High performance dash on warning air mobile, missile system

An aircraft-missile system which performs a high acceleration takeoff followed by a supersonic dash to a 'safe' distance from the launch site is presented. Topics considered are: (1) technological feasibility to the dash on warning concept; (2) aircraft and boost trajectory requirements; and (3) partial cost estimates for a fleet of aircraft which provide 200 missiles on airborne alert. Various aircraft boost propulsion systems were studied such as an unstaged cryogenic rocket, an unstaged storable liquid, and a solid rocket staged system. Various wing planforms were also studied. Vehicle gross weights are given. The results indicate that the dash on warning concept will meet expected performance criteria, and can be implemented using existing technology, such as all-aluminum aircraft and existing high-bypass-ratio turbofan engines

Variables and distance covered during the World Cup Southafrica'10

El objetivo de este trabajo fue relacionar las variables contextuales y la velocidad media de los desplazamientos realizados por los equipos que participaron durante la Copa del Mundo Sudáfrica 2010. Se estudiaron 128 registros, medidos a través de la velocidad media en metros por minuto (m∙min1), durante los 64 partidos celebrados. Las variables contextuales fueron: tipo de competición, continente, resultado del partido, ranking FIFA del equipo y ranking FIFA del rival. Únicamente se han encontrado diferencias significativas en las variables continente (F=3,861;p=0,005) y resultado del partido en interacción con tipo de competición (F=3,999;p=0,029). Los resultados de este trabajo permiten aumentar el conocimiento referente a la influencia de las diferentes variables contextuales en la intensidad de desplazamiento de los equipos mientras disputan un partido de competición y, en consecuencia, gestionar la importancia de estos requerimientos energéticos con relación a la evaluación del rendimiento físicoThe aim of this study was to determine whether there is any influence from different contextual variables on the physical performance of the teams during the South African World Cup 2010. The physical performances of 128 teams were studied, measured by distance travelled in meters per minute (m∙min-1), during the 64 matches played in South Africa 2010. The contextual variables were: type of competition, continent, match score, FIFA team ranking, and FIFA opponent ranking. Significant differences were found only in the continent variable (F=3.86,p=0.005) and match score in interaction with type of competition (F=3.999,p=0.029). The results of this study provide increasing knowledge concerning the influence of contextual variables on the physical demands on teams during a competition match and, therefore, will help to manage the importance of these energy requirements in relation to physical performanc

Statistical physics of the Schelling model of segregation

We investigate the static and dynamic properties of a celebrated model of social segregation, providing a complete explanation of the mechanisms leading to segregation both in one- and two-dimensional systems. Standard statistical physics methods shed light on the rich phenomenology of this simple model, exhibiting static phase transitions typical of kinetic constrained models, nontrivial coarsening like in driven-particle systems and percolation-related phenomena.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Solution of voter model dynamics on annealed small-world networks

An analytical study of the behavior of the voter model on the small-world topology is performed. In order to solve the equations for the dynamics, we consider an annealed version of the Watts-Strogatz (WS) network, where long-range connections are randomly chosen at each time step. The resulting dynamics is as rich as on the original WS network. A temporal scale $\tau$ separates a quasi-stationary disordered state with coexisting domains from a fully ordered frozen configuration. $\tau$ is proportional to the number of nodes in the network, so that the system remains asymptotically disordered in the thermodynamic limit.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, published version. Added section with extension to generic number of nearest neighbor

Deep-well ultrafast manipulation of a SQUID flux qubit

Superconducting devices based on the Josephson effect are effectively used for the implementation of qubits and quantum gates. The manipulation of superconducting qubits is generally performed by using microwave pulses with frequencies from 5 to 15 GHz, obtaining a typical operating clock from 100MHz to 1GHz. A manipulation based on simple pulses in the absence of microwaves is also possible. In our system a magnetic flux pulse modifies the potential of a double SQUID qubit from a symmetric double well to a single deep well condition. By using this scheme with a Nb/AlOx/Nb system we obtained coherent oscillations with sub-nanosecond period (tunable from 50ps to 200ps), very fast with respect to other manipulating procedures, and with a coherence time up to 10ns, of the order of what obtained with similar devices and technologies but using microwave manipulation. We introduce the ultrafast manipulation presenting experimental results, new issues related to this approach (such as the use of a feedback procedure for cancelling the effect of "slow" fluctuations), and open perspectives, such as the possible use of RSFQ logic for the qubit control.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

T-PHOT version 2.0: improved algorithms for background subtraction, local convolution, kernel registration, and new options

We present the new release v2.0 of T-PHOT, a publicly available software package developed to perform PSF-matched, prior-based, multiwavelength deconfusion photometry of extragalactic fields. New features included in the code are presented and discussed: background estimation, fitting using position dependent kernels, flux prioring, diagnostical statistics on the residual image, exclusion of selected sources from the model and residual images, individual registration of fitted objects. These new options improve on the performance of the code, allowing for more accurate results and providing useful aids for diagnostics.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Bayesian Updating Rules in Continuous Opinion Dynamics Models

In this article, I investigate the use of Bayesian updating rules applied to modeling social agents in the case of continuos opinions models. Given another agent statement about the continuous value of a variable $x$, we will see that interesting dynamics emerge when an agent assigns a likelihood to that value that is a mixture of a Gaussian and a Uniform distribution. This represents the idea the other agent might have no idea about what he is talking about. The effect of updating only the first moments of the distribution will be studied. and we will see that this generates results similar to those of the Bounded Confidence models. By also updating the second moment, several different opinions always survive in the long run. However, depending on the probability of error and initial uncertainty, those opinions might be clustered around a central value.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, presented at SigmaPhi200