cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
Education Needs Assessment for the City of Louga, Senegal
Creators: name: Maoulidi, Moumie
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2011
Subjects: Regional planning
Education and state
School management and organization

description: This needs assessment evaluates progress made by the city of Louga, Senegal, towards the attainment of the education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It analyzes the current situation and presents the results of a costing exercise conducted by Millennium Cities Initiative (MCI) and the mayor's office in the city of Louga. The education sector in Louga is constantly evolving, with significant recent progress. The number of students and teachers has increased, with the primary school gross enrollment rate (GER) growing from 100 to 122 percent between 2002 and 2009. Disparities between girls' and boys' enrollment are also decreasing. The municipality recently identified several neighborhoods in need of educational improvements, including Montagne Nord, Artillerie Nord, Keur Serigne Louga Est and Santhiaba Nord. The city's suggestions include building 18 classrooms, rehabilitating schools and providing learning materials. The goal is to ensure that all the children in Louga have access to education and complete five or six years of quality primary education by 2015. The lack of financial resources, as well as insufficient schools, classrooms, books and water points are the main constraints on achieving universal primary education by 2015. Some public schools are still relying on temporary shelters--makeshift classrooms often made of thatched straw and tree branches--until permanent classrooms are built. Despite collaborative efforts undertaken by the central government and local authorities, classrooms, as well as administrative and staff units require rehabilitation, and separate bathrooms for girls and boys need to be built. Although several secondary schools have been built in recent years, enrollments have not increased significantly, leaving this as an ongoing challenge. Education quality and internal efficiency also need to improve. Teachers are not properly trained, not well paid, and repetition and drop-out rates remain high. Many primary schools students are therefore poorly educated, and some do not complete the primary school cycle. The results from the needs and costs assessment model utilized in this assessment show that an annual per capita investment of $30 (15,165 CFA) between 2012 and 2015 can help the city of Louga to achieve education-related Millennium Development Goals by 2015. This report is divided in three sections. The first, a general description of the education system in Louga and Senegal, also defines the objectives, methodology and limitations of this needs assessment. The second section analyzes the data collected in the field and from city and national publications. The third section presents the costs of the interventions necessary to achieve the education-related MDGs, and the fourth section offers MCI's conclusions and recommendations.
Embracing Batch on Kubernetes
Creators: name: Kincl, Jason
name: Bruszewski, Patrick
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: As the adoption of Kubernetes continues to grow, there is an increasing demand for performing larger scale batch processing using Kubernetes. Much of the initial workloads are around machine learning but there is also interest in converging traditional HPC and Kubernetes clusters for operational efficiencies.
In this talk, we want to look at how we can leverage both traditional HPC workload partitioning as well as features of Kubernetes to achieve a hybrid system that can be used for all types of workloads. We will show how we isolate the orchestration and user processes in Kubernetes allowing for maximum use of the hardware for running batch workloads with benchmark comparisons against a traditional HPC cluster.
Democracy Undone: Systematic Minority Advantage in Competitive Vote Markets
Creators: name: Casella, Alessandra M.
name: Turban, Sebastien
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Economics

