1,124 research outputs found
The Torus Universe in the Polygon Approach to 2+1-Dimensional Gravity
In this paper we describe the matter-free toroidal spacetime in 't Hooft's
polygon approach to 2+1-dimensional gravity (i.e. we consider the case without
any particles present). Contrary to earlier results in the literature we find
that it is not possible to describe the torus by just one polygon but we need
at least two polygons. We also show that the constraint algebra of the polygons
closes.Comment: 18 pages Latex, 13 eps-figure
Panel Discussion - Management of Eurasian watermilfoil in the United States using native insects: State regulatory and management issues
While researchers have evaluated the potential of native
insect herbivores to manage nonindigenous aquatic plant
species such as Eurasian watermilfoil (
Myriophyllum spicatum
L.), the practical matters of regulatory compliance and implementation
have been neglected. A panel of aquatic nuisance
species program managers from three state natural
resource management agencies (Minnesota, Vermont and
Washington) discussed their regulatory and policy concerns.
In addition, one ecological consultant attempting to market
one of the native insects to manage Eurasian watermilfoil
added his perspective on the special challenges of distributing
a native biological control agent for management of Eurasian
watermilfoil
The GEO 600 laser system
Interferometric gravitational wave detectors require high optical power, single frequency lasers with very good beam quality and high amplitude and frequency stability as well as high long-term reliability as input light source. For GEO 600 a laser system with these properties is realized by a stable planar, longitudinally pumped 12 W Nd:YAG rod laser which is injection-locked to a monolithic 800 mW Nd:YAG non-planar ring oscillator. Frequency control signals from the mode cleaners are fed to the actuators of the non-planar ring oscillator which determines the frequency stability of the system. The system power stabilization acts on the slave laser pump diodes which have the largest influence on the output power. In order to gain more output power, a combined Nd:YAGNd:YVO4 system is scaled to more than 22 W
DP-EM: Differentially Private Expectation Maximization
The iterative nature of the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm presents a challenge for privacy-preserving estimation, as each iteration increases the amount of noise needed. We propose a practical private EM algorithm that overcomes this challenge using two innovations: (1) a novel moment perturbation formulation for differentially private EM (DP-EM), and (2) the use of two recently developed composition methods to bound the privacy “cost” of multiple EM iterations: the moments accountant (MA) and zero-mean concentrated differential privacy (zCDP). Both MA and zCDP bound the moment generating function of the privacy loss random variable and achieve a refined tail bound, which effectively decrease the amount of additive noise. We present empirical results showing the benefits of our approach, as well as similar performance between these two composition methods in the DP-EM setting for Gaussian mixture models. Our approach can be readily extended to many iterative learning algorithms, opening up various exciting future directions
Dendritic flux avalanches and nonlocal electrodynamics in thin superconducting films
We present numerical and analytical studies of coupled nonlinear Maxwell and
thermal diffusion equations which describe nonisothermal dendritic flux
penetration in superconducting films. We show that spontaneous branching of
propagating flux filaments occurs due to nonlocal magnetic flux diffusion and
positive feedback between flux motion and Joule heat generation. The branching
is triggered by a thermomagnetic edge instability which causes stratification
of the critical state. The resulting distribution of magnetic microavalanches
depends on a spatial distribution of defects. Our results are in good agreement
with experiments performed on Nb films.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, see http://mti.msd.anl.gov/aran_h1.htm for
extensive collection of movies of dendritic flux and temperature pattern
Dynamical Synapses Enhance Neural Information Processing: Gracefulness, Accuracy and Mobility
Experimental data have revealed that neuronal connection efficacy exhibits
two forms of short-term plasticity, namely, short-term depression (STD) and
short-term facilitation (STF). They have time constants residing between fast
neural signaling and rapid learning, and may serve as substrates for neural
systems manipulating temporal information on relevant time scales. The present
study investigates the impact of STD and STF on the dynamics of continuous
attractor neural networks (CANNs) and their potential roles in neural
information processing. We find that STD endows the network with slow-decaying
plateau behaviors-the network that is initially being stimulated to an active
state decays to a silent state very slowly on the time scale of STD rather than
on the time scale of neural signaling. This provides a mechanism for neural
systems to hold sensory memory easily and shut off persistent activities
gracefully. With STF, we find that the network can hold a memory trace of
external inputs in the facilitated neuronal interactions, which provides a way
to stabilize the network response to noisy inputs, leading to improved accuracy
in population decoding. Furthermore, we find that STD increases the mobility of
the network states. The increased mobility enhances the tracking performance of
the network in response to time-varying stimuli, leading to anticipative neural
responses. In general, we find that STD and STP tend to have opposite effects
on network dynamics and complementary computational advantages, suggesting that
the brain may employ a strategy of weighting them differentially depending on
the computational purpose.Comment: 40 pages, 17 figure
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