Active vibration control applied to a vacuum pump for high precision equipment

This paper presents results of a system for active vibration reduction on a setup with a vacuum pump that is tightly coupled with high-precision equipment. The precision of this equipment is critically dependent on the level of the vibrations that are introduced by the vacuum pump. The vibrations were reduced by a recently developed adaptive control scheme in a multi-input multi-output feedback configuration using a sampling rate of 12 kHz. The convergence properties of this algorithm allowed effective tracking of the varying excitation spectrum. Programmable digital minimum-phase reconstruction and anti-aliasing filters at a sampling rate of 100 kHz were used for an optimal tradeoff between sampling errors and phase shift. Effective broadband control was obtained in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 5 kHz, leading to 11.3 dB average broadband reduction on the error sensors

Localisation of Fermions to brane: Codimension d≥2d \geq 2

We investigate $4+d$ dimensional fermionic models in which the system in codimension-$d$ supports a topologically stable solution, and in which the fermion may be localised to the brane, with power law in 'instanton' backgrounds and exponentially in 'soliton' backgrounds. When the fermions are isoscalars, the mechanism fails, while for isospinor fermions it is successful. As backgrounds we consider instantons of Yang--Mills and sigma models in even codimensions, solitons of sigma models in odd codimensions, as well as solitons of Higgs and Goldstone models in all codimensions.Comment: 20 pages latex; expande

Diagonals of rational functions and selected differential Galois groups

International audienceWe recall that diagonals of rational functions naturally occur in lattice statistical mechanics and enumerative combinatorics. In all the examples emerging from physics, the minimal linear differential operators annihilating these diagonals of rational functions have been shown to actually possess orthogonal or symplectic differential Galois groups. In order to understand the emergence of such orthogonal or symplectic groups, we analyze exhaustively three sets of diagonals of rational functions, corresponding respectively to rational functions of three variables, four variables and six variables. We impose the constraints that the degree of the denominators in each variable is at most one, and the coefficients of the monomials are 0 or $\;\pm 1,$ so that the analysis can be exhaustive. We find the minimal linear differential operators annihilating the diagonals of these rational functions of three, four, five and six variables. We find that, even for these sets of examples which, at first sight, have no relation with physics, their differential Galois groups are always orthogonal or symplectic groups. We discuss the conditions on the rational functions such that the operators annihilating their diagonals do not correspond to orthogonal or symplectic differential Galois groups, but rather to generic special linear groups

Implementation issues of a High-Speed distributed Multi-Channel ADDA System

A multi-channel ADDA controller is used in many active noise cancellation and active vibration control problems. Such a con- troller is able to yield good performance, however it also requires a lot of hardware on a centralized place and a lot of sensitive wiring. A practical work around for this problem would be to use a local single channel controller. However such a controller would reduce the overall system performance and may introduce instability. In this paper a system will be presented that acts as a hybrid form and combines the performance of a local feedback loop with a large multi-channel controller. To reduce the wiring and the influence of disturbances on this wiring a local analog to digital and digital to analog converter will be used. These systems will be interconnected using a high-speed serial com- munication system. To reduce the sample rate for the overall system, a local decimation and interpolation filter will be imple- mented. Further performance improvements will be realized by means of a simple local feedback system. The implementation issues concerning such a system are the subject of this paper

Learning energy storage in hybrid/electric vehicles: Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Sustainable Transportation & Electrical Power Systems

The "Erasmus Mundus Master Course in Sustainable Transportation & Electrical Power Systems" is supported by three universities, located in Spain, Italy and United Kingdom, and a Polytechnic Institute in Portugal. One of the main goals is the training of qualified staff in areas related to electrical energy management, emphasizing in power systems for electric propulsion vehicles and renewable energies. Among others, the subject "Energy Storage and Recovery in Power Systems and Hybrid/Electric Vehicles" is considered a keystone in the Master. During third semester, the students who follow the technical track, have to develop small projects and tasks related to electric vehicles, battery management, power stages for battery charger and so on. This paper show the goals and the results obtained in these topics. All of these topics are partially collected in one subject, with a high practical content. The students have to learn not only the theoretical topics, but they have to elaborate a project, in a work team and use modern laboratory equipment as well. It should be noted that the students have to work and collaborate in a multicultural environment, with students and professors. This paper describes the subject methodology, and the results obtained

