1,877 research outputs found
Vehicle automation and freeway 'pipeline' capacity in the context of legal standards of care
The study evaluates, in the context of freeway segments, the interaction between automated cars’ kinematic capabilities and the standard legal requirement for the operator of an automobile to not strike items that are in its path (known as the ‘Assured Clear Distance Ahead’ criterion). The objective is to characterize the impacts of ACDA-compliant driving behavior on the system-level indicator of roadway-network capacity. We assess the barriers to automated cars operating non-ACDA-compliant driving strategies, develop a straightforward ACDA-compliant automated-driving model to analytically estimate freeway ‘pipeline’ capacity, compare this behavior to human drivers, and interpret quantitative findings which are based on a range of rationally-specified parameter values and explicitly account for kinematic uncertainty. We demonstrate that automated cars pursuing ACDA-compliant driving strategies would have distinctive “fundamental diagrams” (relationships between speed and flow). Our results suggest that such automated-driving strategies (under a baseline set of assumptions) would sustain higher flow rates at free-flow speeds than human drivers, however at higher traffic volumes the rate of degradation in speed due to congestion would be steeper. ACDA-compliant automated cars also would have a higher level of maximum-achievable throughput, though the impact on maximum throughput at free-flow speed depends on the specific interpretation of ACDA. We also present a novel quantification of the tradeoff between freeway-capacity and various degrees of safety (one failure in 100,000 events, one failure in 1,000,000, etc.) that explicitly accounts for the irreducible uncertainty in emergency braking performance, by drawing on empirical distributions of braking distance testing. Finally, we assess the vulnerability of ACDA-compliant automated cars to lateral ‘cut-ins’ by vehicles making lane changes. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of policy questions and research needs
Crosses with Amut Bmut homokaryons of Coprinus cinereus
In this paper we describe the initial genetic analysis of some developmental REMI and UV mutants of the self-compatible homokaryon Amut Bmut. We show that such homokaryons can mate with each other although in fruitbodies we often found spores of only one parent. Crosses with monokaryons of different mating types gave some indications about numbers of mutations and linkage of genetic markers. In most cases, however, we observed an uneven distribution of markers, most likely because of loss of certain progeny. Our results necessitate the construction of monokaryons as closely related to homokaryon AmutBmut as possible but with different mating type loci
Local dissipation effects in two-dimensional quantum Josephson junction arrays with magnetic field
We study the quantum phase transitions in two-dimensional arrays of
Josephson-couples junctions with short range Josephson couplings (given by the
Josephson energy) and the charging energy. We map the problem onto the solvable
quantum generalization of the spherical model that improves over the mean-field
theory method. The arrays are placed on the top of a two-dimensional electron
gas separated by an insulator. We include effects of the local dissipation in
the presence of an external magnetic flux f in square lattice for several
rational fluxes f=0,1/2,1/3,1/4 and 1/6. We also have examined the T=0
superconducting-insulator phase boundary as function of a dissipation alpha for
two different geometry of the lattice: square and triangular. We have found
critical value of the dissipation parameter independent on geometry of the
lattice and presence magnetic field.Comment: accepted to PR
Normal zone in -coated conductors
We consider the distribution of an electric field in YBCO-coated conductors
for a situation in which the DC transport current is forced into the copper
stabilizer due to a weak link -- a section of the superconducting film with a
critical current less than the transport current. The electric field in the
metal substrate is also discussed. The results are compared with recent
experiments on normal zone propagation in coated conductors for which the
substrate and stabilizer are insulated from each other. The potential
difference between the substrate and stabilizer, and the electric field in the
substrate outside the normal zone can be accounted for by a large screening
length in the substrate, comparable to the length of the sample. During a
quench, the electric field inside the interface between YBCO and stabilizer, as
well as in the buffer layer, can be several orders of magnitude greater than
the longitudinal macroscopic electric field inside the normal zone. We
speculate on the possibility of using possible microscopic electric discharges
