Measuring success of open source projects using web search engines

What makes an open source project successful? In this paper we show that the traditional factors of success of open source projects, such as number of downloads, deployments or commits are sometimes inconvenient or even insufficient. We then correlate success of an open source project with its popularity on the Web. We show several ideas of how such popularity could be measured using Web search engines and provide experimental results from quantitative analysis of the proposed measures on representative large samples of open source projects from SourceForge

Outer actions of Out(Fn)\mathrm{Out}(F_n) on small right-angled Artin groups

We determine the precise conditions under which $\mathrm{SOut}(F_n)$, the unique index two subgroup of $\mathrm{Out}(F_n)$, can act non-trivially via outer automorphisms on a RAAG whose defining graph has fewer than $\frac 1 2 \binom n 2$ vertices. We also show that the outer automorphism group of a RAAG cannot act faithfully via outer automorphisms on a RAAG with a strictly smaller (in number of vertices) defining graph. Along the way we determine the minimal dimensions of non-trivial linear representations of congruence quotients of the integral special linear groups over algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero, and provide a new lower bound on the cardinality of a set on which $\mathrm{SOut}(F_n)$ can act non-trivially.Comment: 16 pages v.2 Minor changes. Final versio

THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE EVOLUTION OF EMPIRICISM

[The text examines methodological consequences of anti-metaphysical turn of British empiricism in the field of anthropology. I argue that this shift reinforces anthropology in its descriptive and interdisciplinary form, because destruction of metaphysically grounded subjectivity carried out in the course of evolution of empiricism provides epistemological legitimization of the idea of anthropological research as morally neutral and religiously indifferent procedure. In the final part of the article the difficulties caused by application of this new methodology are emphasized.

Low dimensional free and linear representations of Out(F3)\mathrm{Out}(F_3)

We study homomorphisms from $\mathrm{Out}(F_3)$ to $\mathrm{Out}(F_5)$, and $\mathrm{GL}(m,K)$ for $m < 7$, where $K$ is a field of characteristic other than 2 or 3. We conclude that all $K$-linear representations of dimension at most 6 of $\mathrm{Out}(F_3)$ factor through $\mathrm{GL}(3,Z)$, and that all homomorphisms from $\mathrm{Out}(F_3)$ to $\mathrm{Out}(F_5)$ have finite image.Comment: Final versio

A superconductor with 4-fermion attraction perturbed by magnetic impurities

A superconductor with 4-fermion attraction, considered by Ma\'{c}kowiak and Tarasewicz is modified by adding to the Hamiltonian a long-range magnetic interaction $V$ between conduction fermions and localized distinguishable spin 1/2 magnetic impurities. $V$ has the form of a reduced s-d interaction. An upper and lower bound to the system's free energy density $f(H,\beta)$ is derived and the two bounds are shown to coalesce in the thermodynamic limit. The resulting mean-field equations for the gap $\Delta$ and a parameter $y$, characterizing the impurity subsystem are solved and the solution minimizing $f$ is found for various values of magnetic coupling constant $g$ and impurity concentration. The phase diagrams of the system are depicted with five distinct phases: the normal phase, unperturbed superconducting phase, perturbed superconducting phase with nonzero gap in the excitation spectrum, perturbed gapless superconducting phase and impurity phase with completely suppressed superconductivity.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figure

Quantitative analysis of open source projects on SourceForge

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Old Wine in New Bottles? The Actual and Potential Contribution of Civil Society Organisations to Democratic Governance in Europe

Political science literature often claims that the participation of civil society organisations increases the democratic quality of policy-making in international governance arrangements. However, it remains unclear under what conditions such a democratic value can be achieved and how the empirical reality of this participation relates to the alleged democracy-enhancing quality. In recent years, the European initiatives to establish a civil dialogue, to improve the consultation with civil society organizations and above all the White Paper on European Governance have triggered some scientific expectations that the EU seeks to establish a participatory regime which possibly improves the democratic character of EU policy-making