Recent ucsc items

Improving coastal ocean pH estimates through assimilation of glider observations and hybrid statistical methods

Fri, 8 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Ocean acidification monitoring and carbon accounting require accurate estimates of marine carbonate system variables, particularly in dynamic coastal regions where observations remain sparse. This study presents an approach to improving carbonate system state estimates in the California Current System through the assimilation of underwater glider observations with both dynamical and statistical models. We implement a 4D-Var data assimilation system that jointly assimilates physical variables, chlorophyll, and glider-based pH and alkalinity data into a regional coupled physical-biogeochemical model. In our experiments, the assimilation of physical variables and chlorophyll alone has limited impact on pH and other carbonate system estimates, while the joint assimilation including pH and alkalinity variables successfully improves these estimates. Cross-validation experiments further demonstrate that the joint assimilation typically also improves estimates near the observation...

If You Build It, They May Not Come: Willingness to Participate in Managed EV Charging

Thu, 7 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

If You Build It, They May Not Come: Willingness to Participate in Managed EV Charging

Are Consumers Myopic? Evidence from New and Used Car Purchases

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Are Consumers Myopic? Evidence from New and Used Car Purchases

Profiting from Regulation: An Event Study of the European Carbon Market

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Profiting from Regulation: An Event Study of the European Carbon Market

Book Review: Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity , by Todd McGowan Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity, by McGowanTodd. Columbia University Press, 2024, 270 pp.

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Book Review: Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity , by Todd McGowan Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity, by McGowanTodd. Columbia University Press, 2024, 270 pp.

Building Human-Centered Multimodal AI Agents

Wed, 6 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As multimodal artificial intelligence systems become increasingly embedded in everyday technology, there is a growing need to design human-centered AI agents, supporting and amplifying human capabilities rather than replace them. This dissertation investigates how to build human-centered multimodal AI agents, framing human-centeredness as an agent-level objective that requires both accessible, assistive interaction and reliable, trustworthy behavior across physical and digital environments. This dissertation explores two complementary dimensions of human-centered agent design. The first focuses on enhancing accessibility through conversational and interactive agents that assist users in everyday tasks. We study both embodied and digital settings in which agents reduce physical and cognitive burdens via natural language interaction, including hands-free drone control, navigation assistance in unfamiliar environments, and interactive access to complex graphical user interfaces....

Probing axionlike particles near the neutral pion mass with KOTO data

Tue, 5 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We demonstrate that novel limits on prompt axionlike particles (ALPs) in the hard-to-probe mass range near the neutral pion—the so-called pion chimney—may be obtained from recasting K L → 3 π 0 → 6 γ data taken by the J-PARC KOTO experiment, to search for K L → 2 π 0 a → 6 γ ...

Measurement of coherent exclusive J/ψ → μ+μ− production in ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=5.36 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Tue, 5 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The ATLAS experiment has performed a measurement of coherent exclusive J/ψ → μ+μ− production in ultraperipheral Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=5.36$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}}=5.36 $$ TeV. The data was recorded at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) during 2023, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 79 μb−1. Exclusive J/ψ candidates were selected with a dedicated track-sensitive trigger based on the ATLAS transition radiation tracker. The analysis involves reconstruction of the dimuon invariant mass based on muon tracks from the inner detector, as the muon transverse momentum range of interest precludes the use of the standard muon reconstruction and identification algorithms. Differential cross sections are measured as a function of J/ψ rapidity and are compared with theoretical predictions. After extrapolation to sNN=5.02$$ \sqrt{s_{\textrm{NN}}}=5.02 $$ TeV, they are also compared with previous measurements performed by other experiments using data from LHC Run 2. While the results...

Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of charged particles in sNN=5.36TeV O16+O16 and Ne20+Ne20 collisions with the ATLAS detector

Tue, 5 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents the first measurements of the azimuthal anisotropy coefficients , which quantify the -order Fourier modulation of charged-particle azimuthal distributions, for in and collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider in 2025. The coefficients are measured as a function of transverse momentum ( ), collision centrality, and event multiplicity. They are extracted using two complementary methods: two-particle correlations with a template-fit subtraction of short-range nonflow contributions, and four-particle subevent cumulants, which intrinsically suppress nonflow effects and provide sensitivity to flow fluctuations. The results show a clear hierarchy and a nonmonotonic dependence on , reaching a maximum around , consistent with trends observed in heavy-ion collisions. Detailed comparisons between the two collision systems reveal an enhanced in central collisions, consistent with theory expectations based on the predicted...

Search for Higgs bosons produced in association with a high-energy photon via vector-boson fusion and decaying to a pair of b-quarks in the ATLAS detector

Tue, 5 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A search for Standard Model Higgs bosons produced in association with a high-energy photon and decaying to b b ¯ is performed using 133 fb − 1 of s = 13 TeV pp collision data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The photon requirement reduces the multijet background, and the H → b b ¯ decay is the dominant decay mode. Event selection requirements target events produced by vector-boson fusion, the dominant production mode in this channel. Several improvements enhance the search sensitivity compared to previous measurements. These improvements include better background modelling and characterization, the use of a neural-network classifier, and an updated signal extraction strategy adopting a direct binned-likelihood fit to the classifier output. With these improvements, the Higgs boson signal strength is measured to be 0.2 ± 0.7 relative to the Standard Model prediction. This corresponds to an observed significance of 0.3 standard deviations, compared...