description: We study the competitive equilibrium of a market for votes where voters can trade votes for a numeraire before making a decision via majority rule. The choice is binary and the number of supporters of either alternative is known. We identify a sufficient condition guaranteeing the existence of an ex ante equilibrium. In equilibrium, only the most intense voter on each side demands votes and each demand enough votes to alone control a majority. The probability of a minority victory is independent of the size of the minority and converges to one half, for any minority size, when the electorate is arbitrarily large. In a large electorate, the numerical advantage of the majority becomes irrelevant: democracy is undone by the market.
Farming ourselves to death? the confluence of crises in the food system in British Columbia and Canada, and the potential for change
Creators: name: Thomson, Matthew
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: Throughout the late 20th century North American agriculture has followed a trajectory of increasingly industrialized production and processing of food (Donaldson and Macinerney 1973; Qualman and Tait 2004). Ownership of Canada’s agriculture land and resources is increasingly consolidated (Qualman and Tait 2004; Statistics Canada 2006a). This raises important questions about how well this consolidated ownership, a decreasing number of corporations focused on agri-business, can serve the public (Qualman and Tait 2004; Berry 1995; Shand 2002; Shiva 2002) and the negative environmental impacts of industrial agriculture (Goering et al. 1993; Roach 2005). An increasingly energy-dependent food system is also a major concern in an era of climate change and peak oil (IPCC 2007; Walker and Sidneysmith 2007; Duncan and Youngquist 1999; Pimentel et al. 1973; Hirsch 2005). With British Columbia’s small farmers facing a range of ecological, economic and socio-political challenges, (Govender et al. 2006; Connell et al. 2007; Cowichan Green Community 2008; Masselink, 2008; SmartGrowth 2008) planners in BC need to consider food security and its relationship to local and global crisis as a key issue of 21st-century planning.
A 100 mA Low Voltage Linear Regulators for Systems on Chip Applications Using 0.18 μm CMOS Technology
Creators: name: Salah-ddine, Krit
name: Kamal, Zared
name: Hassan, Qjidaa
name: Mohcine, Zouak
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Other Computer Science (cs.OH)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: A novel design for a low dropout (LDO) voltage regulator is presented and dedicated to power many sections of a typical cellular handset. However, these baseband, RF, and audio sections have different requirements that influence which LDO is most appropriate. After discussion of the specific requirements, different LDOs are recommended. Also, some LDO design techniques are briefly discussed to demonstrate how an LDO may be optimized for a specific level of performance. Cellular phone designs require linear regulators with lowdropout, low-noise, high PSRR, low quiescent current (Iq), and low-cost. They need to deliver a stable output and use smallvalue output capacitors. Ideally, one device would have all these characteristics and one low-dropout linear regulator (LDO) could be used anywhere in the phone without worry. But in practice, the various cell phone blocks are best powered by LDOs with different performance characteristics. This paper provides a new design methodology to choosing the right LDO to power each cell phone and especially for the Voltage Phase-Locked loops (VPLLs) blocks. Fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process, the measured results show the adopted topology achieves a better phase noise than the conventional saturation current source. and the spread of the current limitation (without matching) is 100mA, the VPLLs system demonstrates a phase noise of 782 nv/sqrtHz at 100-kHz, and 33 nv/sqrtHz at 1 MHz, while quiescent current 33 μA from a 2.6 V supply voltage.
description: 7 pages
Additional file 4 of The I-MICRO trial, Ilomedin for treatment of septic shock with persistent microperfusion defects: a double-blind, randomized controlled trial—study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
Creators: name: Legrand, Matthieu
name: Oufella, Hafid Ait
name: De Backer, Daniel
name: Duranteau, Jacques
name: Leone, Marc
name: Levy, Bruno
name: Rossignol, Patrick
name: Vicaut, Eric
name: Dépret, François
Publisher: name: figshare
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Medicine
subject: Cell Biology
subject: Neuroscience
subject: Physiology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Sociology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Developmental Biology
subject: Cancer
subject: Mental Health
subject: Infectious Diseases
subject: FOS: Health sciences
subject: Virology

description: Additional file 4:. Clinical trial authorization for medicinal products for human use
Notes on the Implementation of a Remote Fork Mechanism
Creators: name: Smith, Jonathan M.
name: Ioannidis, John
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 1988
Subjects: Computer science

description: We describe a method for implementing a remote fork, a primitive with the semantics of a UNIX fork() call which begins the execution of the child process on a remote machine. We begin by examining the subject of process migration, and conclude that most of the relevant process state can be captured and transferred to a remote system without operating system support. We then show how our implementation is easily optimized to achieve a performance improvement of greater than 10 times when measuring execution time. We conclude with some comments on limitations and applications of the remote fork mechanism.
A landscape-scale model to predict the risk of bird collisions with electric power transmission lines in Alberta
Creators: name: Heck, Nicole (Nikki)
Publisher: name: Environmental Design
Year: 2007

description: Bibliography: p. 123-132
description: Some pages are in colour.
description: A great number of birds are killed each year through collisions with power lines. Altalink, like other electric utility companies, operates thousands of kilometers of transmission line, making it nearly impossible to identify and prioritize areas according to the degree of risk they pose to birds. The potential severity and magnitude of collisions is not well understood, because unless reported by the public, utility companies are generally unaware of problem sites. This is because unlike electrocutions, collisions do not cause power outages and do very little damage to the line itself. Problems occur in specific situations where certain factors exist to create high collision potential. Past research has been focused on localized sites and has not been assessed at a larger scale. I developed a method to assess collision risk at a landscape scale using risk modeling and spatial ecological analysis. To spatially identify and prioritize high-risk areas, Saaty's Analytical Hierarchy Technique using Pairwise Comparison Analysis in ldrisi32 and then raster calculator in ArcGIS 9.0 were used. Model validation occurred through ground truthing at select sites. Results show that this methodology can predict where high-risk collision areas are. It will enable a population-level management approach to target and prioritize the higher risk sites for subsequent mitigation.
Vote Trading With and Without Party Leaders
Creators: name: Casella, Alessandra M.
name: Palfrey, Thomas R.
name: Turban, Sebastien
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2012
Subjects: Economics

