6,230 research outputs found
Design of helicopter rotors to noise constraints
Results of the initial phase of a research project to study the design constraints on helicopter noise are presented. These include the calculation of nonimpulsive rotor harmonic and broadband hover noise spectra, over a wide range of rotor design variables and the sensitivity of perceived noise level (PNL) to changes in rotor design parameters. The prediction methodology used correlated well with measured whirl tower data. Application of the predictions to variations in rotor design showed tip speed and thrust as having the most effect on changing PNL
Supporting Management lnteraction and Composition of Self-Managed Cells
Management in ubiquitous systems cannot rely on human intervention or centralised
decision-making functions because systems are complex and devices
are inherently mobile and cannot refer to centralised management applications
for reconfiguration and adaptation directives. Management must be devolved,
based on local decision-making and feedback control-loops embedded in autonomous
components. Previous work has introduced a Self-Managed Cell (SMC)
as an infrastructure for building ubiquitous applications. An SMC consists
of a set of hardware and software components that implement a policy-driven
feedback control-loop. This allows SMCs to adapt continually to changes in
their environment or in their usage requirements. Typical applications include
body-area networks for healthcare monitoring, and communities of unmanned
autonomous vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance and reconnaissance operations.
Ubiquitous applications are typically formed from multiple interacting autonomous
components, which establish peer-to-peer collaborations, federate and
compose into larger structures. Components must interact to distribute management
tasks and to enforce communication strategies. This thesis presents
an integrated framework which supports the design and the rapid establishment
of policy-based SMC interactions by systematically composing simpler abstractions
as building elements of a more complex collaboration. Policy-based
interactions are realised – subject to an extensible set of security functions –
through the exchanges of interfaces, policies and events, and our framework
was designed to support the specification, instantiation and reuse of patterns of
interaction that prescribe the manner in which these exchanges are achieved.
We have defined a library of patterns that provide reusable abstractions for
the structure, task-allocation and communication aspects of an interaction,
which can be individually combined for building larger policy-based systems in
a methodical manner. We have specified a formal model to ensure the rigorous
verification of SMC interactions before policies are deployed in physical devices.
A prototype has been implemented that demonstrates the practical feasibility
of our framework in constrained resources
Directed force chain networks and stress response in static granular materials
A theory of stress fields in two-dimensional granular materials based on
directed force chain networks is presented. A general equation for the
densities of force chains in different directions is proposed and a complete
solution is obtained for a special case in which chains lie along a discrete
set of directions. The analysis and results demonstrate the necessity of
including nonlinear terms in the equation. A line of nontrivial fixed point
solutions is shown to govern the properties of large systems. In the vicinity
of a generic fixed point, the response to a localized load shows a crossover
from a single, centered peak at intermediate depths to two propagating peaks at
large depths that broaden diffusively.Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures. Minor corrections to one figur
Random trees between two walls: Exact partition function
We derive the exact partition function for a discrete model of random trees
embedded in a one-dimensional space. These trees have vertices labeled by
integers representing their position in the target space, with the SOS
constraint that adjacent vertices have labels differing by +1 or -1. A
non-trivial partition function is obtained whenever the target space is bounded
by walls. We concentrate on the two cases where the target space is (i) the
half-line bounded by a wall at the origin or (ii) a segment bounded by two
walls at a finite distance. The general solution has a soliton-like structure
involving elliptic functions. We derive the corresponding continuum scaling
limit which takes the remarkable form of the Weierstrass p-function with
constrained periods. These results are used to analyze the probability for an
evolving population spreading in one dimension to attain the boundary of a
given domain with the geometry of the target (i) or (ii). They also translate,
via suitable bijections, into generating functions for bounded planar graphs.Comment: 25 pages, 7 figures, tex, harvmac, epsf; accepted version; main
modifications in Sect. 5-6 and conclusio
PDEs with Compressed Solutions
Sparsity plays a central role in recent developments in signal processing,
linear algebra, statistics, optimization, and other fields. In these
developments, sparsity is promoted through the addition of an norm (or
related quantity) as a constraint or penalty in a variational principle. We
apply this approach to partial differential equations that come from a
variational quantity, either by minimization (to obtain an elliptic PDE) or by
gradient flow (to obtain a parabolic PDE). Also, we show that some PDEs can be
rewritten in an form, such as the divisible sandpile problem and
signum-Gordon. Addition of an term in the variational principle leads to
a modified PDE where a subgradient term appears. It is known that modified PDEs
of this form will often have solutions with compact support, which corresponds
to the discrete solution being sparse. We show that this is advantageous
numerically through the use of efficient algorithms for solving based
problems.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figure
Trends in retail sales of costume jewelry
Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit
Investigation of peak shapes in the MIBETA experiment calibrations
In calorimetric neutrino mass experiments, where the shape of a beta decay
spectrum has to be precisely measured, the understanding of the detector
response function is a fundamental issue. In the MIBETA neutrino mass
experiment, the X-ray lines measured with external sources did not have
Gaussian shapes, but exhibited a pronounced shoulder towards lower energies. If
this shoulder were a general feature of the detector response function, it
would distort the beta decay spectrum and thus mimic a non-zero neutrino mass.
