Flow-based Intrinsic Curiosity Module

In this paper, we focus on a prediction-based novelty estimation strategy upon the deep reinforcement learning (DRL) framework, and present a flow-based intrinsic curiosity module (FICM) to exploit the prediction errors from optical flow estimation as exploration bonuses. We propose the concept of leveraging motion features captured between consecutive observations to evaluate the novelty of observations in an environment. FICM encourages a DRL agent to explore observations with unfamiliar motion features, and requires only two consecutive frames to obtain sufficient information when estimating the novelty. We evaluate our method and compare it with a number of existing methods on multiple benchmark environments, including Atari games, Super Mario Bros., and ViZDoom. We demonstrate that FICM is favorable to tasks or environments featuring moving objects, which allow FICM to utilize the motion features between consecutive observations. We further ablatively analyze the encoding efficiency of FICM, and discuss its applicable domains comprehensively.Comment: The SOLE copyright holder is IJCAI (International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence), all rights reserved. The link is provided as follows: https://www.ijcai.org/Proceedings/2020/28

Tubular Organization of SnO2 Nanocrystallites for Improved Lithium Ion Battery Anode Performace

Porous tin oxide nanotubes were obtained by vacuum infiltration of tin oxide nanoparticles into porous aluminum oxide membranes, followed by calcination. The porous tin oxide nanotube arrays so prepared were characterized by FE-SEM, TEM, HRTEM, and XRD. The nanotubes are open-ended, highly ordered with uniform cross-sections, diameters and wall thickness. The tin oxide nanotubes were evaluated as a substitute anode material for the lithium ion batteries. The tin oxide nanotube anode could be charged and discharged repeatedly, retaining a specific capacity of 525 mAh/g after 80 cycles. This capacity is significantly higher than the theoretical capacity of commercial graphite anode (372 mAh/g) and the cyclability is outstanding for a tin based electrode. The cyclability and capacities of the tin oxide nanotubes were also higher than their building blocks of solid tin oxide nanoparticles. A few factors accounting for the good cycling performance and high capacity of tin oxide nanotubes are suggested.Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

Template Synthesis of Tubular Sn-Based Nanostructures for Lithium Ion Storage

We report herewith the preparation of SnO₂ nanotubes with very good shape and size control, and with and without a carbon nanotube overlayer, The SnO₂-core/carbon-shell nanotubes are excellent reversible Li ion storage compounds combining the best features of carbon (cyclability) and SnO₂ (capacity) to deliver a high specific capacity (~540-600 mAh/g) simultaneous with good cyclability (0.0375% capacity loss per cycle).Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA

The strangeness form factors of the proton within nonrelativistic constituent quark model revisited

We reexamine, within the nonrelativistic constituent quark model (NRCQM), a recent claim that the current data on the strangeness form factors indicates that the uuds\bar{s} component in the proton is such that the uuds subsystem has the mixed spatial symmetry [31]_X and flavor spin symmetry [4]_{FS}[22]_F[22]_S, with \bar{s} in S state (configuration I). We find this claim to be invalid if corrected expressions for the contributions of the transition current to G_A^s and G_E^s are used. We show that, instead, it is the lowest-lying uuds\bar{s} configuration with uuds subsystem of completely symmetric spatial symmetry [4]_X and flavor spin symmetry [4]_{FS}[22]_F[22]_S, with \bar{s} in P state (configuration II), which could account for the empirical signs of all form factors G_E^s, G_M^s, and G_A^s. Further, we find that removing the center-of-mass motion of the clusters will considerably enhance the contributions of the transition current. We also demonstrate that it is possible to give a reasonable description of the existing form factors data with a tiny probability P_{s\bar{s}}=0.025% for the uuds\bar{s} component. We further see that with a small admixture of configuration I, the agreement of our prediction with data for G_A^s at low-q^2 region can be markedly improved. We find that without removing CM motion, P_{s\bar{s}} would be overestimated by about a factor of four in the case when transition current dominates. We also explore the consequence of a recent estimate reached from analyzing existing data on \bar{d} -\bar{u}, s +\bar{s}, and \bar{u} + \bar{d} - s -\bar{s}, that P_{s\bar{s}} lies between 2.4-2.9%. It would lead to a large size for the five-quark system and a small bump in both G_E^s+\eta G_M^s and G_E^s in the region of q^2<=0.1 GeV^2 within the considered model.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Phase sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit in an SU(1,1) interferometer via parity detection

We theoretically investigate the phase sensitivity with parity detection on an SU(1,1) interferometer with a coherent state combined with a squeezed vacuum state. This interferometer is formed with two parametric amplifiers for beam splitting and recombination instead of beam splitters. We show that the sensitivity of estimation phase approaches Heisenberg limit and give the corresponding optimal condition. Moreover, we derive the quantum Cram\'er-Rao bound of the SU(1,1) interferometer.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 3 table