description: Two groups of voters of known sizes disagree over a single binary decision to be taken by simple majority. Individuals have different, privately observed intensities of preferences and before voting can buy or sell votes among themselves for money. We study the implication of such trading for outcomes and welfare when trades are coordinated by the two group leaders and when they take place anonymously in a competitive market. The theory has strong predictions. In both cases, trading falls short of full efficiency, but for opposite reasons: with group leaders, the minority wins too rarely; with market trades, the minority wins too often. As a result, with group leaders, vote trading improves over no-trade; with market trades, vote trading can be welfare reducing. Although the experimental data show evidence of overpricing,these predictions are satisfied by all experimental sessions.
Detection of warm water vapour in Taurus protoplanetary discs by Herschel
Creators: name: Riviere-Marichalar, P.
name: Ménard, F.
name: Thi, W. F.
name: Kamp, I.
name: Montesinos, B.
name: Meeus, G.
name: Woitke, P.
name: Howard, C.
name: Sandell, G.
name: Podio, L.
name: Dent, W. R. F.
name: Mendigutía, I.
name: Pinte, C.
name: White, G. J.
name: Barrado, D.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Line spectra of 68 Taurus T Tauri stars were obtained with the Herschel-PACS (Photodetector Array Camera & Spectrometer) instrument as part of the GASPS (Gas Evolution in Protoplanetary Systems) survey of protoplanetary discs. A careful examination of the line scans centred on the [OI] 63.18 microns fine-structure line unveiled a line at 63.32 micron in some of these spectra. We identify this line with a transition of ortho-water. It is detected confidently (i.e., >3 sigma) in eight sources, i.e., 24% of the sub-sample with gas-rich discs. Several statistical tests were used to search for correlations with other disc and stellar parameters such as line fluxes of [OI] 6300 Armstrong and 63.18 microns; X-ray luminosity and continuum levels at 63 microns and 850 microns. Correlations are found between the water line fluxes and the [OI] 63.18 microns line luminosity, the dust continuum, and possibly with the stellar X-ray luminosity. This is the first time that this line of warm water vapour has been detected in protoplanetary discs. We discuss its origins, in particular whether it comes from the inner disc and/or disc surface or from shocks in outflows and jets. Our analysis favours a disc origin, with the observed water vapour line produced within 2-3AU from the central stars, where the gas temperature is of the order of 500-600 K.
description: 4 letter pages, 2 appendix pages, 5 images, to be published in Astronomy and Astrophysics
Sequential Challenges in Synthesizing Esterel
Creators: name: Soviani, Cristian
name: Zeng, Jia
name: Edwards, Stephen A.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2004
Subjects: Computer science

description: State assignment is a formidable task. As designs written in a hardware description language such as Esterel inherently carry more high level information that a register transfer level model, such information can be used to guide the encoding process. A question arises if the high level information alone is strong enough to suggest an efficient state assignment, allowing low-level details to be ignored. This report suggests that with Esterel's flexibility, most optimization potential is not within the high-level structure. It appears effective state assignment cannot rely solely on high level information.
Quantum states to brane geometries via fuzzy moduli spaces of giant gravitons
Creators: name: Pasukonis, Jurgis
name: Ramgoolam, Sanjaye
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Eighth-BPS local operators in N=4 SYM are dual to quantum states arising from the quantization of a moduli space of giant gravitons in AdS5xS5. Earlier results on the quantization of this moduli space give a Hilbert space of multiple harmonic oscillators in 3 dimensions. We use these results, along with techniques from fuzzy geometry, to develop a map between quantum states and brane geometries. In particular there is a map between the oscillator states and points in a discretization of the base space in the toric fibration of the moduli space. We obtain a geometrical decomposition of the space of BPS states with labels consisting of U(3) representations along with U(N) Young diagrams and associated group theoretic multiplicities. Factorization properties in the counting of BPS states lead to predictions for BPS world-volume excitations of specific brane geometries. Some of our results suggest an intriguing complementarity between localisation in the moduli space of branes and localisation in space-time.
description: 69 pages, 6 figures. v2: references added
Income tax cuts without spending cuts: Hazards to efficiency, equity, employment and growth
Creators: name: Phelps, Edmund S.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2002
Subjects: Economics
Finance
Public policy (Law)

