Combining evolutionary game theory and network theory to analyze human cooperation patterns

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scatà, Marialisa; Di Stefano, Alessandro; La Corte, Aurelio; Liò, Pietro; Catania, Emanuele; Guardo, Ermanno; Pagano, Salvatore

2016-01-01

Highlights: • We investigate the evolutionary dynamics of human cooperation in a social network. • We introduce the concepts of “Critical Mass”, centrality measure and homophily. • The emergence of cooperation is affected by the spatial choice of the “Critical Mass”. • Our findings show that homophily speeds up the convergence towards cooperation. • Centrality and “Critical Mass” spatial choice partially offset the impact of homophily. - Abstract: As natural systems continuously evolve, the human cooperation dilemma represents an increasingly more challenging question. Humans cooperate in natural and social systems, but how it happens and what are the mechanisms which rule the emergence of cooperation, represent an open and fascinating issue. In this work, we investigate the evolution of cooperation through the analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of behaviours within the social network, where nodes can choose to cooperate or defect following the classical social dilemmas represented by Prisoner’s Dilemma and Snowdrift games. To this aim, we introduce a sociological concept and statistical estimator, “Critical Mass”, to detect the minimum initial seed of cooperators able to trigger the diffusion process, and the centrality measure to select within the social network. Selecting different spatial configurations of the Critical Mass nodes, we highlight how the emergence of cooperation can be influenced by this spatial choice of the initial core in the network. Moreover, we target to shed light how the concept of homophily, a social shaping factor for which “birds of a feather flock together”, can affect the evolutionary process. Our findings show that homophily allows speeding up the diffusion process and make quicker the convergence towards human cooperation, while centrality measure and thus the Critical Mass selection, play a key role in the evolution showing how the spatial configurations can create some hidden patterns, partially

Optimal Monetary Policy Cooperation through State-Independent Contracts with Targets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Henrik

2000-01-01

Simple state-independent monetary institutions are shown to secure optimal cooperative policies in a stochastic, linear-quadratic two-country world with international policy spill-overs and national credibility problems. Institutions characterize delegation to independent central bankers facing...... quadratic performance related contracts punishing or rewarding deviations from primary and intermediate policy targets...

A New Approach to Weapon-Target Assignment in Cooperative Air Combat

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi-zhe Chang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A new approach to solving weapon-target assignment (WTA problem is proposed in this paper. Firstly, relative superiority that lays the foundation for assignment is calculated based on the combat power energy of the fighters. Based on the relative superiority, WTA problem is formulated. Afterwards, a hybrid algorithm consisting of improved artificial fish swarm algorithm (AFSA and improved harmony search (HS is introduced and furthermore applied to solve the assignment formulation. Finally, the proposed approach is validated by eight representative benchmark functions and two concrete cooperative air combat examples. The results show that the approach proposed in this paper achieves good performances in solving WTA problem in cooperative air combat.

Cooperative control of UAVs for localization of intermittently emitting mobile targets.

Science.gov (United States)

Pack, Daniel J; Delima, Pedro; Toussaint, Gregory J; York, George

2009-08-01

Compared with a single platform, cooperative autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) offer efficiency and robustness in performing complex tasks. Focusing on ground mobile targets that intermittently emit radio frequency signals, this paper presents a decentralized control architecture for multiple UAVs, equipped only with rudimentary sensors, to search, detect, and locate targets over large areas. The proposed architecture has in its core a decision logic which governs the state of operation for each UAV based on sensor readings and communicated data. To support the findings, extensive simulation results are presented, focusing primarily on two success measures that the UAVs seek to minimize: overall time to search for a group of targets and the final target localization error achieved. The results of the simulations have provided support for hardware flight tests.

Monetary policy rules for convergence to the Euro

OpenAIRE

Orlowski, Lucjan T.

2008-01-01

This paper aims to devise a monetary policy instrument rule that is suitable for open economies undergoing monetary convergence to a common currency area. The open-economy convergence-consistent Taylor rule is forward-looking, consistent with monetary framework based on inflation targeting, containing input variables that are relative to the corresponding variables in the common currency area. The policy rule is tested empirically for three inflation targeting countries converging to the euro...

Cooperative multi-robot observation of multiple moving targets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, L.E.; Emmons, B.A.

1997-01-01

An important issue that arises in the automation of many security, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks is that of monitoring, or observing, the movements of targets navigating in a bounded area of interest. A key research issue in these problems is that of sensor placement--determining where sensors should be located to maintain the targets in view. In complex applications of this type, the use of multiple sensors dynamically moving over time is required. In this paper, the authors investigate the sue of a cooperative team of autonomous sensor-based robots for multi-robot observation of multiple moving targets. They focus primarily on developing the distributed control strategies that allow the robot team to attempt to maximize the collective tie during which each object is being observed by at least one robot in the area of interest. The initial efforts in this problem address the aspects of distributed control in homogeneous robot teams with equivalent sensing and movement capabilities working in an uncluttered, bounded area. This paper first formalizes the problem, discusses related work, and then shows that this problem is NP-hard. They then present a distributed approximate approach to solving this problem that combines low-level multi-robot control with higher-level control

Target distribution in cooperative combat based on Bayesian optimization algorithm

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Shi Zhifu; Zhang An; Wang Anli

2006-01-01

Target distribution in cooperative combat is a difficult and emphases. We build up the optimization model according to the rule of fire distribution. We have researched on the optimization model with BOA. The BOA can estimate the joint probability distribution of the variables with Bayesian network, and the new candidate solutions also can be generated by the joint distribution. The simulation example verified that the method could be used to solve the complex question, the operation was quickly and the solution was best.

