On Crossley's contribution to the development of graph based algorithms for the analysis of mechanisms and gear trains

This paper celebrates a particular branch of Crossley's early work dedicated to Mechanism Science, which deals with a rigorous introduction of Graph Theory to the study of some fundamental and intrinsic properties of kinematic chains and mechanisms. Although such idea gave its main outcome in Type and Number Synthesis (which has been much better and extensively described in another paper of the present special issue) some other intriguing side effects appeared, later in Mechanism Science, which yielded several results, and are still in the center of research and industrial world interest, such as, to name but a few, the automatic generation of the equations governing kinematic, static force and dynamic analysis of mechanisms and geared trains, the power flow analysis, the computation of the efficiency and, finally, the never fully explored structure-to-function mapping, which the present contribution points out to be still a challenge in the field

The Tensor Track, III

We provide an informal up-to-date review of the tensor track approach to quantum gravity. In a long introduction we describe in simple terms the motivations for this approach. Then the many recent advances are summarized, with emphasis on some points (Gromov-Hausdorff limit, Loop vertex expansion, Osterwalder-Schrader positivity...) which, while important for the tensor track program, are not detailed in the usual quantum gravity literature. We list open questions in the conclusion and provide a rather extended bibliography.Comment: 53 pages, 6 figure

Graph Theory and Universal Grammar

Tese arquivada ao abrigo da Portaria nº 227/2017 de 25 de Julho-Registo de Grau EstrangeiroIn the last few years, Noam Chomsky (1994; 1995; 2000; 2001) has gone quite far in the direction of simplifying syntax, including eliminating X-bar theory and the levels of D-structure and S-structure entirely, as well as reducing movement rules to a combination of the more primitive operations of Copy and Merge. What remain in the Minimalist Program are the operations Merge and Agree and the levels of LF (Logical Form) and PF (Phonological form). My doctoral thesis attempts to offer an economical theory of syntactic structure from a graph-theoretic point of view (cf. Diestel, 2005), with special emphases on the elimination of category and projection labels and the Inclusiveness Condition (Chomsky 1994). The major influences for the development of such a theory have been Chris Collins’ (2002) seminal paper “Eliminating labels”, John Bowers (2001) unpublished manuscript “Syntactic Relations” and the Cartographic Paradigm (see Belletti, Cinque and Rizzi’s volumes on OUP for a starting point regarding this paradigm). A syntactic structure will be regarded here as a graph consisting of the set of lexical items, the set of relations among them and nothing more

Field theoretic formulation and empirical tracking of spatial processes

Spatial processes are attacked on two fronts. On the one hand, tools from theoretical and statistical physics can be used to understand behaviour in complex, spatially-extended multi-body systems. On the other hand, computer vision and statistical analysis can be used to study 4D microscopy data to observe and understand real spatial processes in vivo. On the rst of these fronts, analytical models are developed for abstract processes, which can be simulated on graphs and lattices before considering real-world applications in elds such as biology, epidemiology or ecology. In the eld theoretic formulation of spatial processes, techniques originating in quantum eld theory such as canonical quantisation and the renormalization group are applied to reaction-di usion processes by analogy. These techniques are combined in the study of critical phenomena or critical dynamics. At this level, one is often interested in the scaling behaviour; how the correlation functions scale for di erent dimensions in geometric space. This can lead to a better understanding of how macroscopic patterns relate to microscopic interactions. In this vein, the trace of a branching random walk on various graphs is studied. In the thesis, a distinctly abstract approach is emphasised in order to support an algorithmic approach to parts of the formalism. A model of self-organised criticality, the Abelian sandpile model, is also considered. By exploiting a bijection between recurrent con gurations and spanning trees, an e cient Monte Carlo algorithm is developed to simulate sandpile processes on large lattices. On the second front, two case studies are considered; migratory patterns of leukaemia cells and mitotic events in Arabidopsis roots. In the rst case, tools from statistical physics are used to study the spatial dynamics of di erent leukaemia cell lineages before and after a treatment. One key result is that we can discriminate between migratory patterns in response to treatment, classifying cell motility in terms of sup/super/di usive regimes. For the second case study, a novel algorithm is developed to processes a 4D light-sheet microscopy dataset. The combination of transient uorescent markers and a poorly localised specimen in the eld of view leads to a challenging tracking problem. A fuzzy registration-tracking algorithm is developed to track mitotic events so as to understand their spatiotemporal dynamics under normal conditions and after tissue damage.Open Acces