Economic MPC of Nonlinear Processes via Recurrent Neural Networks Using Structural Process Knowledge

This work discusses three methods that incorporate a priori process knowledge into recurrent neural network (RNN) modeling of nonlinear processes to get increased prediction accuracy and provide information on how the neural network models are structured. The first method proposes a hybrid model that integrates first-principles models and RNN models together. The second method proposes a partially-connected RNN model which its structure is based on a priori structural process knowledge. The third method proposes a weight-constrained RNN model that integrates weight constraints into the training of the RNN model. The proposed RNN models are used in an economic model predictive control system and then applied to a chemical process example to validate the improved approximation performance compared to a fully-connected RNN model that is treated as a black box model

Cultural Values and Cross-cultural Video Consumption on YouTube

Video-sharing social media like YouTube provide access to diverse cultural products from all over the world, making it possible to test theories that the Web facilitates global cultural convergence. Drawing on a daily listing of YouTube's most popular videos across 58 countries, we investigate the consumption of popular videos in countries that differ in cultural values, language, gross domestic product, and Internet penetration rate. Although online social media facilitate global access to cultural products, we find this technological capability does not result in universal cultural convergence. Instead, consumption of popular videos in culturally different countries appears to be constrained by cultural values. Cross-cultural convergence is more advanced in cosmopolitan countries with cultural values that favor individualism and power inequality

The Relative Effects of Merit Pay, Bonuses, and Long-Term Incentives on Future Job Performance (CRI 2009-009)

Extant compensation literature has indicated that pay-for-performance can influence employee performance. There is little research, however, that differentiates the effects of certain forms of pay-for-performance plans on future performance. By applying the precepts of expectancy theory to specific components of the pay-for-performance plans and using longitudinal data from a sample of 739 US employees in a service-related organization, this study demonstrates different effects for merit pay, bonuses, and long-term incentives

California’s Flawed Surface Water Rights

California sprang into existence following the discovery of gold in 1848. Aside from domestic use, the first major use of water in California was in mining. The first mining consisted of placer mining of alluvial deposits in stream beds throughout the Sierra foothills. As those deposits were depleted, hydraulic mining arose, in which high-pressure jets of water were used to remove overlying earth from upland gold- bearing deposits. That type of mining, first employed in 1853, required substantial water diversions. When California entered the Union in 1850, the English common law was adopted as the “rule of decision” in courts, including the doctrine of riparian rights for surface water1 (it was also the governing doctrine in the rest of the Union). Riparian rights entitle the owner of land bordering a surface water body (“riparian” land) to use the water on his or her riparian land. This is a right to use water, not a right of ownership, and it inheres only in riparian lands. Riparian rights remain with the riparian land regardless of changes in ownership. Water under a riparian right cannot be used on nonriparian land.2 The right is shared equally among all riparians: they own access to the stream as “tenants in common.” They can divert water as long as this does not impair the rights of other riparians. No specific quantity attaches to a riparian right. If a riparian originally applied X, this does not preclude him from applying 5X later. Nonuse does not terminate the right. There is no recording of the volume diverted. No institution administers the ripar- ian right. Disputes are resolved through litigation among riparians. The riparian doctrine was logical where it originated, in a humid region with plentiful streamflow. Streamflow is treated as a common pool to be shared among all riparian landowners. But in an arid region like California, where rivers can run dry by the late summer and annual streamflow can vary by an order of magnitude, there needs to be a specific mechanism for allocating limited streamflow. The riparian right lacks this

Field Theoretic Approach to Long Range Reactions

We analyze bimolecular reactions that proceed by a long-ranged reactive interaction, using a field theoretic approach that takes into account fluctuations. We consider both the one-species, $A+A \to \emptyset$ reaction and the two-species, $A+B \to \emptyset$ reaction. We consider both mobile and immobile reactants, both in the presence and in the absence of adsorption.Comment: 9 pages. 4 figures. Uses svjour macros. To appear in Europ. Phys. J.