7,720 research outputs found
Vocational identity in adolescence according to family
The present study aims to analyze the relation between the statutes of vocational
identity and family variables, throughout adolescence. The variables related to the family context that were taken into account were the following: parental authority, perception of parents’ support, parents’ qualifications, family self-concept, sibling friendship, divorce versus non divorce of parents, and television viewing of aggressive programs. The sample
consisted of 357 students of different school years (7th, 9th and 11th grades) and of both sexes. Melgosa’s (1987) Occupational Identity Scale, already adapted to Portugal, was used as the evaluation instrument, with the following factors: diffusion, foreclosure, moratorium, achievement. Analyses of the results showed significant differences in most situations as
regards the dimensions of vocational identity, according to each of the independent variables; these differences favored the groups belonging to better family contexts. In several of the situations the effect of the interaction of the variable school year with the
variables related to the family context was also found. This study includes the discussion of the results and their comparison to somewhat similar investigations, suggesting the need for further research associated to school and personal variables
Spatio-temporal conjecture for diffusion
We present here a conjecture about the equivalence between the noise density
of states of a system governed by a generalized Langevin equation and the
fluctuation in the energy density of states in a Hamiltonian system. We present
evidence of this for a disordered Heisenberg system.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Submitted to Physica
-Learning: A Collaborative Distributed Strategy for Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Through Consensus + Innovations
The paper considers a class of multi-agent Markov decision processes (MDPs),
in which the network agents respond differently (as manifested by the
instantaneous one-stage random costs) to a global controlled state and the
control actions of a remote controller. The paper investigates a distributed
reinforcement learning setup with no prior information on the global state
transition and local agent cost statistics. Specifically, with the agents'
objective consisting of minimizing a network-averaged infinite horizon
discounted cost, the paper proposes a distributed version of -learning,
-learning, in which the network agents collaborate by means of
local processing and mutual information exchange over a sparse (possibly
stochastic) communication network to achieve the network goal. Under the
assumption that each agent is only aware of its local online cost data and the
inter-agent communication network is \emph{weakly} connected, the proposed
distributed scheme is almost surely (a.s.) shown to yield asymptotically the
desired value function and the optimal stationary control policy at each
network agent. The analytical techniques developed in the paper to address the
mixed time-scale stochastic dynamics of the \emph{consensus + innovations}
form, which arise as a result of the proposed interactive distributed scheme,
are of independent interest.Comment: Submitted to the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 33 page
Distributed Linear Parameter Estimation: Asymptotically Efficient Adaptive Strategies
The paper considers the problem of distributed adaptive linear parameter
estimation in multi-agent inference networks. Local sensing model information
is only partially available at the agents and inter-agent communication is
assumed to be unpredictable. The paper develops a generic mixed time-scale
stochastic procedure consisting of simultaneous distributed learning and
estimation, in which the agents adaptively assess their relative observation
quality over time and fuse the innovations accordingly. Under rather weak
assumptions on the statistical model and the inter-agent communication, it is
shown that, by properly tuning the consensus potential with respect to the
innovation potential, the asymptotic information rate loss incurred in the
learning process may be made negligible. As such, it is shown that the agent
estimates are asymptotically efficient, in that their asymptotic covariance
coincides with that of a centralized estimator (the inverse of the centralized
Fisher information rate for Gaussian systems) with perfect global model
information and having access to all observations at all times. The proof
techniques are mainly based on convergence arguments for non-Markovian mixed
time scale stochastic approximation procedures. Several approximation results
developed in the process are of independent interest.Comment: Submitted to SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization journal.
Initial Submission: Sept. 2011. Revised: Aug. 201
Distributed Constrained Recursive Nonlinear Least-Squares Estimation: Algorithms and Asymptotics
This paper focuses on the problem of recursive nonlinear least squares
parameter estimation in multi-agent networks, in which the individual agents
observe sequentially over time an independent and identically distributed
(i.i.d.) time-series consisting of a nonlinear function of the true but unknown
parameter corrupted by noise. A distributed recursive estimator of the
\emph{consensus} + \emph{innovations} type, namely , is
proposed, in which the agents update their parameter estimates at each
observation sampling epoch in a collaborative way by simultaneously processing
the latest locally sensed information~(\emph{innovations}) and the parameter
estimates from other agents~(\emph{consensus}) in the local neighborhood
conforming to a pre-specified inter-agent communication topology. Under rather
weak conditions on the connectivity of the inter-agent communication and a
\emph{global observability} criterion, it is shown that at every network agent,
the proposed algorithm leads to consistent parameter estimates. Furthermore,
under standard smoothness assumptions on the local observation functions, the
distributed estimator is shown to yield order-optimal convergence rates, i.e.,
as far as the order of pathwise convergence is concerned, the local parameter
estimates at each agent are as good as the optimal centralized nonlinear least
squares estimator which would require access to all the observations across all
the agents at all times. In order to benchmark the performance of the proposed
distributed estimator with that of the centralized nonlinear
least squares estimator, the asymptotic normality of the estimate sequence is
established and the asymptotic covariance of the distributed estimator is
evaluated. Finally, simulation results are presented which illustrate and
verify the analytical findings.Comment: 28 pages. Initial Submission: Feb. 2016, Revised: July 2016,
Accepted: September 2016, To appear in IEEE Transactions on Signal and
Information Processing over Networks: Special Issue on Inference and Learning
over Network
Homotopy Type Theory in Lean
We discuss the homotopy type theory library in the Lean proof assistant. The
library is especially geared toward synthetic homotopy theory. Of particular
interest is the use of just a few primitive notions of higher inductive types,
namely quotients and truncations, and the use of cubical methods.Comment: 17 pages, accepted for ITP 201
Conditions for free magnetic monopoles in nanoscale square arrays of dipolar spin ice
We study a modified frustrated dipolar array recently proposed by M\"{o}ller
and Moessner [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{96}, 237202 (2006)], which is based on
an array manufactured lithographically by Wang \emph{et al.} [Nature (London)
\textbf{439}, 303 (2006)] and consists of introducing a height offset
between islands (dipoles) pointing along the two different lattice directions.
The ground-states and excitations are studied as a function of . We have
found, in qualitative agreement with the results of M\"{o}ller and Moessner,
that the ground-state changes for , where ( is the
lattice parameter or distance between islands). In addition, the excitations
above the ground-state behave like magnetic poles but confined by a string,
whose tension decreases as increases, in such a way that for
its value is around 20 times smaller than that for . The system exhibits
an anisotropy in the sense that the string tension and magnetic charge depends
significantly on the directions in which the monopoles are separated. In turn,
the intensity of the magnetic charge abruptly changes when the monopoles are
separated along the direction of the longest axis of the islands. Such a gap is
attributed to the transition from the anti to the ferromagnetic ground-state
when .Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures. Published versio
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