1,125 research outputs found
Turing's three philosophical lessons and the philosophy of information
In this article, I outline the three main philosophical lessons that we may learn from Turing's work, and how they lead to a new philosophy of information. After a brief introduction, I discuss his work on the method of levels of abstraction (LoA), and his insistence that questions could be meaningfully asked only by specifying the correct LoA. I then look at his second lesson, about the sort of philosophical questions that seem to be most pressing today. Finally, I focus on the third lesson, concerning the new philosophical anthropology that owes so much to Turing's work. I then show how the lessons are learned by the philosophy of information. In the conclusion, I draw a general synthesis of the points made, in view of the development of the philosophy of information itself as a continuation of Turing's work. This journal is © 2012 The Royal Society.Peer reviewe
Differential observation and integral action in LTI state-space controllers and the PID special case
This paper makes the case that practical differentiation of measured state variables may be seen as an observation or estimation scheme for linear time invariant state space controllers. It is shown that, although not having the separation property, the estimation error of this scheme converges to zero if the resulting closed loop system is strictly stable. On the basis of this concept, it is shown that PID controllers may be interpreted as a special case of state space controllers endowed with differential observation. The interesting consequences of this interpretation are discussed.Fundação para a CiĂȘncia e Tecnologia within the R&D Units Project Scope: UIDB/00319/202
Risk and Utility in Portfolio Optimization
Modern portfolio theory(MPT) addresses the problem of determining the optimum
allocation of investment resources among a set of candidate assets. In the
original mean-variance approach of Markowitz, volatility is taken as a proxy
for risk, conflating uncertainty with risk. There have been many subsequent
attempts to alleviate that weakness which, typically, combine utility and risk.
We present here a modification of MPT based on the inclusion of separate risk
and utility criteria. We define risk as the probability of failure to meet a
pre-established investment goal. We define utility as the expectation of a
utility function with positive and decreasing marginal value as a function of
yield. The emphasis throughout is on long investment horizons for which
risk-free assets do not exist. Analytic results are presented for a Gaussian
probability distribution. Risk-utility relations are explored via empirical
stock-price data, and an illustrative portfolio is optimized using the
empirical data.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure, presented at 2002 Conference on Econophysics in
Bali Indonesi
The Resonance Peak in SrRuO: Signature of Spin Triplet Pairing
We study the dynamical spin susceptibility, , in the
normal and superconducting state of SrRuO. In the normal state, we find
a peak in the vicinity of in agreement with
recent inelastic neutron scattering (INS) experiments. We predict that for spin
triplet pairing in the superconducting state a {\it resonance peak} appears in
the out-of-plane component of , but is absent in the in-plane component.
In contrast, no resonance peak is expected for spin singlet pairing.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, final versio
Operational distance and fidelity for quantum channels
We define and study a fidelity criterion for quantum channels, which we term
the minimax fidelity, through a noncommutative generalization of maximal
Hellinger distance between two positive kernels in classical probability
theory. Like other known fidelities for quantum channels, the minimax fidelity
is well-defined for channels between finite-dimensional algebras, but it also
applies to a certain class of channels between infinite-dimensional algebras
(explicitly, those channels that possess an operator-valued Radon--Nikodym
density with respect to the trace in the sense of Belavkin--Staszewski) and
induces a metric on the set of quantum channels which is topologically
equivalent to the CB-norm distance between channels, precisely in the same way
as the Bures metric on the density operators associated with statistical states
of quantum-mechanical systems, derived from the well-known fidelity
(`generalized transition probability') of Uhlmann, is topologically equivalent
to the trace-norm distance.Comment: 26 pages, amsart.cls; improved intro, fixed typos, added a reference;
accepted by J. Math. Phy
Quantum Optimal Control Theory in the Linear Response Formalism
Quantum optimal control theory (QOCT) aims at finding an external field that
drives a quantum system in such a way that optimally achieves some predefined
target. In practice this normally means optimizing the value of some
observable, a so called merit function. In consequence, a key part of the
theory is a set of equations, which provides the gradient of the merit function
