25,818 research outputs found
Evolving macro-actions for planning
Domain re-engineering through macro-actions (i.e. macros) provides one potential avenue for research into learning for planning. However, most existing work learns macros that are reusable plan fragments and so observable from planner behaviours online or plan characteristics offline. Also, there are learning methods that learn macros from domain analysis. Nevertheless, most of these methods explore restricted macro spaces and exploit specific features of planners or domains. But, the learning examples, especially that are used to acquire previous experiences, might not cover many aspects of the system, or might not always reflect that better choices have been made during the search. Moreover, any specific properties are not likely to be common with many planners or domains. This paper presents an offline evolutionary method that learns macros for arbitrary planners and domains. Our method explores a wider macro space and learns macros that are somehow not observable from the examples. Our method also represents a generalised macro learning framework as it does not discover or utilise any specific structural properties of planners or domains
Dissecting the Discourse of Social Licence to Operate
The term “social licence to operate”, or SLO, has increasingly featured in public discussion about commercial operations in the marine environment. As part of the Sustainable Seas National Challenge, we are studying how this term is being used in New Zealand and its implications for industry-community relations
Accessing emergency rest centres in the UK - lesson learnt
Emergency rest centres (ERC) are premises that are used for the temporary accommodation of evacuees during an emergency situation. They form an important part of emergency response, by providing a focal point for receiving people and providing food, shelter, information and support. The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 creates a legislative right for ‘reasonable’ access to goods and services for disabled people. This legislation does not differentiate between emergency and non emergency situations which means that those with a responsibility for emergency planning need to consider the accessibility of ERCs.
This article examines ERC provision and reviews access for disabled people. It focuses on a study of three ERCs that were established in different local authority areas within the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK during a flooding event on 25th June 2007. While uncovering many instances of good practise, the results from the research also identified a number of lessons to be learnt, in particular it was noted that the main barriers to access were encountered with:
• Facilities and elements that did not comprise part of the buildings normal operation, such as the provision of bedding, medical assistance and effective communication; and
• Facilities that would not normally be expected to be used to the extent, or duration, whilst the emergency rest centre was in operation, such as the provision of adequate welfare facilities.
The research also noted that Civil Protection Legislation within the UK contains limited instruction or guidance to those with responsibility for Emergency Rest Centre provision. This provides little impetus for Emergency Planners to consider the needs of disabled people.
This research has broad implications for local authorities and national government representatives. It identifies a need for those with responsibility for emergency planning and response to strengthen their knowledge of disabled people, and to adopt a more holistic approach to the provision of emergency planning and response
Gamma-based clustering via ordered means with application to gene-expression analysis
Discrete mixture models provide a well-known basis for effective clustering
algorithms, although technical challenges have limited their scope. In the
context of gene-expression data analysis, a model is presented that mixes over
a finite catalog of structures, each one representing equality and inequality
constraints among latent expected values. Computations depend on the
probability that independent gamma-distributed variables attain each of their
possible orderings. Each ordering event is equivalent to an event in
independent negative-binomial random variables, and this finding guides a
dynamic-programming calculation. The structuring of mixture-model components
according to constraints among latent means leads to strict concavity of the
mixture log likelihood. In addition to its beneficial numerical properties, the
clustering method shows promising results in an empirical study.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOS805 the Annals of
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aos/) by the Institute of Mathematical
Statistics (http://www.imstat.org
Surveying the solar system by measuring angles and times: from the solar density to the gravitational constant
A surprisingly large amount of information on our solar system can be gained
from simple measurements of the apparent angular diameters of the sun and the
moon. This information includes the average density of the sun, the distance
between earth and moon, the radius of the moon, and the gravitational constant.
In this note it is described how these and other quantities can be obtained by
simple earthbound measurements of angles and times only, without using any
explicit information on distances between celestial bodies. The pedagogical and
historical aspects of these results are also discussed briefly.Comment: 12 pges, one figur
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Spectroscopy of ultrathin epitaxial rutile TiO[sub 2](110) films grown on W(100)
Epitaxial ultrathin titanium dioxide films of 0.3 to similar to 7 nm thickness on a metal single crystal substrate have been investigated by high resolution vibrational and electron spectroscopies. The data complement previous morphological data provided by scanned probe microscopy and low energy electron diffraction to provide very complete characterization of this system. The thicker films display electronic structure consistent with a stoichiometric TiO2 phase. The thinner films appear nonstoichiometric due to band bending and charge transfer from the metal substrate, while work function measurements also show a marked thickness dependence. The vibrational spectroscopy shows three clear phonon bands at 368, 438, and 829 cm(-1) (at 273 K), which confirms a rutile structure. The phonon band intensity scales linearly with film thickness and shift slightly to lower frequencies with increasing temperature, in accord with results for single crystals. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics
Scattering of charge carriers by point defects in bilayer graphene
Theory of scattering of massive chiral fermions in bilayer graphene by radial
symmetric potential is developed. It is shown that in the case when the
electron wavelength is much larger than the radius of the potential the
scattering cross-section is proportional to the electron wavelength. This leads
to the mobility independent on the electron concentration. In contrast with the
case of single-layer, neutral and charged defects are, in general, equally
relevant for the resistivity of the bilayer graphene.Comment: final versio
Electron paramagnetic resonance and photochromism of in diamond
The defect in diamond formed by a vacancy surrounded by three
nearest-neighbor nitrogen atoms and one carbon atom,
, is found in of natural diamonds.
Despite being the earliest electron paramagnetic
resonance spectrum observed in diamond, to date no satisfactory simulation of
the spectrum for an arbitrary magnetic field direction has been produced due to
its complexity. In this work, is identified in
-doped synthetic diamond following irradiation and annealing.
The spin Hamiltonian parameters are revised
and used to refine the parameters for ,
enabling the latter to be accurately simulated and fitted for an arbitrary
magnetic field direction. Study of under
excitation with green light indicates charge transfer between
and . It is argued that this charge
transfer is facilitated by direct ionization of ,
an as-yet unobserved charge state of
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