Protected polymorphisms and evolutionary stability of patch-selection strategies in stochastic environments

We consider a population living in a patchy environment that varies stochastically in space and time. The population is composed of two morphs (that is, individuals of the same species with different genotypes). In terms of survival and reproductive success, the associated phenotypes differ only in their habitat selection strategies. We compute invasion rates corresponding to the rates at which the abundance of an initially rare morph increases in the presence of the other morph established at equilibrium. If both morphs have positive invasion rates when rare, then there is an equilibrium distribution such that the two morphs coexist; that is, there is a protected polymorphism for habitat selection. Alternatively, if one morph has a negative invasion rate when rare, then it is asymptotically displaced by the other morph under all initial conditions where both morphs are present. We refine the characterization of an evolutionary stable strategy for habitat selection from [Schreiber, 2012] in a mathematically rigorous manner. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of an ESS that uses all patches and determine when using a single patch is an ESS. We also provide an explicit formula for the ESS when there are two habitat types. We show that adding environmental stochasticity results in an ESS that, when compared to the ESS for the corresponding model without stochasticity, spends less time in patches with larger carrying capacities and possibly makes use of sink patches, thereby practicing a spatial form of bet hedging.Comment: Revised in light of referees' comments, Published on-line Journal of Mathematical Biology 2014 http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00285-014-0824-

The statistics of the trajectory in a certain billiard in a flat two-torus

We consider a billiard in the punctured torus obtained by removing a small disk from the two-dimensional flat torus, with trajectory starting from the center of the puncture. In this case the phase space is given by the range of the velocity only. We prove that the probability measures on $[0,\infty)$ associated with the first exit time are weakly convergent when the size of the puncture tends to zero and explicitly compute the density of the limit.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figure

Simulink modeling and design of an efficient hardware-constrained FPGA-based PMSM speed controller

The aim of this paper is to present a holistic approach to modeling and FPGA implementation of a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) speed controller. The whole system is modeled in the Matlab Simulink environment. The controller is then translated to discrete time and remodeled using System Generator blocks, directly synthesizable into FPGA hardware. The algorithm is further refined and factorized to take into account hardware constraints, so as to fit into a low cost FPGA, without significantly increasing the execution time. The resulting controller is then integrated together with sensor interfaces and analysis tools and implemented into an FPGA device. Experimental results validate the controller and verify the design

Killed Brownian motion with a prescribed lifetime distribution and models of default

The inverse first passage time problem asks whether, for a Brownian motion $B$ and a nonnegative random variable $\zeta$, there exists a time-varying barrier $b$ such that $\mathbb{P}\{B_s>b(s),0\leq s\leq t\}=\mathbb{P}\{\zeta>t\}$. We study a "smoothed" version of this problem and ask whether there is a "barrier" $b$ such that $\mathbb{E}[\exp(-\lambda\int_0^t\psi(B_s-b(s))\,ds)]=\mathbb{P}\{\zeta >t\}$, where $\lambda$ is a killing rate parameter, and $\psi:\mathbb{R}\to[0,1]$ is a nonincreasing function. We prove that if $\psi$ is suitably smooth, the function $t\mapsto \mathbb{P}\{\zeta>t\}$ is twice continuously differentiable, and the condition 0t\}}{dt}<\lambda holds for the hazard rate of $\zeta$, then there exists a unique continuously differentiable function $b$ solving the smoothed problem. We show how this result leads to flexible models of default for which it is possible to compute expected values of contingent claims.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/12-AAP902 the Annals of Applied Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aap/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

On Quasi-Periodicity in Proth-Gilbreath Triangles

Let PG be the Proth-Gilbreath operator that transforms a sequence of integers into the sequence of the absolute values of the differences between all pairs of neighbor terms. Consider the infinite tables obtained by successive iterations of PG applied to different initial sequences of integers. We study these tables of higher order differences and characterize those that have near-periodic features. As a biproduct, we also obtain two results on a class of formal power series over the field with two elements F2 that can be expressed as rational functions in several ways

Faraday waves in binary non-miscible Bose-Einstein condensates

We show by extensive numerical simulations and analytical variational calculations that elongated binary non-miscible Bose-Einstein condensates subject to periodic modulations of the radial confinement exhibit a Faraday instability similar to that seen in one-component condensates. Considering the hyperfine states of $^{87}$Rb condensates, we show that there are two experimentally relevant stationary state configurations: the one in which the components form a dark-bright symbiotic pair (the ground state of the system), and the one in which the components are segregated (first excited state). For each of these two configurations, we show numerically that far from resonances the Faraday waves excited in the two components are of similar periods, emerge simultaneously, and do not impact the dynamics of the bulk of the condensate. We derive analytically the period of the Faraday waves using a variational treatment of the coupled Gross-Pitaevskii equations combined with a Mathieu-type analysis for the selection mechanism of the excited waves. Finally, we show that for a modulation frequency close to twice that of the radial trapping, the emergent surface waves fade out in favor of a forceful collective mode that turns the two condensate components miscible.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Graphene-coated holey metal films: tunable molecular sensing by surface plasmon resonance

We report on the enhancement of surface plasmon resonances in a holey bidimensional grating of subwavelength size, drilled in a gold thin film coated by a graphene sheet. The enhancement originates from the coupling between charge carriers in graphene and gold surface plasmons. The main plasmon resonance peak is located around 1.5 microns. A lower constraint on the gold-induced doping concentration of graphene is specified and the interest of this architecture for molecular sensing is also highlighted.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Final version. Published in Applied Physics Letter