The forgotten '45 : Donald Dubh's rebellion in an archipelagic context

The final rebellion of Donald Dubh, heir to the forfeited MacDonald lordship of the Isles, is usually examined within the context of Highland rebellions that occurred in the half century after forfeiture. However, the factors that motivated the Islesmen to rise in rebellion in 1545 are multi-faceted and can only be fully understood by placing the rising in a wider context, which considers national and archipelagic events. The discussion that follows explores the reasons why the Islesmen, almost unanimously, entered into agreement with Henry VIII to attack Scotland from the west and why this endeavour failed. At the same time, the article highlights Henry’s recognition of the strategic importance of the west which led him into alliance with Donald Dubh and his supporters

Black-Scholes option pricing within Ito and Stratonovich conventions

Options financial instruments designed to protect investors from the stock market randomness. In 1973, Fisher Black, Myron Scholes and Robert Merton proposed a very popular option pricing method using stochastic differential equations within the Ito interpretation. Herein, we derive the Black-Scholes equation for the option price using the Stratonovich calculus along with a comprehensive review, aimed to physicists, of the classical option pricing method based on the Ito calculus. We show, as can be expected, that the Black-Scholes equation is independent of the interpretation chosen. We nonetheless point out the many subtleties underlying Black-Scholes option pricing method.Comment: 14 page

XIS: A Low-current, High-voltage Back-junction Back-contact Device

AbstractIn this paper we present experimental results of a low-current, high-voltage back-junction back-contact device. The concept is demonstrated by the successful transformation of finished IBC cells into XIS (Crystalline Silicon Interconnected Strips) devices, leading to 8.5V for a series connection of 14 strip cells. Different grooving methods for cell separation were evaluated regarding the effect on the quality of the groove surface. The effect of the groove passivation, which is regarded as a critical parameter to obtain high-efficiency XIS devices, was simulated to gain a better understanding of the processing requirements

Near BPS Skyrmions and restricted harmonic maps

Motivated by a class of near BPS Skyrme models introduced by Adam, Sánchez-Guillén and Wereszczyński, the following variant of the harmonic map problem is introduced: a map φ:(M,g)→(N,h)φ:(M,g)→(N,h) between Riemannian manifolds is restricted harmonic if it locally extremizes E2E2 on its View the MathML sourceSDiff(M) orbit, where View the MathML sourceSDiff(M) denotes the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms of (M,g)(M,g), and E2E2 denotes the Dirichlet energy. It is conjectured that near BPS skyrmions tend to restricted harmonic maps in the BPS limit. It is shown that φφ is restricted harmonic if and only if φ∗hφ∗h has exact divergence, and a linear stability theory of restricted harmonic maps is developed, from which it follows that all weakly conformal maps are stable restricted harmonic. Examples of restricted harmonic maps in every degree class R3→SU(2)R3→SU(2) and R2→S2R2→S2 are constructed. It is shown that the axially symmetric BPS skyrmions on which all previous analytic studies of near BPS Skyrme models have been based, are not restricted harmonic, casting doubt on the phenomenological predictions of such studies. The problem of minimizing E2E2 for φ:Rk→Nφ:Rk→N over all linear volume preserving diffeomorphisms is solved explicitly, and a deformed axially symmetric family of Skyrme fields constructed which are candidates for approximate near BPS skyrmions at low baryon number. The notion of restricted harmonicity is generalized to restricted FF-criticality where FF is any functional on maps (M,g)→(N,h)(M,g)→(N,h) which is, in a precise sense, geometrically natural. The case where FF is a linear combination of E2E2 and E4E4, the usual Skyrme term, is studied in detail, and it is shown that inverse stereographic projection R3→S3≡SU(2)R3→S3≡SU(2) is stable restricted FF-critical for every such FF

Mixing Bandt-Pompe and Lempel-Ziv approaches: another way to analyze the complexity of continuous-states sequences

In this paper, we propose to mix the approach underlying Bandt-Pompe permutation entropy with Lempel-Ziv complexity, to design what we call Lempel-Ziv permutation complexity. The principle consists of two steps: (i) transformation of a continuous-state series that is intrinsically multivariate or arises from embedding into a sequence of permutation vectors, where the components are the positions of the components of the initial vector when re-arranged; (ii) performing the Lempel-Ziv complexity for this series of `symbols', as part of a discrete finite-size alphabet. On the one hand, the permutation entropy of Bandt-Pompe aims at the study of the entropy of such a sequence; i.e., the entropy of patterns in a sequence (e.g., local increases or decreases). On the other hand, the Lempel-Ziv complexity of a discrete-state sequence aims at the study of the temporal organization of the symbols (i.e., the rate of compressibility of the sequence). Thus, the Lempel-Ziv permutation complexity aims to take advantage of both of these methods. The potential from such a combined approach - of a permutation procedure and a complexity analysis - is evaluated through the illustration of some simulated data and some real data. In both cases, we compare the individual approaches and the combined approach.Comment: 30 pages, 4 figure