A General Backwards Calculus of Variations via Duality

We prove Euler-Lagrange and natural boundary necessary optimality conditions for problems of the calculus of variations which are given by a composition of nabla integrals on an arbitrary time scale. As an application, we get optimality conditions for the product and the quotient of nabla variational functionals.Comment: Submitted to Optimization Letters 03-June-2010; revised 01-July-2010; accepted for publication 08-July-201

Beyond a Call to Action

This paper is intended as a critique and development of morality in literature, seeking to prove that literature can have deep effects on a reader\u27s moral character. The stakes for such research are rather high: especially during the pandemic, our culture is heavily informed by social and mass media, and it is hard to imagine a good future for the world if these mediums cannot shake the status quo. Though this paper takes a narrower scope of investigation than moral progress itself, the reader should keep in mind that all of our practices of communication can and should be informed by literary tradition, among other practices. For art is our name for the most refined and deliberate artifacts of human expression, capable of great scale, subtlety, and mass dissemination. Morality in communication is explored here through literature, but I hope the reader will make an attempt to apply any knowledge gleaned to as diverse a range of their practices as is possible. The basic issue of my research is that conventional calls to action, for example Sarah McLachlan\u27s famous SPCA commercials, are not terribly effective. This is obvious insofar as there is a saturation of these calls to action, and a shocking lack of action or concern from many, but I will also seek to justify this in the theories of Immanuel Levinas, then develop a solution from a more philosophical framing of the problem, with Louis Althusser\u27s writings on ideology, as well as case studies from literature. Eventually, this all leads to the question: how do we address ideology in art? Which will hopefully be somewhat answered by the development of the question, and further addressed by the case studies comprising the latter half of this writing

Euler-Lagrange equations for composition functionals in calculus of variations on time scales

In this paper we consider the problem of the calculus of variations for a functional which is the composition of a certain scalar function $H$ with the delta integral of a vector valued field $f$, i.e., of the form $H(\int_{a}^{b}f(t,x^{\sigma}(t),x^{\Delta}(t))\Delta t)$. Euler-Lagrange equations, natural boundary conditions for such problems as well as a necessary optimality condition for isoperimetric problems, on a general time scale, are given. A number of corollaries are obtained, and several examples illustrating the new results are discussed in detail.Comment: Submitted 10-May-2009 to Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems (DCDS-B); revised 10-March-2010; accepted 04-July-201

Delta-Nabla Optimal Control Problems

We present a unified treatment to control problems on an arbitrary time scale by introducing the study of forward-backward optimal control problems. Necessary optimality conditions for delta-nabla isoperimetric problems are proved, and previous results in the literature obtained as particular cases. As an application of the results of the paper we give necessary and sufficient Pareto optimality conditions for delta-nabla bi-objective optimal control problems.Comment: Preprint version of an article submitted 28-Nov-2009; revised 02-Jul-2010; accepted 20-Jul-2010; for publication in Journal of Vibration and Contro

Avoidance Control on Time Scales

We consider dynamic systems on time scales under the control of two agents. One of the agents desires to keep the state of the system out of a given set regardless of the other agent's actions. Leitmann's avoidance conditions are proved to be valid for dynamic systems evolving on an arbitrary time scale.Comment: Revised edition in JOTA format. To appear in J. Optim. Theory Appl. 145 (2010), no. 3. In Pres

Direct and Inverse Variational Problems on Time Scales: A Survey

We deal with direct and inverse problems of the calculus of variations on arbitrary time scales. Firstly, using the Euler-Lagrange equation and the strengthened Legendre condition, we give a general form for a variational functional to attain a local minimum at a given point of the vector space. Furthermore, we provide a necessary condition for a dynamic integro-differential equation to be an Euler-Lagrange equation (Helmholtz's problem of the calculus of variations on time scales). New and interesting results for the discrete and quantum settings are obtained as particular cases. Finally, we consider very general problems of the calculus of variations given by the composition of a certain scalar function with delta and nabla integrals of a vector valued field.Comment: This is a preprint of a paper whose final and definite form will be published in the Springer Volume 'Modeling, Dynamics, Optimization and Bioeconomics II', Edited by A. A. Pinto and D. Zilberman (Eds.), Springer Proceedings in Mathematics & Statistics. Submitted 03/Sept/2014; Accepted, after a revision, 19/Jan/201

A room with a viewpoint revisited: Descriptive norms and hotel guests' towel reuse behavior

Bohner G, Schlüter LE. A room with a viewpoint revisited: Descriptive norms and hotel guests' towel reuse behavior. PLoS ONE. 2014;9(8): e104086.Field experiments on descriptive norms as a means to increase hotel guests' towel reuse [1] were replicated and extended. In two hotels in Germany (Study 1: N = 724; Study 2: N = 204), descriptive norm messages suggesting that 75% of guests had reused their towels, or a standard message appealing to environmental concerns, were placed in guests' bathrooms. Descriptive norm messages varied in terms of proximity of the reference group (“hotel guests” vs. “guests in this room”) and temporal proximity (currently vs. two years previous). Reuse of towels was unobtrusively recorded. Results showed that reuse rates were high overall and that both standard and descriptive norm messages increased reuse rates compared to a no-message baseline. However, descriptive norm messages were not more effective than the standard message, and effects of proximity were inconsistent across studies. Discussion addresses cultural and conceptual issues in comparing the present findings with previous one

The 8 bits 100 MS/s Pipeline ADC for the INNOTEP Project – TWEPP-09

This paper describes the Analog to Digital Converter developed for the front end electronic of the IN2P3 INNOTEP project by the “pole microelectronique Rhone-Auvergne”. (Collaboration between LPC Clermont-Ferrand and IPNL Lyon). This ADC is a 4 stages 2.5 bits per stage pipe line with open loops track and holds and amplifiers. It runs at 100MSamples/s and has 8 bits resolution. The stages used two lines, the gain line and the comparison line, with most operators running in current. The main idea of this current line is to make a first step toward an all in current structure. Currently, this ADC is designed with a 0,35μm SiGe technology