Contextuality-by-Default: A Brief Overview of Ideas, Concepts, and Terminology

This paper is a brief overview of the concepts involved in measuring the degree of contextuality and detecting contextuality in systems of binary measurements of a finite number of objects. We discuss and clarify the main concepts and terminology of the theory called "contextuality-by-default," and then discuss a possible generalization of the theory from binary to arbitrary measurements.Comment: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 9535 (with the corrected list of authors) (2016

A hybrid finite element approach to modeling sound radiation from circular and rectangular ducts

This is the post-print version of the Article - Copyright @ 2012 Acoustical Society of AmericaA numerical model based on a hybrid finite element method is developed that seeks to join sound pressure fields in interior and exterior regions. The hybrid method is applied to the analysis of sound radiation from open pipes, or ducts, and uses mode matching to couple a finite element discretization of the region surrounding the open end of the duct to wave based modal expansions for adjoining interior and exterior regions. The hybrid method facilitates the analysis of ducts of arbitrary but uniform cross section as well the study of conical flanges and here a modal expansion based on spherical harmonics is applied. Predictions are benchmarked against analytic solutions for the limiting cases of flanged and unflanged circular ducts and excellent agreement between the two methods is observed. Predictions are also presented for flanged and unflanged rectangular ducts, and because the hybrid method retains the sparse banded and symmetric matrices of the traditional finite element method, it is shown that predictions can be obtained within an acceptable time frame even for a three dimensional problem.This study is supported by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

Removal of Uranium from Aqueous Solutions using Ammonium-modified Zeolite

Batch experiments were conducted to study the effects of contact time, pH (3 to 8), initial concentration, presence of carbonate, sulphate, and competing ions (Fe3+, Ca2+, Sr2+, Mg2+) on the adsorption of U(VI) on ammonium-modified zeolite (AMZ). The structural features of the modified zeolite were assessed by Fourier Transform Infra Red Spectroscopy (FTIR) while the metal content was determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Specroscopy (ICP-OES). The removal of uranium was effective and maximal under acidic conditions (pH 3 to 5). The kinetics of adsorption of U-nitrate and U-sulphate on AMZ were described by the pseudo-second-order model (R2 ≥ 0.9820). In the presence of SO4 2- and CO3 2-, a significant reduction of 67.88 % and 71.63 %, respectively, in uranium uptake was observed. The distribution coefficient, KD (L g-1), was in the order of: U-nitrate (1.116) > U-sulphate (0.029) > U-carbonate (0.019), suggesting that AMZ had a high affinity for U-nitrate. The presence of Fe3+ enhanced the removal of U(VI) from U-nitrate, U-sulphate and U-carbonate by 20.18 %, 72.48%and 82.43 %, respectively, while the presence of Ca2+, Mg2+ and Sr2+ reduced the removal to 19.57 %, 31.60 % and 23.65 %, respectively. AMZ is an effective adsorbent for uranium removal from aqueous solutions dominated by nitrate, carbonate and sulphate.KEYWORDS Adsorption, zeolite-ammonium, uranyl, carbonate, sulphate, nitrate, aqueous solutions

Control of wheeled mobile robot in restricted environment

This paper presents a simulation and practical control system for wheeled mobile robot in restricted environment. A wheeled mobile robot with 3 wheels is fabricated and controlled by proportional derivative active force control (PD-AFC) to move in a pre-planned restricted environment to maintain the tracking errors at zero level. A control system with two loops, outer by PD controller and inner loop by Active Force Control, are designed to control the wheeled mobile robot. Fuzzy logic controller is implemented in the Active force Control to estimate the inertia matrix that will be used to calculate the actual torque applied on the wheeled mobile robot. The mobile robot is tested in two different trajectories, namely are circular and straight path. The actual path and desired path are compared

Origin of Cosmic Magnetic Fields

We propose that the overlapping shock fronts from young supernova remnants produce a locally unsteady, but globally steady large scale spiral shock front in spiral galaxies, where star formation and therefore massive star explosions correlate geometrically with spiral structure. This global shock front with its steep gradients in temperature, pressure and associated electric fields will produce drifts, which in turn give rise to a strong sheet-like electric current, we propose. This sheet current then produces a large scale magnetic field, which is regular, and connected to the overall spiral structure. This rejuvenates the overall magnetic field continuously, and also allows to understand that there is a regular field at all in disk galaxies. This proposal connects the existence of magnetic fields to accretion in disks. We not yet address all the symmetries of the magnetic field here; the picture proposed here is not complete. X-ray observations may be able to test it already.Comment: 18 pages, no figures; to be published in Proc. Palermo Meeting Sept. 2002, Eds. N. G. Sanchez et al., The Early Universe and the Cosmic Microwave Background: Theory and Observation

A Qualified Kolmogorovian Account of Probabilistic Contextuality

We describe a mathematical language for determining all possible patterns of contextuality in the dependence of stochastic outputs of a system on its deterministic inputs. The central notion is that of all possible couplings for stochastically unrelated outputs indexed by mutually incompatible values of inputs. A system is characterized by a pattern of which outputs can be "directly influenced" by which inputs (a primitive relation, hypothetical or normative), and by certain constraints imposed on the outputs (such as Bell-type inequalities or their quantum analogues). The set of couplings compatible with these constraints represents a form of contextuality in the dependence of outputs on inputs with respect to the declared pattern of direct influences.Comment: Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8369, 201-212 (2014

Structure determination of Murine Norovirus NS6 proteases with C-terminal extensions designed to probe protease-substrate interactions

Noroviruses are positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses. They encode an NS6 protease that cleaves a viral polyprotein at specific sites to produce mature viral proteins. In an earlier study we obtained crystals of murine norovirus (MNV) NS6 protease in which crystal contacts were mediated by specific insertion of the C-terminus of one protein (which contains residues P5-P1 of the NS6-7 cleavage junction) into the peptide binding site of an adjacent molecule, forming an adventitious protease-product complex. We sought to reproduce this crystal form to investigate protease–substrate complexes by extending the C-terminus of NS6 construct to include residues on the C-terminal (P′) side of the cleavage junction. We report the crystallization and crystal structure determination of inactive mutants of murine norovirus NS6 protease with C-terminal extensions of one, two and four residues from the N-terminus of the adjacent NS7 protein (NS6 1′, NS6 2′, NS6 4′). We also determined the structure of a chimeric extended NS6 protease in which the P4-P4′ sequence of the NS6-7 cleavage site was replaced with the corresponding sequence from the NS2-3 cleavage junction (NS6 4′ 2|3).The constructs NS6 1′ and NS6 2′ yielded crystals that diffracted anisotropically. We found that, although the uncorrected data could be phased by molecular replacement, refinement of the structures stalled unless the data were ellipsoidally truncated and corrected with anisotropic B-factors. These corrections significantly improved phasing by molecular replacement and subsequent refinement.The refined structures of all four extended NS6 proteases are very similar in structure to the mature MNV NS6—and in one case reveal additional details of a surface loop. Although the packing arrangement observed showed some similarities to those observed in the adventitious protease-product crystals reported previously, in no case were specific protease–substrate interactions observed