Formation and kinetics of transient metastable states in mixtures under coupled phase ordering and chemical demixing

We present theory and simulation of simultaneous chemical demixing and phase ordering in a polymer-liquid crystal mixture in conditions where isotropic- isotropic phase separation is metastable with respect to isotropic-nematic phase transition. It is found that mesophase formation proceeds by a transient metastable phase that surround the ordered phase, and whose lifetime is a function of the ratio of diffusional to orientational mobilities. It is shown that kinetic phase ordering in polymer-mesogen mixtures is analogous to kinetic crystallization in polymer solutions.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures accepted for publication in EP

Thermodynamic Modelling of Phase Equilibrium in Nanoparticles-Nematic Liquid Crystals Composites

In this work, a theoretical study of phase equilibrium in mixtures of a calamitic nematic liquid crystal and hard spherical nanoparticles is presented. A mean-field thermodynamic model is used, where the interactions are considered to be proportional to the number of contacts, which in turn are proportional to the areas and area fractions of each component. It is shown that, as the radius of the particle is increased, the effect of the particles on the isotropic-nematic transition is less pronounced, and that for large radius the miscibility increases as the particle radius increases.Comment: This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in "Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals" (see reference), available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15421406.2011.60944

Integral group actions on symmetric spaces and discrete duality symmetries of supergravity theories

For $G(\mathbb{R})$ a split, simply connected, semisimple Lie group of rank $n$ and $K$ the maximal compact subgroup of $G$, we give a method for computing Iwasawa coordinates of $G/K$ using the Chevalley generators and the Steinberg presentation. When $G/K$ is a scalar coset for a supergravity theory in dimensions $\geq 3$, we determine the action of the integral form $G(\mathbb{Z})$ on $G/K$. We give explicit results for the action of the discrete $U$--duality groups $SL_2(\mathbb{Z})$ and $E_7(\mathbb{Z})$ on the scalar cosets $SL_2(\mathbb{R})/SO_2(\mathbb{R})$ and $E_{7(+7)}(\mathbb{R})/[SU(8,\mathbb{R})/\{\pm Id\}]$ for type IIB supergravity in ten dimensions and 11--dimensional supergravity in $D=4$ dimensions, respectively. For the former, we use this to determine the discrete U--duality transformations on the scalar sector in the Borel gauge and we describe the discrete symmetries of the dyonic charge lattice. We determine the spectrum--generating symmetry group for fundamental BPS solitons of type IIB supergravity in $D=10$ dimensions at the classical level and we propose an analog of this symmetry at the quantum level. We indicate how our methods can be used to study the orbits of discrete U--duality groups in general

RailwayDB: adaptive storage of interaction graphs

We are living in an ever more connected world, where data recording the interactions between people, software systems, and the physical world is becoming increasingly prevalent. These data often take the form of a temporally evolving graph, where entities are the vertices and the interactions between them are the edges. We call such graphs interaction graphs. Various domains, including telecommunications, transportation, and social media, depend on analytics performed on interaction graphs. The ability to efficiently support historical analysis over interaction graphs requires effective solutions for the problem of data layout on disk. This paper presents an adaptive disk layout called the railway layout for optimizing disk block storage for interaction graphs. The key idea is to divide blocks into one or more sub-blocks. Each sub-block contains the entire graph structure, but only a subset of the attributes. This improves query I/O, at the cost of increased storage overhead. We introduce optimal integer linear program (ILP) formulations for partitioning disk blocks into sub-blocks with overlapping and nonoverlapping attributes. Additionally, we present greedy heuristics that can scale better compared to the ILP alternatives, yet achieve close to optimal query I/O. We provide an implementation of the railway layout as part of RailwayDB—an open-source graph database we have developed. To demonstrate the benefits of the railway layout, we provide an extensive experimental evaluation, including model-based as well as empirical results comparing our approach to baseline alternatives. © 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Object-Place Recognition Learning Triggers Rapid Induction of Plasticity-Related Immediate Early Genes and Synaptic Proteins in the Rat Dentate Gyrus