Event-triggered cooperative target tracking in wireless sensor networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lu Kelin

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Since the issues of low communication bandwidth supply and limited battery capacity are very crucial for wireless sensor networks, this paper focuses on the problem of event-triggered cooperative target tracking based on set-membership information filtering. We study some fundamental properties of the set-membership information filter with multiple sensor measurements. First, a sufficient condition is derived for the set-membership information filter, under which the boundedness of the outer ellipsoidal approximation set of the estimation means is guaranteed. Second, the equivalence property between the parallel and sequential versions of the set-membership information filter is presented. Finally, the results are applied to a 1D event-triggered target tracking scenario in which the negative information is exploited in the sense that the measurements that do not satisfy the triggering conditions are modelled as set-membership measurements. The tracking performance of the proposed method is validated with extensive Monte Carlo simulations.

Robust, fast and accurate vision-based localization of a cooperative target used for space robotic arm

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Zhuoman; Wang, Yanjie; Luo, Jun; Kuijper, Arjan; Di, Nan; Jin, Minghe

2017-07-01

When a space robotic arm deploys a payload, usually the pose between the cooperative target fixed on the payload and the hand-eye camera installed on the arm is calculated in real-time. A high-precision robust visual cooperative target localization method is proposed. Combing a circle, a line and dots as markers, a target that guarantees high detection rates is designed. Given an image, single-pixel-width smooth edges are drawn by a novel linking method. Circles are then quickly extracted using isophotes curvature. Around each circle, a square boundary in a pre-calculated proportion to the circle radius is set. In the boundary, the target is identified if certain numbers of lines exist. Based on the circle, the lines, and the target foreground and background intensities, markers are localized. Finally, the target pose is calculated by the Point-3-Perspective algorithm. The algorithm processes 8 frames per second with the target distance ranging from 0.3m to 1.5 m. It generated high-precision poses of above 97.5% on over 100,000 images regardless of camera background, target pose, illumination and motion blur. At 0.3 m, the rotation and translation errors were less than 0.015° and 0.2 mm. The proposed algorithm is very suitable for real-time visual measurement that requires high precision in aerospace.

Simulations of Converging Shock Collisions for Shock Ignition

Science.gov (United States)

Sauppe, Joshua; Dodd, Evan; Loomis, Eric

2016-10-01

Shock ignition (SI) has been proposed as an alternative to achieving high gain in inertial confinement fusion (ICF) targets. A central hot spot below the ignition threshold is created by an initial compression pulse, and a second laser pulse drives a strong converging shock into the fuel. The collision between the rebounding shock from the compression pulse and the converging shock results in amplification of the converging shock and increases the hot spot pressure above the ignition threshold. We investigate shock collision in SI drive schemes for cylindrical targets with a polystyrene foam interior using radiation-hydrodynamics simulations with the RAGE code. The configuration is similar to previous targets fielded on the Omega laser. The CH interior results in a lower convergence ratio and the cylindrical geometry facilitates visualization of the shock transit using an axial X-ray backlighter, both of which are important for comparison to potential experimental measurements. One-dimensional simulations are used to determine shock timing, and the effects of low mode asymmetries in 2D computations are also quantified. LA-UR-16-24773.

Periodic oscillatory solution in delayed competitive-cooperative neural networks: A decomposition approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan Kun; Cao Jinde

2006-01-01

In this paper, the problems of exponential convergence and the exponential stability of the periodic solution for a general class of non-autonomous competitive-cooperative neural networks are analyzed via the decomposition approach. The idea is to divide the connection weights into inhibitory or excitatory types and thereby to embed a competitive-cooperative delayed neural network into an augmented cooperative delay system through a symmetric transformation. Some simple necessary and sufficient conditions are derived to ensure the componentwise exponential convergence and the exponential stability of the periodic solution of the considered neural networks. These results generalize and improve the previous works, and they are easy to check and apply in practice

Present-day African analogue of a pre-European Amazonian floodplain fishery shows convergence in cultural niche construction.

