2,915 research outputs found
The Spend-It-All Region and Small Time Results for the Continuous Bomber Problem
A problem of optimally allocating partially effective ammunition to be
used on randomly arriving enemies in order to maximize an aircraft's
probability of surviving for time~, known as the Bomber Problem, was first
posed by \citet{Klinger68}. They conjectured a set of apparently obvious
monotonicity properties of the optimal allocation function . Although
some of these conjectures, and versions thereof, have been proved or disproved
by other authors since then, the remaining central question, that is
nondecreasing in~, remains unsettled. After reviewing the problem and
summarizing the state of these conjectures, in the setting where is
continuous we prove the existence of a ``spend-it-all'' region in which
and find its boundary, inside of which the long-standing, unproven
conjecture of monotonicity of~ holds. A new approach is then taken
of directly estimating~ for small~, providing a complete small-
asymptotic description of~ and the optimal probability of survival
The technique of time in fiction
Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1937. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive
On Optimal Allocation of a Continuous Resource Using an Iterative Approach and Total Positivity
We study a class of optimal allocation problems, including the well-known
Bomber Problem, with the following common probabilistic structure. An aircraft
equipped with an amount~ of ammunition is intercepted by enemy airplanes
arriving according to a homogenous Poisson process over a fixed time
duration~. Upon encountering an enemy, the aircraft has the choice of
spending any amount~ of its ammunition, resulting in the
aircraft's survival with probability equal to some known increasing function of
. Two different goals have been considered in the literature concerning the
optimal amount~ of ammunition spent: (i)~Maximizing the probability of
surviving for time~, which is the so-called Bomber Problem, and (ii)
maximizing the number of enemy airplanes shot down during time~, which we
call the Fighter Problem. Several authors have attempted to settle the
following conjectures about the monotonicity of : [A] is
decreasing in , [B] is increasing in , and [C] the
amount~ held back is increasing in . [A] and [C] have been shown
for the Bomber Problem with discrete ammunition, while [B] is still an open
question. In this paper we consider both time and ammunition continuous, and
for the Bomber Problem prove [A] and [C], while for the Fighter we prove [A]
and [C] for one special case and [B] and [C] for another. These proofs involve
showing that the optimal survival probability and optimal number shot down are
totally positive of order 2 (\mbox{TP}_2) in the Bomber and Fighter Problems,
respectively. The \mbox{TP}_2 property is shown by constructing convergent
sequences of approximating functions through an iterative operation which
preserves \mbox{TP}_2 and other properties.Comment: 2 figure
Identifying the Harm in Racial Gerrymandering Claims
This Article proceeds along two lines. First, it reviews the theories of harm set forth in the Justices\u27 various opinions, i.e., the articulated risks to individual rights that may or may not be presented by racial gerrymandering. What is learned from this survey is that Shaw and its progeny serve different purposes for different members of the Court. Four members of the Shaw, Miller v. Johnson, and United States v. Hays majorities-Chief Justice Rehnquist, along with Justices Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas- are far more concerned with race than gerrymandering. In particular, they consider all race-based government classifications to be inherently injurious, and they appear to view the racial gerrymandering cases as a vehicle for moving the Court\u27s interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment closer to the ideal of colorblindness.
An ectobiont-bearing foraminiferan, Bolivina pacifica, that inhabits microxic pore waters : cell-biological and paleoceanographic insights
Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2009. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of John Wiley & Sons for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Environmental Microbiology 12 (2010): 2107-2119, doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2009.02073.x.The presence of tests (shells) in foraminifera could be taken as an indicator that this protist taxon is unlikely to possess ectosymbionts. Here, however, we describe an association between Bolivina pacifica, a foraminiferan with a calcareous test, and a rod-shaped microbe (bacterium or archaeon) that is directly associated with the pores of the foraminiferan’s test. In addition to these putative ectosymbionts, B. pacifica has previously undescribed cytoplasmic plasma membrane invaginations (PMIs). These adaptations (i.e., PMIs, ectobionts), along with the clustering of mitochondria under the pores and at the cell periphery, suggest active exchange between the host and ectobiont. The B. pacifica specimens examined were collected from sediments overlain by oxygen-depleted bottom waters (0.7 μM) of the Santa Barbara Basin (SBB; California, USA). An ultrastructural comparison between B. pacifica from the SBB and a congener (Bolivina cf. B. lanceolata) collected from well-oxygenated sediments (Florida Keys) suggests that PMIs, ectobionts, and peripherally distributed mitochondria are all factors that promote inhabitation of microxic environments by B. pacifica. The calcitic δ13C signatures of B. pacifica and a of co-occurring congener (B. argentea) that lacks ectobionts differ by >1.5‰, raising the possibility that the presence of ectobionts can affect incorporation of paleoceanographic proxies.This work was supported by a W. Storrs Cole Memorial Research Award through the Geological Society of America (to JMB), as well as by NASA Exobiology NRA-01-01-EXB-057 (to JMB), NSF MCB-0702491 (to JMB), and NSF DEB0445181 (to SSB and STG)
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