Convergence of three-dimensional loop-erased random walk in the natural parametrization

In this work, we consider loop-erased random walk (LERW) and its scaling limit in three dimensions, and prove that 3D LERW parametrized by renormalized length converges to its scaling limit parametrized by some suitable measure with respect to the uniform convergence topology in the lattice size scaling limit. Our result improves the previous work of Gady Kozma (Acta Math. 199(1):29-152), which shows that the rescaled trace of 3D LERW converges weakly to a random compact set with respect to the Hausdorff distance.Comment: 74 pages, 3 figure

Sparse Model Identification and Learning for Ultra-high-dimensional Additive Partially Linear Models

The additive partially linear model (APLM) combines the flexibility of nonparametric regression with the parsimony of regression models, and has been widely used as a popular tool in multivariate nonparametric regression to alleviate the "curse of dimensionality". A natural question raised in practice is the choice of structure in the nonparametric part, that is, whether the continuous covariates enter into the model in linear or nonparametric form. In this paper, we present a comprehensive framework for simultaneous sparse model identification and learning for ultra-high-dimensional APLMs where both the linear and nonparametric components are possibly larger than the sample size. We propose a fast and efficient two-stage procedure. In the first stage, we decompose the nonparametric functions into a linear part and a nonlinear part. The nonlinear functions are approximated by constant spline bases, and a triple penalization procedure is proposed to select nonzero components using adaptive group LASSO. In the second stage, we refit data with selected covariates using higher order polynomial splines, and apply spline-backfitted local-linear smoothing to obtain asymptotic normality for the estimators. The procedure is shown to be consistent for model structure identification. It can identify zero, linear, and nonlinear components correctly and efficiently. Inference can be made on both linear coefficients and nonparametric functions. We conduct simulation studies to evaluate the performance of the method and apply the proposed method to a dataset on the Shoot Apical Meristem (SAM) of maize genotypes for illustration

A lower bound for disconnection by random interlacements

We consider the vacant set of random interlacements on Z^d, with d bigger or equal to 3, in the percolative regime. Motivated by the large deviation principles obtained in our recent work arXiv:1304.7477, we investigate the asymptotic behavior of the probability that a large body gets disconnected from infinity by the random interlacements. We derive an asymptotic lower bound, which brings into play tilted interlacements, and relates the problem to some of the large deviations of the occupation-time profile considered in arXiv:1304.7477.Comment: 28 pages, appeared in the Electronic Journal of Probabilit

Approximating the Geometric Edit Distance

Edit distance is a measurement of similarity between two sequences such as strings, point sequences, or polygonal curves. Many matching problems from a variety of areas, such as signal analysis, bioinformatics, etc., need to be solved in a geometric space. Therefore, the geometric edit distance (GED) has been studied. In this paper, we describe the first strictly sublinear approximate near-linear time algorithm for computing the GED of two point sequences in constant dimensional Euclidean space. Specifically, we present a randomized O(n log^2n) time O(sqrt n)-approximation algorithm. Then, we generalize our result to give a randomized alpha-approximation algorithm for any alpha in [1, sqrt n], running in time O~(n^2/alpha^2). Both algorithms are Monte Carlo and return approximately optimal solutions with high probability

Effects of practical impairments on cooperative distributed antennas combined with fractional frequency reuse

Cooperative Multiple Point (CoMP) transmission aided Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) are proposed for increasing the received Signal-to-Interference-plus-Noise-Ratio (SINR) in the cell-edge area of a cellular system employing Fractional Frequency Reuse (FFR) in the presence of realistic imperfect Channel State Information (CSI) as well as synchronisation errors between the transmitters and the receivers. Our simulation results demonstrate that the CoMP aided DAS scenario is capable of increasing the attainable SINR by up to 3dB in the presence of a wide range of realistic imperfections

An investigation on energy consumption of public buildings in Chongqing, China

Global climate change is one of the most important environmental issues that human have ever faced. China is taking an active role in reducing carbon dioxide emission in order to alleviate the climate change process. Building sectors contribute for 30% of carbon emission and 27.5% of total energy consumption in China. There is an urgent need for improving building energy efficiency to achieve carbon reduction. New buildings are legislated by national standards and regulations to secure a relatively high level of energy efficiency. However, the diversity of architectural design, system operation and management make it a big challenging to achieve energy efficiency in existing buildings. Existing researches have already investigated the building retrofit technologies and strategies. However, information on the current building stocks is even more important due to its impact in decision makings of retrofit strategies. This paper investigates the energy consumption of public buildings in Chongqing, China. Building energy consumption data collected from Chongqing public building energy consumption monitoring platform was analyzed by SPSS software. The data collection and analysis are focused on governmental office, general office, hotel buildings and shopping mall. Statistical hypothesis test, using log-normal P-P plot and Shapiro–Wilk test, reveals that the annual energy consumption densities of these types of building are log-normal distributed

Efficacy of ozone against phosphine susceptible and resistant strains of four stored-product insect species

Citation: Xinyi, E., Subramanyam, B., & Li, B. (2017). Efficacy of ozone against phosphine susceptible and resistant strains of four stored-product insect species. Insects, 8(2). doi:10.3390/insects8020042The efficacy of ozone was evaluated against four economically-important stored-product insect species at 27.2 °C and 20.4% r.h. Adults of phosphine-susceptible laboratory strains and phosphine-resistant field strains of the red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst), saw-toothed grain beetle, Oryzaephilus surinamensis (Linnaeus), maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky, and rice weevil, Sitophilus oryzae (Linnaeus), were exposed in vials to an ozone concentration of 0.42 g/m3 (200 ppm) for 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12 h with 0 and 10 g of wheat. Initial and final mortalities were assessed 1 and 5 d after exposure to ozone, respectively. After an 8–12-h exposure to ozone, initial mortality of Sitophilus spp. and O. surinamensis was 100%, whereas the highest initial mortality of T. castaneum was 90%. A 3–4-h exposure to ozone resulted in 100% final mortality of Sitophilus spp., whereas O. surinamensis required a 6- to 10-h exposure to ozone. Adults of T. castaneum were least susceptible to ozone, and after a 10-h exposure, mortality ranged between 82 and 95%. Time for the 5 d 99% mortality (LT99) for adults of laboratory and field strains of Sitophilus spp., O. surinamensis and T. castaneum were 2.00–5.56, 4.33–11.18 and 14.35–29.89 h, respectively. The LT99 values for adults of T. castaneum and O. surinamensis were not significantly different between bioassays conducted with 0 and 10 g of wheat. The LT99 values for the laboratory strains of Sitophilus spp. in the absence of wheat were significantly lower than those obtained in the presence of wheat. Both phosphine-susceptible and -resistant strains were equally susceptible to ozone. Ozone effectively suppressed adult progeny production of all four species. Ozone is a viable alternative fumigant to control phosphine-resistant strains of these four species. © 2017 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland