22,947 research outputs found
Pneumotachometer counts respiration rate of human subject
To monitor breaths per minute, two rate-to-analog converters are alternately used to read and count the respiratory rate from an impedance pneumograph sequentially displayed numerically on electroluminescent matrices
Inspection of transparent surfaces using photosensitive paper
Window surface is laid flat on top of photosensitive paper. Opposite side of glass is covered by black cloth. Window edges are then illuminated by light flash through fiber optics. Exposed paper is processed and inspected. Paper shows scratches, bubbles, dust particles, and fingerprints on glass surface
Quantum stabilization of Z-strings, a status report on D=3+1 dimensions
We investigate an extension to the phase shift formalism for calculating
one-loop determinants. This extension is motivated by requirements of the
computation of Z-string quantum energies in D=3+1 dimensions. A subtlety that
seems to imply that the vacuum polarization diagram in this formalism is
(erroneously) finite is thoroughly investigated.Comment: Based on talk by O.S. at QFEXT07, Leipzig Sept. 2007. 8 page
New Directions in Compensation Research: Synergies, Risk, and Survival
We describe and use two theoretical frameworks, the resource-based view of the firm and institutional theory, as lenses for examining three promising areas of compensation research. First, we examine the nature of the relationship between pay and effectiveness. Does pay typically have a main effect or, instead, does the relationship depend on other human resource activities and organization characteristics? If the latter is true, then there are synergies between pay and these other factors and thus, conclusions drawn from main effects models may be misleading. Second, we discuss a relatively neglected issue in pay research, the concept of risk as it applies to investments in pay programs. Although firms and researchers tend to focus on expected returns from compensation interventions, analysis of the risk, or variability, associated with these returns may be essential for effective decision-making. Finally ,pay program survival, which has been virtually ignored in systematic pay research, is investigated. Survival appears to have important consequences for estimating pay plan risk and returns, and is also integral to the discussion of pay synergies. Based upon our two theoretical frameworks, we suggest specific research directions for pay program synergies, risk, and survival
Learning to Translate in Real-time with Neural Machine Translation
Translating in real-time, a.k.a. simultaneous translation, outputs
translation words before the input sentence ends, which is a challenging
problem for conventional machine translation methods. We propose a neural
machine translation (NMT) framework for simultaneous translation in which an
agent learns to make decisions on when to translate from the interaction with a
pre-trained NMT environment. To trade off quality and delay, we extensively
explore various targets for delay and design a method for beam-search
applicable in the simultaneous MT setting. Experiments against state-of-the-art
baselines on two language pairs demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed
framework both quantitatively and qualitatively.Comment: 10 pages, camera read
Plastid redox state and sugars: Interactive regulators of nuclear-encoded photosynthetic gene expression
Feedback regulation of photosynthesis by carbon metabolites has long been recognized, but the underlying cellular mechanisms that control this process remain unclear. By using an Arabidopsis cell culture, we show that a block in photosynthetic electron flux prevents the increase in transcript levels of chlorophyll a/b-binding protein and the small subunit of Rubisco that typically occurs when intracellular sugar levels are depleted. In contrast, the expression of the nitrate reductase gene, which is induced by sugars, is not affected. These findings were confirmed in planta by using Arabidopsis carrying the firefly luciferase reporter gene fused to the plastocyanin and chlorophyll a/b-binding protein 2 gene promoters. Transcription from both promoters increases on carbohydrate depletion. Blocking photosynthetic electron transport with 3-(3',4'-dichlorophenyl)-1,1'-dimethylurea prevents this increase in transcription. We conclude that plastid-derived redox signaling can override the sugar-regulated expression of nuclear-encoded photosynthetic genes. In the sugar-response mutant, sucrose uncoupled 6 (sun6), plastocyanin-firefly luciferase transcription actually increases in response to exogenous sucrose rather than decreasing as in the wild type. Interestingly, plastid-derived redox signals do not influence this defective pattern of sugar-regulated gene expression in the sun6 mutant. A model, which invokes a positive inducer originating from the photosynthetic electron transport chain, is proposed to explain the nature of the plastid-derived signal
Quantum Energies of Strings in a 2+1 Dimensional Gauge Theory
We study classically unstable string type configurations and compute the
renormalized vacuum polarization energies that arise from fermion fluctuations
in a 2+1 dimensional analog of the standard model. We then search for a minimum
of the total energy (classical plus vacuum polarization energies) by varying
the profile functions that characterize the string. We find that typical string
configurations bind numerous fermions and that populating these levels is
beneficial to further decrease the total energy. Ultimately our goal is to
explore the stabilization of string type configurations in the standard model
through quantum effects.
We compute the vacuum polarization energy within the phase shift formalism
which identifies terms in the Born series for scattering data and Feynman
diagrams. This approach allows us to implement standard renormalization
conditions of perturbation theory and thus yields the unambiguous result for
this non--perturbative contribution to the total energy.Comment: 26 pages, 20 eps-files combined to 8 figures, minor typos corrected.
Version to be published in Nucl. Phys.
A survey of modern exogenous fault detection and diagnosis methods for swarm robotics
Swarm robotic systems are heavily inspired by observations of social insects. This often leads to robust-ness being viewed as an inherent property of them. However, this has been shown to not always be thecase. Because of this, fault detection and diagnosis in swarm robotic systems is of the utmost importancefor ensuring the continued operation and success of the swarm. This paper provides an overview of recentwork in the field of exogenous fault detection and diagnosis in swarm robotics, focusing on the four areaswhere research is concentrated: immune system, data modelling, and blockchain-based fault detectionmethods and local-sensing based fault diagnosis methods. Each of these areas have significant advan-tages and disadvantages which are explored in detail. Though the work presented here represents a sig-nificant advancement in the field, there are still large areas that require further research. Specifically,further research is required in testing these methods on real robotic swarms, fault diagnosis methods,and integrating fault detection, diagnosis and recovery methods in order to create robust swarms thatcan be used for non-trivial tasks
Quantum QED Flux Tubes in 2+1 and 3+1 Dimensions
We compute energies and energy densities of static electromagnetic flux tubes
in three and four spacetime dimensions. Our calculation uses scattering data
from the potential induced by the flux tube and imposes standard perturbative
renormalization conditions. The calculation is exact to one-loop order, with no
additional approximation adopted. We embed the flux tube in a configuration
with zero total flux so that we can fully apply standard results from
scattering theory. We find that upon choosing the same on-shell renormalization
conditions, the functional dependence of the energy and energy density on the
parameters of the flux tube is very similar for three and four spacetime
dimensions. We compare our exact results to those obtained from the derivative
and perturbation expansion approximations, and find good agreement for
appropriate parameters of the flux tube. This remedies some puzzles in the
prior literature.Comment: 49 pages, 13 figures, minor changes in wording, accepted for
publication in Nucl. Phys.
- …