984 research outputs found
Decentralized Triangular Guidance Algorithms for Formations of UAVs
This paper deals with the design of a guidance control system for a swarm of unmanned aerial systems flying at a given altitude, addressing flight formation requirements that can be formulated constraining the swarm to be on the nodes of a triangular mesh. Three decentralized guidance algorithms are presented. A classical fixed leader–follower scheme is compared with two alternative
schemes: the former is based on the self-identification of one or more time-varying leaders; the latter is an algorithm without leaders. Several operational scenarios have been simulated involving swarms with obstacles and an increasing number of aircraft in order to prove the effectiveness of the proposed guidance schem
Tuning a Resonance in the Fock Space: Optimization of Phonon Emission in a Resonant Tunneling Device
Phonon-assisted tunneling in a double barrier resonant tunneling device can
be seen as a resonance in the electron-phonon Fock space which is tuned by the
applied voltage. We show that the geometrical parameters can induce a symmetry
condition in this space that can strongly enhance the emission of longitudinal
optical phonons. For devices with thin emitter barriers this is achieved by a
wider collector's barrier.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Figure 1 changed, typos correcte
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Detection of Pitt–Hopkins syndrome based on morphological facial features
This work describes a non-invasive, automated software framework to discriminate between individuals with a genetic disorder, Pitt–Hopkins syndrome (PTHS), and healthy individuals through the identification of morphological facial features. The input data consist of frontal facial photographs in which faces are located using histograms of oriented gradients feature descriptors. Pre-processing steps include color normalization and enhancement, scaling down, rotation, and cropping of pictures to produce a series of images of faces with consistent dimensions. Sixty-eight facial landmarks are automatically located on each face through a cascade of regression functions learnt via gradient boosting to estimate the shape from an initial approximation. The intensities of a sparse set of pixels indexed relative to this initial estimate are used to determine the landmarks. A set of carefully selected geometric features, for example, the relative width of the mouth or angle of the nose, is extracted from the landmarks. The features are used to investigate the statistical differences between the two populations of PTHS and healthy controls. The methodology was tested on 71 individuals with PTHS and 55 healthy controls. The software was able to classify individuals with an accuracy rate of 91%, while pediatricians achieved a recognition rate of 74%. Two geometric features related to the nose and mouth showed significant statistical difference between the two populations
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Computational framework for longevity risk management
Longevity risk threatens the financial stability of private and government sponsored defined benefit pension systems as well as social security schemes, in an environment already characterized by persistent low interest rates and heightened financial uncertainty. The mortality experience of countries in the industrialized world would suggest a substantial age-time interaction, with the two dominant trends affecting different age groups at different times. From a statistical point of view, this indicates a dependence structure. It is observed that mortality improvements are similar for individuals of contiguous ages (Wills and Sherris, Integrating financial and demographic longevity risk models: an Australian model for financial applications, Discussion Paper PI-0817, 2008). Moreover, considering the dataset by single ages, the correlations between the residuals for adjacent age groups tend to be high (as noted in Denton et al., J Population Econ 18:203-227, 2005). This suggests that there is value in exploring the dependence structure, also across time, in other words the inter-period correlation. In this research, we focus on the projections of mortality rates, contravening the most commonly encountered dependence property which is the "lack of dependence" (Denuit et al., Actuarial theory for dependent risks: measures. Orders and models, Wiley, New York, 2005). By taking into account the presence of dependence across age and time which leads to systematic over-estimation or under-estimation of uncertainty in the estimates (Liu and Braun, J Probability Stat, 813583:15, 2010), the paper analyzes a tailor-made bootstrap methodology for capturing the spatial dependence in deriving confidence intervals for mortality projection rates. We propose a method which leads to a prudent measure of longevity risk, avoiding the structural incompleteness of the ordinary simulation bootstrap methodology which involves the assumption of independence
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The Classical Pink-Eyed Dilution Mutation Affects Angiogenic Responsiveness