Science.gov (United States)

McKey, Doyle B; Durécu, Mélisse; Pouilly, Marc; Béarez, Philippe; Ovando, Alex; Kalebe, Mashuta; Huchzermeyer, Carl F

2016-12-27

Erickson [Erickson CL (2000) Nature 408 (6809):190-193] interpreted features in seasonal floodplains in Bolivia's Beni savannas as vestiges of pre-European earthen fish weirs, postulating that they supported a productive, sustainable fishery that warranted cooperation in the construction and maintenance of perennial structures. His inferences were bold, because no close ethnographic analogues were known. A similar present-day Zambian fishery, documented here, appears strikingly convergent. The Zambian fishery supports Erickson's key inferences about the pre-European fishery: It allows sustained high harvest levels; weir construction and operation require cooperation; and weirs are inherited across generations. However, our comparison suggests that the pre-European system may not have entailed intensive management, as Erickson postulated. The Zambian fishery's sustainability is based on exploiting an assemblage dominated by species with life histories combining high fecundity, multiple reproductive cycles, and seasonal use of floodplains. As water rises, adults migrate from permanent watercourses into floodplains, through gaps in weirs, to feed and spawn. Juveniles grow and then migrate back to dry-season refuges as water falls. At that moment fishermen set traps in the gaps, harvesting large numbers of fish, mostly juveniles. In nature, most juveniles die during the first dry season, so that their harvest just before migration has limited impact on future populations, facilitating sustainability and the adoption of a fishery based on inherited perennial structures. South American floodplain fishes with similar life histories were the likely targets of the pre-European fishery. Convergence in floodplain fish strategies in these two regions in turn drove convergence in cultural niche construction.

Convergent transmission of RNAi guide-target mismatch information across Argonaute internal allosteric network.

Science.gov (United States)

Joseph, Thomas T; Osman, Roman

2012-01-01

In RNA interference, a guide strand derived from a short dsRNA such as a microRNA (miRNA) is loaded into Argonaute, the central protein in the RNA Induced Silencing Complex (RISC) that silences messenger RNAs on a sequence-specific basis. The positions of any mismatched base pairs in an miRNA determine which Argonaute subtype is used. Subsequently, the Argonaute-guide complex binds and silences complementary target mRNAs; certain Argonautes cleave the target. Mismatches between guide strand and the target mRNA decrease cleavage efficiency. Thus, loading and silencing both require that signals about the presence of a mismatched base pair are communicated from the mismatch site to effector sites. These effector sites include the active site, to prevent target cleavage; the binding groove, to modify nucleic acid binding affinity; and surface allosteric sites, to control recruitment of additional proteins to form the RISC. To examine how such signals may be propagated, we analyzed the network of internal allosteric pathways in Argonaute exhibited through correlations of residue-residue interactions. The emerging network can be described as a set of pathways emanating from the core of the protein near the active site, distributed into the bulk of the protein, and converging upon a distributed cluster of surface residues. Nucleotides in the guide strand "seed region" have a stronger relationship with the protein than other nucleotides, concordant with their importance in sequence selectivity. Finally, any of several seed region guide-target mismatches cause certain Argonaute residues to have modified correlations with the rest of the protein. This arises from the aggregation of relatively small interaction correlation changes distributed across a large subset of residues. These residues are in effector sites: the active site, binding groove, and surface, implying that direct functional consequences of guide-target mismatches are mediated through the cumulative effects of

An Orthogonal Multi-Swarm Cooperative PSO Algorithm with a Particle Trajectory Knowledge Base

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jun Yang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A novel orthogonal multi-swarm cooperative particle swarm optimization (PSO algorithm with a particle trajectory knowledge base is presented in this paper. Different from the traditional PSO algorithms and other variants of PSO, the proposed orthogonal multi-swarm cooperative PSO algorithm not only introduces an orthogonal initialization mechanism and a particle trajectory knowledge base for multi-dimensional optimization problems, but also conceives a new adaptive cooperation mechanism to accomplish the information interaction among swarms and particles. Experiments are conducted on a set of benchmark functions, and the results show its better performance compared with traditional PSO algorithm in aspects of convergence, computational efficiency and avoiding premature convergence.

An integrated control scheme for space robot after capturing non-cooperative target

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Mingming; Luo, Jianjun; Yuan, Jianping; Walter, Ulrich

2018-06-01

How to identify the mass properties and eliminate the unknown angular momentum of space robotic system after capturing a non-cooperative target is of great challenge. This paper focuses on designing an integrated control framework which includes detumbling strategy, coordination control and parameter identification. Firstly, inverted and forward chain approaches are synthesized for space robot to obtain dynamic equation in operational space. Secondly, a detumbling strategy is introduced using elementary functions with normalized time, while the imposed end-effector constraints are considered. Next, a coordination control scheme for stabilizing both base and end-effector based on impedance control is implemented with the target's parameter uncertainty. With the measurements of the forces and torques exerted on the target, its mass properties are estimated during the detumbling process accordingly. Simulation results are presented using a 7 degree-of-freedom kinematically redundant space manipulator, which verifies the performance and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Cooperative Fuzzy Games Approach to Setting Target Levels of ECs in Quality Function Deployment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhihui Yang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Quality function deployment (QFD can provide a means of translating customer requirements (CRs into engineering characteristics (ECs for each stage of product development and production. The main objective of QFD-based product planning is to determine the target levels of ECs for a new product or service. QFD is a breakthrough tool which can effectively reduce the gap between CRs and a new product/service. Even though there are conflicts among some ECs, the objective of developing new product is to maximize the overall customer satisfaction. Therefore, there may be room for cooperation among ECs. A cooperative game framework combined with fuzzy set theory is developed to determine the target levels of the ECs in QFD. The key to develop the model is the formulation of the bargaining function. In the proposed methodology, the players are viewed as the membership functions of ECs to formulate the bargaining function. The solution for the proposed model is Pareto-optimal. An illustrated example is cited to demonstrate the application and performance of the proposed approach.

