Deep inelastic scattering structure functions of holographic spin-1 hadrons with Nf≥1N_f \geq 1

Two-point current correlation functions of the large $N$ limit of supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories at strong coupling are investigated in terms of their string theory dual models with quenched flavors. We consider non-Abelian global symmetry currents, which allow one to investigate vector mesons with $N_f > 1$. From the correlation functions we construct the deep inelastic scattering hadronic tensor of spin-one mesons, obtaining the corresponding eight structure functions for polarized vector mesons. We obtain several relations among the structure functions. Relations among some of their moments are also derived. Aspects of the sub-leading contributions in the $1/N$ and $N_f/N$ expansions are discussed. At leading order we find a universal behavior of the hadronic structure functions.Comment: 48 pages, 8 figure

Deep inelastic scattering cross sections from the gauge/string duality

Differential cross sections of deep inelastic scattering of charged leptons from hadrons are investigated by using the gauge/string duality. We consider vector mesons derived from different holographic dual models obtaining a general expression. We focus on the strongly coupled regime of dual gauge theories for different values of the Bjorken parameter. We find new predictions which are particularly interesting for differential scattering cross sections of polarized leptons scattered off polarized vector mesons. We also carry out a detailed comparison of the moments of the structure functions with lattice QCD results.Comment: 42 pages, 5 tables, 9 figure

Activity maps for location-aware computing

The Problem: Location-based context is important for many applications. Previous systems offered only coarse room-level features or used manually specified room regions to determine fine-scale features. We propose a location context mechanism based on activity maps, which define regions of similar context based on observations of 3-D patterns of location and motion in an environment. We describe an algorithm for obtaining activity maps in real time using the spatio-temporal clustering of visual tracking data. Motivation: In many cases, fine grain location based information is preferred. One example would be to control lights and air conditioning, e.g. the desk lamp might light up and the air conditioning starts whenever a user is sitting at his desk. In addition the phone might become activated and the computer screen get invoked from stand-by mode. Similarly in a small group meeting the system could know where and how many people are in the room and could make appropriate settings for lights, air conditioning, and computer tools. For each of these tasks, location context information is important [3]. Simply considering the instantaneous 3-D location of users is useful, but alone is insufficient as context information. Applications have to generalize context information from previous experience, and an application writer would like to access categorical context information, such as what activity

