Blog
-
Measurement-induced quantum walks
Posted on
by
Quantum systems generally lack precise trajectories. Hence, the notion of a quantum random walk is somewhat problematic. One way to make the idea precise is to consider quantum evolution which is repeatedly interrupted by position measurements, each of which localises the system to
-
Afterslip Moment Scaling and Variability from a Global Compilation of Estimates
Posted on
by
Aseismic afterslip is the gentle slipping or sliding of a fault over several months or years following an earthquake. The process involves aseismic shear and post-seismic readjustment occurring on and close to the fault planes of the parent earthquake, quite distinct from
-
Forecasting new diseases in low-data settings using transfer learning
Posted on
by
Epidemic models fall into two broad categories – those which fit an epidemic curve to past data in order to make predictions about the future, and mechanistic models which simulate more general scenarios based on specific underlying assumptions on factors such as
-
Emerging locality of network influence
Posted on
by
Complex systems of many components – the internet, economies, cells, ecosystems, and so on – depend on the rich web of interactions among many parts. In analysing such systems, however, it is natural that scientists often want to rank the components in
-
Naive Probabilism and Covid-19
Posted on
by
In the early weeks of the 2020 U.S. Covid-19 outbreak, guidance from the scientific establishment and government agencies included a number of dubious claims – masks don’t work, there’s no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and the risk to the public is low.
-
The Global Inequality Boomerang
Posted on
by
Since the late 1980s, global income inequality has fallen by most common definitions, largely due to the changing economic relationships between nations, including the rapid rise of China and India as economic centres.
-
Stability of heteroclinic cycles in rings of coupled oscillators
Posted on
by
Complex networks of interconnected physical systems arise in many areas of mathematics, science and engineering. Many such systems exhibit heteroclinic cycles – dynamical trajectories that show a roughly periodic behaviour, with non-convergent time averages.
-
Learning a weather dictionary of atmospheric patterns using Latent Dirichlet Allocation
Posted on
by
The mid-latitude atmospheric circulation is challenging to describe due to the turbulent and chaotic nature of the underlying flow, driven by the unstable dynamics of the jet stream. In general, the phase space of such turbulent geophysical flows appears to be large.
-
Metrics and Mechanisms: Measuring the Unmeasurable in the Science of Science
Posted on
by
How does science work? What are its core mechanisms? In recent decades, research has increasingly explored such questions using a variety of quantitative metrics which can be easily calculated from publications. But some of these can be deceiving.
-
Ranking earthquake forecasts using proper scoring rules: Binary events in a low probability environment
Posted on
by
Probabilistic earthquake forecasts can be used to estimate the chance of future earthquake hazards, or to model important risk quantities including the number of fatalities, damaged elements of infrastructure or economic losses. The Collaboratory for the Study of Earthquake Predictability (CSEP)