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Performance benefits of telerobotics and teleoperation - enhancements for an arm-based tank waste retrieval system
This report evaluates telerobotic and teleoperational arm-based retrieval systems that require advanced robotic controls. These systems will be deployed in waste retrieval activities in Hanford`s Single Shell Tanks (SSTs). The report assumes that arm-based, retrieval systems will combine a teleoperational arm and control system enhanced by a number of advanced and telerobotic controls. The report describes many possible enhancements, spanning the full range of the control spectrum with the potential for technical maturation. The enhancements considered present a variety of choices and factors including: the enhancements to be included in the actual control system, safety, detailed task analyses, human factors, cost-benefit ratios, and availability and maturity of technology. Because the actual system will be designed by an offsite vendor, the procurement specifications must have the flexibility to allow bidders to propose a broad range of ideas, yet build in enough restrictions to filter out infeasible and undesirable approaches. At the same time they must allow selection of a technically promising proposal. Based on a preliminary analysis of the waste retrieval task, and considering factors such as operator limitations and the current state of robotics technology, the authors recommend a set of enhancements that will (1) allow the system to complete its waste retrieval mission, and (2) enable future upgrades in response to changing mission needs and technological advances
Inflationary Attractor from Tachyonic Matter
We study the complete evolution of a flat and homogeneous universe dominated
by tachyonic matter. We demonstrate the attractor behaviour of the tachyonic
inflation using the Hamilton-Jacobi formalism. We else obtain analytical
approximations to the trajectories of the tachyon field in different regions.
The numerical calculation shows that an initial non-vanishing momentum does not
prevent the onset of inflation. The slow-rolling solution is an attractor.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTe
AdS_3 OM theory and the self-dual string or Membranes ending on the Five-brane
We describe properties of the M-theory five-brane containing coincident
self-dual strings on its worldvolume. This is the five-brane description of Q
membranes ending on the five-brane. In particular, we consider a Maldacena-like
low energy limit in the six-dimensional worldvolume which yields a near
`horizon' description of the self-dual string using light open membranes, i.e.
OM theory, in an AdS_3 x S^3 geometry.Comment: 13 pages, latex, v2: corrected open membrane metric prefactor + typo
On the Initial Conditions for Brane Inflation
String theory gives rise to various mechanisms to generate primordial
inflation, of which ``brane inflation'' is one of the most widely considered.
In this scenario, inflation takes place while two branes are approaching each
other, and the modulus field representing the separation between the branes
plays the role of the inflaton field. We study the phase space of initial
conditions which can lead to a sufficiently long period of cosmological
inflation, and find that taking into account the possibility of nonvanishing
initial momentum can significantly change the degree of fine tuning of the
required initial conditions.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure
Inflationary Attractor in Braneworld Scenario
We demonstrate the attractor behavior of inflation driven by a scalar field
or a tachyon field in the context of recently proposed four-dimensional
effective gravity induced on the world-volume of a three-brane in
five-dimensional Einstein gravity, and we obtain a set of exact inflationary
solutions. Phase portraits indicate that an initial kinetic term decays rapidly
and it does not prevent the onset of inflation. The trajectories more rapidly
reach the slow-roll curve than in the standard cosmology.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures, RevTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. D69 (2004
Open membranes, ribbons and deformed Schild strings
We analyze open membranes immersed in a magnetic three-form field-strength
. While cylindrical membranes in the absence of behave like tensionless
strings, when the flux is present the strings polarize into thin membrane
ribbons, locally orthogonal to the momentum density, thus providing the strings
with an effective tension. The effective dynamics of the ribbons can be
described by a simple deformation of the Schild action for null strings.
Interactions become non-local due to the polarization, and lead to a
deformation of the string field theory, whereby string vertices receive a phase
factor proportional to the volume swept out by the ribbons. In a particular
limit, this reduces to the non-commutative loop space found previously.Comment: revte
Origin of Life
The evolution of life has been a big enigma despite rapid advancements in the
fields of biochemistry, astrobiology, and astrophysics in recent years. The
answer to this puzzle has been as mind-boggling as the riddle relating to
evolution of Universe itself. Despite the fact that panspermia has gained
considerable support as a viable explanation for origin of life on the Earth
and elsewhere in the Universe, the issue remains far from a tangible solution.
This paper examines the various prevailing hypotheses regarding origin of life
like abiogenesis, RNA World, Iron-sulphur World, and panspermia; and concludes
that delivery of life-bearing organic molecules by the comets in the early
epoch of the Earth alone possibly was not responsible for kick-starting the
process of evolution of life on our planet.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures,invited review article, minor additio
Can induced gravity isotropize Bianchi I, V, or IX Universes?
We analyze if Bianchi I, V, and IX models in the Induced Gravity (IG) theory
can evolve to a Friedmann--Roberson--Walker (FRW) expansion due to the
non--minimal coupling of gravity and the scalar field. The analytical results
that we found for the Brans-Dicke (BD) theory are now applied to the IG theory
which has ( being the square ratio of the Higgs to
Planck mass) in a cosmological era in which the IG--potential is not
significant. We find that the isotropization mechanism crucially depends on the
value of . Its smallness also permits inflationary solutions. For the
Bianch V model inflation due to the Higgs potential takes place afterwads, and
subsequently the spontaneous symmetry breaking (SSB) ends with an effective FRW
evolution. The ordinary tests of successful cosmology are well satisfied.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. D1
Boundary States for D-branes with Traveling Waves
We construct boundary states for D-branes which carry traveling waves in the
covariant formalism. We compute their vacuum amplitudes to investigate their
interactions. In non-compact space, the vacuum amplitudes become trivial as is
common in plane wave geometries. However, we found that if they are
compactified in the traveling direction, then the amplitudes are affected by
non-trivial time dependent effects. The interaction between D-branes with waves
traveling in the opposite directions (`pulse-antipulse scattering') are also
computed. Furthermore, we apply these ideas to open string tachyon condensation
with traveling waves.Comment: 30 pages. 1 figure, Latex, minor corrections, references adde
RG flows from Spin(7), CY 4-fold and HK manifolds to AdS, Penrose limits and pp waves
We obtain explicit realizations of holographic renormalization group (RG)
flows from M-theory, from E^{2,1} \times Spin(7) at UV to AdS_4 \times
\tilde{S^7} (squashed S^7) at IR, from E^{2,1} \times CY4 at UV to AdS_4 \times
Q^{1,1,1} at IR, and from E^{2,1} \times HK (hyperKahler) at UV to AdS_4 \times
N^{0,1,0} at IR. The dual type IIA string theory configurations correspond to
D2-D6 brane systems where D6 branes wrap supersymmetric four-cycles. We also
study the Penrose limits and obtain the pp-wave backgrounds for the above
configurations. Besides, we study some examples of non-supersymmetric and
supersymmetric flows in five-dimensional gauge theories.Comment: 42 pages, 6 eps figures, typos and misprints correcte
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