1,908 research outputs found
Skin friction measuring device for aircraft
A skin friction measuring device for measuring the resistance of an aerodynamic surface to an airstream is described. It was adapted to be mounted on an aircraft and is characterized by a friction plate adapted to be disposed in a flush relationship with the external surface of the aircraft and be displaced in response to skin friction drag. As an airstream is caused to flow over the surface, a potentiometer connected to the plate for providing an electrical output indicates the magnitude of the drag
Practical Open-Loop Optimistic Planning
We consider the problem of online planning in a Markov Decision Process when
given only access to a generative model, restricted to open-loop policies -
i.e. sequences of actions - and under budget constraint. In this setting, the
Open-Loop Optimistic Planning (OLOP) algorithm enjoys good theoretical
guarantees but is overly conservative in practice, as we show in numerical
experiments. We propose a modified version of the algorithm with tighter
upper-confidence bounds, KLOLOP, that leads to better practical performances
while retaining the sample complexity bound. Finally, we propose an efficient
implementation that significantly improves the time complexity of both
algorithms
Negativity as a distance from a separable state
The computable measure of the mixed-state entanglement, the negativity, is
shown to admit a clear geometrical interpretation, when applied to
Schmidt-correlated (SC) states: the negativity of a SC state equals a distance
of the state from a pertinent separable state. As a consequence, a SC state is
separable if and only if its negativity vanishes. Another remarkable
consequence is that the negativity of a SC can be estimated "at a glance" on
the density matrix. These results are generalized to mixtures of SC states,
which emerge in certain quantum-dynamical settings.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur
Sample-Efficient Model-Free Reinforcement Learning with Off-Policy Critics
Value-based reinforcement-learning algorithms provide state-of-the-art
results in model-free discrete-action settings, and tend to outperform
actor-critic algorithms. We argue that actor-critic algorithms are limited by
their need for an on-policy critic. We propose Bootstrapped Dual Policy
Iteration (BDPI), a novel model-free reinforcement-learning algorithm for
continuous states and discrete actions, with an actor and several off-policy
critics. Off-policy critics are compatible with experience replay, ensuring
high sample-efficiency, without the need for off-policy corrections. The actor,
by slowly imitating the average greedy policy of the critics, leads to
high-quality and state-specific exploration, which we compare to Thompson
sampling. Because the actor and critics are fully decoupled, BDPI is remarkably
stable, and unusually robust to its hyper-parameters. BDPI is significantly
more sample-efficient than Bootstrapped DQN, PPO, and ACKTR, on discrete,
continuous and pixel-based tasks. Source code:
https://github.com/vub-ai-lab/bdpi.Comment: Accepted at the European Conference on Machine Learning 2019 (ECML
Enhanced Transmission Due to Disorder
The transmissivity of a one-dimensional random system that is periodic on
average is studied. It is shown that the transmission coefficient for
frequencies corresponding to a gap in the band structure of the average
periodic system increases with increasing disorder while the disorder is weak
enough. This property is shown to be universal, independent of the type of
fluctuations causing the randomness. In the case of strong disorder the
transmission coefficient for frequencies in allowed bands is found to be a non
monotonic function of the strength of the disorder. An explanation for the
latter behavior is provided.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX 3.0, 4 Postscript figure
Fixed points of dynamic processes of set-valued F-contractions and application to functional equations
The article is a continuation of the investigations concerning F-contractions which have been recently introduced in [Wardowski in Fixed Point Theory Appl. 2012:94,2012]. The authors extend the concept of F-contractive mappings to the case of nonlinear F-contractions and prove a fixed point theorem via the dynamic processes. The paper includes a non-trivial example which shows the motivation for such investigations. The work is summarized by the application of the introduced nonlinear F-contractions to functional equations
Largest Lyapunov Exponent for Many Particle Systems at Low Densities
The largest Lyapunov exponent for a dilute gas with short range
interactions in equilibrium is studied by a mapping to a clock model, in which
every particle carries a watch, with a discrete time that is advanced at
collisions. This model has a propagating front solution with a speed that
determines , for which we find a density dependence as predicted by
Krylov, but with a larger prefactor. Simulations for the clock model and for
hard sphere and hard disk systems confirm these results and are in excellent
mutual agreement. They show a slow convergence of with increasing
particle number, in good agreement with a prediction by Brunet and Derrida.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 2 Figures (encapsulated postscript). Submitted to
Phys. Rev. Let
Teachers developing assessment for learning: impact on student achievement
While it is generally acknowledged that increased use of formative assessment (or assessment for learning) leads to higher quality learning, it is often claimed that the pressure in schools to improve the results achieved by students in externally-set tests and examinations precludes its use. This paper reports on the achievement of secondary school students who worked in classrooms where teachers made time to develop formative assessment strategies. A total of 24 teachers (2 science and 2 mathematics teachers, in each of six schools in two LEAs) were supported over a six-month period in exploring and planning their approach to formative assessment, and then, beginning in September 1999, the teachers put these plans into action with selected classes. In order to compute effect sizes, a measure of prior attainment and at least one comparison group was established for each class (typically either an equivalent class taught in the previous year by the same teacher, or a parallel class taught by another teacher). The mean effect size was 0.32
Ground states and formal duality relations in the Gaussian core model
We study dimensional trends in ground states for soft-matter systems.
Specifically, using a high-dimensional version of Parrinello-Rahman dynamics,
we investigate the behavior of the Gaussian core model in up to eight
dimensions. The results include unexpected geometric structures, with
surprising anisotropy as well as formal duality relations. These duality
relations suggest that the Gaussian core model possesses unexplored symmetries,
and they have implications for a broad range of soft-core potentials.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, appeared in Physical Review E (http://pre.aps.org
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