Edge Selection in Bilinear Dynamical Networks

In large-scale networks, agents (e.g., sensors and actuators) and links (e.g., couplings and communication links) can fail or be (cyber-)attacked. In this paper, we focus on continuous-time bilinear networks, where additive disturbances model attack/uncertainty on agents/states (a.k.a. node disturbances) and multiplicative disturbances model attack/uncertainty on couplings between agents/states (a.k.a. link disturbances). We then investigate a network robustness notion in terms of the underlying digraph of the network, and structure of exogenous uncertainties/attacks. Specifically, we define the robustness measure using the H2-norm of the network and calculate it in terms of the reachability Gramian of the bilinear system. The main result shows that under certain conditions, the measure is supermodular over the set of all possible attacked links. The supermodular property facilitates the efficient solution finding of the optimization problem. We conclude the paper with a few examples illustrating how different structures can make the system more or less vulnerable to malicious attacks on links and present our concluding remarks.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Türkiye'de yetiştirilen Ankara Keçisi (Capra hircus) ırkında bir sitogenetik çalışma

Ankara Keçi ırkı Türkiye yerli hayvan genetik kaynakları acısından önemli rol oynamasına karşın bu ırkla ilgili kapsamlı bir sitogenetik çalışmaya rastlanmamıştır. Sunulan ön sitogenetik çalışma ırkın temel kromozomal yapısını araştırmak ve populasyon düzeyinde sitogenetik çalışmalara başlangıç yapmayı amaçlamaktadır. Kan kültürleri hem geleneksel metoda göre ve hem de Timidin metoduna göre düzenlenmiştir. Geleneksel ve GTG-RBA-RBG band karyotipleri elde edilerek ırkın kromozomlarının sentromer indeksleri belirlenmiştir. Band modeli karşılaştırmaları Ankara keçi ırkının keçi türü için standardize edilmiş RBA-RBG band modeli ile benzerliğini doğrulamıştır. Bu çalışma sonucunda Ankara keçisi ırkında populasyon düzeyinde sayısal ve yapısal kromozom anomalilerinin taşıyıcılarının tanımlanması, ırkın verim özeliklerinin geliştirilmesinde daha ileri düzeyde sitogenetik çalışmalara ihtiyaç duyulduğu değerlendirilmiştir.The Angora breed of goat plays an important role for the Turkiye's Native Animal genetic resources point of view; nevertheless, so far, no comprehensive cytogenetic investigation has been performed on this important economic breed. The present preliminary cytogenetic study has been conducted upon a sample of Angora goat breed reared in Turkiye in order to ascertain the basic chromosomal status of the breed and to start a cytogenetic screening at a population level. Blood cultures have been noted according to the conventional methods and synchronized with thymidine. Conventional and GTG-RBA-RBG-banded karyotypes have been produced to determine the relative length and centromeric index of the chromosomes of the breed. Banding comparison confirmed similarity of the Angora breed of goat with the established standardized RBA-RBG banding a pattern of the goat species. Further cytogenetic studies should now be addressed at a population level to identify carriers of numerical and/or structural chromosomal abnormalities in the Angora breed population for implementation of its productive and reproductive efficiency

High overtones of Dirac perturbations of a Schwarzschild black hole

Using the Frobenius method, we find high overtones of the Dirac quasinormal spectrum for the Schwarzschild black hole. At high overtones, the spacing for imaginary part of $\omega_{n}$ is equidistant and equals to $\Im{\omega_{n+1}}-\Im{\omega_{n}} =i/8M$, ($M$ is the black hole mass), which is twice less than that for fields of integer spin. At high overtones, the real part of $\omega_{n}$ goes to zero. This supports the suggestion that the expected correspondence between quasinormal modes and Barbero-Immirzi parameter in Loop Quantum Gravity is just a numerical coincidence.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 3 figures, Physical Review D.,at pres

ENERCON Station Vacuum Pump Replacement

This details the progress of the ENERCON pump replacement project as completed by the Kennesaw State University interdisciplinary senior design group. This project is a two-semester capstone effort for the engineering program at Southern Polytechnic School of Engineering, overseen by Dr. McFall during Fall 2020 and Dr. Khalid during Spring 2021 semesters. The 2020-2021 KSU Interdisciplinary Senior Design team was tasked with completing an Engineering Change Package (ECP) for existing vacuum pumps at ENERCON Station. The mechanical, electrical, and civil students worked together, performing evaluations on existing plant systems to ensure the plant could support the new vacuum pumps. By tying into the plants existing Plant Service Water (PSW) System and electrical grid, and by reusing existing pipe supports as well as designing new ones, it has been determined that the existing ENERCON Station Systems will support the new Nash Liquid Ring Vacuum Seal Pumps and their supporting equipment. All evaluations have been submitted to ENERCON along with all necessary plant documents that have been revised to show the new equipment

Affects in Online Stakeholder Engagement: A Dissensus Perspective

A predominant assumption in studies of deliberative democracy is that stakeholder engagements will lead to rational consensus and to a common discourse on corporate social and environmental responsibilities. Challenging this assumption, we show that conflict is ineradicable and important and that affects constitute the dynamics of change of the discourses of responsibilities. On the basis of an analysis of social media engagements in the context of the grand challenge of plastic pollution, we argue that civil society actors use mobilization strategies with their peers and inclusive-dissensus strategies with corporations to convert them to a new discourse. These strategies use moral affects to blame and shame corporations and solidarity affects to create feelings of identification with the group and to avoid disengagement and polarization. Our research contributes to the literature on deliberative democracy and stakeholder engagement in social media in the collective constructions of discourses on grand challenges

Using spectral diversity and heterogeneity measures to map habitat mosaics: An example from the Classical Karst

Questions: Can we map complex habitat mosaics from remote-­sensing data? In doing this, are measures of spectral heterogeneity useful to improve image classification performance? Which measures are the most important? How can multitemporal data be integrated in a robust framework? Location: Classical Karst (NE Italy). Methods: First, a habitat map was produced from field surveys. Then, a collection of 12 monthly Sentinel-­2 images was retrieved. Vegetation and spectral heterogeneity (SH) indices were computed and aggregated in four combinations: (1) monthly layers of vegetation and SH indices; (2) seasonal layers of vegetation and SH indices; (3) yearly layers of SH indices computed across the months; and (4) yearly layers of SH indices computed across the seasons. For each combination, a Random Forest clas- sification was performed, first with the complete set of input layers and then with a subset obtained by recursive feature elimination. Training and validation points were independently extracted from field data. Results: The maximum overall accuracy (0.72) was achieved by using seasonally ag- gregated vegetation and SH indices, after the number of vegetation types was re- duced by aggregation from 26 to 11. The use of SH measures significantly increased the overall accuracy of the classification. The spectral β-­diversity was the most im- portant variable in most cases, while the spectral α-­diversity and Rao's Q had a low relative importance, possibly because some habitat patches were small compared to the window used to compute the indices. Conclusions: The results are promising and suggest that image classification frame- works could benefit from the inclusion of SH measures, rarely included before. Habitat mapping in complex landscapes can thus be improved in a cost-­and time-­effective way, suitable for monitoring applications