Cooperative fuzzy games approach to setting target levels of ECs in quality function deployment.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Zhihui; Chen, Yizeng; Yin, Yunqiang

2014-01-01

Quality function deployment (QFD) can provide a means of translating customer requirements (CRs) into engineering characteristics (ECs) for each stage of product development and production. The main objective of QFD-based product planning is to determine the target levels of ECs for a new product or service. QFD is a breakthrough tool which can effectively reduce the gap between CRs and a new product/service. Even though there are conflicts among some ECs, the objective of developing new product is to maximize the overall customer satisfaction. Therefore, there may be room for cooperation among ECs. A cooperative game framework combined with fuzzy set theory is developed to determine the target levels of the ECs in QFD. The key to develop the model is the formulation of the bargaining function. In the proposed methodology, the players are viewed as the membership functions of ECs to formulate the bargaining function. The solution for the proposed model is Pareto-optimal. An illustrated example is cited to demonstrate the application and performance of the proposed approach.

Fiber-wireless convergence in next-generation communication networks systems, architectures, and management

CERN Document Server

Chang, Gee-Kung; Ellinas, Georgios

2017-01-01

This book investigates new enabling technologies for Fi-Wi convergence. The editors discuss Fi-Wi technologies at the three major network levels involved in the path towards convergence: system level, network architecture level, and network management level. The main topics will be: a. At system level: Radio over Fiber (digitalized vs. analogic, standardization, E-band and beyond) and 5G wireless technologies; b. Network architecture level: NGPON, WDM-PON, BBU Hotelling, Cloud Radio Access Networks (C-RANs), HetNets. c. Network management level: SDN for convergence, Next-generation Point-of-Presence, Wi-Fi LTE Handover, Cooperative MultiPoint. • Addresses the Fi-Wi convergence issues at three different levels, namely at the system level, network architecture level, and network management level • Provides approaches in communication systems, network architecture, and management that are expected to steer the evolution towards fiber-wireless convergence • Contributions from leading experts in the field of...

Convergent transmission of RNAi guide-target mismatch information across Argonaute internal allosteric network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas T Joseph

Full Text Available In RNA interference, a guide strand derived from a short dsRNA such as a microRNA (miRNA is loaded into Argonaute, the central protein in the RNA Induced Silencing Complex (RISC that silences messenger RNAs on a sequence-specific basis. The positions of any mismatched base pairs in an miRNA determine which Argonaute subtype is used. Subsequently, the Argonaute-guide complex binds and silences complementary target mRNAs; certain Argonautes cleave the target. Mismatches between guide strand and the target mRNA decrease cleavage efficiency. Thus, loading and silencing both require that signals about the presence of a mismatched base pair are communicated from the mismatch site to effector sites. These effector sites include the active site, to prevent target cleavage; the binding groove, to modify nucleic acid binding affinity; and surface allosteric sites, to control recruitment of additional proteins to form the RISC. To examine how such signals may be propagated, we analyzed the network of internal allosteric pathways in Argonaute exhibited through correlations of residue-residue interactions. The emerging network can be described as a set of pathways emanating from the core of the protein near the active site, distributed into the bulk of the protein, and converging upon a distributed cluster of surface residues. Nucleotides in the guide strand "seed region" have a stronger relationship with the protein than other nucleotides, concordant with their importance in sequence selectivity. Finally, any of several seed region guide-target mismatches cause certain Argonaute residues to have modified correlations with the rest of the protein. This arises from the aggregation of relatively small interaction correlation changes distributed across a large subset of residues. These residues are in effector sites: the active site, binding groove, and surface, implying that direct functional consequences of guide-target mismatches are mediated through the

A Model for Recycling Target Policy under Imperfect Competition With and Without Cooperation Between Firms

OpenAIRE

Satoshi Honma; Ming-Chung Chang

2010-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to develop a general theoretical model that describes production and recycling in an n-firm oligopoly market in which firms can cooperate for recycling. We use a three-stage game to analyze a specific recycling issue. In stage 0, the government sets a target recycling rate as well as virgin material and final disposal tax rates. In stage 1, n identical firms simultaneously invest to reduce the cost of recycling given the recycling target. Here we treat this activi...

When Reputation Enforces Evolutionary Cooperation in Unreliable MANETs.

Science.gov (United States)

Tang, Changbing; Li, Ang; Li, Xiang

2015-10-01

In self-organized mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), network functions rely on cooperation of self-interested nodes, where a challenge is to enforce their mutual cooperation. In this paper, we study cooperative packet forwarding in a one-hop unreliable channel which results from loss of packets and noisy observation of transmissions. We propose an indirect reciprocity framework based on evolutionary game theory, and enforce cooperation of packet forwarding strategies in both structured and unstructured MANETs. Furthermore, we analyze the evolutionary dynamics of cooperative strategies and derive the threshold of benefit-to-cost ratio to guarantee the convergence of cooperation. The numerical simulations verify that the proposed evolutionary game theoretic solution enforces cooperation when the benefit-to-cost ratio of the altruistic exceeds the critical condition. In addition, the network throughput performance of our proposed strategy in structured MANETs is measured, which is in close agreement with that of the full cooperative strategy.

