Color image processing and object tracking workstation

A system is described for automatic and semiautomatic tracking of objects on film or video tape which was developed to meet the needs of the microgravity combustion and fluid science experiments at NASA Lewis. The system consists of individual hardware parts working under computer control to achieve a high degree of automation. The most important hardware parts include 16 mm film projector, a lens system, a video camera, an S-VHS tapedeck, a frame grabber, and some storage and output devices. Both the projector and tapedeck have a computer interface enabling remote control. Tracking software was developed to control the overall operation. In the automatic mode, the main tracking program controls the projector or the tapedeck frame incrementation, grabs a frame, processes it, locates the edge of the objects being tracked, and stores the coordinates in a file. This process is performed repeatedly until the last frame is reached. Three representative applications are described. These applications represent typical uses and include tracking the propagation of a flame front, tracking the movement of a liquid-gas interface with extremely poor visibility, and characterizing a diffusion flame according to color and shape

Parkinson's Law Quantified: Three Investigations on Bureaucratic Inefficiency

We formulate three famous, descriptive essays of C.N. Parkinson on bureaucratic inefficiency in a quantifiable and dynamical socio-physical framework. In the first model we show how the use of recent opinion formation models for small groups can be used to understand Parkinson's observation that decision making bodies such as cabinets or boards become highly inefficient once their size exceeds a critical 'Coefficient of Inefficiency', typically around 20. A second observation of Parkinson - which is sometimes referred to as Parkinson's Law - is that the growth of bureaucratic or administrative bodies usually goes hand in hand with a drastic decrease of its overall efficiency. In our second model we view a bureaucratic body as a system of a flow of workers, which enter, become promoted to various internal levels within the system over time, and leave the system after having served for a certain time. Promotion usually is associated with an increase of subordinates. Within the proposed model it becomes possible to work out the phase diagram under which conditions bureaucratic growth can be confined. In our last model we assign individual efficiency curves to workers throughout their life in administration, and compute the optimum time to send them to old age pension, in order to ensure a maximum of efficiency within the body - in Parkinson's words we compute the 'Pension Point'.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure

Entrant Experience and Plant Exit

Producers entering a market can differ widely in their prior production experience, ranging from none to extensive experience in related geographic or product markets. In this paper, we quantify the nature of prior plant and firm experience for entrants into a market and measure its effect on the plant's decision to exit the market. Using plant-level data for seven regional manufacturing industries in the U.S., we find that a producer's experience at the time it enters a market plays an important role in the subsequent exit decision, affecting both the overall probability of exit and the method of exit. After controlling for observable plant and market profit determinants, there remain systematic differences in failure patterns across three groups of plants distinguished by their prior experience: de novo entrants, experienced plants that enter by diversifying their product mix, and new plants owned by experienced firms. The results indicate that the exit decision cannot be treated as determined solely by current and future plant, firm, and market conditions, but that the plant's history plays an important independent role in conditioning the likelihood of survival.

Mixing fuel particles for space combustion research using acoustics

Part of the microgravity science to be conducted aboard the Shuttle (STS) involves combustion using solids, particles, and liquid droplets. The central experimental facts needed for characterization of premixed quiescent particle cloud flames cannot be adequately established by normal gravity studies alone. The experimental results to date of acoustically mixing a prototypical particulate, lycopodium, in a 5 cm diameter by 75 cm long flame tube aboard a Learjet aircraft flying a 20 sec low gravity trajectory are described. Photographic and light detector instrumentation combine to measure and characterize particle cloud uniformity

The dynamics of market structure and market size in two health services industries

The relationship between the size of a market and the competitiveness of the market has been of long-standing interest to IO economists. Empirical studies have used the relationship between the size of the geographic market and both the number of firms in the market and the average sales of the firms to draw inferences about the degree of competition in the market. This paper extends this framework to incorporate the analysis of entry and exit flows. A key implication of recent entry and exit models is that current market structure will likely depend upon the history of past participation. The paper explores these issues empirically by examining producer dynamics for two health service industries, dentistry and chiropractic services.Markets ; Industrial organization ; Service industries

Entry, exit and the determinants of market structure

Market structure is determined by the entry and exit decisions of individual producers. These decisions are driven by expectations of future profits which, in turn, depend on the nature of competition within the market. In this paper we estimate a dynamic, structural model of entry and exit in an oligopolistic industry and use it to quantify the determinants of market structure and long-run firm values for two U.S. service industries, dentists and chiropractors. We find that entry costs faced by potential entrants, fixed costs faced by incumbent producers, and the toughness of short-run price competition are all important determinants of long run firm values and market structure. As the number of firms in the market increases, the value of continuing in the market and the value of entering the market both decline, the probability of exit rises, and the probability of entry declines. The magnitude of these effects differ substantially across markets due to differences in exogenous cost and demand factors and across the dentist and chiropractor industries. Simulations using the estimated model for the dentist industry show that pressure from both potential entrants and incumbent firms discipline long-run profits. We calculate that a seven percent reduction in the mean sunk entry cost would reduce a monopolist's long-run profits by the same amount as if the firm operated in a duopoly.Markets ; Competition ; Service industries

Fractional variational calculus of variable order

We study the fundamental problem of the calculus of variations with variable order fractional operators. Fractional integrals are considered in the sense of Riemann-Liouville while derivatives are of Caputo type.Comment: Submitted 26-Sept-2011; accepted 18-Oct-2011; withdrawn by the authors 21-Dec-2011; resubmitted 27-Dec-2011; revised 20-March-2012; accepted 13-April-2012; to 'Advances in Harmonic Analysis and Operator Theory', The Stefan Samko Anniversary Volume (Eds: A. Almeida, L. Castro, F.-O. Speck), Operator Theory: Advances and Applications, Birkh\"auser Verlag (http://www.springer.com/series/4850

Family studies of somatic and functional characteristics in the polish rural population

In the present investigation we were trying to determine the genetic and environmental conditioning of the chosen somatic and functional traits in Polish rural population during ontogenesis. In order to find out interactions between environmental and genetic conditions of the studied traits, classical methods of quantitative features were applied: correlation coefficients corrected by assortative mating in the chosen types of heritability were evaluated on their base, heritability coefficients of analyzed features were assessed. The biggest stability of the correlation coefficients was observed for the length-parameters. We did not noticed stronger genetic control of functional features in men. Mean-strong genetic control among analyzed traits was observed in: reaction time, space orientation and static strength expressed as relative and absolute strength

Classical limit of the d-bar operators on quantum domains

We study one parameter families $D_t$, $0<t<1$ of non-commutative analogs of the d-bar operator D_0 = \frac{\d}{\d\bar{z}} on disks and annuli in complex plane and show that, under suitable conditions, they converge in the classical limit to their commutative counterpart. More precisely, we endow the corresponding families of Hilbert spaces with the structures of continuous fields over the interval $[0,1)$ and we show that the inverses of the operators $D_t$ subject to APS boundary conditions form morphisms of those continuous fields of Hilbert spaces