent evidence of beneficial associations between mid-life physical activity, healthy ageing and disease outcomes. Across all populations studied there is consistent evidence that mid-life smoking has a detrimental effect on health. Evidence specific to alcohol consumption was mixed. Limited, but supportive, evidence was available relating specifically to mid-life diet, leisure and social activities or health inequalities. CONCLUSIONS: There is consistent evidence of associations between mid-life behaviours and a range of late life outcomes. The promotion of physical activity, healthy diet and smoking cessation in all mid-life populations should be encouraged for successful ageing and the prevention of disability and chronic disease.This work was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), invitation to tender reference DDER 42013, and supported by the National Institute for Health Research School for Public Health Research. The scope of the work was defined by NICE and the protocol was agreed with NICE prior to the start of work. The funders had no role in data analysis, preparation of the manuscript or decision to publish.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from PLOS via http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.014440
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