Do convergent developmental mechanisms underlie convergent phenotypes?

Science.gov (United States)

Wray, Gregory A.

2002-01-01

Convergence is a pervasive evolutionary process, affecting many aspects of phenotype and even genotype. Relatively little is known about convergence in developmental processes, however, nor about the degree to which convergence in development underlies convergence in anatomy. A switch in the ecology of sea urchins from feeding to nonfeeding larvae illustrates how convergence in development can be associated with convergence in anatomy. Comparisons to more distantly related taxa, however, suggest that this association may be limited to relatively close phylogenetic comparisons. Similarities in gene expression during development provide another window into the association between convergence in developmental processes and convergence in anatomy. Several well-studied transcription factors exhibit likely cases of convergent gene expression in distantly related animal phyla. Convergence in regulatory gene expression domains is probably more common than generally acknowledged, and can arise for several different reasons. Copyright 2002 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Arieti and Bowlby: convergence and direct influence.

Science.gov (United States)

Bacciagaluppi, Marco

2015-09-01

Arieti was a great specialist of schizophrenia and Bowlby was the initiator of attachment theory. Working independently on the two sides of the Atlantic, they converged on a range of topics, such as evolutionary theory, mourning, trauma, violence, and therapy as art and science. Later, Bowlby exerted a direct influence on Arieti, which Arieti acknowledged in his Love Can Be Found. Finally, the two authors cooperated in the second edition of the American Handbook of Psychiatry.

PCP and SAX-3/Robo Pathways Cooperate to Regulate Convergent Extension-Based Nerve Cord Assembly in C. elegans.

Science.gov (United States)

Shah, Pavak K; Tanner, Matthew R; Kovacevic, Ismar; Rankin, Aysha; Marshall, Teagan E; Noblett, Nathaniel; Tran, Nhan Nguyen; Roenspies, Tony; Hung, Jeffrey; Chen, Zheqian; Slatculescu, Cristina; Perkins, Theodore J; Bao, Zhirong; Colavita, Antonio

2017-04-24

Formation and resolution of multicellular rosettes can drive convergent extension (CE) type cell rearrangements during tissue morphogenesis. Rosette dynamics are regulated by both planar cell polarity (PCP)-dependent and -independent pathways. Here we show that CE is involved in ventral nerve cord (VNC) assembly in Caenorhabditis elegans. We show that a VANG-1/Van Gogh and PRKL-1/Prickle containing PCP pathway and a Slit-independent SAX-3/Robo pathway cooperate to regulate, via rosette intermediaries, the intercalation of post-mitotic neuronal cell bodies during VNC formation. We show that VANG-1 and SAX-3 are localized to contracting edges and rosette foci and act to specify edge contraction during rosette formation and to mediate timely rosette resolution. Simultaneous loss of both pathways severely curtails CE resulting in a shortened, anteriorly displaced distribution of VNC neurons at hatching. Our results establish rosette-based CE as an evolutionarily conserved mechanism of nerve cord morphogenesis and reveal a role for SAX-3/Robo in this process. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

High Accuracy Tracking of Space-Borne Non-Cooperative Targets

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pedersen, David Arge Klevang

for the spacecraft to navigate safely and autonomously towards the target. These methods are applied on three distinct study cases, which are based on the platform of the microASC instrument. In relation to the Mars2020 rover, a structured light system is used to navigate the PIXL instrument towards the Martian...... surface, whose objective is to seek evidence of ancient life in the form of chemical biosignatures. The structured light is a subsystem of the PIXL instrument consisting of two active lasers and an imager. The structured light makes use of active triangulation to support a safe approach towards...... team and processing of the captured data was recognized with two Group Achievement Awards from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. With today's advancement in autonomy, the focus is set on in-flight tracking of a non-cooperative artificial satellite with the end goal of capturing...

Convergent close-coupling calculations of electron-hydrogen scattering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bray, Igor; Stelbovics, A.T.

1992-04-01

The convergence of the close-coupling formalism is studied by expanding the target states in an orthogonal L 2 Laguerre basis. The theory is without approximation and convergence is established by simply increasing the basis size. The convergent elastic, 2s, and 2p differential cross sections, spin asymmetries, and angular correlation parameters for the 2p excitation at 35, 54.4, and 100 eV are calculated. Integrated and total cross sections as well as T-matrix elements for the first five partial waves are also given. 30 refs., 3 tabs., 9 figs

A Methodological Reflection on Converging Technologies and Their Relevance to Informa-tion Ethics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wong, Pak-Hang

2010-01-01

In light of converging technologies, there is a clear sense that ethicists of various technological domains are coming together. Or, that they should come together. Yet, despite increasing cooperation and boundary-crossing in various fields of the ethics of technology, these efforts remain mostly at