Streamer Dynamics in Thunderstorm and Near-Ionospheric Environments

Streamers are self-consistent ionization waves that are generated within an electric field. Since they were first proposed in the theory of spark breakdown developed in the 1930s by Raether, Loeb, and Meek [Raether, 1939; Loeb and Meek, 1940], they have demanded the attention of scientists across many different fields. They are crucial to the Earth environment because of their natural occurrence in the form of sprites, at near-ionosphere altitudes above a thunderstorm, and their proposed roles in the formation and propagation of lightning. % that can occur above a thunderstorm, or However, they also play a role in the human environment, from their use in removing NOx byproducts from the imperfect combustion of a diesel engine [vanVeldhuizen, 2000] to their use in plasma medicine. Understanding their dynamics is of paramount importance in order to both reveal the electrical coupling of the atmospheric regions over which they occur and enhance their useful application. Although much effort has been put towards understanding their processes, many questions still remain. By investigating streamer discharges through the use of numerical modeling and high-speed image analysis, more insight may be gleaned. In order to explore the role of streamer discharge in lightning initiation, we use a 3D axisymmetric fluid model to analyze streamer initiation from a hydrometeor with dimensions similar to that found in a thunderstorm. Hydrometeors are ice or water particles which form in a variety of shapes and sizes. Our results show that a negative streamer is able to initiate from the tip of cone-shaped hydrometeor within ambient electric field conditions weaker than that necessary for electrical breakdown. A positive streamer is able to form from the base of the cone and is found to be less dependent on the hydrometeor geometry. The findings reveal the importance of the structure of the hydrometeor for negative streamer initiation and that if a negative streamer forms alone, the geometry is likely not an isolated cone shape. Our next investigation involves the analysis of the electromagnetic frequency emission spectrum from a positive and negative streamer colliding. This type of collision is believed to occur within the streamer zone of a leader, a component of lightning propagation, and in sprites. By performing multiple simulations in which the colliding streamers are initiated from the cone-shaped hydrometeors we are able to test the effects of ambient field conditions and length of propagation on the emission spectrum. We find that an increased ambient field magnitude shifts the spectrum to higher frequencies and that streamer propagation length increases the amplitude of the signal. Sprites are formed within the quasi-static electric field generated by a cloud-to-ground lightning discharge at 40-90 km altitudes above a thunderstorm and consist, primarily, of systems of streamers. Recent analysis of high-speed sprite image observation revealed a potential method that uses the rate of optical intensity decay of a streamer interacting with the D-region ionosphere to estimate the electron number density of the local region above a thunderstorm. We simulate an upward negative sprite streamer interacting with the ionosphere in order to interpret these results. Upon interacting with the ionosphere, our simulated streamer shows similar behavior to that seen in the observations. Furthermore, the optical intensity decay leads to a small factor lower estimation of the electron density, which promotes the validity of the proposed method. Our results also provide more insight into the interactive dynamics between a streamer and a conductive body. Through analysis of high speed sprite images of a carrot sprite event, we probe streamer system dynamics. We first develop a detection/tracking algorithm to analyze individual streamers within the images. Then we apply the algorithm to two branching events, where we find that the total optical intensity is unchanged from parent streamer to daughter streamers. We then investigate the collision of a single streamer and a separate streamer channel. Our findings indicate that it may have an effect on the streamers whose channel it connected. We do observe that upon connecting the streamer rapidly grows as it propagates down the channel. Finally, we present a statistical distribution of the branching angle, calculated by the tracking algorithm, from 41 separate events. Our findings are consistent with previous sprite observations, however, differ from the findings in laboratory experiments

Toward cumulative cognitive science: a comparison of meta-analysis, mega-analysis, and hybrid approaches

There is increasing interest in cumulative approaches to science, in which instead of analyzing the results of individual papers separately, we integrate information qualitatively or quantitatively. One such approach is meta-analysis, which has over 50 years of literature supporting its usefulness, and is becoming more common in cognitive science. However, changes in technical possibilities by the widespread use of Python and R make it easier to fit more complex models, and even simulate missing data. Here we recommend the use of mega-analyses (based on the aggregation of data sets collected by independent researchers) and hybrid meta- mega-analytic approaches, for cases where raw data is available for some studies. We illustrate the three approaches using a rich test-retest data set of infants’ speech processing as well as synthetic data. We discuss advantages and disadvantages of the three approaches from the viewpoint of a cognitive scientists contemplating their use, and limitations of this article, to be addressed in future work.Introduction - Study Case: Reliability of Infant Speech Perception Measures - Alternatives to Meta-analyses: Mega-analyses, IPD Meta-analyses, and Hybrid Approaches The present study - A Brief Primer on Test-Retest Infant Speech Perception - Modeling Experiment 1: Natural data Experiment 2: Synthetic data General discussion - Potential Limitations Conclusio

Evaluation of the primitive fraction by functional in vitro assays at the RNA and DNA level represents a novel tool for complementing molecular monitoring in chronic myeloid leukemia

