Dualities in Humor: Incongruity Meets Ridicule

This paper argues in favour of a fruitful assembling of traditional dualities observed in humour (disparagement vs. incongruity, positive vs. critical aspects). After reviewing misogelastic (i.e. denigrating) and carnivalesque (i.e. enthusiastic) positions, we attempt to classify and understand both the historical alternatives and their contemporary counterparts, particularly dealing with the social vs. the cognitive divide. Here it is championed that social and cognitive dimensions must be approached in an entangled way, as part of a social semiotics. In our view, reversal theory approaches have captured the essential complication in humour, the playful mode present in interaction, plus the asymmetry implied in interpretation. Then, both the social sides of sanction and solidarity in humorous practices and the incongruous and derisive aspects of cognitive humorous triggers, show interesting correspondences and what we here have called grid effects, i.e. the combination of ridicule and incongruity both with humorous and less humorous counterparts. Moreover, the basic duality of the social (with its disciplinary or rebellious aspects) and the cognitive (having an abrupt imbalance at its core) presumably responds to the origin of social rules, through embarrassment and shame, on the one hand, as well as to the original conditions of the human mind, working on extended connectivity and figuration, on the other hand, as two complementary sides of social semiotics

A note on the evolution of the Whitney sphere along mean curvature flow

We study the evolution of the Whitney sphere along the Lagrangian mean curvature flow. We show that equivariant Lagrangian spheres in $\mathbb{C}^n$ satisfying mild geometric assumptions collapse to a point in finite time and the tangent flows converge to a Lagrangian plane with multiplicity two.Comment: 13 pages, typos corrected, 2 figure

The Galactic Center region viewed by H.E.S.S

The Galactic center region is the most active region in the Milky Way harboring a wealth of photon sources at all wavelengths. H.E.S.S. observations of the Galactic Center (GC) region revealed for the first time in very high energy (VHE, E> 100 GeV) gamma-rays a detailed view of the innermost 100 pc of the Milky Way and provided a valuable probe for the acceleration processes and propagation of energetic particles near the GC. H.E.S.S. has taken more than 180 hours of good-quality observations toward the GC region since the experience started in 2003. A strong and steady gamma-ray source has been detected coincident in position with the supermassive black hole Sgr A*. Besides the central pointlike source, a diffuse emission extended along the Galactic Plane has been detected within about 1$^{\circ}$ around the GC. An accurate analysis of the Galactic center region suggests that the diffuse emission may dominate highest energy end of the overall GC source spectrum. I will review the current VHE view by H.E.S.S. of the GC region and briefly discuss the theoretical models which explain VHE gamma-ray emissions of the central source and the diffuse emission.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, proceeding of the SF2A 2011 meetin

The Importance of the Algorithmic Information Theory to Construct a Possible Example Where NP#P

In this short communication, it is shown a simple problem using quantum circuits for which the algorithmic information theory guarantee that the minimal length of the algorithm able to solve it grows exponentially with the number of qubits.Comment: 3 pages, 1 figur

Two-Layer Quantum Key Distribution

Recently a new quantum key distribution protocol using coherent and thermal states was proposed. In this work this kind of two-layer QKD protocol is formalized and its security against the most common attacks, including external control and Trojan horse attacks, is discussed.Comment: Fourteen pages and two figure

The Relation between Disentangled States and Algorithmic Information Theory

In this short communication it is proposed the general form of a n-qubit disentangled state as a irreducible sentence, in the sense explained by the algorithmic information theory, whose length increases in a non-polynomial way when the number of qubits increases.Comment: 3 page

The Importance of the Algorithmic Information Theory to Construct a Possible Example Where NP # P - II: An Irreducible Sentence

In this short communication it is discussed the relation between disentangled states and algorithmic information theory aiming to construct an irreducible sentence whose length increases in a non-polynomial way when the number of qubits increases.Comment: 2 page

Hyperbolic Dynamical Systems

The theory of uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems was initiated in the 1960's (though its roots stretch far back into the 19th century) by S. Smale, his students and collaborators, in the west, and D. Anosov, Ya. Sinai, V. Arnold, in the former Soviet Union. It came to encompass a detailed description of a large class of systems, often with very complex evolution. Moreover, it provided a very precise characterization of structurally stable dynamics, which was one of its original main goals. The early developments were motivated by the problem of characterizing structural stability of dynamical systems, a notion that had been introduced in the 1930's by A. Andronov and L. Pontryagin. Inspired by the pioneering work of M. Peixoto on circle maps and surface flows, Smale introduced a class of gradient-like systems, having a finite number of periodic orbits, which should be structurally stable and, moreover, should constitute the majority (an open and dense subset) of all dynamical systems. Stability and openness were eventually established, in the thesis of J. Palis. However, contemporary results of M. Levinson, based on previous work by M. Cartwright and J. Littlewood, provided examples of open subsets of dynamical systems all of which have an infinite number of periodic orbits.Comment: 22 pages, 5 figures, enciclopedia articl

Measure-theoretical properties of center foliations

Center foliations of partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms may exhibit pathological behavior from a measure-theoretical viewpoint: quite often, the disintegration of the ambient volume measure along the center leaves consists of atomic measures. We add to this theory by constructing stable examples for which the disintegration is singular without being atomic. In the context of diffeomorphisms with mostly contracting center direction, for which upper leafwise absolute continuity is known to hold, we provide examples where the center foliation is not lower leafwise absolutely continuous

Existence and uniqueness of maximizing measures for robust classes of local diffeomorphisms

We prove existence of maximal entropy measures for an open set of non-uniformly expanding local diffeomorphisms on a compact Riemannian manifold. In this context the topological entropy coincides with the logarithm of the degree, and these maximizing measures are eigenmeasures of the transfer operator. When the map is topologically mixing, the maximizing measure is unique and positive on every open set.Comment: 15 page