An investigation was performed to understand the origin of the shoulder and its
potential influence on the beta spectrum. First, the peaks were fitted with an
analytic function in order to determine quantitatively the amount of events
contributing to the shoulder, also depending on the energy of the calibration
X-rays. In a second step, Montecarlo simulations were performed to reproduce
the experimental spectrum and to understand the origin of its shape. We
conclude that at least part of the observed shoulder can be attributed to a
surface effect
Human Like Adaptation of Force and Impedance in Stable and Unstable Tasks
Abstract—This paper presents a novel human-like learning con-troller to interact with unknown environments. Strictly derived from the minimization of instability, motion error, and effort, the controller compensates for the disturbance in the environment in interaction tasks by adapting feedforward force and impedance. In contrast with conventional learning controllers, the new controller can deal with unstable situations that are typical of tool use and gradually acquire a desired stability margin. Simulations show that this controller is a good model of human motor adaptation. Robotic implementations further demonstrate its capabilities to optimally adapt interaction with dynamic environments and humans in joint torque controlled robots and variable impedance actuators, with-out requiring interaction force sensing. Index Terms—Feedforward force, human motor control, impedance, robotic control. I
Integrability of graph combinatorics via random walks and heaps of dimers
We investigate the integrability of the discrete non-linear equation
governing the dependence on geodesic distance of planar graphs with inner
vertices of even valences. This equation follows from a bijection between
graphs and blossom trees and is expressed in terms of generating functions for
random walks. We construct explicitly an infinite set of conserved quantities
for this equation, also involving suitable combinations of random walk
generating functions. The proof of their conservation, i.e. their eventual
independence on the geodesic distance, relies on the connection between random
walks and heaps of dimers. The values of the conserved quantities are
identified with generating functions for graphs with fixed numbers of external
legs. Alternative equivalent choices for the set of conserved quantities are
also discussed and some applications are presented.Comment: 38 pages, 15 figures, uses epsf, lanlmac and hyperbasic
Своє – чуже. Дике – культурне. Базові структури міфологічних когнітивних моделей (до проблеми інваріанта і трансформації в інформаційному просторі)
Відтворення логічних законів міфологічних когнітивних структур, необхідне для виокремлення інваріантів у трансформованому емпіричному етнографічному масиві, зумовлює пошук базових когнітивних структур міфологічної доби. Базові когнітивні структури елементарних суспільств – бінарні символічні класифікації, які починають розгортатися із просторово-часової дихотомії: освоєний – неосвоєний простір, час архетипів – час їхньої реалізації. У статті аналізуються системи спорідненості дуально-родового суспільства, які, на думку авторки, використовувалися як засіб формалізації ієрархічної класифікації понять міфологічної доби.The reconstruction of the logical laws of mythological cognitive structures which is necessary to single out the invariants in the trasforming ethnographic material leads us to the search of basic cognitive structures of the mythological epoch. The basic cognitive structures of elementary societies are the binaric symbolical classifications which begin to develop from the spatialtemporal opposition: assimilated space – space which is not assimilated, the time of the archetypes – the time of their realization. In the article there is an analysis of a system of consanguinity of dual-clan society which on author's mind was used as means of formalization of the hierarchial classification of the mythological epoch concepts
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