6,416 research outputs found
The Power of Posner: A Study of Prestige and Influence in the Federal Judiciary
Some judges have a disproportionate influence over the American judiciary; existing research has shown Judge Richard Posner is one of those judges. Our goal was to identify and determine how Judge Posner’s influence has changed over time. To measure and track his influence, we collected and compared citation and invocation data from three distinct time frames. While these measurements are imperfect, they can help illustrate the level of influence and prestige Judge Posner enjoys. The existing literature led us to expect Judge Posner’s early citation rates to be low. After several years on the bench, the citation rates for each opinion should rise dramatically. By contrast, Judge Posner’s citation rates are exceptionally high from the outset while more recent opinions actually have lower citation rates
Decomposition and Gluing for Adiabatic Quantum Optimization
Farhi and others have introduced the notion of solving NP problems using
adiabatic quantum com- puters. We discuss an application of this idea to the
problem of integer factorization, together with a technique we call gluing
which can be used to build adiabatic models of interesting problems. Although
adiabatic quantum computers already exist, they are likely to be too small to
directly tackle problems of interesting practical sizes for the foreseeable
future. Therefore, we discuss techniques for decomposition of large problems,
which permits us to fully exploit such hardware as may be available. Numerical
re- sults suggest that even simple decomposition techniques may yield
acceptable results with subexponential overhead, independent of the performance
of the underlying device.Comment: 15 pages, many figure
Variational treatment of electron-polyatomic molecule scattering calculations using adaptive overset grids
The Complex Kohn variational method for electron-polyatomic molecule
scattering is formulated using an overset grid representation of the scattering
wave function. The overset grid consists of a central grid and multiple dense,
atom-centered subgrids that allow the simultaneous spherical expansions of the
wave function about multiple centers. Scattering boundary conditions are
enforced by using a basis formed by the repeated application of the free
particle Green's function and potential, on the overset
grid in a "Born-Arnoldi" solution of the working equations. The theory is shown
to be equivalent to a specific Pad\'e approximant to the -matrix, and has
rapid convergence properties, both in the number of numerical basis functions
employed and the number of partial waves employed in the spherical expansions.
The method is demonstrated in calculations on methane and CF in the
static-exchange approximation, and compared in detail with calculations
performed with the numerical Schwinger variational approach based on single
center expansions. An efficient procedure for operating with the free-particle
Green's function and exchange operators (to which no approximation is made) is
also described
Annoyance caused by propeller airplane flyover noise
Laboratory experiments were conducted to provide information on quantifying the annoyance response of people to propeller airplane noise. The items of interest were current noise metrics, tone corrections, duration corrections, critical band corrections, and the effects of engine type, operation type, maximum takeoff weight, blade passage frequency, and blade tip speed. In each experiment, 64 subjects judged the annoyance of recordings of propeller and jet airplane operations presented at d-weighted sound pressure levels of 70, 80, and 90 dB in a testing room which simulates the outdoor acoustic environment. The first experiment examined 11 propeller airplanes with maximum takeoff weights greater than or equal to 5700 kg. The second experiment examined 14 propeller airplanes weighting 5700 kg or less. Five jet airplanes were included in each experiment. For both the heavy and light propeller airplanes, perceived noise level and perceived level (Stevens Mark VII procedure) predicted annoyance better than other current noise metrics
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