New, “big data” sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcomevariables at higher collection frequencies and more granular geographic scales thanever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questionson its own. Big urban data has the most value for the study of cities when it allowsmeasurement of the previously opaque, or when it can be coupled with exogenous shocksto people or place. We describe a number of new urban data sources and illustrate howthey can be used to improve the study and function of cities. We rst show how GoogleStreet View images can be used to predict income in New York City, suggesting thatsimilar imagery data can be used to map wealth and poverty in previously unmeasuredareas of the developing world. We then discuss how survey techniques can be improved tobetter measure willingness to pay for urban amenities. Finally, we explain how Internetdata is being used to improve the quality of city services.

We study orthogonal polynomials with respect to self-similar measures, focusing on the class of infinite Bernoulli convolutions, which are defined by iterated function systems with overlaps, especially those defined by the Pisot, Garsia, and Salem numbers. By using an algorithm of Mantica, we obtain graphs of the coefficients of the 3-term recursion relation defining the orthogonal polynomials. We use these graphs to predict whether the singular infinite Bernoulli convolutions belong to the Nevai class. Based on our numerical results, we conjecture that all infinite Bernoulli Convolutions with contraction ratios greater than or equal to 1/2 belong to Nevai's class, regardless of the probability weights assigned to the self-similar measures.

We provide a unified approach for constructing Wick words in mixed q-Gaussian algebras, which are generated by sj = aj +a ∗ j , j = 1, · · · , N, where aia ∗ j −qija ∗ j ai = δij . Here we also allow equality in −1 ≤ qij = qji ≤ 1. This approach relies on Speicher’s central limit theorem and the ultraproduct of von Neumann algebras. We also use the unified argument to show that the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck semigroup is hypercontractive, the Riesz transform associated to the number operator is bounded, and the number operator satisfies the Lp Poincar´e inequalities with constants C √p. Finally we prove that the mixed q-Gaussian algebra is weakly amenable and strongly solid in the sense of Ozawa and Popa. Our approach is mainly combinatorial and probabilistic. The results in this paper can be regarded as generalizations of previous results due to Speicher, Biane, Lust-Piquard, Avsec, et al.

We study the heat kernel expansion of the Laplacian on n-forms defined on a subgraph of a directed complete graph. We derive two expressions for the subgraph heat kernel on 0-forms and compute the coefficients of the expansion. We also obtain the subgraph heat kernel of the Laplacian on 1-forms.

For Laplacians defined by measures on a bounded domain in R^n, we prove analogs of the classical eigenvalue estimates for the standard Laplacian: lower bound of sums of eigenvalues by Li and Yau, and gaps of consecutive eigenvalues by Payne, Polya and Weinberger. This work is motivated by the study of spectral gaps for Laplacians on fractals.