description: Samuelson's "neoclassical synthesis" retrieved the theory of fiscal policy from Keynesian economics to the nonmonetary domain. But no agreement emerged over the right kind of "real" model to adopt. In the neo-Keynesian theory fashioned by Tobin and Modigliani, deficits were anti-growth and inoptimally so, and Tobin argued for budgetary surplus to boost investment. Mundell proposed harnessing budgetary policy instead to the stabilization of employment, which inspired the supply-side case for budgetary deficit through reduced tax rates. Rubin and Summers revived the Wall Street asset market argument for budgetary surplus as a means to low real interest rates, thus to high investment, growth and employment - in the present, not only the future. This paper uses these ideas, some old ideas by the author and some recent modeling in collaboration with Hian Teck Hoon to critique the 2001 Bush income tax cut, with its delayed action and sunset feature. First, the tax cut reduces economic efficiency to the extent it misleads households into overestimating their true wealth, thus over-consuming and underworking. Second, in a non-Ricardian economy, the tax cut reduces intergenerational justice, conceived in the spirit of Rawls. Finally, drawing on a model with Hoon combining supply-side and Wall Street channels, the paper argues that the delayed tax cut legislation forces an unambiguous rise of the natural unemployment rate until the tax rate cuts kick in, at which point the net effect becomes ambiguous.
Peer-to-Peer Internet Telephony using SIP
Creators: name: Singh, Kundan
name: Schulzrinne, Henning G.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2004
Subjects: Computer science

description: P2P systems inherently have high scalability, robustness and fault tolerance because there is no centralized server and the network self-organizes itself. This is achieved at the cost of higher latency for locating the resources of interest in the P2P overlay network. Internet telephony can be viewed as an application of P2P architecture where the participants form a self-organizing P2P overlay network to locate and communicate with other participants. We propose a pure P2P architecture for the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based IP telephony systems. Our P2P-SIP architecture supports basic user registration and call setup as well as advanced services such as offline message delivery, voice/video mails and multi-party conferencing. We also provide an overview of practical challenges for P2P-SIP such as firewall, Network Address Translator (NAT) traversal and security.
Ferromagnetism and superconductivity in P-doped CeFeAsO
Creators: name: Jesche, A.
name: Förster, T.
name: Spehling, J.
name: Nicklas, M.
name: de Souza, M.
name: Gumeniuk, R.
name: Luetkens, H.
name: Goltz, T.
name: Krellner, C.
name: Lang, M.
name: Sichelschmidt, J.
name: Klauss, H. -H.
name: Geibel, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We report on superconductivity in CeFeAs1-xPxO and the possible coexistence with Ce- ferromagnetism (FM) in a small homogeneity range around x = 30% with ordering temperatures of T_SC = T_C = 4K. The antiferromagnetic (AFM) ordering temperature of Fe at this critical concentration is suppressed to T^N_Fe ~ 40K and does not shift to lower temperatures with further increase of the P concentration. Therefore, a quantum-critical-point scenario with T^N_Fe -> 0K which is widely discussed for the iron based superconductors can be excluded for this alloy series. Surprisingly, thermal expansion and X-ray powder diffraction indicate the absence of an orthorhombic distortion despite clear evidence for short range AFM Fe-ordering from muon-spin-rotation measurements. Furthermore, we discovered the formation of a sharp electron spin resonance signal unambiguously connected with the emergence of FM ordering.
description: 5 pages, 4 figures, published in Phys. Rev. B (Rapid Communication, Editors suggestion)
African Traditional Healers and Outcome: Contingent Contracts in Health Care
Creators: name: Leonard, Kenneth L.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2000
Subjects: Economics

