2,358 research outputs found
It\u27s a Pirate\u27s Life for Some: The Development of an Illegal Industry in Response to an Unjust Global Power Dynamic
This Note discusses the domestic and international economic effects of the recent surge of piracy off the coast of Somalia, and uses Somali piracy as a method of exploring conflicting ideological conditions that arise from globalization. In exploring the underlying motivations for this trend, it identifies a dichotomy between primary needs satisfaction within underdeveloped nations and the satisfaction of secondary interests in developed nations, and explains how globalization may be exacerbating the turn toward piracy. This Note first discusses the recent rise in piracy and then explores how the contemporary history of Somalia has engendered the upsurge. Next, it considers how piracy has influenced the economy of coastal Somalia, followed by a look at the ideological intersection between primary domestic interests and secondary global interests. Finally, this Note explores some of the international implications of the rise of piracy in Africa, and whether further expansion is a possibility
The role of parental achievement goals in predicting autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting
Although autonomy-supportive and controlling parenting are linked to numerous positive and negative child outcomes respectively, fewer studies have focused on their determinants. Drawing on achievement goal theory and self-determination theory, we propose that parental achievement goals (i.e., achievement goals that parents have for their children) can be mastery, performance-approach or performance-avoidance oriented and that types of goals predict mothers' tendency to adopt autonomy-supportive and controlling behaviors. A total of 67 mothers (aged 30-53 years) reported their goals for their adolescent (aged 13-16 years; 19.4 % girls), while their adolescent evaluated their mothers' behaviors. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that parental performance-approach goals predict more controlling parenting and prevent acknowledgement of feelings, one autonomy-supportive behavior. In addition, mothers who have mastery goals and who endorse performance-avoidance goals are less likely to use guilt-inducing criticisms. These findings were observed while controlling for the effect of maternal anxiety
Classification of Generalized Symmetries for the Vacuum Einstein Equations
A generalized symmetry of a system of differential equations is an
infinitesimal transformation depending locally upon the fields and their
derivatives which carries solutions to solutions. We classify all generalized
symmetries of the vacuum Einstein equations in four spacetime dimensions. To
begin, we analyze symmetries that can be built from the metric, curvature, and
covariant derivatives of the curvature to any order; these are called natural
symmetries and are globally defined on any spacetime manifold. We next classify
first-order generalized symmetries, that is, symmetries that depend on the
metric and its first derivatives. Finally, using results from the
classification of natural symmetries, we reduce the classification of all
higher-order generalized symmetries to the first-order case. In each case we
find that the generalized symmetries are infinitesimal generalized
diffeomorphisms and constant metric scalings. There are no non-trivial
conservation laws associated with these symmetries. A novel feature of our
analysis is the use of a fundamental set of spinorial coordinates on the
infinite jet space of Ricci-flat metrics, which are derived from Penrose's
``exact set of fields'' for the vacuum equations.Comment: 57 pages, plain Te
Anderson localization of polaron states
Using the vanishing of the typical polaron tunneling rate as an indicator of
the breakdown of itinerancy, we study the localization of polaron states in a
generic model for a disordered polaronic material. We find that extremely small
disorder causes an Anderson localization of small polaron states. However, the
ratio between the critical disorder strength needed to localize all states in
the polaron band and the renormalized bandwidth is not necessarily smaller than
for a bare electron.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Common Representation of Information Flows for Dynamic Coalitions
We propose a formal foundation for reasoning about access control policies
within a Dynamic Coalition, defining an abstraction over existing access
control models and providing mechanisms for translation of those models into
information-flow domain. The abstracted information-flow domain model, called a
Common Representation, can then be used for defining a way to control the
evolution of Dynamic Coalitions with respect to information flow
Genetic analysis of cortical thickness and fractional anisotropy of water diffusion in the brain
Objectives: The thickness of the brain’s cortical gray matter (GM) and the fractional anisotropy (FA) of the cerebral white matter (WM) each follow an inverted U-shape trajectory with age. The two measures are positively correlated and may be modulated by common biological mechanisms. We employed four types of genetic analyses to localize individual genes acting pleiotropically upon these phenotypes.
