Influence of Aberrations on Modal Decomposition for LMA Fiber Laser Systems

Understanding the mode components is of great importance to manipulate the optical modes and to improve the optical system performance. However, various forms of aberrations, stemming from misalignment and imperfect optical components and system design, degrade the performance of the modal decomposition (MD) system. Here we analyze the influence of various Zernike aberrations on MD performance in large-mode-area fiber laser systems. Using computer-generated optical correlation filter together with angular multiplexing technique, we can simultaneously measure multi-modal contents. Among the common aberrations, we find that the MD results are least sensitive to vertical astigmatism aberration. However, the vertical coma aberration and horizontal coma aberration have a large impact on MD results under the same aberration strength, which show a rather large change in modal weight and intermodal phase. Our analysis is useful to construct a precise MD system applicable for high-power optical fiber modal analysis and mode control.

Investigating financial opportunities for traditional clothing industry in South Asia based on an analysis of internationally diversified portfolio using ARCH and GARCH models

This paper investigates the benefits of forming an internationally diversified portfolio in the stock markets of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan using the stock market indices data from April 2013 to March 2020. The portfolio comprises of three stock market indices from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The goal is to identify financial opportunities for traditional clothing industry in South Asia. Bangladesh, India and Pakistan are neighbouring countries in South Asia. Tradition, culture and specific ethnic elements influence traditional clothing in the case of the selected country cluster consisting of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Our empirical results indicate that internationally diversified portfolio does not reduce the risk due to global market integration in the background. Furthermore, ARCH and GARCH models reveal that large change in conditional variance is followed by large changes in conditional variance whereas small change in conditional variance is followed by small changes in conditional variance.

Predicting antibiotic resistance in complex protein targets using alchemical free energy methods

Multi-drug resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis requires a complex antibiotic treatment program and poses a major threat to tuberculosis (TB) treatment outcomes. Resistance is mostly conferred by chromosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms, many of which are well characterized and catalogued. However, not all mutations have been mapped and novel mutations can emerge. Methods able to quickly predict the effects of such mutations are needed to complement the existing catalogues, thereby permitting the prescription of effective treatment for patients and preventing the further spread of resistant strains. Relative binding free energy (RBFE) calculations can rapidly predict the effects of mutations, but this approach has not been tested on large, complex proteins. We use RBFE calculations to predict the effects of seven M. tuberculosis RNA polymerase mutations on rifampicin susceptibility and five M. tuberculosis DNA gyrase mutations on moxifloxacin susceptibility. These mutations encompass a range of amino acid substitutions with known effects and include large steric perturbations and charged moieties. We find that moderate numbers (n=3-15) of short RBFE calculations can predict resistance in cases where the mutation results in a large change in the binding free energy, but that the method lacks discrimination in cases with either a small change in energy or that involve charged amino acids, due to the associated large magnitude of error. We investigate how this error may be decreased by analyzing the sources of error and the distributions of repeated measurements from the different components of the RBFE calculations.

