Quantum Mechanics and the Metrics of General Relativity

A one-to-one correspondence is established between linearized space-time metrics of general relativity and the wave equations of quantum mechanics. Also, the key role of boundary conditions in distinguishing quantum mechanics from classical mechanics will emerge naturally from the procedure. Finally, we will find that the methodology will enable us to introduce not only test charges but also test masses by means of gauges.Comment: 24 pages, to be published in Foundation of Physics (IARD proc.

Virtual learning environments in action

In this workshop Paul and Patricia demonstrated the webcast lectures developed at Glasgow Graduate School of Law as part of a learning environment where students can take control of their own learning experience. They outlined the practical benefits of such a learning environment for both professional and undergraduate legal education, and discussed the theoretical implications of this approach for the pedagogy of legal education

Spatiotemporal perspective on the decay of turbulence in wall-bounded flows

Using a reduced model focusing on the in-plane dependence of plane Couette flow, it is shown that the turbulent-to-laminar relaxation process can be understood as a nucleation problem similar to that occurring at a thermodynamic first-order phase transition. The approach, apt to deal with the large extension of the system considered, challenges the current interpretation in terms of chaotic transients typical of temporal chaos. The study of the distribution of the sizes of laminar domains embedded in turbulent flow proves that an abrupt transition from sustained spatiotemporal chaos to laminar flow can take place at some given value of the Reynolds number R_{low}, whether or not the local chaos lifetime, as envisioned within low-dimensional dynamical systems theory, diverges at finite R beyond R_{low}.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, published in 2009 as a Rapid Communication in Phys. Rev. E, vol. 79, article 025301, corrected to include erratum Phys. Rev. E 79, 039904. References to now published material have been updated. A note has been added pointing to recent related work by D. Barkley (arXiv:1101.4125v1

Problems and research issues associated with the hybrid control of force and displacement

The hybrid control of force and position is basic to the science of robotics but is only poorly understood. Before much progress can be made in robotics, this problem needs to be solved in a robust manner. However, the use of hybrid control implies the existence of a model of the environment, not an exact model (as the function of hybrid control is to accommodate these errors), but a model appropriate for planning and reasoning. The monitored forces in position control are interpreted in terms of a model of the task as are the monitored displacements in force control. The reaction forces of the task of writing are far different from those of hammering. The programming of actions in such a modeled world becomes more complicated and systems of task level programming need to be developed. Sensor based robotics, of which force sensing is the most basic, implies an entirely new level of technology. Indeed, robot force sensors, no matter how compliant they may be, must be protected from accidental collisions. This implies other sensors to monitor task execution and again the use of a world model. This new level of technology is the task level, in which task actions are specified, not the actions of individual sensors and manipulators

Mars Rover imaging systems and directional filtering

Computer literature searches were carried out at Duke University and NASA Langley Research Center. The purpose is to enhance personal knowledge based on the technical problems of pattern recognition and image understanding which must be solved for the Mars Rover and Sample Return Mission. Intensive study effort of a large collection of relevant literature resulted in a compilation of all important documents in one place. Furthermore, the documents are being classified into: Mars Rover; computer vision (theory); imaging systems; pattern recognition methodologies; and other smart techniques (AI, neural networks, fuzzy logic, etc)