with respect to parameters that control the shape of the driving field. We show
that these equations can be straightforwardly derived using the standard linear
response theory, only requiring a minor generalization -- the unperturbed
Hamiltonian is allowed to be time-dependent. As a result, the aforementioned
gradients are identified with certain response functions. This identification
leads to a natural reformulation of QOCT in term of the Keldysh contour
formalism of the quantum many-body theory. In particular, the gradients of the
merit function can be calculated using the diagrammatic technique for
non-equilibrium Green's functions, which should be helpful in the application
of QOCT to computationally difficult many-electron problems.Comment: 7 page
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Optimal seismic upgrade timing in seaports with increasing throughput demand via real options
A real options (RO) formulation is proposed for decision-making on the timing to upgrade the seismic performance of existing seaports with increasing throughput demand in earthquake prone areas. The pay-off of the seismic upgrade investment option is estimated based on projected net earnings, repair cost, and downtime for a damaging reference seismic event having a pre-specified annual probability of occurrence. These projections inform a discrete-time RO binomial tree, following the American option valuation framework, which propagates the probability of the reference seismic event assuming Poisson temporal distribution of earthquake occurrence. The net present value of the expected annual payoff of the considered investment is used as an index supporting risk-informed decision-making discounted by the weighted average cost of capital (WACC). Numerical examples pertaining to decision makers with different capital cost, namely port authorities and terminal operators, operating in different economic environments typical of developed and developing countries are furnished to illustrate the applicability of the proposed RO formulation. It is found that high WACC and/or low throughput growth bring the optimal seismic upgrade timing forward, while earthquake consequences and upgrade cost have almost no influence on this timing
Optimal path planning for nonholonomic robotics systems via parametric optimisation
Abstract. Motivated by the path planning problem for robotic systems this paper considers nonholonomic path planning on the Euclidean group of motions SE(n) which describes a rigid bodies path in n-dimensional Euclidean space. The problem is formulated as a constrained optimal kinematic control problem where the cost function to be minimised is a quadratic function of translational and angular velocity inputs. An application of the Maximum Principle of optimal control leads to a set of Hamiltonian vector field that define the necessary conditions for optimality and consequently the optimal velocity history of the trajectory. It is illustrated that the systems are always integrable when n = 2 and in some cases when n = 3. However, if they are not integrable in the most general form of the cost function they can be rendered integrable by considering special cases. This implies that it is possible to reduce the kinematic system to a class of curves defined analytically. If the optimal motions can be expressed analytically in closed form then the path planning problem is reduced to one of parameter optimisation where the parameters are optimised to match prescribed boundary conditions.This reduction procedure is illustrated for a simple wheeled robot with a sliding constraint and a conventional slender underwater vehicle whose velocity in the lateral directions are constrained due to viscous damping
Molecular-orbital-free algorithm for excited states in time-dependent perturbation theory
A non-linear conjugate gradient optimization scheme is used to obtain
excitation energies within the Random Phase Approximation (RPA). The solutions
to the RPA eigenvalue equation are located through a variational
characterization using a modified Thouless functional, which is based upon an
asymmetric Rayleigh quotient, in an orthogonalized atomic orbital
representation. In this way, the computational bottleneck of calculating
molecular orbitals is avoided. The variational space is reduced to the
physically-relevant transitions by projections. The feasibility of an RPA
implementation scaling linearly with system size, N, is investigated by
monitoring convergence behavior with respect to the quality of initial guess
and sensitivity to noise under thresholding, both for well- and ill-conditioned
problems. The molecular- orbital-free algorithm is found to be robust and
computationally efficient providing a first step toward a large-scale, reduced
complexity calculation of time-dependent optical properties and linear
response. The algorithm is extensible to other forms of time-dependent
perturbation theory including, but not limited to, time-dependent Density
Functional theory.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
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