Dual-Model Reverse CKF Algorithm in Cooperative Navigation for USV

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bo Xu

2014-01-01

Full Text Available As one of the most promising research directions, cooperative location with high precision and low-cost IMU is becoming an emerging research topic in many positioning fields. Low-cost MEMS/DVL is a preferred solution for dead-reckoning in multi-USV cooperative network. However, large misalignment angles and large gyro drift coexist in low-cost MEMS that leads to the poor observability. Based on cubature Kalman filter (CKF algorithm that has access to high accuracy and relative small computation, dual-model filtering scheme is proposed. It divides the whole process into two subsections that cut off the coupling relations and improve the observability of MEMS errors: it first estimates large misalignment angle and then estimates the gyro drift. Furthermore, to improve the convergence speed of large misalignment angle estimated in the first subsection, “time reversion” concept is introduced. It uses a short period time to forward and backward several times to improve convergence speed effectively. Finally, simulation analysis and experimental verification is conducted. Simulation and experimental results show that the algorithm can effectively improve the cooperative navigation performance.

International co-operation in nuclear data evaluation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nordborg, C.

2003-01-01

The NEA Working Party on International Nuclear Data Evaluation Co-operation serves as a forum for the exchange of information on required improvements to evaluated nuclear data libraries used in all nuclear application areas. The main objective is to identify the major discrepancies in existing evaluated data libraries and to resolve these discrepancies in specifically established expert groups. The long-term goal is to have converging evaluated data libraries. This co-operative effort is very successful. It has resolved a number of outstanding nuclear data problems and has issued 15 reports in support of the studies undertaken jointly. (author)

Cooperation and Development: a study of case in network cooperation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

June Alisson Westarb Cruz

2009-03-01

Full Text Available The need to develop new surviving strategies and competitive advantage by individuals and organizations make cooperation to obtain complementary competences and potentialities very important, through the insertion of social actors in multiple networks of relationships and interactions.  This research was made in an Association Network of Carrinheiros[1] located in Curitiba and in the coast of Paraná.  The objective of the study was to analyze the structural characteristics of the network and its implications to develop collective actions. The data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, document analysis, and the daily direct observation of the network.  An interaction system between individuals and organizations from various sectors in society could be verified. This interaction stimulates the structured work connected to associations and cooperatives.  Between the actors of the network, concepts and realities are different, as well as individual objectives are distinct.  However, they converge to a common general objective that establish a common base for collaborative work.

Cooperative strategies European perspectives

CERN Document Server

Killing, J Peter

1997-01-01

Cooperative Strategies: European Perspectives is one of three geographically targeted volumes in which the contributors present the most current research on topics such as advances in theories of cooperative strategies, the formation of cooperative alliances, the dynamics of partner relationships, and the role of information and knowledge in cooperative alliances. Blending conceptual insights with empirical analyses, the contributors highlight commonalities and differences across national, cultural, and trade zones. The chapters in this volume are anchored in a wide set of theoretical approaches, conceptual frameworks, and models, illustrating how rich the area of cooperative strategies is for scholarly inquiry.

Variations in accommodation and convergence responses in a minimally controlled photorefractive setting.

Science.gov (United States)

Horwood, A M; Turner, J E; Houston, S M; Riddell, P M

2001-11-01

A remote haploscopic photorefractor, designed for assessment of accommodation and convergence in infants and clinical groups, was used to determine heterophoria accommodative convergence/accommodation (AC/A) ratios in normal naïve adults. These were compared with conventional clinical measures. Twenty-one naïve subjects were used to compare occluded and unoccluded prism cover test responses with the remote haploscopic photorefractor using a text and picture target. Although luminance was generally low for both targets, binocular vergences were appropriate for target demand in both studies. Binocular accommodation showed greater lag for the highest target accommodative demand and the less demanding target. Occlusion not only reduced vergence response, but also frequently caused a marked reduction in accommodation, especially to the picture target. Normal mean AC/A values were found, but with wide variations between individual subjects. Although mean accommodation, vergence, and AC/A values were comparable with published data, we suggest that in these conditions using naïve subjects, accommodation is frequently inaccurate, especially on occlusion, without concomitant loss of vergence, at least at low light levels. Accommodative convergence may play a less important part in, and other cues contribute more to, the near reflex than has been previously suggested.

Optimal cooperation-trap strategies for the iterated rock-paper-scissors game.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zedong Bi

Full Text Available In an iterated non-cooperative game, if all the players act to maximize their individual accumulated payoff, the system as a whole usually converges to a Nash equilibrium that poorly benefits any player. Here we show that such an undesirable destiny is avoidable in an iterated Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS game involving two rational players, X and Y. Player X has the option of proactively adopting a cooperation-trap strategy, which enforces complete cooperation from the rational player Y and leads to a highly beneficial and maximally fair situation to both players. That maximal degree of cooperation is achievable in such a competitive system with cyclic dominance of actions may stimulate further theoretical and empirical studies on how to resolve conflicts and enhance cooperation in human societies.

Multiplier convergent series and uniform convergence of mapping ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

MS received 14 April 2011; revised 17 November 2012. Abstract. In this paper, we introduce the frame property of complex sequence sets and study the uniform convergence of nonlinear mapping series in β-dual of spaces consisting of multiplier convergent series. Keywords. Multiplier convergent series; mapping series. 1.

