333 research outputs found
The Safe-Port project: an approach to port surveillance and protection
SAFE-PORT is a recently started project addressing the complex issue of determining the best configurations of resources for harbour and port surveillance and protection. More specifically, the main goal is to find, for any given scenario, an adequate set of configuration solutions — i.e., number and type of sensors and equipments, their locations and operating modes, the corresponding personnel and other support resources — that maximize protection over a specific area.
The project includes research and development of sensors models, novel algorithms for optimization and decision support, and a computer-based decision support system (DSS) to assist decision makers in that task. It includes also the development of a simulation environment for modelling relevant aspects of the scenario (including sensors used for surveillance, platforms, threats and the environment), capable to incorporate data from field-trials, used to test and validate solutions proposed by the DSS. Test cases will consider the use of intelligent agents to model the behaviour of threats and of NATO forces in a realistic way, following experts’ definitions and parameters
Restructuring of the "Macaronesia" biogeografic unit: a marine multi-taxon biogeographical approach
The Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canary Islands and Cabo Verde are commonly united under the term
“Macaronesia”. This study investigates the coherency and validity of Macaronesia as a biogeographic
unit using six marine groups with very different dispersal abilities: coastal fishes, echinoderms,
gastropod molluscs, brachyuran decapod crustaceans, polychaete annelids, and macroalgae. We found
no support for the current concept of Macaronesia as a coherent marine biogeographic unit. All marine
groups studied suggest the exclusion of Cabo Verde from the remaining Macaronesian archipelagos and thus, Cabo Verde should be given the status of a biogeographic subprovince within the West African
Transition province. We propose to redefine the Lusitanian biogeographical province, in which we
include four ecoregions: the South European Atlantic Shelf, the Saharan Upwelling, the Azores, and a
new ecoregion herein named Webbnesia, which comprises the archipelagos of Madeira, Selvagens and
the Canary Islandsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Electroweak Precision Observables within a Fourth Generation Model with General Flavour Structure
We calculate the contributions to electroweak precision observables (EWPOs)
due to a fourth generation of fermions with the most general (quark-)flavour
structure (but assuming Dirac neutrinos and a trivial flavour structure in the
lepton sector). The new-physics contributions to the EWPOs are calculated at
one-loop order using automated tools (FeynArts/FormCalc). No further
approximations are made in our calculation. We discuss the size of non-oblique
contributions arising from Z--quark--anti-quark vertex corrections and the
dependence of the EWPOs on all CKM mixing angles involving the fourth
generation. We find that the electroweak precision observables are sensitive to
two of the fourth-generation mixing angles and that the corresponding
constraints on these angles are competitive with those obtained from flavour
physics. For non-trivial 4x4 flavour structures, the non-oblique contributions
lead to relative corrections of several permille and should be included in a
global fit
Activated Random Walkers: Facts, Conjectures and Challenges
We study a particle system with hopping (random walk) dynamics on the integer
lattice . The particles can exist in two states, active or
inactive (sleeping); only the former can hop. The dynamics conserves the number
of particles; there is no limit on the number of particles at a given site.
Isolated active particles fall asleep at rate , and then remain
asleep until joined by another particle at the same site. The state in which
all particles are inactive is absorbing. Whether activity continues at long
times depends on the relation between the particle density and the
sleeping rate . We discuss the general case, and then, for the
one-dimensional totally asymmetric case, study the phase transition between an
active phase (for sufficiently large particle densities and/or small )
and an absorbing one. We also present arguments regarding the asymptotic mean
hopping velocity in the active phase, the rate of fixation in the absorbing
phase, and survival of the infinite system at criticality. Using mean-field
theory and Monte Carlo simulation, we locate the phase boundary. The phase
transition appears to be continuous in both the symmetric and asymmetric
versions of the process, but the critical behavior is very different. The
former case is characterized by simple integer or rational values for critical
exponents (, for example), and the phase diagram is in accord with
the prediction of mean-field theory. We present evidence that the symmetric
version belongs to the universality class of conserved stochastic sandpiles,
also known as conserved directed percolation. Simulations also reveal an
interesting transient phenomenon of damped oscillations in the activity
density
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