Angiogenesis is the process by which new blood vessels are formed from existing vessels. Mammalian populations, including humans and mice, harbor genetic variations that alter angiogenesis. Angiogenesis-regulating gene variants can result in increased susceptibility to multiple angiogenesis-dependent diseases in humans. Our efforts to dissect the complexity of the genetic diversity that regulates angiogenesis have used laboratory animals due to the availability of genome sequence for many species and the ability to perform high volume controlled breeding. Using the murine corneal micropocket assay, we have observed more than ten-fold difference in angiogenic responsiveness among various mouse strains. This degree of difference is observed with either bFGF or VEGF induced corneal neovascularization. Ongoing mapping studies have identified multiple loci that affect angiogenic responsiveness in several mouse models. In this study, we used F2 intercrosses between C57BL/6J and the 129 substrains 129P1/ReJ and 129P3/J, as well as the SJL/J strain, where we have identified new QTLs that affect angiogenic responsiveness. In the case of AngFq5, on chromosome 7, congenic animals were used to confirm the existence of this locus and subcongenic animals, combined with a haplotype-based mapping approach that identified the pink-eyed dilution mutation as a candidate polymorphism to explain AngFq5. The ability of mutations in the pink-eyed dilution gene to affect angiogenic response was demonstrated using the p-J allele at the same locus. Using this allele, we demonstrate that pink-eyed dilution mutations in Oca2 can affect both bFGF and VEGF-induced corneal angiogenesis
Non-Markovian decay beyond the Fermi Golden Rule: Survival Collapse of the polarization in spin chains
The decay of a local spin excitation in an inhomogeneous spin chain is
evaluated exactly: I) It starts quadratically up to a spreading time t_{S}. II)
It follows an exponential behavior governed by a self-consistent Fermi Golden
Rule. III) At longer times, the exponential is overrun by an inverse power law
describing return processes governed by quantum diffusion. At this last
transition time t_{R} a survival collapse becomes possible, bringing the
polarization down by several orders of magnitude. We identify this strongly
destructive interference as an antiresonance in the time domain. These general
phenomena are suitable for observation through an NMR experiment.Comment: corrected versio
Approximate Analytical Model for the Squeeze-Film Lubrication of the Human Ankle Joint with Synovial Fluid Filtrated by Articular Cartilage
The aim of this article is to propose an analytical approximate squeeze-film lubrication model of the human ankle joint for a quick assessment of the synovial pressure field and the load carrying due to the squeeze motion. The model starts from the theory of boosted lubrication for the human articular joints lubrication (Walker et al., Rheum Dis 27:512–520, 1968; Maroudas, Lubrication and wear in joints. Sector, London, 1969) and takes into account the fluid transport across the articular cartilage using Darcy’s equation to depict the synovial fluid motion through a porous cartilage matrix. The human ankle joint is assumed to be cylindrical enabling motion in the sagittal plane only. The proposed model is based on a modified Reynolds equation; its integration allows to obtain a quick assessment on the synovial pressure field showing a good agreement with those obtained numerically (Hlavacek, J Biomech 33:1415–1422, 2000). The analytical integration allows the closed form description of the synovial fluid film force and the calculation of the unsteady gap thickness
Kondo resonances and Fano antiresonances in transport through quantum dots
The transmission of electrons through a non-interacting tight-binding chain
with an interacting side quantum dot (QD) is analized. When the Kondo effect
develops at the dot the conductance presents a wide minimum, reaching zero at
the unitary limit. This result is compared to the opposite behaviour found in
an embedded QD. Application of a magnetic field destroys the Kondo effect and
the conductance shows pairs of dips separated by the charging energy U. The
results are discussed in terms of Fano antiresonances and explain qualitatively
recent experimental results.Comment: 4 pages including 4 figure
Time evolution of stimulated Raman scattering and two-plasmon decay at laser intensities relevant for shock ignition in a hot plasma
Laser–plasma interaction (LPI) at intensities 1015–1016 W cm2 is dominated by parametric instabilities which can be
responsible for a significant amount of non-collisional absorption and generate large fluxes of high-energy nonthermal
electrons. Such a regime is of paramount importance for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and in particular for the
shock ignition scheme. In this paper we report on an experiment carried out at the Prague Asterix Laser System (PALS)
facility to investigate the extent and time history of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and two-plasmon decay (TPD)
instabilities, driven by the interaction of an infrared laser pulse at an intensity 1:2 1016 W cm2 with a 100 mm
scalelength plasma produced from irradiation of a flat plastic target. The laser pulse duration (300 ps) and the high
value of plasma temperature (4 keV) expected from hydrodynamic simulations make these results interesting for a
deeper understanding of LPI in shock ignition conditions. Experimental results show that absolute TPD/SRS, driven at
a quarter of the critical density, and convective SRS, driven at lower plasma densities, are well separated in time, with
absolute instabilities driven at early times of interaction and convective backward SRS emerging at the laser peak and
persisting all over the tail of the pulse. Side-scattering SRS, driven at low plasma densities, is also clearly observed.
Experimental results are compared to fully kinetic large-scale, two-dimensional simulations. Particle-in-cell results,
beyond reproducing the framework delineated by the experimental measurements, reveal the importance of filamentation
instability in ruling the onset of SRS and stimulated Brillouin scattering instabilities and confirm the crucial role of
collisionless absorption in the LPI energy balance
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