Understanding for convergence monitoring for probabilistic risk assessment based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo Simulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Joo Yeon; Jang, Han Ki; Jang, Sol Ah; Park, Tae Jin

2014-01-01

There is a question that the simulation actually leads to draws from its target distribution and the most basic one is whether such Markov chains can always be constructed and all chain values sampled from them. The problem to be solved is the determination of how large this iteration should be to achieve the target distribution. This problem can be answered as convergence monitoring. In this paper, two widely used methods, such as autocorrelation and potential scale reduction factor (PSRF) in MCMC are characterized. There is no general agreement on the subject of the convergence. Although it is generally agreed that running n parallel chains in practice is computationally inefficient and unnecessary, running multiple parallel chains is generally applied for the convergence monitoring due to easy implementation. The main debate is the number of parallel chains needed. If the convergence properties of the chain are well understood then clearly a single chain suffices. Therefore, autocorrelation using single chain and multiple parallel ones are tried and their results then compared with each other in this study. And, the following question is answered from the two convergence results: Have the Markov chain realizations for achieved the target distribution?

Economic Growth, Convergence and Innovation in the EU Regions

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Tiiu Paas

2012-12-01

Full Text Available The paper focuses on quantitative assessment of the innovation’s role in explaining regional disparities and convergence in Europe. The empirical part of the study bases on the regional GDP pc and innovation indicators on the EU-27 NUTS2 level regions. Based on the selected set of initial regional innovation indicators and using the principal components factor analysis method, three composite indicators of regional innovation capacity are extracted. Estimating convergence equations, we noticed that regional innovations tend to increase inter-regional differences, at least during the short-run period. Thus, if regional income convergence is a policy target, additional policy measures beside innovation activities should be effectively implemented.

Filamentation of a converging heavy ion beam

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, E.P.; Buchanan, H.L.; Rosenbluth, M.N.

1980-01-01

A major concern in the use of heavy ion beams as igniters in pellet fusion systems is the vulnerability of the beam to the transverse flamentation instability. The undesirable consequence of this mode is the transverse heating of the beam to the extent that convergence on the pellet becomes impossible. This work considers the case of a beam injected into a gas filled reactor vessel, where finite pulse length and propagation distance play an important role in limiting growth. Two geometries are analyzed: a nonconverging case where the radius at injection is nearly equal to the desired radius at the pellet, and a converging case in which the injection radius is large and the beam is pre-focused to converge at the target. It is found that a cold beam will be severely disrupted if the product of the magnetic plasma frequency and the propagation distance is much larger than unity

Worldwide Growth Convergence in the New Millennium: An Empirical Investigation

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Lawrence J. Gomes

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Economic growth is an important ingredient for reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals proposed by United Nations in 2000. Meeting these goals by the proposed 2015 target data depends on the ability of poor nations to grow their economies and improve their standards of living. Neoclassical and new growth theory suggests that there should be a negative relationship between a nation’s initial income and subsequent growth giving rise to either absolute convergence (income levels of all nations converge over time or conditional convergence (each nation converges to its unique steady-state income level. Using the most recent (2000-2013 World Bank data and cross-country regression techniques, I evaluated whether convergence has been occurring in the world in the last decade. My results showed a robust negative relationship between starting income level and subsequent growth. Savings and education were also associated with growth whereas trade was not. Overall, these results support the notion of convergence which is an encouraging finding as the world approaches the 2015 post-development agenda.

Thoughts on Multi-sphere Study in the Indo-Pacific Convergent Zone

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, F.

2016-12-01

Interactions of the ocean with other components of the earth system, such as atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere are the front and hotspot of the ocean and earth sciences. In the Indonesian Archipelago and adjacent western Pacific and eastern Indian Oceans, both the upper oceanic circulation and lower atmospheric circulation convergent and consequently enhance the fresh water and heat fluxes, affecting the East Asian and global climate. This region is considered as the world's center of marine bio-diversity and sediment discharge, as well as the collision center of the Eurasian, Indian and Pacific plates. Why and how the energy and material of multiple spheres convergent toward the region are important scientific issues on the front of earth system science and marine sciences, and need to be investigated through international cooperation.

Reduced vergence adaptation is associated with a prolonged output of convergence accommodation in convergence insufficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Sreenivasan, Vidhyapriya; Bobier, William R

