1,337 research outputs found
Story structure and reader affect in American and Hungarian short stories
Running title: Story structure and reader affectBibliography: leaves 31-32Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. NIE-C-400-81-003
Online-Computation Approach to Optimal Control of Noise-Affected Nonlinear Systems with Continuous State and Control Spaces
© 2007 EUCA.A novel online-computation approach to optimal control of nonlinear, noise-affected systems with continuous state and control spaces is presented. In the proposed algorithm, system noise is explicitly incorporated into the control decision. This leads to superior results compared to state-of-the-art nonlinear controllers that neglect this influence. The solution of an optimal nonlinear controller for a corresponding deterministic system is employed to find a meaningful state space restriction. This restriction is obtained by means of approximate state prediction using the noisy system equation. Within this constrained state space, an optimal closed-loop solution for a finite decision-making horizon (prediction horizon) is determined within an adaptively restricted optimization space. Interleaving stochastic dynamic programming and value function approximation yields a solution to the considered optimal control problem. The enhanced performance of the proposed discrete-time controller is illustrated by means of a scalar example system. Nonlinear model predictive control is applied to address approximate treatment of infinite-horizon problems by the finite-horizon controller
Finite-Horizon Optimal State Feedback Control of Nonlinear Stochastic Systems Based on a Minimum Principle
In this paper, an approach to the finite-horizon optimal state-feedback control problem of nonlinear, stochastic, discrete-time systems is presented. Starting from the dynamic programming equation, the value function will be approximated by means of Taylor series expansion up to second-order derivatives. Moreover, the problem will be reformulated, such that a minimum principle can be applied to the stochastic problem. Employing this minimum principle, the optimal control problem can be rewritten as a two-point boundary-value problem to be solved at each time step of a shrinking horizon. To avoid numerical problems, the two-point boundary-value problem will be solved by means of a continuation method. Thus, the curse of dimensionality of dynamic programming is avoided, and good candidates for the optimal state-feedback controls are obtained. The proposed approach will be evaluated by means of a scalar example system. © 2006 IEEE
Identification of a new short-period comet near the sun
We present the identification of comet C/1999 R1 (SOHO) with comet C/2003 R5
(SOHO). Both apparitions were only observed with the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) at distances smaller than 0.1 AU from the sun with the LASCO
coronagraphs onboard the spacecraft. Although SOHO comets usually have poor
orbital coverage, the 1999 and 2003 arcs are sufficient to generate a link that
seems to satisfy all observations. We also analyze comet C/2002 R5 (SOHO) which
has similar orbital elements. A fragmentation scenario is proposed and
discussed which would support the linkage of C/1999 R1 and C/2003 R5 and thus
its short periodic nature.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in A&
On collisional capture rates of irregular satellites around the gas-giant planets and the minimum mass of the solar nebula
We investigated the probability that an inelastic collision of planetesimals
within the Hill sphere of the Jovian planets could explain the presence and
orbits of observed irregular satellites. Capture of satellites via this
mechanism is highly dependent on not only the mass of the protoplanetary disk,
but also the shape of the planetesimal size distribution. We performed 2000
simulations for integrated time intervals Myr and found that, given
the currently accepted value for the minimum mass solar nebula and planetesimal
number density based upon the \citet{Nesvorny2003} and \citet{Charnoz2003} size
distribution , the collision rates for the different
Jovian planets range between and \gtrsim 170 \, \Myr^{-1} for
objects with radii, 1 \, \km \le r \le 10 \, \km. Additionally, we found that
the probability that these collisions remove enough orbital energy to yield a
bound orbit was and had very little dependence on the
relative size of the planetesimals. Of these collisions, the collision energy
between two objects was times the gravitational binding energy
for objects with radii km. We find that, capturing irregular
satellites via collisions between unbound objects can only account for of the observed population, hence can this not be the sole method of
producing irregular satellites.Comment: 11 pages 4 figures 1 table; This replaces a prior submission, which
contained some minor contradictions within the text accepted by MNRAS in
pres
Antisymmetrization of a Mean Field Calculation of the T-Matrix
The usual definition of the prior(post) interaction between
projectile and target (resp. ejectile and residual target) being contradictory
with full antisymmetrization between nucleons, an explicit antisymmetrization
projector must be included in the definition of the transition
operator, We derive the
suitably antisymmetrized mean field equations leading to a non perturbative
estimate of . The theory is illustrated by a calculation of forward
- scattering, making use of self consistent symmetries.Comment: 30 pages, no figures, plain TeX, SPHT/93/14
Off-diagonal Wave Function Monte Carlo Studies of Hubbard Model I
We propose a Monte Carlo method, which is a hybrid method of the quantum
Monte Carlo method and variational Monte Carlo theory, to study the Hubbard
model. The theory is based on the off-diagonal and the Gutzwiller type
correlation factors which are taken into account by a Monte Carlo algorithm. In
the 4x4 system our method is able to reproduce the exact results obtained by
the diagonalization. An application is given to investigate the half-filled
band case of two-dimensional square lattice. The energy is favorably compared
with quantum Monte Carlo data.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure
Evidence for directional selection at a novel major histocompatibility class I marker in wild common frogs (Rana temporaria) exposed to a viral pathogen (Ranavirus).
(c) 2009 Teacher et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Whilst the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) is well characterized in the anuran Xenopus, this region has not previously been studied in another popular model species, the common frog (Rana temporaria). Nor, to date, have there been any studies of MHC in wild amphibian host-pathogen systems. We characterise an MHC class I locus in the common frog, and present primers to amplify both the whole region, and specifically the antigen binding region. As no more than two expressed haplotypes were found in over 400 clones from 66 individuals, it is likely that there is a single class I locus in this species. This finding is consistent with the single class I locus in Xenopus, but contrasts with the multiple loci identified in axolotls, providing evidence that the diversification of MHC class I into multiple loci likely occurred after the Caudata/Anura divergence (approximately 350 million years ago) but before the Ranidae/Pipidae divergence (approximately 230 mya). We use this locus to compare wild populations of common frogs that have been infected with a viral pathogen (Ranavirus) with those that have no history of infection. We demonstrate that certain MHC supertypes are associated with infection status (even after accounting for shared ancestry), and that the diseased populations have more similar supertype frequencies (lower F(ST)) than the uninfected. These patterns were not seen in a suite of putatively neutral microsatellite loci. We interpret this pattern at the MHC locus to indicate that the disease has imposed selection for particular haplotypes, and hence that common frogs may be adapting to the presence of Ranavirus, which currently kills tens of thousands of amphibians in the UK each year
An improved geometric inequality via vanishing moments, with applications to singular Liouville equations
We consider a class of singular Liouville equations on compact surfaces
motivated by the study of Electroweak and Self-Dual Chern-Simons theories, the
Gaussian curvature prescription with conical singularities and Onsager's
description of turbulence. We analyse the problem of existence variationally,
and show how the angular distribution of the conformal volume near the
singularities may lead to improvements in the Moser-Trudinger inequality, and
in turn to lower bounds on the Euler-Lagrange functional. We then discuss
existence and non-existence results.Comment: some references adde
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