Erratum: The environmental impact, carbon emissions and sustainability of computing in the ATLAS experiment

Tue, 5 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The worldwide distribution of ATLAS computing, based on the amount of CPU provided, in HS23 (see Sect. 4.1 for the precise definition of HS23), on average in 2023–2024. Countries in gray did not contribute significant CPU One correction is noted for the paper [1], which does not affect the results reported. The vertical axis range of the legend of Fig. 1 is corrected as it was reversed in the original publication.

Nanopore Sequencing: A Way to Explore Life's Origins.

Sun, 3 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In future years, it seems likely that someone will claim they have discovered a process that allows a mixture of simple molecules to assemble into structures and systems with the fundamental properties of life. A useful exercise for researchers is to imagine what those properties might be and then design experiments to test ideas about how those properties could emerge on early Earth and other habitable planets. A variety of polymers play key roles in living systems, and we now have powerful analytical tools to analyze their structure and functions. One of these tools is the ability to determine base sequences of nucleic acids by gel electrophoresis, which led to the publication of the human genome in 2001 by the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium. Another is nanopore sequencing, which has the unique ability to sequence not just fragments from a purified source of DNA but also individual molecules in mixed populations of nucleic acid polymers. Here, I will describe...

Icelandic Hot Springs as a Prebiotic Analog: Wet-Dry Cycling Effects on the Stability of Nucleotides and Nucleic Acids.

Sun, 3 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The hot spring hypothesis for the origin of life proposes that naturally occurring wet-dry cycles in small bodies of water could have driven condensation reactions on prebiotic Earth. Mononucleotides exposed to wet-dry cycles in the laboratory have been shown to generate RNA oligomers. We tested whether similar reactions occur after wet-dry cycling in the laboratory of mononucleotides mixed with natural hot spring waters. Nucleotide solutions were prepared in the laboratory with effluent samples collected from hot springs of the Seltún (SE) and Hveradalir (HV) geothermal areas in Iceland. Sixteen wet-dry cycles with water collected from SE resulted in degradation of adenosine-5'-monophosphoric acid (95%), uridine 5'-monophosphate (63%) mononucleotides, while four wet-dry cycles were enough to destroy around 90% of both A10 and U10; thus, they displayed uniquely destructive properties for both purine and pyrimidine bases. Meanwhile, mononucleotides suspended in water collected...

"The Nerve Garden": Plant a Seed in Cyberspace

Fri, 1 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

"The Nerve Garden": Plant a Seed in Cyberspace

Reorganization of meridional overturning circulation during ETM2

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The investigation of hyperthermals, or short-lived periods of extreme warming, over the course of Earth’s history is crucial to understanding the effects of climate change on the planet’s global carbon cycle, climate, ecosystems, and biogeochemical cycling. Geologic sedimentary archives record a number of such hyperthermals in the Cenozoic era. The most extreme hyperthermal on record is the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) approximately 55 million years ago. The PETM is characterized by a negative carbon isotopic excursion (CIE) and a negative shift in oxygen isotopic composition indicative of global warming of 5℃. The warming triggered an abrupt shift in deep ocean circulation and deep-water formation recorded by the carbon isotope composition of benthic foraminifera and by seafloor carbonate dissolution patterns. This evidence suggests the pattern of globally overturning circulation underwent a major reorganization eventually returning to its original state as the planet...

The circadian isoform landscape of mouse livers.

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The mammalian circadian clock is an autoregulatory feedback process that is responsible for homeostasis in mouse livers. These circadian processes are well understood at the gene level; however, they are not well understood at the isoform level. To investigate circadian oscillations at the isoform level, we used the nanopore-based R2C2 method to create over 78 million highly accurate, full-length complementary DNA reads for 12 RNA samples extracted from mouse livers collected at 2 h intervals. To generate a circadian mouse liver isoform-level transcriptome, we processed these reads using the Mandalorion tool, which identified and quantified 58 612 isoforms, 1806 of which showed circadian oscillations. We performed detailed analysis on the circadian oscillation of these isoforms, their coding sequences, and transcription start sites and compiled easy-to-access resources for other researchers. This study and its results add a new layer of detail to the quantitative analysis of transcript...

Procedural, Player-Centric Game Balancing

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Game balance is a term widely used among players, researchers, and designers of games. It is a concept that feels vitally important to how we make and play games, but when we try to define it or implement it, we seldom get the same definition twice. Balance appears differently to whoever is judging it, but as researchers and designers, we still must translate this element of game design into technical practice. It is also an expensive and time-consuming subject, one that requires a constant loop of playtesting and design iteration through nearly the entirety of the game development process. This work seeks to focus our understanding of balance while offering procedural methods to increase speed or improve quality when performing balancing tasks in game design and research. It accomplishes this by offering a taxonomy of balance along with a generic design framework that can be used to apply balancing strategies in any game context. In addition, it provides a catalog of balancing...

Saturn: Zero-Configuration AI Service Discovery

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Generative AI services often gate access behind per-user subscriptions, API keys, and manual endpoint configuration. These are barriers that often scale with the number of users and applications on a network. Saturn, the central contribution of my thesis, provisions AI the way printers and speakers already provision themselves: through Multicast DNS (mDNS) and DNS-based Service Discovery (DNS-SD), network protocols that ship on every major operating system. With Saturn, AI endpoints register under the service type saturn. tcp.local. and every device on the network discovers them without accounts, credentials, or configuration files. This thesis contributes the Saturn protocol specification, six reference implementations across four languages, and an on-device deployment on a consumer-grade wireless router.

The Biological Productivity of the Ocean