7,762 research outputs found
Zero-Temperature Configurations of Short Odd-Numbered Classical Spin Chains with Bilinear and Biquadratic Exchange Interactions
The lowest energy configurations of short odd open chains with classical
spins are determined for antiferromagnetic bilinear and biquadratic
nearest-neighbor exchange interactions. The zero field residual magnetization
generates differences with the magnetic behavior of even chains, as the odd
chain is like a small magnet for weak magnetic fields. The lowest energy
configuration is calculated as a function of the total magnetization M, even
for M less than the zero field residual magnetization. Analytic expressions and
their proofs are provided for the threshold magnetic field needed to drive the
system away from the antiferromagnetic configuration and the spin polar angles
in its vicinity, when the biquadratic interaction is relatively weak. They are
also given for the saturation magnetic field and the spin polar angles close to
it. Finally, an analytic expression along with its proof is given for the
maximum magnetization in zero magnetic field for stronger biquadratic
interaction, where the lowest energy configuration is highly degenerate.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figure
Thermalization away from Integrability and the Role of Operator Off-Diagonal Elements
We investigate the rate of thermalization of local operators in the
one-dimensional anisotropic antiferromagnetic Heisenberg model with
next-nearest neighbor interactions that break integrability. This is done by
calculating the scaling of the difference of the diagonal and canonical thermal
ensemble values as function of system size, and by directly calculating the
time evolution of the expectation values of the operators with the Chebyshev
polynomial expansion. Spatial and spin symmetry is exploited and the
Hamiltonian is divided in subsectors according to their symmetry. The rate of
thermalization depends on the proximity to the integrable limit. When
integrability is weakly broken thermalization is slow, and becomes faster the
stronger the next-nearest neighbor interaction is. Three different regimes for
the rate of thermalization with respect to the strength of the integrability
breaking parameter are identified. These are shown to be directly connected
with the relative strength of the low and higher energy difference off-diagonal
operator matrix elements in the symmetry eigenbasis of the Hamiltonian. Close
to the integrable limit the off-diagonal matrix elements peak at higher
energies and high frequency fluctuations are important and slow down
thermalization. Away from the integrable limit a strong low energy peak
gradually develops that takes over the higher frequency fluctuations and leads
to quicker thermalization.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figure
Leveraging Coding Techniques for Speeding up Distributed Computing
Large scale clusters leveraging distributed computing frameworks such as
MapReduce routinely process data that are on the orders of petabytes or more.
The sheer size of the data precludes the processing of the data on a single
computer. The philosophy in these methods is to partition the overall job into
smaller tasks that are executed on different servers; this is called the map
phase. This is followed by a data shuffling phase where appropriate data is
exchanged between the servers. The final so-called reduce phase, completes the
computation.
One potential approach, explored in prior work for reducing the overall
execution time is to operate on a natural tradeoff between computation and
communication. Specifically, the idea is to run redundant copies of map tasks
that are placed on judiciously chosen servers. The shuffle phase exploits the
location of the nodes and utilizes coded transmission. The main drawback of
this approach is that it requires the original job to be split into a number of
map tasks that grows exponentially in the system parameters. This is
problematic, as we demonstrate that splitting jobs too finely can in fact
adversely affect the overall execution time.
In this work we show that one can simultaneously obtain low communication
loads while ensuring that jobs do not need to be split too finely. Our approach
uncovers a deep relationship between this problem and a class of combinatorial
structures called resolvable designs. Appropriate interpretation of resolvable
designs can allow for the development of coded distributed computing schemes
where the splitting levels are exponentially lower than prior work. We present
experimental results obtained on Amazon EC2 clusters for a widely known
distributed algorithm, namely TeraSort. We obtain over 4.69 improvement
in speedup over the baseline approach and more than 2.6 over current
state of the art
Assessing the Rise of Organic Farming in the European Union: Environmental and Socio-economic Consequences
Although organic farming is considered the poster child of rural development in Europe, there is little empirical evidence assessing its success in achieving the ambitious environmental and socio-economic objectives that it is purported to assist. This paper presents empirical evidence from the growth of organic farming in Europe over the past two decades that questions the highly optimistic claims of policy makers. Although policies in support of organic impact have had an overall positive environmental impact, their social impact is ambiguous, as organic farming appears to have grown more in areas with larger average farm sizes. Additionally, contrary to what is often assumed, organic farms in Europe display larger average sizes and lower rates of labor intensity than their conventional counterparts, casting doubts on the efficacy of organic farms to allow family farmers to remain in the countryside as high-value producers. I assert that this development should be viewed as evidence of the "conventionalization" of organic farming, and suggest that policy makers take into account the transformations of the structures of production, which benefit from the support for organic farming. Treating the experience of organic farmers in the EU as a lesson for schemes paying for environmental services, I suggest that the success of organic farming should be evaluated by the numbers of participating farmers, rather than by area covered, as has been the predominant approach so far. Finally, I assert that strong agricultural cooperatives are necessary to secure a long-lasting passage of small farmers to organic methods of production. JEL Categories: Q1, Q58, O52Organic Farming, European Union, Environment
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