3,169 research outputs found
Equilibrium Charge Distribution on Annealed Polyelectrolytes
Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the non-uniform equilibrium charge
distribution along a single annealed polyelectrolyte chain under theta-solvent
conditions and with added salt. Within a range of the order of the Debye length
charge accumulates at chain ends while a slight charge depletion appears in the
central part of the chain. The simulation results are compared with theoretical
predictions recently given by Castelnovo et al. In the parameter range where
the theory can be applied we find almost perfect quantitative agreement.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Eur. Phys. J.
Personale Autonomie als praktische Autorität
Autonomy and authority are often regarded as opposites. In this paper, I argue that autonomy should be conceived of as a specific form of (practical) authority and that this perspective is useful for identifying the conditions of personal autonomy. I will first highlight some structural analogies in the functioning of the concepts "autonomy” and "authority” and explain the resulting constraints on accounts of personal autonomy. I will then show that the problems of certain internalist and externalist accounts of autonomy are rooted in a false understanding of the foundation on which the authority that is characteristic of autonomy rests. To conclude, I present an account in which this foundation is given by a person's maturity (Mündigkeit), defensiveness (Wehrhaftigkeit) and participation (Mitsprache): Thus, a person is autonomous to the extent that she can cope with her own affairs, can defend herself against external encroachments and can participate in common affair
Quantum-enhanced reinforcement learning for finite-episode games with discrete state spaces
Quantum annealing algorithms belong to the class of metaheuristic tools,
applicable for solving binary optimization problems. Hardware implementations
of quantum annealing, such as the quantum annealing machines produced by D-Wave
Systems, have been subject to multiple analyses in research, with the aim of
characterizing the technology's usefulness for optimization and sampling tasks.
Here, we present a way to partially embed both Monte Carlo policy iteration for
finding an optimal policy on random observations, as well as how to embed (n)
sub-optimal state-value functions for approximating an improved state-value
function given a policy for finite horizon games with discrete state spaces on
a D-Wave 2000Q quantum processing unit (QPU). We explain how both problems can
be expressed as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) problem,
and show that quantum-enhanced Monte Carlo policy evaluation allows for finding
equivalent or better state-value functions for a given policy with the same
number episodes compared to a purely classical Monte Carlo algorithm.
Additionally, we describe a quantum-classical policy learning algorithm. Our
first and foremost aim is to explain how to represent and solve parts of these
problems with the help of the QPU, and not to prove supremacy over every
existing classical policy evaluation algorithm.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure
Real-Time Hand Tracking Using a Sum of Anisotropic Gaussians Model
Real-time marker-less hand tracking is of increasing importance in
human-computer interaction. Robust and accurate tracking of arbitrary hand
motion is a challenging problem due to the many degrees of freedom, frequent
self-occlusions, fast motions, and uniform skin color. In this paper, we
propose a new approach that tracks the full skeleton motion of the hand from
multiple RGB cameras in real-time. The main contributions include a new
generative tracking method which employs an implicit hand shape representation
based on Sum of Anisotropic Gaussians (SAG), and a pose fitting energy that is
smooth and analytically differentiable making fast gradient based pose
optimization possible. This shape representation, together with a full
perspective projection model, enables more accurate hand modeling than a
related baseline method from literature. Our method achieves better accuracy
than previous methods and runs at 25 fps. We show these improvements both
qualitatively and quantitatively on publicly available datasets.Comment: 8 pages, Accepted version of paper published at 3DV 201
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