Kebijakan Kewajiban Vaksin Covid-19 Bukan Bentuk Pelanggaran HAM oleh Pemerintah

ABSTRAKKeberadaan corona virus di Indonesia membawa perubahan yang sangat besar pada kondisi ekonomi, kesehatan, pendidikan dan lain sebagainya. Berbagai kebijakan di ambil salah satunya adalah pemberian vaksin secara masal dan bertahap. Namun kebijakan ini menimbulkan pro dan kontra dalam masyarakat. Khususnya kebijakan kewajiban vaksin yang dinilai melanggar hak asasi manusia. Karena seharusnya pilihan vaksin adalah sukarela. Ini diperkuat dengan munculnya sanksi bagi yang menolak dilakukan vaksinasi. Kajian ini lakukan untuk mengurai permasalahan apakah kewajiban vaksinasi COVID-19 merupakan bentuk pelanggaran hak asasi manusia yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah. Untuk menjawab rumusan tersebut digunakan metode penelitian normatif dengan pendekatan undang-undang dan konseptual. Dan hasil penelitian ini bahwa kebijakan pemerintah menetapkan kewajiban vaksin tidak bisa lantas di justifikasi sebagai bentuk pelanggaran hak asasi manusia. Karena masyarakat juga memiiki kewajiban sebagai warganegara di bidang kesehatan sebagaimana Pasal 9 ayat 1 UU No. 36 Tahun 2009. Diperkuat Komnas HAM dan sejalan dengan teori yang di sebutkan John Stuart Mill bahwa setiap individu memiliki hak untuk bertindak berdasarkan keinginan mereka selama tindakan mereka tidak merugikan orang lain. Dengan tetap mengupayakan langkah persuasif dengan menimalkan sanksi administratif. Kata Kunci: kebijakan, kewajiban vaksin, pelanggaran HAM ABSTRACTThe existence of corona virus in Indonesia brings a very large change in economic conditions, health, education and so on. Various policies are taken, one of which is the provision of vaccines en masse and gradually. But this policy raises pros and cons in society. Especially the policy of vaccine obligations that are considered to violate human rights. The vaccine option should be voluntary. This is reinforced by the emergence of sanctions for those who refuse vaccinations. This study was conducted to unravel the problem of whether the COVID-19 vaccination obligation is a form of human rights violations committed by the government. To answer the formulation is used normative research methods with legal and conceptual approaches. And the results of this study that government policies set vaccine obligations can not be then justified as a form of human rights violations. Because the community also has obligations as citizens in the field of health as Article 9 paragraph 1 of Law No. 36 of 2009. Strengthened Komnas HAM and in line with the theory mentioned by John Stuart Mill that every individual has the right to act on their wishes as long as their actions do not harm others. By continuing to pursue persuasive steps by imposing administrative sanctions.Keywords: policies, vaccine obligations, human rights violations

Future designs of tertiary dance education: Scanning the field for decolonizing potentials in a major change project at the Department for Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts

This performative hybrid research and development project contributes knowledge about the decolonizing potentials and challenges that are articulated through an initial scanning of the dance pedagogical field as part of a large change project in tertiary dance education at the Department for Dance Pedagogy at Stockholm University of the Arts in Sweden. To do this scanning in a way that would promote collective learning, multiple perspective taking and creativity, we utilised design thinking. In total, 140 scan cards collected through the project were analysed. Both students and staff and other people in different parts of the world within the dance educational field created the scan cards. As a result, we suggest that the scanning of the field has pushed ourselves, the rest of the staff, students, and others into a process of collective learning, multiple perspective taking, and creativity, in which clear decolonizing potentials, as well as challenges to change are expressed.

Seismic investigations of the lithosphere in an amagmatic back-arc region: North Island, New Zealand

<p>New seismic constraints on crustal and upper mantle structures, kinematics, and lithospheric rheology are reported from an amagmatic back-arc region: the southwest North Island of New Zealand. Robust earthquake locations reveal a hypocentre 'downwarp' beneath the east-west trending Taranaki–Ruapehu Line. These earthquakes occur in the uppermost mantle, at depths of 30–50 km, and are distinct from shallower 8–25 km-deep earthquakes near Mt. Ruapehu in terms of focal mechanisms and principal stress directions. A receiver function CCP stack shows that the mantle earthquakes occur beneath a large change in crustal thickness, where the Moho 'steps' from 28 to 35 km-deep and the steepest part of that step has a 20–50° dip. The mantle earthquakes are dominated by strike-slip fault movement and have a maximum compressive stress direction of NE–SW. The existence of mantle earthquakes beneath a steeply-dipping Moho step implies some sort of dynamic modication is occurring in the mantle lithosphere. One possibility to explain these features is the convective removal of the mantle lithosphere due to a Rayleigh–Taylor-type instability. South of the Taranaki–Ruapehu Line, the Moho conversion weakens on both the receiver function CCP stack, and marine seismic reflection data under most of the Wanganui Basin (SAHKE02 and GD100 seismic lines). However, localised bright reflections at Moho depths can be seen in both near-vertical and wide-angle seismic data. Attribute analysis of near-vertical seismic reflections suggests that the rocks beneath the reflectivity are strongly-attenuating (Q ~20) with a negative velocity contrast relative to the lower crust. These observations are interpreted to be related to the presence of serpentinite (antigorite) and/or high pore fluid pressures in the mantle wedge. The links between hydration of amagmatic back-arcs, serpentinisation and/or high pore fluid pressures, rock viscosity, and mantle instabilities are documented here for the southwest North Island of New Zealand. These associations may be applicable to other amagmatic back-arcs around the world.</p>

