1,553 research outputs found
Pseudo-Riemannian geodesic foliations by circles
We investigate under which assumptions an orientable pseudo-Riemannian
geodesic foliations by circles is generated by an -action. We construct
examples showing that, contrary to the Riemannian case, it is not always true.
However, we prove that such an action always exists when the foliation does not
contain lightlike leaves, i.e. a pseudo-Riemannian Wadsley's Theorem. As an
application, we show that every Lorentzian surface all of whose
spacelike/timelike geodesics are closed, is finitely covered by .
It follows that every Lorentzian surface contains a non-closed geodesic.Comment: 14 page
Sampling Plans for Control-Inspection Schemes Under Independent and Dependent Sampling Designs With Applications to Photovoltaics
The evaluation of produced items at the time of delivery is, in practice,
usually amended by at least one inspection at later time points. We extend the
methodology of acceptance sampling for variables for arbitrary unknown
distributions when additional sampling infor- mation is available to such
settings. Based on appropriate approximations of the operating characteristic,
we derive new acceptance sampling plans that control the overall operating
characteristic. The results cover the case of independent sampling as well as
the case of dependent sampling. In particular, we study a modified panel
sampling design and the case of spatial batch sampling. The latter is advisable
in photovoltaic field monitoring studies, since it allows to detect and analyze
local clusters of degraded or damaged modules. Some finite sample properties
are examined by a simulation study, focusing on the accuracy of estimation
Microstructural aspects of zirconia thermal barrier coatings
Various combination of plasma-sprayed bond coatings and zirconia ceramic coatings on a nickel-based superalloy substrate were tested by static thermal exposure at 1200 C and cyclic thermal exposure to 1000 C. The bond coats were based on Ni-Cr-Al alloys with additions of rare earth elements and Si. The ceramic coats were various ZrO2-Y2O3 compositions, of which the optimum was found to be ZrO2-8.9 wt percent Y2O3. Microstructural analysis showed that resistance to cracking during thermal exposure is strongly related to deleterious phase changes. Zones depleted of Al formed at the bond coat/ceramic coat interface due to oxidation and at the bond coat/substrate interface due to interdiffusion, leading eventually to breakdown of the bond coat. The 8.9 percent Y2O3 coating performed best because the as-sprayed metastable tetragonal phase converted slowly into the low-Y2O3 tetragonal plus high-Y2O3 cubic-phase mixture, so that the deleterious monoclinic phase was inhibited from forming. Failure appeared to start with the formation of circumferential cracks in the zirconia, probably due to compressive stresses during cooling, followed by the formation of radial cracks due to tensile stresses during heating. Cracks appeared to initiate at the Al2O3 scale/bond coat interface and propagate through the zirconia coating. Comparisons were made with the behavior of bulk ZrO2-Y2O3 and the relationship between the microstructure of the tetragonal phase and the phase diagram. A separate investigation was also made of the ZrO2-Al2O3 interface
UNcommonsense Reasoning: Abductive Reasoning about Uncommon Situations
Language technologies that accurately model the dynamics of events must
perform commonsense reasoning. Existing work evaluating commonsense reasoning
focuses on making inferences about common, everyday situations. To instead
investigate the ability to model unusual, unexpected, and unlikely situations,
we explore the task of uncommonsense abductive reasoning. Given a piece of
context with an unexpected outcome, this task requires reasoning abductively to
generate a natural language explanation that makes the unexpected outcome more
likely in the context. To this end, we curate and release a new English
language corpus called UNcommonsense. We characterize the differences between
the performance of human explainers and the best performing large language
models, finding that model-enhanced human-written explanations achieve the
highest quality by trading off between specificity and diversity. Finally, we
experiment with several online imitation learning algorithms to train open and
accessible language models on this task. When compared with the vanilla
supervised fine-tuning approach, these methods consistently reduce lose rates
on both common and uncommonsense abductive reasoning judged by human
evaluators
How the Kano model contributes to Kansei engineering in services
Recent studies show that products and services hold great appeal if they are attractively designed to elicit emotional feelings from customers. Kansei engineering (KE) has good potential to provide a competitive advantage to those able to read and translate customer affect and emotion in actual product and services. This study introduces an integrative framework of the Kano model and KE, applied to services. The Kano model was used and inserted into KE to exhibit the relationship between service attribute performance and customer emotional response. Essentially, the Kano model categorises service attribute quality into three major groups (must-be [M], one-dimensional [O] and attractive [A]). The findings of a case study that involved 100 tourists who stayed in luxury 4- and 5-star hotels are presented. As a practical matter, this research provides insight on which service attributes deserve more attention with regard to their significant impact on customer emotional needs.