description: Traditional healers are a source of health care for which Africans have always paid and even with the expansion of modern medicine healers are still popular. This paper advances the unique view that traditional healers neither possess supernatural power nor do they take advantage of their clients: they use important elements of their practice to credibly deliver unobservable medical effort and therefore high quality care. An important element of their practice has previously been ignored: traditional healers use outcome-contingent contracts to deliver unobservable medical effort. This paper presents empirical evidence that, as a result of these contracts, traditional healers are popular because they provide more unobservable medical effort than other providers from which patients can choose.
Farewell to black hole horizons and singularities?
Creators: name: Corda, C.
name: Leiter, D.
name: Cuesta, H. J. Mosquera
name: Robertson, S.
name: Schild, R. E.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We consider the fundamental issues which dominate the question about the existence or non-existence of black hole horizons and singularities from both of the theoretical and observational points of view, and discuss some of the ways that black hole singularities can be prevented from forming at a classical level, i.e. without arguments of quantum gravity. In this way, we argue that black holes could have a different nature with respect the common belief. In fact, even remaining very compact astrophysics objects, they could be devoid of horizons and singularities. Our analysis represents a key point within the debate on the path to unification of theories. As recently some scientists partially retrieved the old Einstein's opinion that quantum mechanics has to be subjected to a more general deterministic theory, a way to find solutions to the problem of black hole horizons and singularities at a semi-classical level, i.e. without discussions of quantum gravity, becomes a fundamental framework.
description: Invited review, 11 pages. Paper dedicated to the Memory of Professor Darryl Jay Leiter, February 25, 1937 - March 4, 2011
Empirical Approaches to the Near-Infrared Tip of the Red Giant Branch
Creators: name: Durbin, Meredith
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: The infrared tip of the red giant branch (IR-TRGB) is a powerful tool for measuring distances to galaxies in the local Universe. However, establishing its absolute "anchor" with sufficient precision and accuracy has proved challenging due to lingering sources of systematic uncertainty in both theoretical predictions and empirical calibrations. Here I describe three studies aimed at improving observational constraints on the IR-TRGB. First, I develop a computational method for self-consistently measuring TRGB magnitudes and colors, and the covariance thereof, in multiwavelength stellar photometry catalogs. Traditional detection methods either marginalize over color, or else rely on assuming a fidicial color dependence, both of which may result in different stellar populations dominating the TRGB signal at different wavelengths. Next, I explore two complementary approaches to reconciling observations of the IR-TRGB as measured with ground- and space-based instruments respectively. The former are impacted by absorption features in Earth's atmosphere, where the latter are not. Furthermore, there is an extremely limited range of magnitudes at which current facilities can achieve the requisite data quality from both locations. To this end, I derive transformation equations between respective photometric systems using synthetic photometry of observed stellar spectra, and then present initial results from a three-year observing campaign designed to directly compare space- and ground-based observations of bright RGB stars in the Magellanic Clouds.
Barleria
Creators: name: Champluvier, Dominique
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Plantae
Tracheophyta
Magnoliopsida
Lamiales
Acanthaceae
Barleria

description:  1. Three vicariant species of section Barleria – The Katangan novelty B. velutina is closely related, morphologically very similar to B. nyasensis and B. sunzuana which differ mainly by the well developed upper lobes of their corolla, upper lobes which are lacking or extremely reduced in B. velutina. The other differences include spiny bracteoles (‘interpetiolar spines’ of various authors), calyx lobe margins provided with straight stiff-tipped teeth in B. nyasensis and B. sunzuana whereas soft bracteoles and upwards-curved soft-tipped teeth characterize the calyx lobe margins in B. velutina. The ecology and altitude ranges seem also to be different, as indicated below after the lists of the collected specimens of B. nyasensis and B. sunzuana. B. nyasensis and B. sunzuana were put in sect. Barleria by Balkwill & Balkwill (1997); this section is characterized by simple axillary inflorescences, toothed calyx lobes, corolla lobes in a 2 + 3 configuration, and two fertile stamens with three staminodes. B. velutina can be placed without any doubt in the same section. Another species of that section, B. bremekampii Oberm., although morphologically distant from B. velutina, has also extremely reduced upper corolla lobes (see drawing in Balkwill & Balkwill 1997: 556, B1).
description: Published as part of Dominique Champluvier, 2011, New and overlooked Acanthaceae taxa from D. R. Congo, Rwanda and Burundi: (1) the genus Barleria, pp. 82-95 in Plant Ecology and Evolution 144 (1) on page 82, DOI: 10.5091/plecevo.2011.388, http://zenodo.org/record/1486150
description: {"references": ["Balkwill M. - J., Balkwill K. (1997) Delimitation and infrageneric classification of Barleria (Acanthaceae). Kew Bulletin 52: 535 - 573. [available at http: // www. jstor. org / pss / 4110286]"]}
Metastable Vortex Lattice Phases in Superconducting MgB2
Creators: name: Das, P.
name: Rastovski, C.
name: O'Brien, T. R.
name: Schlesinger, K. J.
name: Dewhurst, C. D.
name: DeBeer-Schmitt, L.
name: Zhigadlo, N. D.
name: Karpinski, J.
name: Eskildsen, M. R.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The vortex lattice (VL) symmetry and orientation in clean type-II superconductors depends sensitively on the host material anisotropy, vortex density and temperature, frequently leading to rich phase diagrams. Typically, a well-ordered VL is taken to imply a ground state configuration for the vortex-vortex interaction. Using neutron scattering we studied the VL in MgB2 for a number of field-temperature histories, discovering an unprecedented degree of metastability in connection with a known, second-order rotation transition. This allows, for the first time, structural studies of a well-ordered, non-equilibrium VL. While the mechanism responsible for the longevity of the metastable states is not resolved, we speculate it is due to a jamming of VL domains, preventing a rotation to the ground state orientation.
description: Main paper: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary material: 3 pages, 7 figures
Using quasars as standard clocks for measuring cosmological redshift
Creators: name: Dai, De-Chang
name: Starkman, Glenn D.
name: Stojkovic, Branislav
name: Stojkovic, Dejan
name: Weltman, Amanda
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We report hitherto unnoticed patterns in quasar light curves. We characterize segments of quasars' light curves with the slopes of the straight lines fit through them. These slopes appear to be directly related to the quasars' redshifts. Alternatively, using only global shifts in time and flux, we are able to find significant overlaps between the light curves of different pairs of quasars by fitting the ratio of their redshifts. We are then able to reliably determine the redshift of one quasar from another. This implies that one can use quasars as standard clocks, as we explicitly demonstrate by constructing two independent methods of finding the redshift of a quasar from its light curve.
description: References added, Published in Phys. Rev. Lett
Growth management through mixed-use neighborhood design in Springbank
Creators: name: Hakimizadeh, Leila
Publisher: name: Environmental Design
Year: 2007

