Information Extraction in Illicit Domains

Extracting useful entities and attribute values from illicit domains such as human trafficking is a challenging problem with the potential for widespread social impact. Such domains employ atypical language models, have `long tails' and suffer from the problem of concept drift. In this paper, we propose a lightweight, feature-agnostic Information Extraction (IE) paradigm specifically designed for such domains. Our approach uses raw, unlabeled text from an initial corpus, and a few (12-120) seed annotations per domain-specific attribute, to learn robust IE models for unobserved pages and websites. Empirically, we demonstrate that our approach can outperform feature-centric Conditional Random Field baselines by over 18\% F-Measure on five annotated sets of real-world human trafficking datasets in both low-supervision and high-supervision settings. We also show that our approach is demonstrably robust to concept drift, and can be efficiently bootstrapped even in a serial computing environment.Comment: 10 pages, ACM WWW 201

Signals of CP Violation Beyond the MSSM in Higgs and Flavor Physics

We study an extension of the Higgs sector of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), considering the effects of new degrees of freedom at the TeV scale, and allowing for sources of CP violation beyond the MSSM (BMSSM). We analyze the impact of the BMSSM sources of CP violation on the Higgs collider phenomenology and on low energy flavor and CP violating observables. We identify distinct Higgs collider signatures that cannot be realized, either in the case without CP violating phases or in the CP violating MSSM, and investigate the prospects to probe them at the Tevatron and the LHC. The most striking benchmark scenario has three neutral Higgs bosons that all decay dominantly into W boson pairs and that are well within the reach of the 7 TeV LHC run. On the other hand, we also present scenarios with three Higgs bosons that have masses M_Hi > 150 GeV and decay dominantly into b bbar. Such scenarios are much more challenging to probe and can even lie completely outside the reach of the 7 TeV LHC run. We explore complementary scenarios with standard MSSM Higgs signals that allow to accommodate a sizable B_s mixing phase as indicated by D0, as well as the excess in B_s --> mu+ mu- candidates recently reported by CDF. We find that, in contrast to the MSSM, a minimal flavor violating soft sector is sufficient to generate significant corrections to CP violating observables in meson mixing, compatible with EDM constraints. In particular, a sizable B_s mixing phase, S_psiphi < 0.4, can be achieved for specific regions of parameter space. Such a large B_s mixing phase would unambiguously imply a sizable suppression of S_psiKs with respect to the SM prediction and a BR(B_s --> mu+ mu-) close to the 95% C.L. upper bound reported by CDF.Comment: 58 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables, v2 matches published versio

Heavy quark supermultiplet excitations

Lorentz covariant wave functions for meson and baryon supermultiplets are simply derived by boosting $SU(2)_J$ representations corresponding to multiquark systems at rest.Comment: 12 pages (Revtex), UTAS-PHYS-93-4

Restoration of rotational invariance of bound states on the light front

We study bound states in a model with scalar nucleons interacting via an exchanged scalar meson using the Hamiltonian formalism on the light front. In this approach manifest rotational invariance is broken when the Fock space is truncated. By considering an effective Hamiltonian that takes into account two meson exchanges, we find that this breaking of rotational invariance is decreased from that which occurs when only one meson exchange is included. The best improvement occurs when the states are weakly bound.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, uses feynMF; changed typos, clarified use of angular momentu

Quadrupole Collective States in a Large Single-J Shell

We discuss the ability of the generator coordinate method (GCM) to select collective states in microscopic calculations. The model studied is a single-$j$ shell with hamiltonian containing the quadrupole-quadrupole interaction. Quadrupole collective excitations are constructed by means of the quadrupole single-particle operator. Lowest collective bands for $j$=31/2 and particle numbers $N$=4,6,8,10,12, and $14$ are found. For lower values of $j$, exact solutions are obtained and compared with the GCM results.Comment: submitted for publication in Phys. Rev. C, revtex, 28 pages, 15 PostScript figures available on request from [email protected], preprint No. IFT/17/9

