Robust Time-inconsistent Linear-Quadratic Stochastic Controls: A Stochastic Differential Game Approach

This paper studies robust time-inconsistent (TIC) linear-quadratic stochastic control problems, formulated by stochastic differential games. By a spike variation approach, we derive sufficient conditions for achieving the Nash equilibrium, which corresponds to a time-consistent (TC) robust policy, under mild technical assumptions. To illustrate our framework, we consider two scenarios of robust mean-variance analysis, namely with state- and control-dependent ambiguity aversion. We find numerically that with time inconsistency haunting the dynamic optimal controls, the ambiguity aversion enhances the effective risk aversion faster than the linear, implying that the ambiguity in the TIC cases is more impactful than that under the TC counterparts, e.g., expected utility maximization problems

Ultrasonic verification of five wave fronts in unidirectional graphite epoxy composite

The existence of five different waves fronts in a unidirectional graphite fiber reinforced epoxy composite with energy flux propagation at the angle of 60 deg with respect to the fiber direction is verified by measuring their corresponding group and phase velocities of longitudinal and shear waves using the through transmission technique. The experimental and theoretical values of phase velocities show excellent agreement for all three modes of wave propagation. It is also verified that the maximum output voltage amplitude is obtained when the line joining the centers of the transmitting and receiving transducers is parallel to the energy propagation direction defined by the deviation angle

The effect of location of post drilled web opening on the strength of reinforced concrete beam

The construction of modern buildings requires many pipes and ducts in order to accommodate essential services such as electricity, air conditioning, telephone, and network cables. Web openings in Reinforced Concrete (RC) beams enable the installation of these services under lower floor to floor height without compromising any architectural headroom. However, the requirement of opening often reaches the engineers and contractors after the beam has been constructed. As such, there is a need to reassess the new strength of the beam with the newly added opening without the placement of trimmer reinforcement bar. Methods to assess the reduced strength of the RC beams due to post drilling these opening are often complicated. To overcome this, a research has been carried out with the aim to provide simple guidance to engineers to access the new strength of the RC beams due to small post drilled transverse circular web openings at different location of the beam. RC beams with a series of opening at different location were analysed using LUSAS, by conducting nonlinear analysis to determine the new strength of the RC beam. A graph of relative load bearing capacity of an RC beam with respect to location of post drilled web opening is proposed to aid design engineers to assess the beam capacity without a need for detail calculation

Progressive Text-to-3D Generation for Automatic 3D Prototyping

Text-to-3D generation is to craft a 3D object according to a natural language description. This can significantly reduce the workload for manually designing 3D models and provide a more natural way of interaction for users. However, this problem remains challenging in recovering the fine-grained details effectively and optimizing a large-size 3D output efficiently. Inspired by the success of progressive learning, we propose a Multi-Scale Triplane Network (MTN) and a new progressive learning strategy. As the name implies, the Multi-Scale Triplane Network consists of four triplanes transitioning from low to high resolution. The low-resolution triplane could serve as an initial shape for the high-resolution ones, easing the optimization difficulty. To further enable the fine-grained details, we also introduce the progressive learning strategy, which explicitly demands the network to shift its focus of attention from simple coarse-grained patterns to difficult fine-grained patterns. Our experiment verifies that the proposed method performs favorably against existing methods. For even the most challenging descriptions, where most existing methods struggle to produce a viable shape, our proposed method consistently delivers. We aspire for our work to pave the way for automatic 3D prototyping via natural language descriptions

Interactive Dual-Conformer with Scene-Inspired Mask for Soft Sound Event Detection