description: Bibliography: p. 82-83
description: Some pages are in colour.
description: Because of its geographic location, the city of Calgary has no physical boundaries. Low-density development is spreading into the countryside in all directions, with the exception of the Tsuu Tina Nation Reserve, resulting in the loss of agricultural land and cultural landscapes. Such losses devalue the social relationships of communities and threaten environmentally sensitive areas. Low-density development also increases infrastructure and personal transportation costs and travel time. Another consequence is health problems, such as obesity. In addition, shopping malls replace shopping streets, and single family homes become the only option for housing which results in increased isolation and diminished social relationships. On the outskirts of Calgary incremental growth in vernacular towns that has taken a century to happen has been destroyed in decades. A sense of place and identity are disappearing. This project argues that growth can be accommodated without losing a sense of place and that neighborhood design can be based on principles that have been practiced in traditional towns for many years. Based on research, this project develops urban design principles and uses them to present a mixed­use, compact neighborhood design that considers a diversity of housing types, shopping opportunities, open spaces, and alternate forms of transportation. Focus is placed on the preservation of environmentally sensitive areas and providing a pedestrian-friendly environment. The core of the designed community will provide opportunities for gatherings, social meetings and recreational facilities. Interconnected open space and walkable streets will encourage residents to walk, bike and take part in community activities. Together these factors help to retain the sense of place and the identity of the neighborhood.
A Lower Bound for the Number of Group Actions on a Compact Riemann Surface
Creators: name: Anderson, James W.
name: Wootton, Aaron
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Algebraic Geometry (math.AG)
subject: Geometric Topology (math.GT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 57M60, 30F20, 14H37

description: We prove that the number of distinct group actions on compact Riemann surfaces of a fixed genus $σ\geq 2$ is at least quadratic in $σ$. We do this through the introduction of a coarse signature space, the space $\mathcal{K}_σ$ of {\em skeletal signatures} of group actions on compact Riemann surfaces of genus $σ$. We discuss the basic properties of $\mathcal{K}_σ$ and present a full conjectural description.
Commodified space
Creators: name: Hackett, Graeme
Publisher: name: Environmental Design
Year: 2006

description: Bibliography: p. 96-97
description: Some pages are in colour.
description: Includes oversized pages.
description: Approval page is missing.
description: This thesis is a product of examining contemporary forms of public space in North America in relation to Henri Lefebvre's production triads. Through the lens of spatial production, it becomes evident that public space has been removed from its previous role of social instigator and has instead been absorbed into the private realm where specific sets of ideals can be re-enforced through laws associated with private ownership of property. Private ownership of public space has come to establish a hierarchical and exclusive public realm. In an ownership model physical space or property becomes a commodity within itself, in which, acts believed to be detrimental become banned, disconnecting the once inclusive public realm. In order to reinvigorate public space it became necessary to look at a form of site analysis that took into account the personal uses of individuals throughout an area. The form of analysis used in Inglewood was the creation of narratives from leftover information and public interactions. Recognizing the unique social interactions that imbue space with meaning it became possible to re-work the Inglewood narratives into a design process that was inclusive to all types of interaction found. By examining a non-commodifted realm, in which the traces of interactions are layered throughout the area, it becomes possible to generate programmatic extensions that act in an inclusive fashion re-constructing the past diversity of the public realm.
Binary mixture of hard disks as a model glass former: Caging and uncaging
Creators: name: Sirono, Sin-iti
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: I have proposed a measure for the cage effect in glass forming systems. A binary mixture of hard disks is numerically studied as a model glass former. A network is constructed on the basis of the colliding pairs of disks. A rigidity matrix is formed from the isostatic (rigid) sub--network, corresponding to a cage. The determinant of the matrix changes its sign when an uncaging event occurs. Time evolution of the number of the uncaging events is determined numerically. I have found that there is a gap in the uncaging timescales between the cages involving different numbers of disks. Caging of one disk by two neighboring disks sustains for a longer time as compared with other cages involving more than one disk. This gap causes two--step relaxation of this system.
Cutting edge or bleeding edge : should video games be regulated?
Creators: name: Benoit, James
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2011