Quantification of BCR-ABL1 mRNA levels in peripheral blood of chronic myeloidleukemia patients is a strong indicator of response to tyrosine-kinase inhibitors (TKI)treatment. However, additional prognostic markers are needed in order to better classify patients. The hypothesis of leukemic stem cells (LSCs) heterogeneity and persistence, suggests that their functional evaluation could be of clinical interest. In this work, we assessed the primitive and progenitor fractions in patients at diagnosis and during TKI treatment using functional in vitro assays, defining a ?functional leukemic burden? (FLB). We observed that the FLB was reduced in vivo in both fractions upon treatment. However, different FLB levels were observed among patients according to their response to treatment, suggesting that quantification of the FLB could complement early molecular monitoring. Given that FLB assessment is limited by BCR-ABL1 mRNA expression levels, we developed a novel detection method of primitive cells at the DNA level, using patient-specific primers and direct nested PCR in colonies obtained from functional in vitro assays. We believe that this methodcould be useful in the context of discontinuation trials, given that it is unknown whether the persistent leukemic clone represents LSCs, able to resume the leukemia upon TKI removal.Fil: Ruiz, María Sol. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; ArgentinaFil: Sanchez, María Belén. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; Argentina. Argenomics; ArgentinaFil: Gutierrez, Leandro German. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Medicina Experimental. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Experimental; Argentina. Instituto Alexander Fleming, Bs. As.; ArgentinaFil: Koile, Daniel Isaac. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Yankilevich, Patricio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigación en Biomedicina de Buenos Aires - Instituto Partner de la Sociedad Max Planck; ArgentinaFil: Mosqueira, Celeste. Gobierno de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires. Hospital General de Agudos "Ramos Mejía"; ArgentinaFil: Cranco, Santiago. Fundaleu; ArgentinaFil: Custidiano, María del Rosario. Hospital Italiano de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Freitas, Josefina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Hospital Nacional Profesor A. Posadas; ArgentinaFil: Foncuberta, Cecilia. Instituto Alexander Fleming; ArgentinaFil: Moiraghi, Beatriz. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; ArgentinaFil: Pavlovsky, Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Medicina Experimental. Academia Nacional de Medicina de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Pérez, Mariel Ana. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; ArgentinaFil: Ventriglia, Verónica. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Hospital Nacional Profesor A. Posadas; Argentina; ArgentinaFil: Sánchez Ávalos, Julio César Américo. Instituto Alexander Fleming; ArgentinaFil: Mordoh, Jose. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; ArgentinaFil: Larripa, Irene Beatriz. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Córdoba. Centro de Investigaciones en Bioquímica Clínica e Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Bianchini, Michele. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Fundación Cáncer. Centro de Investigaciones Oncológicas; Argentin

Sound comparisons: a new online database and resource for research in phonetic diversity

Sound Comparisons hosts over 90,000 individual word recordings and 50,000 narrow phonetic transcriptions from 600 language varieties from eleven language families around the world. This resource is designed to serve researchers in phonetics, phonology and related fields. Transcriptions follow new initiatives for standardisation in usage of the IPA and Unicode. At soundcomparisons.com, users can explore the transcription datasets by phonetically-informed search and filtering, customise selections of languages and words, download any targeted data subset (sound files and transcriptions) and cite it through a custom URL. We present sample research applications based on our extensive overage of regional and sociolinguistic variation within major languages, and also of endangered languages, for which Sound Comparisons provides a rapid first documentation of their diversity in phonetics. The multilingual interface and user-friendly, ‘hover-tohear’ maps likewise constitute an outreach tool, where speakers can instantaneously hear and compare the phonetic diversity and relationships of their native languages

The Architect's Collaborator: Toward Intelligent Tools for Conceptual Design

In early stages of architectural design, as in other design domains, the language used is often very abstract. In architectural design, for example, architects and their clients use experiential terms such as "private" or "open" to describe spaces. If we are to build programs that can help designers during this early-stage design, we must give those programs the capability to deal with concepts on the level of such abstractions. The work reported in this thesis sought to do that, focusing on two key questions: How are abstract terms such as "private" and "open" translated into physical form? How might one build a tool to assist designers with this process? The Architect's Collaborator (TAC) was built to explore these issues. It is a design assistant that supports iterative design refinement, and that represents and reasons about how experiential qualities are manifested in physical form. Given a starting design and a set of design goals, TAC explores the space of possible designs in search of solutions that satisfy the goals. It employs a strategy we've called dependency-directed redesign: it evaluates a design with respect to a set of goals, then uses an explanation of the evaluation to guide proposal and refinement of repair suggestions; it then carries out the repair suggestions to create new designs. A series of experiments was run to study TAC's behavior. Issues of control structure, goal set size, goal order, and modification operator capabilities were explored. In addition, TAC's use as a design assistant was studied in an experiment using a house in the process of being redesigned. TAC's use as an analysis tool was studied in an experiment using Frank Lloyd Wright's Prairie houses