A modified Lin equation for the energy balance in isotropic turbulence

At sufficiently large Reynolds numbers, turbulence is expected to exhibit scale-invariance in an intermediate (“inertial”) range of wavenumbers, as shown by power law behavior of the energy spectrum and also by a constant rate of energy transfer through wavenumber. However, there is an apparent contradiction between the definition of the energy flux (i.e., the integral of the transfer spectrum) and the observed behavior of the transfer spectrum itself. This is because the transfer spectrum T(k) is invariably found to have a zero-crossing at a single point (at k = k_*), implying that the corresponding energy flux cannot have an extended plateau but must instead have a maximum value at k = k_*. This behavior was formulated as a paradox and resolved by the introduction of filtered/partitioned transfer spectra, which exploited the symmetries of the triadic interactions (J. Phys. A: Math. Theor., 2008). In this paper we consider the more general implications of that procedure for the spectral energy balance equation, also known as the Lin equation. It is argued that the resulting modified Lin equations (and their corresponding Navier–Stokes equations) offer a new starting point for both numerical and theoretical methods, which may lead to a better understanding of the underlying energy transfer processes in turbulence. In particular the filtered partitioned transfer spectra could provide a basis for a hybrid approach to the statistical closure problem, with the different spectra being tackled using different methods.     

The cone of positive harmonic functions for scale-invariant diffusions

Consider a scale invariant diffusion whose state space is a closed cone in R ^d , minus the vertex. Then the process is either recurrent, transient to ∞ or transient to the vertex of the cone. In the latter case, the diffusion has finite lifetime (a.s.) and converges to the vertex at the lifetime. The Martin boundary consists of two points, and the corresponding minimal harmonic functions are of the form 1 and |x| ^α ψ(x/|x|).     

A strong bound on the integral of the central path curvature and its relationship with the iteration-complexity of primal-dual path-following LP algorithms

The main goals of this paper are to: i) relate two iteration-complexity bounds derived for the Mizuno-Todd-Ye predictor-corrector (MTY P-C) algorithm for linear programming (LP), and; ii) study the geometrical structure of the LP central path. The first iteration-complexity bound for the MTY P-C algorithm considered in this paper is expressed in terms of the integral of a certain curvature function over the traversed portion of the central path. The second iteration-complexity bound, derived recently by the authors using the notion of crossover events introduced by Vavasis and Ye, is expressed in terms of a scale-invariant condition number associated with m × n constraint matrix of the LP. In this paper, we establish a relationship between these bounds by showing that the first one can be majorized by the second one. We also establish a geometric result about the central path which gives a rigorous justification based on the curvature of the central path of a claim made by Vavasis and Ye, in view of the behavior of their layered least squares path following LP method, that the central path consists of long but straight continuous parts while the remaining curved part is relatively “short”. R. D. C. Monteiro was supported in part by NSF Grants CCR-0203113 and CCF-0430644 and ONR grant N00014-05-1-0183. T. Tsuchiya was supported in part by Japan-US Joint Research Projects of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science “Algorithms for linear programs over symmetric cones” and the Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) 15510144 of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.     

Scaling properties in temporal patterns of schizophrenia

Investigations into the patterns of schizophrenia reveal evidence of scaling properties in temporal behaviour. This is shown in the spectral properties of mid-range and long-range (up to two years) daily recordings from a sample of patients drawn at the therapeutic dwelling SOTERIA (Ambühl et al., in: Springer Series in Synergetics, Vol. 58, eds. Tschacher et al. (Springer, Berlin, 1992) pp. 195–203 and references therein) of the Psychiatric University Hospital in Bern. The therapeutic setting is unique in that it tries to avoid treatment by medication.

Power law behaviour has been found within fractal walk analysis and Fourier spectra for the daily fluctuations. A simple dynamic principle, based on a generic intermittency model, is put in relation to these time series thus predicting an additional scaling law for the distribution P(T) of time spans T between successive hospitalizations. Testing this hypothesis with our data shows only insignificant deviations. A possible role of this dynamic principle in the risk assignment of psychotic phases is explored with the help of an example.     

Scale-invariance of random populations: From Paretian to Poissonian fractality

Random populations represented by stochastically scattered collections of real-valued points are abundant across many fields of science. Fractality, in the context of random populations, is conventionally associated with a Paretian distribution of the population's values.Using a Poissonian approach to the modeling of random populations, we introduce a definition of “Poissonian fractality” based on the notion of scale-invariance. This definition leads to the characterization of four different classes of Fractal Poissonian Populations—three of which being non-Paretian objects. The Fractal Poissonian Populations characterized turn out to be the unique fixed points of natural renormalizations, and turn out to be intimately related to Extreme Value distributions and to Lévy Stable distributions.     

Scale-Distortion Inequalities for Mantissas of Finite Data Sets

In scientific computations using floating point arithmetic, rescaling a data set multiplicatively (e.g., corresponding to a conversion from dollars to euros) changes the distribution of the mantissas, or fraction parts, of the data. A scale-distortion factor for probability distributions is defined, based on the Kantorovich distance between distributions. Sharp lower bounds are found for the scale-distortion of n-point data sets, and the unique data set of size n with the least scale-distortion is identified for each positive integer n. A sequence of real numbers is shown to follow Benford’s Law (base b) if and only if the scale-distortion (base b) of the first n data points tends zero as n goes to infinity. These results complement the known fact that Benford’s Law is the unique scale-invariant probability distribution on mantissas. The first author was partly supported by a Humboldt research fellowship. The second author was supported in part by the National Security Agency and as a Research Scholar in Residence at California Polytechnic State University.     

Zipf's law from a Fisher variational-principle

Zipf's law is shown to arise as the variational solution of a problem formulated in Fisher's terms. An appropriate minimization process involving Fisher information and scale-invariance yields this universal rank distribution. As an example we show that the number of citations found in the most referenced physics journals follows this law.     

低山丘陵区可见光谱的分形特征

遥感影像记录的反射光谱特征主要来源于异质反射地物的光谱综合作用,了解其空间分布特征有助于影像解译和遥感模型的建立.该文以低山丘陵区10月底多光谱TM遥感影像为研究对象,采用统计学和多重分形相结合的手段分析其空间变异性.结果表明,研究区可见光谱(0.45～0.69μm)亮度值(digital number,DN)空间分布...