description: Video games are currently regulated in North America through an independent organization, the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The United States Supreme Court is currently considering whether to uphold a section of California’s Civil Code that bans the sale of violent video games to minors. California’s legislature created this regulation on the grounds that it protected minors from the harm and moral wrongs that playing violent video games allegedly cause. However, the Entertainment Merchants’ Association has strongly contested this law by contesting that violent video games cannot be proven to be harmful. From a harm perspective, regulations can be imposed to reduce harm to oneself (e.g. prescription of helmets), or harm to others (e.g. proscription of guns). Regulations can also be imposed to prevent actions that are considered moral wrongs, regardless of the harm they do (e.g. Section 163 of Canadian Criminal Code outlines "Offences tending to corrupt morals"). Therefore, this thesis asks the question, "Is there sufficient evidence that playing video games (a) causes harm or (b) constitutes a form of moral wrong to the gamer and/or the public at large that would justify a Supreme Court decision to uphold California’s Civil Code banning violent game sales to minors?" This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter 2 reviews the evidence for and against video games causing harm by examining experimental video game effects literature. Chapter 3 is an analysis of individual games that assesses whether playing them is a form of moral wrong to the player. The results of the first two chapters will provide the evidentiary basis for whether California’s law regulating games should be upheld. These two chapters showed inconclusive results in deciding whether video games are harmful and morally wrong to play. Chapter 4 explores improvements that could be made to the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s system if the current legislative measures are not upheld. Chapter 5 is general conclusions, discussion, and future directions for this stream of video game research.
Sedimentology of a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic succession
Creators: name: Hernandez Perez, Elizabeth
Publisher: name: University of Calgary
Year: 1997
Subjects: subject: Rocks, Carbonate - Venezuela
subject: Geology, Stratigraphic - Paleocene
subject: Rocks, Siliceous - Venezuela
subject: Rocks, Sedimentary - Venezuela

description: Bibliography: p. 195-206.
Magneto-transport in mesoscopic rings and cylinders: Effects of electron-electron interaction and spin-orbit coupling
Creators: name: Maiti, Santanu K.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We undertake an in-depth analysis of the magneto-transport properties in mesoscopic single-channel rings and multi-channel cylinders within a tight-binding formalism. The main focus of this review is to illustrate how the long standing anomalies between the calculated and measured current amplitudes carried by a small conducting ring upon the application of a magnetic flux $ϕ$ can be removed. We discuss two different cases. First, we examine the combined effect of second-neighbor hopping integral and Hubbard correlation on the enhancement of persistent current in presence of disorder. A significant change in current amplitude is observed compared to the traditional nearest-neighbor hopping model and the current amplitude becomes quite comparable to experimental realizations. In the other case we verify that in presence of spin-orbit interaction a considerable enhancement of persistent current amplitude takes place, and the current amplitude in a disordered ring becomes almost comparable to that of an ordered one. In addition to these, we also present the detailed band structures and some other related issues to get a complete picture of the phenomena at the microscopic level.
description: 17 pages, 22 figures (An invited review article)
Mixing Government with Voluntaryism
Creators: name: Lancaster, Kelvin
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 1996
Subjects: Economics

description: The provision of public goods by voluntary contributions alone is feasible but the outcome is suboptimal. This paper examines the potential for government supplementation of the voluntary contribution system in order to retain the basic features but improve the outcome. it is shown that attempted supplementation through taxes or subsidies either has no effect or does actual harm. In general, a pure voluntary system or a complete government override is superior to a government-voluntary mix. The supporting propositions, both old and new, are derived from a simple unified treatment of the voluntary contribution system in a variety of contexts.
Testing for autocorrelation in systems of equations
Creators: name: Dhrymes, Phoebus J.
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2003
Subjects: Economics

description: This paper deals with the problem of testing for the presence of autocorrelation in a system of general linear models (Seemingly Unrelated Regressions, SUR) when the model is formulated as a vector autoregression (VAR) with exogenous variables. The solution presented in this paper is a generalization of the h-statistic for the single equation single parameter case given in Durbin (1970).
Performance of Size-Changing Algorithms in Stackable File Systems
Creators: name: Zadok, Erez
name: Andersen, Johan M.
name: Badulescu, Ion
name: Nieh, Jason
Publisher: name: Columbia University
Year: 2000
Subjects: Computer science

