1,985 research outputs found
On the Expansions in Spin Foam Cosmology
We discuss the expansions used in spin foam cosmology. We point out that
already at the one vertex level arbitrarily complicated amplitudes contribute,
and discuss the geometric asymptotics of the five simplest ones. We discuss
what type of consistency conditions would be required to control the expansion.
We show that the factorisation of the amplitude originally considered is best
interpreted in topological terms. We then consider the next higher term in the
graph expansion. We demonstrate the tension between the truncation to small
graphs and going to the homogeneous sector, and conclude that it is necessary
to truncate the dynamics as well.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, published versio
Higher levels of CO2 during late incubation alter the hatch time of chicken embryos
status: publishe
Adaptive Covariance Estimation with model selection
We provide in this paper a fully adaptive penalized procedure to select a
covariance among a collection of models observing i.i.d replications of the
process at fixed observation points. For this we generalize previous results of
Bigot and al. and propose to use a data driven penalty to obtain an oracle
inequality for the estimator. We prove that this method is an extension to the
matricial regression model of the work by Baraud
Scientific cruise report of the arctic expedition ARK-XX/3 of RV Polarstern in 2004: Fram Strait, Yermak Plateau and East Greenland Continental Margin
Detection of embryo mortality and hatch using thermal differences among incubated chicken eggs
Accurate diagnosis of both the stage of embryonic mortality and the hatch process in incubated eggs is a fundamental component in troubleshooting and hatchery management. However, traditional methods disturb incubation, destroy egg samples, risk contamination, are time and labour-intensive and require specialist knowledge and training. Therefore, a new method to accurately detect embryonic mortality and hatching time would be of significant interest for the poultry industry if it could be done quickly, cheaply and be fully integrated into the process. In this study we have continuously measured individual eggshell temperatures and the corresponding micro-environmental air temperatures throughout the 21 days of incubation using standard low-cost temperature sensors. Moreover, we have quantified the thermal interaction between eggs and air by calculating thermal profile changes (temperature drop time, drop length and drop magnitude) that allowed us to detect four categories of egg status (infertile/early death, middle death, late death and hatch) during incubation. A decision tree induction classification model accurately (93.3%) predicted the status of 105 sampled eggs in comparison to the classical hatch residue breakout analyses. With this study we have provided a major contribution to the optimisation of incubation processes by introducing an alternative method for the currently practiced hatch residue breakout analyses.status: publishe
Effect of species-specific sound stimulation on the development and hatching of broiler chicks
Radiotherapy optimAl Design: An Academic Radiotherapy Treatment Design System
Optimally designing radiotherapy and radiosurgery treatments to increase the likelihood of a successful recovery from cancer is an important application of operations research. Researchers have been hindered by the lack of academic software that supports head-to-head comparisons of different techniques, and this article addresses the inherent difficulties of designing and implementing an academic treatment planning system. In particular, this article details the algorithms and the software design of Radiotherapy optimAl Design (RAD)
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