Mycelial effects on phage retention during transport in a microfluidic platform

Phages (i.e., viruses that infect bacteria) have been considered as good tracers for the hydrological transport of colloids and (pathogenic) viruses. However, little is known about interactions of phages with (fungal) mycelia as the prevalent soil microbial biomass. Forming extensive and dense networks, mycelia provide significant surfaces for phage–hyphal interactions. Here, for the first time, we quantified the mycelial retention of phages in a microfluidic platform that allowed for defined fluid exchange around hyphae. Two common lytic tracer phages (Escherichia coli phage T4 and marine phage PSA-HS2) and two mycelia of differing surface properties (Coprinopsis cinerea and Pythium ultimum) were employed. Phage–hyphal interaction energies were approximated by the extended Derjaguin–Landau–Verwey–Overbeek (XDLVO) approach of colloidal interaction. Our data show initial hyphal retention of phages of up to ≈4 × 107 plaque-forming unit (PFU) mm–2 (≈2550 PFU mm–2 s–1) with a retention efficiency depending on the hyphal and, to a lesser extent, the phage surface properties. Experimental data were supported by XDLVO calculations, which revealed the highest attractive forces for the interaction between hydrophobic T4 phages and hydrophobic C. cinerea surfaces. Our data suggest that mycelia may be relevant for the retention of phages in the subsurface and need to be considered in subsurface phage tracer studies. Mycelia–phage interactions may further be exploited for the development of novel strategies to reduce or hinder the transport of undesirable (bio) colloidal entities in environmental filter systems

Neurogenesis Drives Stimulus Decorrelation in a Model of the Olfactory Bulb

The reshaping and decorrelation of similar activity patterns by neuronal networks can enhance their discriminability, storage, and retrieval. How can such networks learn to decorrelate new complex patterns, as they arise in the olfactory system? Using a computational network model for the dominant neural populations of the olfactory bulb we show that fundamental aspects of the adult neurogenesis observed in the olfactory bulb -- the persistent addition of new inhibitory granule cells to the network, their activity-dependent survival, and the reciprocal character of their synapses with the principal mitral cells -- are sufficient to restructure the network and to alter its encoding of odor stimuli adaptively so as to reduce the correlations between the bulbar representations of similar stimuli. The decorrelation is quite robust with respect to various types of perturbations of the reciprocity. The model parsimoniously captures the experimentally observed role of neurogenesis in perceptual learning and the enhanced response of young granule cells to novel stimuli. Moreover, it makes specific predictions for the type of odor enrichment that should be effective in enhancing the ability of animals to discriminate similar odor mixtures

Solitosynthesis of Q-balls

We study the formation of Q-balls in the early universe, concentrating on potentials with a cubic or quartic attractive interaction. Large Q-balls can form via solitosynthesis, a process of gradual charge accretion, provided some primordial charge assymetry and initial ``seed'' Q-balls exist. We find that such seeds are possible in theories in which the attractive interaction is of the form $A H \psi^* \psi$, with a light ``Higgs'' mass. Condensate formation and fragmentation is only possible for masses $m_\psi$ in the sub-eV range; these Q-balls may survive untill present.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

From Einstein's Theorem to Bell's Theorem: A History of Quantum Nonlocality

In this Einstein Year of Physics it seems appropriate to look at an important aspect of Einstein's work that is often down-played: his contribution to the debate on the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Contrary to popular opinion, Bohr had no defence against Einstein's 1935 attack (the EPR paper) on the claimed completeness of orthodox quantum mechanics. I suggest that Einstein's argument, as stated most clearly in 1946, could justly be called Einstein's reality-locality-completeness theorem, since it proves that one of these three must be false. Einstein's instinct was that completeness of orthodox quantum mechanics was the falsehood, but he failed in his quest to find a more complete theory that respected reality and locality. Einstein's theorem, and possibly Einstein's failure, inspired John Bell in 1964 to prove his reality-locality theorem. This strengthened Einstein's theorem (but showed the futility of his quest) by demonstrating that either reality or locality is a falsehood. This revealed the full nonlocality of the quantum world for the first time.Comment: 18 pages. To be published in Contemporary Physics. (Minor changes; references and author info added

Manifestation of three-body forces in three-body Bethe-Salpeter and light-front equations

Bethe-Salpeter and light-front bound state equations for three scalar particles interacting by scalar exchange-bosons are solved in ladder truncation. In contrast to two-body systems, the three-body binding energies obtained in these two approaches differ significantly from each other: the ladder kernel in light-front dynamics underbinds by approximately a factor of two compared to the ladder Bethe-Salpeter equation. By taking into account three-body forces in the light-front approach, generated by two exchange-bosons in flight, we find that most of this difference disappears; for small exchange masses, the obtained binding energies coincide with each other.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures, submitted in Few-Body System