description: Stackable file systems can provide extensible file system functionality with minimal performance overhead and development cost. However, previous approaches are limited in the functionality they provide. In particular, they do not support size-changing algorithms, which are important and useful for many applications, such as compression and security. We propose fast index files, a technique for efficient support of size-changing algorithms in stackable file systems. Fast index files provide a page mapping between file system layers in a way that can be used with any size-changing algorithm. Index files are designed to be recoverable if lost and add less than 0.1\% disk space overhead. We have implemented fast indexing using portable stackable templates, and we have used this system to build several example file systems with size-changing algorithms. We demonstrate that fast index files have very low overhead for typical workloads, only 2.3\% over other stacked file systems. Our system can deliver much better performance on size-changing algorithms than user-level applications, as much as five times faster.
The non-integrability of the Zipoy-Voorhees metric
Creators: name: Lukes-Gerakopoulos, Georgios
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The low frequency gravitational wave detectors like eLISA/NGO will give us the opportunity to test whether the supermassive compact objects lying at the centers of galaxies are indeed Kerr black holes. A way to do such a test is to compare the gravitational wave signals with templates of perturbed black hole spacetimes, the so-called bumpy black hole spacetimes. The Zipoy-Voorhees (ZV) spacetime (known also as the $γ$ spacetime) can be included in the bumpy black hole family, because it can be considered as a perturbation of the Schwarzschild spacetime background. Several authors have suggested that the ZV metric corresponds to an integrable system. Contrary to this integrability conjecture, in the present article it is shown by numerical examples that in general ZV belongs to the family of non-integrable systems.
description: 10 pages, 13 figures
Thin films flowing down inverted substrates: Three dimensional flow
Creators: name: Lin, T. -S.
name: Kondic, L.
name: Filippov, A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study contact line induced instabilities for a thin film of fluid under destabilizing gravitational force in three dimensional setting. In the previous work (Phys. Fluids, {\bf 22}, 052105 (2010)), we considered two dimensional flow, finding formation of surface waves whose properties within the implemented long wave model depend on a single parameter, $D=(3Ca)^{1/3}\cotα$, where $Ca$ is the capillary number and $α$ is the inclination angle. In the present work we consider fully 3D setting and discuss the influence of the additional dimension on stability properties of the flow. In particular, we concentrate on the coupling between the surface instability and the transverse (fingering) instabilities of the film front. We furthermore consider these instabilities in the setting where fluid viscosity varies in the transverse direction. It is found that the flow pattern strongly depends on the inclination angle and the viscosity gradient.
The dust scaling relations of the Herschel Reference Survey
Creators: name: Cortese, L.
name: Ciesla, L.
name: Boselli, A.
name: Bianchi, S.
name: Gomez, H.
name: Smith, M. W. L.
name: Bendo, G. J.
name: Eales, S.
name: Pohlen, M.
name: Baes, M.
name: Corbelli, E.
name: Davies, J. I.
name: Hughes, T. M.
name: Hunt, L. K.
name: Madden, S. C.
name: Pierini, D.
name: Alighieri, S. di Serego
name: Zibetti, S.
name: Boquien, M.
name: Clements, D. L.
name: Cooray, A.
name: Galametz, M.
name: Magrini, L.
name: Pappalardo, C.
name: Spinoglio, L.
name: Vlahakis, C.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We combine new Herschel/SPIRE sub-millimeter observations with existing multiwavelength data to investigate the dust scaling relations of the Herschel Reference Survey, a magnitude-, volume-limited sample of ~300 nearby galaxies in different environments. We show that the dust-to-stellar mass ratio anti-correlates with stellar mass, stellar mass surface density and NUV-r colour across the whole range of parameters covered by our sample. Moreover, the dust-to-stellar mass ratio decreases significantly when moving from late- to early-type galaxies. These scaling relations are similar to those observed for the HI gas-fraction, supporting the idea that the cold dust is tightly coupled to the cold atomic gas component in the interstellar medium. We also find a weak increase of the dust-to-HI mass ratio with stellar mass and colour but no trend is seen with stellar mass surface density. By comparing galaxies in different environments we show that, although these scaling relations are followed by both cluster and field galaxies, HI-deficient systems have, at fixed stellar mass, stellar mass surface density and morphological type systematically lower dust-to-stellar mass and higher dust-to-HI mass ratios than HI-normal/field galaxies. This provides clear evidence that dust is removed from the star-forming disk of cluster galaxies but the effect of the environment is less strong than what is observed in the case of the HI disk. Such effects naturally arise if the dust disk is less extended than the HI and follows more closely the distribution of the molecular gas phase, i.e., if the dust-to-atomic gas ratio monotonically decreases with distance from the galactic center.
description: 18 pages, 15 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication on A&A