44,422 research outputs found

    Correct-by-Construction Approach for Self-Evolvable Robots

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    The paper presents a new formal way of modeling and designing reconfigurable robots, in which case the robots are allowed to reconfigure not only structurally but also functionally. We call such kind of robots "self-evolvable", which have the potential to be more flexible to be used in a wider range of tasks, in a wider range of environments, and with a wider range of users. To accommodate such a concept, i.e., allowing a self-evovable robot to be configured and reconfigured, we present a series of formal constructs, e.g., structural reconfigurable grammar and functional reconfigurable grammar. Furthermore, we present a correct-by-construction strategy, which, given the description of a workspace, the formula specifying a task, and a set of available modules, is capable of constructing during the design phase a robot that is guaranteed to perform the task satisfactorily. We use a planar multi-link manipulator as an example throughout the paper to demonstrate the proposed modeling and designing procedures.Comment: The paper has 17 pages and 4 figure

    External Recruitment as an incentive Device

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    External recruitment has often been viewed as a necessary evil in that it trades off the need for outside talents with the incentives of inside workers. This paper, however, shows that even from an incentive viewpoint, external recruitment has its positive role to play. Specifically, if promotion is based on relative performance, then negative activities in the form of sabotage are a valuable instrument to compete. This results in inefficiency of the workers' efforts and performance of the firm. External recruitment, by reducing the marginal return of negative activity relative to that of productive activity, can restore the incentives of the workers to engage in productive activity and enhances the firm's performance. We also show that even when negative activities are not a concern, external recruitment can sometimes avoid the shirking equilibrium, or prevents collusion of the workerspromotio, relative performance, sabotage, external recruitment

    Magnetism and effect of anisotropy with one dimensional monatomic chain of cobalt by a Monte Carlo simulation

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    The magnetic properties of the one dimensional (1D) monatomic chain of Co reported in a previous experimental work are investigated by a classical Monte Carlo simulation based on the anisotropic Heisenberg model. In our simulation, the effect of the on-site uniaxial anisotropy, Ku, on each individual Co atom and the nearest neighbour exchange interaction, J, are accounted for. The normalized coercivity HC(T)/HC(TCL) is found to show a universal behaviour, HC(T)/HC(TCL) = h0(e^{TB/T}-e) in the temperature interval, TCL < T < TBCal, arising from the thermal activation effect. In the above expression, h0 is a constant, TBCal is the blocking temperature determined by the calculation, and TCL is the temperature above which the classical Monte Carlo simulation gives a good description on the investigated system. The present simulation has reproduced the experimental features, including the temperature dependent coercivity, HC(T), and the angular dependence of the remanent magnetization, MR(phi,theta), upon the relative orientation (phi,theta) of the applied field H. In addition, the calculation reveals that the ferromagnetic-like open hysteresis loop is a result of a slow dynamical process at T < TBCal. The dependence of the dynamical TBCal on the field sweeping rate R, the on-site anisotropy constant Ku, and the number of atoms in the atomic chain, N, has been investigated in detail.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures included, J Phys Condens Matter, In Pres

    Interfacial microstructure and shear strength of Ti-6Al-4V/TiAl laminate composite sheet fabricated by hot packed rolling

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    A two layer Ti-6Al-4V(wt%)/Ti-43Al-9V-Y(at%) laminate composite sheet with a uniform interfacial microstructure and no discernible defects at the interfaces has been prepared by hot-pack rolling, and its interfacial microstructure and shear strength were characterized. Characterization of the interfacial microstructure shows that there was an interfacial region of uniform thickness of about 250 Ī¼m which consisted of two layers: Layer I on the TiAl side which was 80 Ī¼m thick and Layer II on the Ti-6Al-4V side which was 170 Ī¼m thick. The microstructure of Layer I consisted of massive Ī³ phases, needlelike Ī³ phases and B2 phase matrix, while the microstructure of Layer II consisted of Ī±ā‚‚ phase. The microstructure of the interfacial region is the result of the interdiffusion of Ti element from Ti-6Al-4V alloy layer into the TiAl alloy layer and Al element from the TiAl alloy layer into the Ti-6Al-4V alloy layer. The shear strength measurement demonstrated that the bonding strength between the TiAl alloy and Ti-6Al-4V alloy layers in the laminate composite sheet was very high. This means that the quality of the interfacial bonding between the two layers achieved by the multi-path rolling is high, and the interface between the layers is very effective in transferring loading, causing significantly improved toughness and plasticity of the TiAl/Ti-6Al-4V laminate composite sheet

    Rearranging Pionless Effective Field Theory

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    We point out a redundancy in the operator structure of the pionless effective field theory which dramatically simplifies computations. This redundancy is best exploited by using dibaryon fields as fundamental degrees of freedom. In turn, this suggests a new power counting scheme which sums range corrections to all orders. We explore this method with a few simple observables: the deuteron charge form factor, n p -> d gamma, and Compton scattering from the deuteron. Higher dimension operators involving electroweak gauge fields are not renormalized by the s-wave strong interactions, and therefore do not scale with inverse powers of the renormalization scale. Thus, naive dimensional analysis of these operators is sufficient to estimate their contribution to a given process.Comment: 15 pages LaTeX, 9 eps figures, discussions extended and references adde
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