309 research outputs found
A Handheld low-mass, impact instrument to measure nondestructive firmness of fruit
A portable, handheld impact firmness sensor was designed for nondestructive measurement of fruit firmness while the fruit remain attached to the tree or for use in other remote locations where the use of a benchtop instrument would be impractical. The instrument design was based on the low-mass, constant velocity, impact-type measurement concept. Validation tests of the handheld sensor using `Bartlett' pears from orchards in California and Washington showed excellent agreement (r2 = 0.92 and 0.96, respectively) with both ASAE Standard method S368.2 for determining the apparent modulus of intact fruit and the impact firmness scores from a commercial benchtop impact firmness instrument
Natural equilibrium states for multimodal maps
This paper is devoted to the study of the thermodynamic formalism for a class
of real multimodal maps. This class contains, but it is larger than,
Collet-Eckmann. For a map in this class, we prove existence and uniqueness of
equilibrium states for the geometric potentials , for the largest
possible interval of parameters . We also study the regularity and convexity
properties of the pressure function, completely characterising the first order
phase transitions. Results concerning the existence of absolutely continuous
invariant measures with respect to the Lebesgue measure are also obtained
On conformal measures and harmonic functions for group extensions
We prove a Perron-Frobenius-Ruelle theorem for group extensions of
topological Markov chains based on a construction of -finite conformal
measures and give applications to the construction of harmonic functions.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of "New Trends in Onedimensional Dynamics,
celebrating the 70th birthday of Welington de Melo
Phase transitions for suspension flows
This paper is devoted to study thermodynamic formalism for suspension flows
defined over countable alphabets. We are mostly interested in the regularity
properties of the pressure function. We establish conditions for the pressure
function to be real analytic or to exhibit a phase transition. We also
construct an example of a potential for which the pressure has countably many
phase transitions.Comment: Example 5.2 expanded. Typos corrected. Section 6.1 superced the note
"Thermodynamic formalism for the positive geodesic flow on the modular
surface" arXiv:1009.462
Equilibrium states and invariant measures for random dynamical systems
Random dynamical systems with countably many maps which admit countable
Markov partitions on complete metric spaces such that the resulting Markov
systems are uniformly continuous and contractive are considered. A
non-degeneracy and a consistency conditions for such systems, which admit some
proper Markov partitions of connected spaces, are introduced, and further
sufficient conditions for them are provided. It is shown that every uniformly
continuous Markov system associated with a continuous random dynamical system
is consistent if it has a dominating Markov chain. A necessary and sufficient
condition for the existence of an invariant Borel probability measure for such
a non-degenerate system with a dominating Markov chain and a finite (16) is
given. The condition is also sufficient if the non-degeneracy is weakened with
the consistency condition. A further sufficient condition for the existence of
an invariant measure for such a consistent system which involves only the
properties of the dominating Markov chain is provided. In particular, it
implies that every such a consistent system with a finite Markov partition and
a finite (16) has an invariant Borel probability measure. A bijective map
between these measures and equilibrium states associated with such a system is
established in the non-degenerate case. Some properties of the map and the
measures are given.Comment: The article is published in DCDS-A, but without the 3rd paragraph on
page 4 (the complete removal of the paragraph became the condition for the
publication in the DCDS-A after the reviewer ran out of the citation
suggestions collected in the paragraph
Moment inversion problem for piecewise D-finite functions
We consider the problem of exact reconstruction of univariate functions with
jump discontinuities at unknown positions from their moments. These functions
are assumed to satisfy an a priori unknown linear homogeneous differential
equation with polynomial coefficients on each continuity interval. Therefore,
they may be specified by a finite amount of information. This reconstruction
problem has practical importance in Signal Processing and other applications.
It is somewhat of a ``folklore'' that the sequence of the moments of such
``piecewise D-finite''functions satisfies a linear recurrence relation of
bounded order and degree. We derive this recurrence relation explicitly. It
turns out that the coefficients of the differential operator which annihilates
every piece of the function, as well as the locations of the discontinuities,
appear in this recurrence in a precisely controlled manner. This leads to the
formulation of a generic algorithm for reconstructing a piecewise D-finite
function from its moments. We investigate the conditions for solvability of the
resulting linear systems in the general case, as well as analyze a few
particular examples. We provide results of numerical simulations for several
types of signals, which test the sensitivity of the proposed algorithm to
noise
Statistical stability of equilibrium states for interval maps
We consider families of multimodal interval maps with polynomial growth of
the derivative along the critical orbits. For these maps Bruin and Todd have
shown the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states for the potential
, for close to 1. We show that these
equilibrium states vary continuously in the weak topology within such
families. Moreover, in the case , when the equilibrium states are
absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue, we show that the densities vary
continuously within these families.Comment: More details given and the appendices now incorporated into the rest
of the pape
The Lyapunov spectrum is not always concave
We characterize one-dimensional compact repellers having nonconcave Lyapunov
spectra. For linear maps with two branches we give an explicit condition that
characterizes non-concave Lyapunov spectra
Equilibrium states for non-uniformly expanding maps: decay of correlations and strong stability
We study the rate of decay of correlations for equilibrium states associated
to a robust class of non-uniformly expanding maps where no Markov assumption is
required. We show that the Ruelle-Perron-Frobenius operator acting on the space
of Holder continuous observables has a spectral gap and deduce the exponential
decay of correlations and the central limit theorem. In particular, we obtain
an alternative proof for the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium states
and we prove that the topological pressure varies continuously. Finally, we use
the spectral properties of the transfer operators in space of differentiable
observables to obtain strong stability results under deterministic and random
perturbations.Comment: 29 pages, Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincare - Analyse non lineaire
(to appear
Managing Injuries of the Neck Trial (MINT) : design of a randomised controlled trial of treatments for whiplash associated disorders
Background: A substantial proportion of patients with whiplash injuries develop chronic
symptoms. However, the best treatment of acute injuries to prevent long-term problems is
uncertain. A stepped care treatment pathway has been proposed, in which patients are given advice
and education at their initial visit to the emergency department (ED), followed by review at three
weeks and physiotherapy for those with persisting symptoms. MINT is a two-stage randomised
controlled trial to evaluate two components of such a pathway: 1. use of The Whiplash Book versus
usual advice when patients first attend the emergency department; 2. referral to physiotherapy
versus reinforcement of advice for patients with continuing symptoms at three weeks.
Methods: Evaluation of the Whiplash Book versus usual advice uses a cluster randomised design
in emergency departments of eight NHS Trusts. Eligible patients are identified by clinicians in
participating emergency departments and are sent a study questionnaire within a week of their ED
attendance. Three thousand participants will be included. Patients with persisting symptoms three
weeks after their ED attendance are eligible to join an individually randomised study of
physiotherapy versus reinforcement of the advice given in ED. Six hundred participants will be
randomised. Follow-up is at 4, 8 and 12 months after their ED attendance. Primary outcome is the
Neck Disability Index (NDI), and secondary outcomes include quality of life and time to return to
work and normal activities. An economic evaluation is being carried out.
Conclusion: This paper describes the protocol and operational aspects of a complex intervention
trial based in NHS emergency and physiotherapy departments, evaluating two components of a
stepped-care approach to the treatment of whiplash injuries. The trial uses two randomisations,
with the first stage being cluster randomised and the second individually randomised
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