Modular Properties of 3D Higher Spin Theory

In the three-dimensional sl(N) Chern-Simons higher-spin theory, we prove that the conical surplus and the black hole solution are related by the S-transformation of the modulus of the boundary torus. Then applying the modular group on a given conical surplus solution, we generate a 'SL(2,Z)' family of smooth constant solutions. We then show how these solutions are mapped into one another by coordinate transformations that act non-trivially on the homology of the boundary torus. After deriving a thermodynamics that applies to all the solutions in the 'SL(2,Z)' family, we compute their entropies and free energies, and determine how the latter transform under the modular transformations. Summing over all the modular images of the conical surplus, we write down a (tree-level) modular invariant partition function.Comment: 51 pages; v2: minor corrections and additions; v3: final version, to appear in JHE

An empirical study of the impact of internet financial reporting on stock prices

This study examines the economic consequences of internet financial reporting (IFR) in Taiwan. The results show that the stock prices of IFR firms change more quickly than those of the non-FR firms using Akaike’s (1969) Final Prediction Error (FPE) methodology. Second, the results from the event study methodology show that the cumulative abnormal returns of the firms with IFR are significantly higher than those of the firms without IFR. Lastly, the results indicate that firms with a higher degree of information transparency yield a higher abnormal return on theirstock prices

Electrical conduction processes in ZnO in a wide temperature range 20--500 K

We have investigated the electrical conduction processes in as-grown and thermally cycled ZnO single crystal as well as as-grown ZnO polycrystalline films over the wide temperature range 20--500 K. In the case of ZnO single crystal between 110 and 500 K, two types of thermal activation conduction processes are observed. This is explained in terms of the existence of both shallow donors and intermediately deep donors which are consecutively excited to the conduction band as the temperature increases. By measuring the resistivity $\rho(T)$ of a given single crystal after repeated thermal cycling in vacuum, we demonstrate that oxygen vacancies play an important role in governing the shallow donor concentrations but leave the activation energy ($\simeq27\pm$2 meV) largely intact. In the case of polycrystalline films, two types of thermal activation conduction processes are also observed between $\sim$150 and 500 K. Below $\sim$150 K, we found an additional conduction process due to the nearest-neighbor-hopping conduction mechanism which takes place in the shallow impurity band. As the temperatures further decreases below $\sim$80 K, a crossover to the Mott variable-range-hopping conduction process is observed. Taken together with our previous measurements on $\rho (T)$ of ZnO polycrystalline films in the temperature range 2--100 K [Y. L. Huang {\it et al.}, J. Appl. Phys. \textbf{107}, 063715 (2010)], this work establishes a quite complete picture of the overall electrical conduction mechanisms in the ZnO material from liquid-helium temperatures up to 500 K.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Electron dephasing in homogeneous and inhomogeneous indium tin oxide thin films

The electron dephasing processes in two-dimensional homogeneous and inhomogeneous indium tin oxide thin films have been investigated in a wide temperature range 0.3--90 K. We found that the small-energy-transfer electron-electron ($e$-$e$) scattering process dominated the dephasing from a few K to several tens K. At higher temperatures, a crossover to the large-energy-transfer $e$-$e$ scattering process was observed. Below about 1--2 K, the dephasing time $\tau_\varphi$ revealed a very weak temperature dependence, which intriguingly scaled approximately with the inverse of the electron diffusion constant $D$, i.e., $\tau_\varphi (T \approx 0.3 \, {\rm K}) \propto 1/D$. Theoretical implications of our results are discussed. The reason why the electron-phonon relaxation rate is negligibly weak in this low-carrier-concentration material is presented.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Tailoring excitonic states of van der Waals bilayers through stacking configuration, band alignment and valley-spin

Excitons in monolayer semiconductors have large optical transition dipole for strong coupling with light field. Interlayer excitons in heterobilayers, with layer separation of electron and hole components, feature large electric dipole that enables strong coupling with electric field and exciton-exciton interaction, at the cost that the optical dipole is substantially quenched (by several orders of magnitude). In this letter, we demonstrate the ability to create a new class of excitons in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMD) hetero- and homo-bilayers that combines the advantages of monolayer- and interlayer-excitons, i.e. featuring both large optical dipole and large electric dipole. These excitons consist of an electron that is well confined in an individual layer, and a hole that is well extended in both layers, realized here through the carrier-species specific layer-hybridization controlled through the interplay of rotational, translational, band offset, and valley-spin degrees of freedom. We observe different species of such layer-hybridized valley excitons in different heterobilayer and homobilayer systems, which can be utilized for realizing strongly interacting excitonic/polaritonic gases, as well as optical quantum coherent controls of bidirectional interlayer carrier transfer either with upper conversion or down conversion in energy

An Improved Tax Scheme for Selfish Routing

We study the problem of routing traffic for independent selfish users in a congested network to minimize the total latency. The inefficiency of selfish routing motivates regulating the flow of the system to lower the total latency of the Nash Equilibrium by economic incentives or penalties. When applying tax to the routes, we follow the definition of [Christodoulou et al, Algorithmica, 2014] to define ePoA as the Nash total cost including tax in the taxed network over the optimal cost in the original network. We propose a simple tax scheme consisting of step functions imposed on the links. The tax scheme can be applied to routing games with parallel links, affine cost functions and single-commodity networks to lower the ePoA to at most 4/3 - epsilon, where epsilon only depends on the discrepancy between the links. We show that there exists a tax scheme in the two link case with an ePoA upperbound less than 1.192 which is almost tight. Moreover, we design another tax scheme that lowers ePoA down to 1.281 for routing games with groups of links such that links in the same group are similar to each other and groups are sufficiently different

Effectiveness of influenza vaccination in patients with end-stage renal disease receiving hemodialysis: a population-based study.

BackgroundLittle is known on the effectiveness of influenza vaccine in ESRD patients. This study compared the incidence of hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients undergoing hemodialysis (HD) between cohorts with and without influenza vaccination.MethodsWe used the insurance claims data from 1998 to 2009 in Taiwan to determine the incidence of these events within one year after influenza vaccination in the vaccine (N = 831) and the non-vaccine (N = 3187) cohorts. The vaccine cohort to the non-vaccine cohort incidence rate ratio and hazard ratio (HR) of morbidities and mortality were measured.ResultsThe age-specific analysis showed that the elderly in the vaccine cohort had lower hospitalization rate (100.8 vs. 133.9 per 100 person-years), contributing to an overall HR of 0.81 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.72-0.90). The vaccine cohort also had an adjusted HR of 0.85 [95% CI 0.75-0.96] for heart disease. The corresponding incidence of pneumonia and influenza was 22.4 versus 17.2 per 100 person-years, but with an adjusted HR of 0.80 (95% CI 0.64-1.02). The vaccine cohort had lowered risks than the non-vaccine cohort for intensive care unit (ICU) admission (adjusted HR 0.20, 95% CI 0.12-0.33) and mortality (adjusted HR 0.50, 95% CI 0.41-0.60). The time-dependent Cox model revealed an overall adjusted HR for mortality of 0.30 (95% CI 0.26-0.35) after counting vaccination for multi-years.ConclusionsESRD patients with HD receiving the influenza vaccination could have reduced risks of pneumonia/influenza and other morbidities, ICU stay, hospitalization and death, particularly for the elderly