Seismic investigations of the lithosphere in an amagmatic back-arc region: North Island, New Zealand

<p>New seismic constraints on crustal and upper mantle structures, kinematics, and lithospheric rheology are reported from an amagmatic back-arc region: the southwest North Island of New Zealand. Robust earthquake locations reveal a hypocentre 'downwarp' beneath the east-west trending Taranaki–Ruapehu Line. These earthquakes occur in the uppermost mantle, at depths of 30–50 km, and are distinct from shallower 8–25 km-deep earthquakes near Mt. Ruapehu in terms of focal mechanisms and principal stress directions. A receiver function CCP stack shows that the mantle earthquakes occur beneath a large change in crustal thickness, where the Moho 'steps' from 28 to 35 km-deep and the steepest part of that step has a 20–50° dip. The mantle earthquakes are dominated by strike-slip fault movement and have a maximum compressive stress direction of NE–SW. The existence of mantle earthquakes beneath a steeply-dipping Moho step implies some sort of dynamic modication is occurring in the mantle lithosphere. One possibility to explain these features is the convective removal of the mantle lithosphere due to a Rayleigh–Taylor-type instability. South of the Taranaki–Ruapehu Line, the Moho conversion weakens on both the receiver function CCP stack, and marine seismic reflection data under most of the Wanganui Basin (SAHKE02 and GD100 seismic lines). However, localised bright reflections at Moho depths can be seen in both near-vertical and wide-angle seismic data. Attribute analysis of near-vertical seismic reflections suggests that the rocks beneath the reflectivity are strongly-attenuating (Q ~20) with a negative velocity contrast relative to the lower crust. These observations are interpreted to be related to the presence of serpentinite (antigorite) and/or high pore fluid pressures in the mantle wedge. The links between hydration of amagmatic back-arcs, serpentinisation and/or high pore fluid pressures, rock viscosity, and mantle instabilities are documented here for the southwest North Island of New Zealand. These associations may be applicable to other amagmatic back-arcs around the world.</p>

EXPRESS: The Impact of Historical Price Information on Purchase Deferral

In this paper, the authors examine how historical price information influences consumers’ decision to defer a purchase. They focus on two aspects of historical price information: the direction and the frequency of past price changes. The authors advance a theoretical framework which postulates that the interaction between these two factor shapes consumers’ decisions to buy now versus later. Controlling for the total magnitude of price changes, the authors propose that consumers are more likely to defer purchase when the price of the product has previously increased compared to when the price has decreased. Importantly, the authors hypothesize that this effect is more pronounced when consumers observe a single large change in price (e.g., an increase of $100 versus a decrease of $100) compared to when they observe multiple smaller changes that establish a trend (e.g., four decreases of $25 versus four increases of $25). The authors argue that these effects are driven by differences in consumers’ expectations about future prices. They test their predictions, as well as two moderators of the proposed effects—the monotonicity and the timing of price changes—in six well-powered pre-registered experimental studies (N = 5,713) using both hypothetical and actual purchases.

Efficient Gradient Updating Strategies with Adaptive Power Allocation for Federated Learning over Wireless Backhaul

In this paper, efficient gradient updating strategies are developed for the federated learning when distributed clients are connected to the server via a wireless backhaul link. Specifically, a common convolutional neural network (CNN) module is shared for all the distributed clients and it is trained through the federated learning over wireless backhaul connected to the main server. However, during the training phase, local gradients need to be transferred from multiple clients to the server over wireless backhaul link and can be distorted due to wireless channel fading. To overcome it, an efficient gradient updating method is proposed, in which the gradients are combined such that the effective SNR is maximized at the server. In addition, when the backhaul links for all clients have small channel gain simultaneously, the server may have severely distorted gradient vectors. Accordingly, we also propose a binary gradient updating strategy based on thresholding in which the round associated with all channels having small channel gains is excluded from federated learning. Because each client has limited transmission power, it is effective to allocate more power on the channel slots carrying specific important information, rather than allocating power equally to all channel resources (equivalently, slots). Accordingly, we also propose an adaptive power allocation method, in which each client allocates its transmit power proportionally to the magnitude of the gradient information. This is because, when training a deep learning model, the gradient elements with large values imply the large change of weight to decrease the loss function.