5,432 research outputs found
Validation of an expert system intended for research in distributed artificial intelligence
The expert system discussed in this paper is designed to function as a testbed for research on cooperating expert systems. Cooperating expert systems are members of an organization which dictates the manner in which the expert systems will interact when solving a problem. The Blackbox Expert described in this paper has been constructed using the C Language Integrated Production System (CLIPS), C++, and X windowing environment. CLIPS is embedded in a C++ program which provides objects that are used to maintain the state of the Blackbox puzzle. These objects are accessed by CLIPS rules through user-defined functions calls. The performance of the Blackbox Expert is validated by experimentation. A group of people are asked to solve a set of test cases for the Blackbox puzzle. A metric has been devised which evaluates the 'correctness' of a solution proposed for a test case of Blackbox. Using this metric and the solutions proposed by the humans, each person receives a rating for their ability to solve the Blackbox puzzle. The Blackbox Expert solves the same set of test cases and is assigned a rating for its ability. Then the rating obtained by the Blackbox Expert is compared with the ratings of the people, thus establishing the skill level of our expert system
Premixing quality and flame stability: A theoretical and experimental study
Models for predicting flame ignition and blowout in a combustor primary zone are presented. A correlation for the blowoff velocity of premixed turbulent flames is developed using the basic quantities of turbulent flow, and the laminar flame speed. A statistical model employing a Monte Carlo calculation procedure is developed to account for nonuniformities in a combustor primary zone. An overall kinetic rate equation is used to describe the fuel oxidation process. The model is used to predict the lean ignition and blow out limits of premixed turbulent flames; the effects of mixture nonuniformity on the lean ignition limit are explored using an assumed distribution of fuel-air ratios. Data on the effects of variations in inlet temperature, reference velocity and mixture uniformity on the lean ignition and blowout limits of gaseous propane-air flames are presented
Minimizing the effect of sinusoidal trends in detrended fluctuation analysis
The detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) [Peng et al., 1994] and its
extensions (MF-DFA) [Kantelhardt et al., 2002] have been used extensively to
determine possible long-range correlations in self-affine signals. While the
DFA has been claimed to be a superior technique, recent reports have indicated
its susceptibility to trends in the data. In this report, a smoothing filter is
proposed to minimize the effect of sinusoidal trends and distortion in the
log-log plots obtained by DFA and MF-DFA techniques
Interactive Proof Systems
The report is a compilation of lecture notes that were prepared during the course ``Interactive Proof Systems'' given by the authors at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. These notes were also used for a short course ``Interactive Proof Systems'' given by the second author at MPI, Saarbruecken. The objective of the course was to study the recent developments in complexity theory about interactive proof systems, which led to some surprising consequences on nonapproximability of NP hard problems. We start the course with an introduction to complexity theory and covered some classical results related with circuit complexity, randomizations and counting classes, notions which are either part of the definitions of interactive proof systems or are used in proving the above results. We define arthur merlin games and interactive proof systems, which are equivalent formulations of the notion of interactive proofs and show their equivalence to each other and to the complexity class PSPACE. We introduce probabilistically checkable proofs, which are special forms of interactive proofs and show through sequence of intermediate results that the class NP has probabilistically checkable proofs of very special form and very small complexity. Using this we conclude that several NP hard problems are not even weakly approximable in polynomial time unless P = NP
A Note on the Intermediate Region in Turbulent Boundary Layers
We demonstrate that the processing of the experimental data for the average
velocity profiles obtained by J. M. \"Osterlund
(www.mesh.kth.se/jens/zpg/) presented in [1] was incorrect. Properly
processed these data lead to the opposite conclusion: they confirm the
Reynolds-number-dependent scaling law and disprove the conclusion that the flow
in the intermediate (`overlap') region is Reynolds-number-independent.Comment: 8 pages, includes 1 table and 3 figures, broken web link in abstract
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Polarized radio emission from the magnetar XTE J1810-197
We have used the Parkes radio telescope to study the polarized emission from
the anomalous X-ray pulsar XTE J1810-197 at frequencies of 1.4, 3.2, and 8.4
GHz. We find that the pulsed emission is nearly 100% linearly polarized. The
position angle of linear polarization varies gently across the observed pulse
profiles, varying little with observing frequency or time, even as the pulse
profiles have changed dramatically over a period of 7 months. In the context of
the standard pulsar "rotating vector model," there are two possible
interpretations of the observed position angle swing coupled with the wide
profile. In the first, the magnetic and rotation axes are substantially
misaligned and the emission originates high in the magnetosphere, as seen for
other young radio pulsars, and the beaming fraction is large. In the second
interpretation, the magnetic and rotation axes are nearly aligned and the line
of sight remains in the emission zone over almost the entire pulse phase. We
deprecate this possibility because of the observed large modulation of thermal
X-ray flux. We have also measured the Faraday rotation caused by the Galactic
magnetic field, RM = +77 rad/m^2, implying an average magnetic field component
along the line of sight of 0.5 microG.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Six pages with 4 figure
Multiwavelength Studies of PSR J1420-6048, a Young Pulsar in the Kookaburra
We present X-ray, radio, and infrared observations of the 68 ms pulsar PSR
J1420-6048 and its surrounding nebula, a possible counterpart of the gamma-ray
source GeV J1417-6100/3EG J1420-6038. Pulsed X-ray emission at the radio period
is marginally detected by ASCA from a source embedded in the hard spectrum
X-ray nebula AX J1420.1-6049. At radio wavelengths, the pulsar is found to be
strongly linearly and circularly polarized, and the polarization sweep is
measured. A comparison of high resolution ATCA radio imaging of the
Kookaburra's upper wing (G313.6+0.3), which contains the pulsar and the X-ray
nebula, with infrared images suggests the radio emission is partly non-thermal.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letter
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