caused by this large (kV/cm) electric field as a means to detect a
quench.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure
Performance-based control system design automation via evolutionary computing
This paper develops an evolutionary algorithm (EA) based methodology for computer-aided control system design (CACSD)
automation in both the time and frequency domains under performance satisfactions. The approach is automated by efficient
evolution from plant step response data, bypassing the system identification or linearization stage as required by conventional
designs. Intelligently guided by the evolutionary optimization, control engineers are able to obtain a near-optimal ‘‘off-thecomputer’’
controller by feeding the developed CACSD system with plant I/O data and customer specifications without the need of
a differentiable performance index. A speedup of near-linear pipelineability is also observed for the EA parallelism implemented on
a network of transputers of Parsytec SuperCluster. Validation results against linear and nonlinear physical plants are convincing,
with good closed-loop performance and robustness in the presence of practical constraints and perturbations
Global Newtonian limit for the Relativistic Boltzmann Equation near Vacuum
We study the Cauchy Problem for the relativistic Boltzmann equation with near
Vacuum initial data. Unique global in time "mild" solutions are obtained
uniformly in the speed of light parameter . We furthermore prove that
solutions to the relativistic Boltzmann equation converge to solutions of the
Newtonian Boltzmann equation in the limit as on arbitrary time
intervals , with convergence rate for any . This may be the first proof of unique global in time validity of the
Newtonian limit for a Kinetic equation.Comment: 35 page
Finite-temperature effects on the superfluid Bose-Einstein condensation of confined ultracold atoms in three-dimensional optical lattices
We discuss the finite-temperature phase diagram in the three-dimensional
Bose-Hubbard (BH) model in the strong correlation regime, relevant for
Bose-Einstein condensates in optical lattices, by employing a quantum rotor
approach. In systems with strong on site repulsive interactions, the rotor U(1)
phase variable dual to the local boson density emerges as an important
collective field. After establishing the connection between the rotor
construction and the the on--site interaction in the BH model the robust
effective action formalism is developed which allows us to study the superfluid
phase transition in various temperature--interaction regimes
Optimization-based design of control systems for flexible structures
The purpose of this presentation is to show that it is possible to use nonsmooth optimization algorithms to design both closed-loop finite dimensional compensators and open-loop optimal controls for flexible structures modeled by partial differential equations. An important feature of our approach is that it does not require modal decomposition and hence is immune to instabilities caused by spillover effects. Furthermore, it can be used to design control systems for structures that are modeled by mixed systems of coupled ordinary and partial differential equations
Molecular structures and vibrations of neutral and anionic CuOx (x = 1-3,6) clusters
We report equilibrium geometric structures of CuO2, CuO3, CuO6, and CuO
clusters obtained by an all-electron linear combination of atomic orbitals
scheme within the density-functional theory with generalized gradient
approximation to describe the exchange-correlation effects. The vibrational
stability of all clusters is examined on the basis of the vibrational
frequencies. A structure with Cs symmetry is found to be the lowest-energy
structure for CuO2, while a -shaped structure with C2v symmetry is the most
stable structure for CuO3. For the larger CuO6 and CuO clusters, several
competitive structures exist with structures containing ozonide units being
higher in energy than those with O2 units. The infrared and Raman spectra are
calculated for the stable optimal geometries. ~Comment: Uses Revtex4, (Better quality figures can be obtained from authors
DC and transient current distribution analysis from self-field measurements on ITER PFIS conductor
Current reconstruction in cable-in-conduit conductors (CICC) cables is a crucial issue to determine cables performance in working conditions, and must be performed using inverse problem approaches as direct measurement is not feasible. The current distribution has been studied for the ITER Poloidal Field Insert Sample (PFIS) conductor using annular arrays of Hall probes placed in three different locations along the sample during the test campaign at the SULTAN facility. The measurement apparatus is also described in the paper, together with the approach to current reconstruction
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