Generation-free Agent-based Evolutionary Computing

AbstractMetaheuristics resulting from the hybridization of multi-agent systems with evolutionary computing are efficient in many optimization problems. Evolutionary multi-agent systems (EMAS) are more similar to biological evolution than classical evolutionary algorithms. However, technological limitations prevented the use of fully asynchronous agents in previous EMAS implementations. In this paper we present a new algorithm for agent-based evolutionary computations. The individuals are represented as fully autonomous and asynchronous agents. Evolutionary operations are performed continuously and no artificial generations need to be distinguished. Our results show that such asynchronous evolutionary operators and the resulting absence of explicit generations lead to significantly better results. An efficient implementation of this algorithm was possible through the use of Erlang technology, which natively supports lightweight processes and asynchronous communication

Diffraction effects in the Recoil-Frame Photoelectron Angular Distributions of Halomethanes

Citation: Bomme, C., Anielski, D., Savelyev, E., Boll, R., Erk, B., Bari, S., . . . Rolles, D. (2015). Diffraction effects in the Recoil-Frame Photoelectron Angular Distributions of Halomethanes. 635(11). doi:10.1088/1742-6596/635/11/112020We have measured the Recoil Frame-Photoelectron Angular Distributions (RF-PADs) for inner-shell photoionization of CH3F, CH3I and CF3I halomethane molecules for photoelectron energies up to 300 eV detected within a 4? solid angle in the gas-phase. For high kinetic energies, the RF-PADs are dominated by diffraction effects that encode information on the molecular geometry. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Imaging Molecular Structure through Femtosecond Photoelectron Diffraction on Aligned and Oriented Gas-Phase Molecules

This paper gives an account of our progress towards performing femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron diffraction on gas-phase molecules in a pump-probe setup combining optical lasers and an X-ray Free-Electron Laser. We present results of two experiments aimed at measuring photoelectron angular distributions of laser-aligned 1-ethynyl-4-fluorobenzene (C8H5F) and dissociating, laseraligned 1,4-dibromobenzene (C6H4Br2) molecules and discuss them in the larger context of photoelectron diffraction on gas-phase molecules. We also show how the strong nanosecond laser pulse used for adiabatically laser-aligning the molecules influences the measured electron and ion spectra and angular distributions, and discuss how this may affect the outcome of future time-resolved photoelectron diffraction experiments.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Faraday Discussions 17

Time-Resolved Measurement of Interatomic Coulombic Decay in Ne_2

The lifetime of interatomic Coulombic decay (ICD) [L. S. Cederbaum et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 4778 (1997)] in Ne_2 is determined via an extreme ultraviolet pump-probe experiment at the Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg. The pump pulse creates a 2s inner-shell vacancy in one of the two Ne atoms, whereupon the ionized dimer undergoes ICD resulting in a repulsive Ne^{+}(2p^{-1}) - Ne^{+}(2p^{-1}) state, which is probed with a second pulse, removing a further electron. The yield of coincident Ne^{+} - Ne^{2+} pairs is recorded as a function of the pump-probe delay, allowing us to deduce the ICD lifetime of the Ne_{2}^{+}(2s^{-1}) state to be (150 +/- 50) fs in agreement with quantum calculations.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted by PRL on July 11th, 201

Coupled motion of Xe clusters and quantum vortices in He nanodroplets

Citation: Jones, C. F., Bernando, C., Tanyag, R. M. P., Bacellar, C., Ferguson, K. R., Gomez, L. F., . . . Vilesov, A. F. (2016). Coupled motion of Xe clusters and quantum vortices in He nanodroplets. Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 93(18). doi:10.1103/PhysRevB.93.180510Additional Authors: Erk, B.;Foucar, L.;Hartmann, R.;Neumark, D. M.;Epp, S. W.;Englert, L.;Siefermann, K. R.;Weise, F.;Rudek, B.;Sturm, F. P.;Ullrich, J.;Bostedt, C.;Gessner, O.;Vilesov, A. F.Single He nanodroplets doped with Xe atoms are studied via ultrafast coherent x-ray diffraction imaging. The diffraction images show that rotating He nanodroplets about 200 nm in diameter contain a small number of symmetrically arranged quantum vortices decorated with Xe clusters. Unexpected large distances of the vortices from the droplet center (?0.7-0.8 droplet radii) are explained by a significant contribution of the Xe dopants to the total angular momentum of the droplets and a stabilization of widely spaced vortex configurations by the trapped Xe clusters. © 2016 American Physical Society

