## A nice arXiv symbol in LaTeX…

If you want to include a nice arXiv symbol in LaTeX when citing an arxiv version of a paper, here is a small package to do this. The results look like that:

The code is straightforward:

is available on the
\arXiv \cite{hy-aammg-22}.

The image used is taken from the official arXiv logo from here. All copyrights belong to them, etc.

Here is the resulting pdf file.

## Submitting papers to the arxiv with biblatex…

I had this information before on the blog, but information got lost, etc, so I decided it would be a good idea to reproduce some of the information. Before you submit papers to the arxiv, you should copy them to a separate directory, and clean them up — remove unnecessary files, etc. Fortunately, there is a python program that does some of this work for you, see here:

arxiv-latex-cleaner  (use with the –verbose flag!)

which importantly removes comments from the LaTeX (because some people think there is nothing more amusing than finding embarrassing comments in your LaTeX files submitted to the arxiv).

If you use ipe or some other drawing programs, you might want to delete the source files, and only leave the generated pdf files. Remove unnecessary text files, etc.

There are some good reasons to use biblatex (more on that in a later blog entry). However, for technical reasons that are both uninteresting, and unimportant, this is not trivial and requires copying some parts of your biblatex installation with your submission.

Fortunately, there is another nice python program that can do this copying for you:

arxiv-collector

It works quite well with biblatex.

After that you should have a reasonably clean files for submission. Create a zip file, and submit to the arxiv.

## To acknowledge the corn

This purely American expression means to admit the losing of an argument, especially in regard to a detail; to retract; to admit defeat. It is over a hundred years old. Andrew Stewart, a member of Congress, is said to have mentioned it in a speech in 1828. He said that haystacks and cornfields were sent by Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky to Philadelphia and New York. Charles A. Wickliffe, a member from Kentucky questioned the statement by commenting that haystacks and cornfields could not walk. Stewart then pointed out that he did not mean literal haystacks and cornfields, but the horses, mules, and hogs for which the hay and corn were raised. Wickliffe then rose to his feet, and said, “Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge the corn”

Funk, Earle. “A Hog on Ice and Other Curious Expressions”

## Cleaning up bib files…

It is very useful to download bib entries from DBLP but the entries contains some information I dont care about, and more importantly, the cite keys that are not usable.  A nice tool to clean up bib files, and also recompute entries keys is BibTool. The configuration file for bibtool is a bit of a dark art, but here is my configuration file – it removes some of DBLP redundant files, and uses authors last names initials for first part of the key, initials of words in title as first part of the key, and then the year.

To clean bib file using bibtool, invoke:

bibtool -r bibtool_config.rsc -i old_file.bib -o out.bib

Example: in.bib [RAW]  -> out.bib [RAW].

## Mediant

Consider two not equal and positive rational numbers $$\frac{a}{b} < \frac{c}{d}$$. The number $$\frac{a+c}{b+d}$$ is the mediant of the two numbers. It is not hard to verify that $$\frac{a}{b} < \frac{a+c}{b+d} < \frac{c}{d}$$.

This was posted to test latex handling of the new setup.