Traditional binary hard labels for sound event detection (SED) lack details about the complexity and variability of sound event distributions. Recently, a novel annotation workflow is proposed to generate fine-grained non-binary soft labels, resulting in a new real-life dataset named MAESTRO Real for SED. In this paper, we first propose an interactive dual-conformer (IDC) module, in which a cross-interaction mechanism is applied to effectively exploit the information from soft labels. In addition, a novel scene-inspired mask (SIM) based on soft labels is incorporated for more precise SED predictions. The SIM is initially generated through a statistical approach, referred as SIM-V1. However, the fixed artificial mask may mismatch the SED model, resulting in limited effectiveness. Therefore, we further propose SIM-V2, which employs a word embedding model for adaptive SIM estimation. Experimental results show that the proposed IDC module can effectively utilize the information from soft labels, and the integration of SIM-V1 can further improve the accuracy. In addition, the impact of different word embedding dimensions on SIM-V2 is explored, and the results show that the appropriate dimension can enable SIM-V2 achieve superior performance than SIM-V1. In DCASE 2023 Challenge Task4B, the proposed system achieved the top ranking performance on the evaluation dataset of MAESTRO Real.Comment: to be improved (unfinished

3D smart user interactive system with real-time responding tele-robotic proprioceptive information

Feedback of proprioceptive information is essential for many tele-robotic systems, especially those designed to undertake tasks concerning hazardous environments and for efficient out-of-sight remote control applications. Given highly sensitive nature of these applications, even small errors (e.g. less than one degree of displacement in robot posture) can cause unnecessary risk. Thus, accurate feedback of proprioceptive information, as well as a technique to precisely interpret this information, is significant to operator. In this paper, we introduce a framework that uses pulse feedback mechanism to measure the proprioceptive information of a robot operating over real-time wireless communication and represent it in 3D model user interface. The 3D user interface enhances the interpretation of proprioceptive information to help operator to visualize the real-time relative position of the robot. The paper also provides results that demonstrate how the framework allows synchronization between 3D model and tele-robot to be achieved in real-time over wireless communications

Life table of Cochlochila bullita stål (hemiptera: tingidae) on Orthosiphon aristatus (blume) miq. and Ocimum basilicum l. in laboratory conditions

Ocimum tingid, Cochlochila bullita Stål (Hemiptera: Tingidae) is a pest of Lamiaceae plants such as basil, tulsi and coleus. It is now being recorded in Malaysia as a pest of the cat’s whiskers plant, Orthosiphon aristatus (Blume) Miq. Nevertheless, apart from its brief biological description, no other information is available. The life table of this pest was studied in laboratory conditions. Development time for C. bullita feeding on O. aristatus was 23.3 ± 0.9 days, which was found to be similar to those feeding on Ocimum basilicum (22.8 ± 0.3 days). Although C. bullita posts a higher mortality rate on O. aristatus than on O.basilicum (52% vs. 37%), the adult longevity of the bugs that feed on O. aristatus (♀: 33.9; ♂: 38.2 days) was found to be significantly higher than those bugs that feed on O.basilicum (♀: 27.2; ♂: 26.0 days). The pre-ovipostion, ovispostion and fecundity of C. bullita were also different between the host plants. The net reproductive rates (R0), finite rate of increase (λ) and intrinsic rate of increase (r) were also higher on O. aristatus (10.7504, 1.0690 and 0.0667), although there was an increased in immature survival on O. basilicum (6.0287, 1.0556 and 0.0541). Therefore, it is concluded that O. aristatus is as good as O. basilicum, or the population growth of C. bullita is more favoured as compared to O. basilicum

Anisotropic magnetotransport of superconducting and normal state in an electron-doped Nd_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_{4-\delta} single crystal

The anisotropic properties of an optimally doped Nd_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_{4-\delta} single crystal have been studied both below and above the critical temperature Tc via the resistivity measurement in magnetic field H up to 12 T. By scaling the conductivity fluctuation around the superconducting transition, the upper critical field H_{c2}(T) has been determined for field parallel to the c-axis or to the basal ab-plane. The anisotropy factor \gamma={H_c2||ab}/{H_c2||c} is estimated to be about 8. In the normal state (50=<T=<180 K), the magnetoresistance (MR) basically follows an H^2 dependence and for H||c it is almost 10 times larger than that for H||ab. Comparing with hole-doped cuprates it suggests that the optimally doped Nd_{1.85}Ce_{0.15}CuO_{4-\delta} cuprate superconductor has a moderate anisotropy.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Dietary Pattern Trajectories from 6 to 12 Months of Age in a Multi-Ethnic Asian Cohort

10.3390/nu8060365Nutrients86365GUSTO (Growing up towards Healthy Outcomes