Loss of Larval Fish by Epilimnial Discharge From DeGray Lake, Arkansas

Weekly samples of larval fish were collected from water discharged from the epilimnion of DeGray Lake into the tailwaters, for power generation, from April through August, 1976 and 1977. Peak rates of loss measured were 1.4 larvae/m³ in May, 1976 and 2.7/m³ in April, 1977. Sunfish, shad and crappie made up 97% of an estimated 83.3 million fish lost in 1976, and 98% of 122.4 million lost in 1977. The most critical period for larval fish loss extended from the last week of April to the first week of June. No definite relationships were noted between length of the power generation period or power generation rate, and rate of larval fish discharge. Diel collections showed the rate of larval fish discharge to be lower and more uniform during darkness than during daylight

Fishes of the Caddo River, Arkansas, After Impoundment of DeGray Lake

Fifty-five collections of fishes were made with small-mesh seines and electrofishing gear in the Caddo River and four of its tributaries during 1974-75. Eighty-two species representing 17 families were collected; 14 of the species had not previously been reported from the Caddo River

Physical Representation-based Predicate Optimization for a Visual Analytics Database

Querying the content of images, video, and other non-textual data sources requires expensive content extraction methods. Modern extraction techniques are based on deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and can classify objects within images with astounding accuracy. Unfortunately, these methods are slow: processing a single image can take about 10 milliseconds on modern GPU-based hardware. As massive video libraries become ubiquitous, running a content-based query over millions of video frames is prohibitive. One promising approach to reduce the runtime cost of queries of visual content is to use a hierarchical model, such as a cascade, where simple cases are handled by an inexpensive classifier. Prior work has sought to design cascades that optimize the computational cost of inference by, for example, using smaller CNNs. However, we observe that there are critical factors besides the inference time that dramatically impact the overall query time. Notably, by treating the physical representation of the input image as part of our query optimization---that is, by including image transforms, such as resolution scaling or color-depth reduction, within the cascade---we can optimize data handling costs and enable drastically more efficient classifier cascades. In this paper, we propose Tahoma, which generates and evaluates many potential classifier cascades that jointly optimize the CNN architecture and input data representation. Our experiments on a subset of ImageNet show that Tahoma's input transformations speed up cascades by up to 35 times. We also find up to a 98x speedup over the ResNet50 classifier with no loss in accuracy, and a 280x speedup if some accuracy is sacrificed.Comment: Camera-ready version of the paper submitted to ICDE 2019, In Proceedings of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE 2019

On a Uniformly Accelerated Point Charge moving along a Cusp

A uniformly accelerated point charge which moves neither in a straight line nor in a circle, but in a cusp, is investigated. We find the angular distribution of the Larmor radiation, the constant power, and the intensity in the maximal direction. It is found that the intensity of uniformly accelerated cusp motion scales like non-uniformly accelerated synchrotron radiation. We confirm the exact vacuum excitation spectra of quantized field detectors on the world line.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Cooperative wrapping of nanoparticles by membrane tubes

The bioactivity of nanoparticles crucially depends on their ability to cross biomembranes. Recent simulations indicate the cooperative wrapping and internalization of spherical nanoparticles in tubular membrane structures. In this article, we systematically investigate the energy gain of this cooperative wrapping by minimizing the energies of the rotationally symmetric shapes of the membrane tubes and of membrane segments wrapping single particles. We find that the energy gain for the cooperative wrapping of nanoparticles in membrane tubes relative to their individual wrapping as single particles strongly depends on the ratio of the particle radius and the range of the particle-membrane adhesion potential. For a potential range of the order of one nanometer, the cooperative wrapping in tubes is highly favorable for particles with a radius of tens of nanometers and intermediate adhesion energies, but not for particles that are significantly larger.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures; to appear in Soft Matte

No ifs, ands or butts: Illinois casinos lost revenue after smoking banned

Gambling industry ; Tobacco industry ; Illinois

Casino revenue and the Illinois smoking ban

Smoking was banned in all Illinois casinos in January 2008. We explore the effects that the smoking ban has had on Illinois casino revenue and attendance. Our empirical methodology extends and enhances that of previous literature in that we observe a natural experiment in comparing the performance of Illinois casinos with out-of-state casinos (no smoking ban) that share a market with Illinois casinos. Estimates suggest that revenue and admissions at Illinois casinos declined by more than 20 percent ($400 million) and 12 percent, respectively. Calculations reveal that casino tax revenue to state and local governments declined by approximately$200 million.Gambling industry ; Tobacco industry ; Illinois