16,194 research outputs found
Wiener modelling and model predictive control for wastewater applications
The research presented in this paper aims to demonstrate the application of predictive control to an integrated wastewater system with the use of the wiener modeling approach. This allows the controlled process, dissolved oxygen, to be considered to be composed of two parts: the linear dynamics, and a static nonlinearity, thus allowing control other than common approaches such as gain-scheduling, or switching, for series of linear controllers. The paper discusses various approaches to the modelling required for control purposes, and the use of wiener modelling for the specific application of integrated waste water control. This paper demonstrates this application and compares with that of another nonlinear approach, fuzzy gain-scheduled control
A Buffer Stocks Model for Stabilizing Price of Staple Food with Considering the Expectation of Non Speculative Wholesaler
This paper is a study of price stabilization in the
staple food distribution system. All stakeholders experience
market risks due to some possibility causes of price volatility.
Many models of price stabilization had been developed by
employing several approaches such as floor-ceiling prices,
buffer funds, export or import taxes, and subsidies. In the
previous researches, the models were expanded to increase the
purchasing price for producer and decrease the selling price
for consumer. Therefore, the policy can influence the losses for
non-speculative wholesaler that is reflected by the descending
of selling quantity and ascending of the stocks. The objective of
this model is not only to keep the expectation of both producer
and consumer, but also to protect non-speculative wholesaler
from the undesirable result of the stabilization policy. A
nonlinear programming model was addressed to determine the
instruments of intervention program. Moreover, the result
shows that the wholesaler behavior affects the intervention
costs.
Index Terms Buffer stocks, Price stabilization, Nonlinear
programming, Wholesaler behavior
Whole-brain patterns of 1H-magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging in Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies
Acknowledgements We thank Craig Lambert for his help in processing the MRS data. The study was funded by the Sir Jules Thorn Charitable Trust (grant ref: 05/JTA) and was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre and the Biomedical Research Unit in Lewy Body Dementia based at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust and Newcastle University and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and Biomedical Research Unit in Dementia based at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Cambridge.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Improving clerkship preparedness: a hospital medicine elective for pre-clerkship students.
BackgroundMedical students often struggle to apply their nascent clinical skills in clerkships. While transitional clerkships can orient students to new roles and logistics, students may benefit from developing clinical skills in inpatient environments earlier in their curriculum to improve readiness for clerkships.InterventionOur four- to six-session elective provides pre-clerkship students with individualized learning in the inpatient setting with the aim of improving clerkship preparedness. Students work one-on-one with faculty who facilitate individualized learning through mentoring, deliberate practice, and directed feedback. Second-year medical students are placed on an attending-only, traditionally 'non-teaching' service in the hospital medicine division of a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital for half-day sessions. Most students self-select into the elective following a class-wide advertisement. The elective also accepts students who are referred for remediation of their clinical skills.OutcomeIn the elective's first two years, 25 students participated and 47 students were waitlisted. We compared participant and waitlisted (non-participant) students' self-efficacy in several clinical and professional domains during their first clerkship. Elective participants reported significantly higher clerkship preparedness compared to non-participants in the areas of physical exam, oral presentation, and formulation of assessments and plans.ConclusionsStudents found the one-on-one feedback and personalized attention from attending physicians to be a particularly useful aspect of the course. This frequently cited benefit points to students' perceived needs and the value they place on individualized feedback. Our innovation harnesses an untapped resource - the hospital medicine 'non-teaching' service - and serves as an attainable option for schools interested in enhancing early clinical skill-building for all students, including those recommended for remediation.AbbreviationsA&P: Assessment and plan; H&P: History and physical; ILP: Individual learning plan
Violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality with weak measurements of photons
By weakly measuring the polarization of a photon between two strong
polarization measurements, we experimentally investigate the correlation
between the appearance of anomalous values in quantum weak measurements, and
the violation of realism and non-intrusiveness of measurements. A quantitative
formulation of the latter concept is expressed in terms of a Leggett-Garg
inequality for the outcomes of subsequent measurements of an individual quantum
system. We experimentally violate the Leggett-Garg inequality for several
measurement strengths. Furthermore, we experimentally demonstrate that there is
a one-to-one correlation between achieving strange weak values and violating
the Leggett-Garg inequality.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
The Distance to Nova V959 Mon from VLA Imaging
Determining reliable distances to classical novae is a challenging but
crucial step in deriving their ejected masses and explosion energetics. Here we
combine radio expansion measurements from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array
with velocities derived from optical spectra to estimate an expansion parallax
for nova V959 Mon, the first nova discovered through its gamma-ray emission. We
spatially resolve the nova at frequencies of 4.5-36.5 GHz in nine different
imaging epochs. The first five epochs cover the expansion of the ejecta from
2012 October to 2013 January, while the final four epochs span 2014 February to
2014 May. These observations correspond to days 126 through 199 and days 615
through 703 after the first detection of the nova. The images clearly show a
non-spherical ejecta geometry. Utilizing ejecta velocities derived from 3D
modelling of optical spectroscopy, the radio expansion implies a distance
between 0.9 +/- 0.2 and 2.2 +/- 0.4 kpc, with a most probable distance of 1.4
+/- 0.4 kpc. This distance implies a gamma-ray luminosity much less than the
prototype gamma-ray-detected nova, V407 Cyg, possibly due to the lack of a red
giant companion in the V959 Mon system. V959 Mon also has a much lower
gamma-ray luminosity than other classical novae detected in gamma-rays to date,
indicating a range of at least a factor of 10 in the gamma-ray luminosities for
these explosions.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables, submitted to ApJ 2015-01-21, under
revie
Radio Frequency Models of Novae in eruption. I. The Free-Free Process in Bipolar Morphologies
Observations of novae at radio frequencies provide us with a measure of the
total ejected mass, density profile and kinetic energy of a nova eruption. The
radio emission is typically well characterized by the free-free emission
process. Most models to date have assumed spherical symmetry for the eruption,
although it has been known for as long as there have been radio observations of
these systems, that spherical eruptions are to simplistic a geometry. In this
paper, we build bipolar models of the nova eruption, assuming the free-free
process, and show the effects of varying different parameters on the radio
light curves. The parameters considered include the ratio of the minor- to
major-axis, the inclination angle and shell thickness (further parameters are
provided in the appendix). We also show the uncertainty introduced when fitting
spherical model synthetic light curves to bipolar model synthetic light curves.
We find that the optically thick phase rises with the same power law () for both the spherical and bipolar models. In the bipolar case
there is a "plateau" phase -- depending on the thickness of the shell as well
as the ratio of the minor- to major-axis -- before the final decline, that
follows the same power law () as in the spherical case.
Finally, fitting spherical models to the bipolar model synthetic light curves
requires, in the worst case scenario, doubling the ejected mass, more than
halving the electron temperature and reducing the shell thickness by nearly a
factor of 10. This implies that in some systems we have been over predicting
the ejected masses and under predicting the electron temperature of the ejecta.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ, accompanying
movie to figure 3 available at
http://www.ast.uct.ac.za/~valerio/papers/radioI
Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as Shadow Masks for Nanogap Fabrication
We describe a technique for fabricating nanometer-scale gaps in Pt wires on
insulating substrates, using individual single-walled carbon nanotubes as
shadow masks during metal deposition. More than 80% of the devices display
current-voltage dependencies characteristic of direct electron tunneling. Fits
to the current-voltage data yield gap widths in the 0.8-2.3 nm range for these
devices, dimensions that are well suited for single-molecule transport
measurements
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