Methods: Whole-brain and regional GM thickness and FA values were measured from high-resolution anatomical and diffusion tensor MR images collected from 712, Mexican American participants (438 females, age = 47.9 ± 13.2 years) recruited from 73 (9.7 ± 9.3 individuals/family) large families. The significance of the correlation between two traits was estimated using a bivariate genetic correlation analysis. Localization of chromosomal regions that jointly influenced both traits was performed using whole-genome quantitative trait loci (QTL) analysis. Gene localization was performed using SNP genotyping on Illumina 1M chip and correlation with leukocyte-based gene-expression analyses. The gene-expressions were measured using the Illumina BeadChip. These data were available for 371 subjects.
Results: Significant genetic correlation was observed among GM thickness and FA values. Significant logarithm of odds (LOD ≥ 3.0) QTLs were localized within chromosome 15q22–23. More detailed localization reported no significant association (p \u3c 5·10−5) for 1565 SNPs located within the QTLs. Post hoc analysis indicated that 40% of the potentially significant (p ≤ 10−3) SNPs were localized to the related orphan receptor alpha (RORA) and NARG2 genes. A potentially significant association was observed for the rs2456930 polymorphism reported as a significant GWAS finding in Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging initiative subjects. The expression levels for RORA and ADAM10 genes were significantly (p \u3c 0.05) correlated with both FA and GM thickness. NARG2 expressions were significantly correlated with GM thickness (p \u3c 0.05) but failed to show a significant correlation (p = 0.09) with FA.
Discussion: This study identified a novel, significant QTL at 15q22–23. SNP correlation with gene-expression analyses indicated that RORA, NARG2, and ADAM10 jointly influence GM thickness and WM–FA values
Functional limit theorems for random regular graphs
Consider d uniformly random permutation matrices on n labels. Consider the
sum of these matrices along with their transposes. The total can be interpreted
as the adjacency matrix of a random regular graph of degree 2d on n vertices.
We consider limit theorems for various combinatorial and analytical properties
of this graph (or the matrix) as n grows to infinity, either when d is kept
fixed or grows slowly with n. In a suitable weak convergence framework, we
prove that the (finite but growing in length) sequences of the number of short
cycles and of cyclically non-backtracking walks converge to distributional
limits. We estimate the total variation distance from the limit using Stein's
method. As an application of these results we derive limits of linear
functionals of the eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix. A key step in this
latter derivation is an extension of the Kahn-Szemer\'edi argument for
estimating the second largest eigenvalue for all values of d and n.Comment: Added Remark 27. 39 pages. To appear in Probability Theory and
Related Field
Coherent Potential Approximation for `d - wave' Superconductivity in Disordered Systems
A Coherent Potential Approximation is developed for s-wave and d-wave
superconductivity in disordered systems. We show that the CPA formalism
reproduces the standard pair-breaking formula, the self-consistent Born
Approximation and the self-consistent T-matrix approximation in the appropriate
limits. We implement the theory and compute T_c for s-wave and d-wave pairing
using an attractive nearest neighbor Hubbard model featuring both binary alloy
disorder and a uniform distribution of scattering site potentials. We determine
the density of states and examine its consequences for low temperature heat
capacity. We find that our results are in qualitative agreement with
measurements on Zn doped YBCO superconductors.Comment: 35 pages, 23 figures, submitted to Phys Rev.
Cooling-rate effects in a model of (ideal?) glass
Using Monte Carlo simulations we study cooling-rate effects in a
three-dimensional Ising model with four-spin interaction. During coarsening,
this model develops growing energy barriers which at low temperature lead to
very slow dynamics. We show that the characteristic zero-temperature length
increases very slowly with the inverse cooling rate, similarly to the behaviour
of ordinary glasses. For computationally accessible cooling rates the model
undergoes an ideal glassy transition, i.e., the glassy transition for very
small cooling rate coincides a thermodynamic singularity. We also study cooling
of this model with a certain fraction of spins fixed. Due to such heterogeneous
crystalization seeds the final state strongly depends on the cooling rate.Only
for sufficiently fast cooling rate does the system end up in a glassy state
while slow cooling inevitably leads to a crystal phase.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure
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