Communication: X-ray coherent diffractive imaging by immersion in nanodroplets

Citation: Tanyag, R. M. P., Bernando, C., Jones, C. F., Bacellar, C., Ferguson, K. R., Anielski, D., . . . Vilesov, A. F. (2015). Communication: X-ray coherent diffractive imaging by immersion in nanodroplets. Structural Dynamics, 2(5), 9. doi:10.1063/1.4933297Lensless x-ray microscopy requires the recovery of the phase of the radiation scattered from a specimen. Here, we demonstrate a de novo phase retrieval technique by encapsulating an object in a superfluid helium nanodroplet, which provides both a physical support and an approximate scattering phase for the iterative image reconstruction. The technique is robust, fast-converging, and yields the complex density of the immersed object. Images of xenon clusters embedded in superfluid helium droplets reveal transient configurations of quantum vortices in this fragile system. (C) 2015 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.Additional Authors: Neumark, D. M.;Rolles, D.;Rudek, B.;Rudenko, A.;Siefermann, K. R.;Ullrich, J.;Weise, F.;Bostedt, C.;Gessner, O.;Vilesov, A. F

towards time-resolved imaging of molecular structure

We demonstrate an experimental method to record snapshot diffraction images of polyatomic gas-phase molecules, which can, in a next step, be used to probe time-dependent changes in the molecular geometry during photochemical reactions with femtosecond temporal and angstrom spatial resolution. Adiabatically laser-aligned 1-ethynyl-4-fluorobenzene (C8H5F) molecules were imaged by diffraction of photoelectrons with kinetic energies between 31 and 62 eV, created from core ionization of the fluorine (1s) level by ≈80 fs x-ray free-electron-laser pulses. Comparison of the experimental photoelectron angular distributions with density functional theory calculations allows relating the diffraction images to the molecular structure

Detectability of testosterone esters and estradiol benzoate in bovine hair and plasma following pour-on treatment

The abuse of synthetic esters of natural steroids such as testosterone and estradiol in cattle fattening and sports is hard to detect via routine urine testing. The esters are rapidly hydrolysed in vivo into substances which are also endogenously present in urine. An interesting alternative can be provided by the analysis of the administered synthetic steroids themselves, i.e., the analysis of intact steroid esters in hair by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC/MS/MS). However, retrospective estimation of the application date following a non-compliant finding is hindered by the complexity of the kinetics of the incorporation of steroid esters in hair. In this study, the incorporation of intact steroid esters in hair following pour-on treatment has been studied and critically compared with results from intramuscular treatment. To this end animals were pour-on treated with a hormone cocktail containing testosterone cypionate, testosterone decanoate and estradiol benzoate in different carriers. The animals were either treated using injection and pour-on application once or three times having 1 week between treatments using injection and pour-on application. Animals were slaughtered from 10–12 weeks after the last treatment. Both hair and blood plasma samples were collected and analysed by LC/MS/MS. From the results, it is concluded that after single treatment the levels of steroid esters in hair drop to CCβ levels (5–20 µg/kg) after 5–7 weeks. When treatment is repeated two times, the CCβ levels are reached after 9–11 weeks. Furthermore, in plasma, no steroid esters were detected; not even at the low microgramme per litre level but—in contrast with the pour-on application—after i.m. injection, significant increase of 17β-testosterone and 17β-estradiol were observed. These observations suggest that transport of steroid esters after pour-on application is not only performed by blood but also by alternative fluids in the animal so probably the steroid esters are already hydrolysed and epimerized before entering the blood

Multiplicity dependence of jet-like two-particle correlations in p-Pb collisions at sNN\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 5.02 TeV

Two-particle angular correlations between unidentified charged trigger and associated particles are measured by the ALICE detector in p-Pb collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV. The transverse-momentum range 0.7 $< p_{\rm{T}, assoc} < p_{\rm{T}, trig} <$ 5.0 GeV/$c$ is examined, to include correlations induced by jets originating from low momen\-tum-transfer scatterings (minijets). The correlations expressed as associated yield per trigger particle are obtained in the pseudorapidity range $|\eta|<0.9$. The near-side long-range pseudorapidity correlations observed in high-multiplicity p-Pb collisions are subtracted from both near-side short-range and away-side correlations in order to remove the non-jet-like components. The yields in the jet-like peaks are found to be invariant with event multiplicity with the exception of events with low multiplicity. This invariance is consistent with the particles being produced via the incoherent fragmentation of multiple parton--parton scatterings, while the yield related to the previously observed ridge structures is not jet-related. The number of uncorrelated sources of particle production is found to increase linearly with multiplicity, suggesting no saturation of the number of multi-parton interactions even in the highest multiplicity p-Pb collisions. Further, the number scales in the intermediate multiplicity region with the number of binary nucleon-nucleon collisions estimated with a Glauber Monte-Carlo simulation.Comment: 23 pages, 6 captioned figures, 1 table, authors from page 17, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/161