Long-term recognition memory requires protein synthesis, but little is known about the coordinate regulation of specific genes. Here, we examined expression of the plasticity-associated immediate early genes (Arc, Zif268, and Narp) in the dentate gyrus following long-term object-place recognition learning in rats. RT-PCR analysis from dentate gyrus tissue collected shortly after training did not reveal learning-specific changes in Arc mRNA expression. In situ hybridization and immunohistochemistry were therefore used to assess possible sparse effects on gene expression. Learning about objects increased the density of granule cells expressing Arc, and to a lesser extent Narp, specifically in the dorsal blade of the dentate gyrus, while Zif268 expression was elevated across both blades. Thus, object-place recognition triggers rapid, blade-specific upregulation of plasticity-associated immediate early genes. Furthermore, Western blot analysis of dentate gyrus homogenates demonstrated concomitant upregulation of three postsynaptic density proteins (Arc, PSD-95, and α-CaMKII) with key roles in long-term synaptic plasticity and long-term memory

River: an intermediate language for stream processing

Summary This paper presents both a calculus for stream processing, named Brooklet, and its realization as an intermediate language, named River. Because River is based on Brooklet, it has a formal semantics that enables reasoning about the correctness of source translations and optimizations. River builds on Brooklet by addressing the real-world details that the calculus elides. We evaluated our system by implementing front-ends for three streaming languages, and three important optimizations, and a back-end for the System S distributed streaming runtime. Overall, we significantly lower the barrier to entry for new stream-processing languages and thus grow the ecosystem of this crucial style of programming. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

From a calculus to an execution environment for stream processing

At one level, this paper is about River, a virtual execution environment for stream processing. Stream processing is a paradigm well-suited for many modern data processing systems that ingest high-volume data streams from the real world, such as audio/video streaming, high-frequency trading, and security monitoring. One attractive property of stream processing is that it lends itself to parallelization on multicores, and even to distribution on clusters when extreme scale is required. Stream processing has been co-evolved by several communities, leading to diverse languages with similar core concepts. Providing a common execution environment reduces language development effort and increases portability. We designed River as a practical realization of Brooklet, a calculus for stream processing. So at another level, this paper is about a journey from theory (the calculus) to practice (the execution environment). The challenge is that, by definition, a calculus abstracts away all but the most central concepts. Hence, there are several research questions in concretizing the missing parts, not to mention a significant engineering effort in implementing them. But the effort is well worth it, because using a calculus as a foundation yields clear semantics and proven correctness results. Copyright © 2012 ACM

Remarks on hard Lefschetz conjectures on Chow groups

We propose two conjectures of Hard Lefschetz type on Chow groups and prove them for some special cases. For abelian varieties, we shall show they are equivalent to well-known conjectures of Beauville and Murre.Comment: to appear in Sciences in China, Ser. A Mathematic

A catalog of stream processing optimizations

Various research communities have independently arrived at stream processing as a programming model for efficient and parallel computing. These communities include digital signal processing, databases, operating systems, and complex event processing. Since each community faces applications with challenging performance requirements, each of them has developed some of the same optimizations, but often with conflicting terminology and unstated assumptions. This article presents a survey of optimizations for stream processing. It is aimed both at users who need to understand and guide the system's optimizer and at implementers who need to make engineering tradeoffs. To consolidate terminology, this article is organized as a catalog, in a style similar to catalogs of design patterns or refactorings. To make assumptions explicit and help understand tradeoffs, each optimization is presented with its safety constraints (when does it preserve correctness?) and a profitability experiment (when does it improve performance?). We hope that this survey will help future streaming system builders to stand on the shoulders of giants from not just their own community. © 2014 ACM

Numerical model validation for mooring systems: Method and application for wave energy converters

Copyright © 2015 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Renewable Energy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Renewable Energy Vol. 75 (2015), DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2014.10.063The design of wave energy mooring systems is challenging: overdesign incurs a significant cost penalty, underdesign may lead to a premature failure and incorrect design could reduce the power production. Consequently, compliant mooring systems are being developed for wave energy applications. This paper presents tank test results for a scale model of the buoy and mooring used at the South West Mooring Test Facility (SWMTF), an offshore facility developed to conduct long-term sea trials for wave energy device moorings. A compliant three leg catenary mooring system using Nylon ropes in the water column is investigated. Preliminary static, quasi-static, decay, regular and irregular wave tests were conducted on the 1:5 scale model, using the Ifremer basin in Brest. A corresponding numerical model was developed with a time-domain mooring modelling tool, inputting hydrodynamic data from a radiation/diffraction potential modelling program. After the calibration of several hydrodynamic parameters, the numerical model demonstrated good agreement with the experiment. However, numerical results show large differences with the field test results, mainly because of unknowns in the anchor position. The methods and procedures presented will allow the effective validation of numerical models to enable the development of appropriate mooring systems in wave energy applications.MERiFICMARINETPRIMaR