Statement of Relevance: Apart from cognitive evaluation, emotions and hedonism play a big role in service encounters. Through a focus on delighting qualities of service attributes, this research enables service providers and managers to establish the extent to which they prioritise their improvement efforts and to always satisfy their customer emotions beyond expectation.
Keywords:
Kansei engineering, emotional feelings, Kano model, service
Mitochondrial Rejuvenation After Induced Pluripotency
Background: As stem cells of the early embryo mature and differentiate into all tissues, the mitochondrial complement undergoes dramatic functional improvement. Mitochondrial activity is low to minimize generation of DNA-damaging reactive oxygen species during pre-implantation development and increases following implantation and differentiation to meet higher metabolic demands. It has recently been reported that when the stem cell type known as induced pluripotent stem cells (IPSCs) are re-differentiated for several weeks in vitro, the mitochondrial complement progressively re-acquires properties approximating input fibroblasts, suggesting that despite the observation that IPSC conversion ‘‘resets’ ’ some parameters of cellular aging such as telomere length, it may have little impact on other age-affected cellular systems such as mitochondria in IPSC-derived cells. Methodology/Principal Findings: We have examined the properties of mitochondria in two fibroblast lines, corresponding IPSCs, and fibroblasts re-derived from IPSCs using biochemical methods and electron microscopy, and found a dramatic improvement in the quality and function of the mitochondrial complement of the re-derived fibroblasts compared to input fibroblasts. This observation likely stems from two aspects of our experimental design: 1) that the input cell lines used were of advanced cellular age and contained an inefficient mitochondrial complement, and 2) the re-derived fibroblasts were produced using an extensive differentiation regimen that may more closely mimic the degree of growth and maturatio
Worries about being judged versus being harmed: Disentangling the association of social anxiety and paranoia with schizotypy
Paranoia is a dimension of clinical and subclinical experiences in which others are believed to have harmful intentions. Mild paranoid concerns are relatively common in the general population, and more clinically severe paranoia shares features with social anxiety and is a key characteristic of schizotypy. Given that subclinical manifestations of schizotypy and paranoia may predict the occurrence of more severe symptoms, disentangling the associations of these related constructs may advance our understanding of their etiology; however no known studies to date have comprehensively evaluated how paranoia relates to social anxiety and schizotypy. The current research sought to examine the association of paranoia, assessed across a broad continuum of severity, with 1) the positive and negative schizotypy dimensions and 2) social anxiety. Specifically, the study tested a series of six competing, a priori models using confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 862 young adults. As hypothesized, the data supported a four-factor model including positive schizotypy, negative schizotypy, social anxiety, and paranoia factors, suggesting that these are distinct constructs with differing patterns of interrelationships. Paranoia had a strong association with positive schizotypy, a moderate association with social anxiety, and a minimal association with negative schizotypy. The results are consistent with paranoia being part of a multidimensional model of schizotypy and schizophrenia. Prior studies treating schizotypy and schizophrenia as homogenous constructs often produce equivocal or non-replicable results because these dimensions are associated with distinct etiologies, presentations, and treatment responses; thus, the present conceptualization of paranoia within a multidimensional schizotypy framework should advance our understanding of these constructs. © 2014 Horton et al
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