2014-07-01

Convergence insufficiency (CI) is a developmental visual anomaly defined clinically by a reduced near point of convergence, a reduced capacity to view through base-out prisms (fusional convergence); coupled with asthenopic symptoms typically blur and diplopia. Experimental studies show reduced vergence parameters and tonic adaptation. Based upon current models of accommodation and vergence, we hypothesize that the reduced vergence adaptation in CI leads to excessive amounts of convergence accommodation (CA). Eleven CI participants (mean age=17.4±2.3 years) were recruited with reduced capacity to view through increasing magnitudes of base out (BO) prisms (mean fusional convergence at 40 cm=12±0.9Δ). Testing followed our previous experimental design for (n=11) binocularly normal adults. Binocular fixation of a difference of Gaussian (DoG) target (0.2 cpd) elicited CA responses during vergence adaptation to a 12Δ BO. Vergence and CA responses were obtained at 3 min intervals over a 15 min period and time course were quantified using exponential decay functions. Results were compared to previously published data on eleven binocular normals. Eight participants completed the study. CI's showed significantly reduced magnitude of vergence adaptation (CI: 2.9Δ vs. normals: 6.6Δ; p=0.01) and CA reduction (CI=0.21 D, Normals=0.55 D; p=0.03). However, the decay time constants for adaptation and CA responses were not significantly different. CA changes were not confounded by changes in tonic accommodation (Change in TA=0.01±0.2D; p=0.8). The reduced magnitude of vergence adaptation found in CI patients resulting in higher levels of CA may potentially explain their clinical findings of reduced positive fusional vergence (PFV) and the common symptom of blur. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The cooperation between family and school in cooperative education of children and youth in the Second Polish Republic (1918-1939

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ELŻBIETA MAGIERA

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Pedagogical journalism and literature of the interwar period emphasised importance of the cooperation between family and school with respect to cooperative education of school-age children and youth. Cooperative education started usually in family through the formation of reason, will and emotions. Family home constituted a basic level of education and could repeatedly stimulate cooperative interests. Common work of the family at family farm or in craft or cottage industry business became the first school of cooperation and joint-action on which cooperative activity was based. Family home played a supporting part in the development of student cooperative. The acceptance of parents and their recognition, and sometimes their involvement in the work of student cooperation, were a form of encouragement for students and teachers for further activity of the cooperative. At the same time, student cooperative – in particular in rural areas – was a medium stimulating the parents of these students and the environment to cooperatistic actions. The social life of school was guided by the principle of convergence, i.e. its interpenetration and complementation by the family home and environment life. The idea of cooperation in the interwar educational system being accomplished in practice by means of student cooperatives had the possibilities of playing a very big part. This was determined by its broad application in educational activity of the Polish school as well as its understanding and acceptance by the family and environment. Important part was played by the tutor of student cooperative. His / her duty was to tighten the cooperation between student cooperative and family home which, on the one hand, ensured the understanding of teacher's actions and, on the other hand, provided material and moral assistance for the cooperative. At the same time, teacher – through student cooperative – could influence socially and educationally the family and

Atoms for peace: Targeting technical cooperation for results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Qian Jihui; Tisue, T.; Volkoff, A.

2000-01-01

The evolution of the Technical Co-operation Programme has been striking. In 1958 few countries boasted nuclear industries. That year the IAEA started technical assistance with the provision of a number of fellowships, expanding to provision of equipment and experts the following year. Today nuclear industries exist in all regions. The Agency has programmes in nearly 100 countries, disburses approximately $65 million per year and can use the capacity developed in earlier years as a springboard for further development. The aim now is to make a visible and positive difference in direct support of priority development goals in various countries and regions. The IAEA's new strategy for technical cooperation includes three major elements: (i) Model Projects: Model Projects set high standards for project design to ensure they respond to real needs of a country, produce significant economic or social impact through the end user, reflect the distinct advantages of nuclear technology over other approaches and enjoy strong government commitment. (ii) Country Programme Frameworks: Country Programme Frameworks help focus the IAEA Technical Cooperation Programme with countries on a few priority areas that can lead to significant results. (iii) Thematic/Sectoral Plans: Thematic Planning exercises identify best practices in a given thematic area, assess nuclear techniques against conventional or up-and-coming techniques, ascertain what pre-conditions are necessary in a country to ensure work in a given thematic area will have impact, and identify other partners working in that thematic area

A decomposition approach to analysis of competitive-cooperative neural networks with delay

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chu Tianguang; Zhang Zongda; Wang Zhaolin

2003-01-01

Competitive-cooperative or inhibitory-excitatory configurations abound in neural networks. It is demonstrated here how such a configuration may be exploited to give a detailed characterization of the fixed point dynamics in general neural networks with time delay. The idea is to divide the connection weights into inhibitory and excitatory types and thereby to embed a competitive-cooperative delay neural network into an augmented cooperative delay system through a symmetric transformation. This allows for the use of the powerful monotone properties of cooperative systems. By the method, we derive several simple necessary and sufficient conditions on guaranteed trapping regions and guaranteed componentwise (exponential) convergence of the neural networks. The results relate specific decay rate and trajectory bounds to system parameters and are therefore of practical significance in designing a network with desired performance

Convergence

Science.gov (United States)

Darcie, Thomas E.; Doverspike, Robert; Zirngibl, Martin; Korotky, Steven K.

2005-01-01

.p {padding-bottom:6px} Call for Papers: Convergence Guest Editors: Thomas E. Darcie, University of Victoria Robert Doverspike, AT&T Martin Zirngibl, Lucent Technologies Coordinating Associate Editor: Steven K. Korotky, Lucent Technologies The Journal of Optical Networking (JON) invites submissions to a special issue on Convergence. Convergence has become a popular theme in telecommunications, one that has broad implications across all segments of the industry. Continual evolution of technology and applications continues to erase lines between traditionally separate lines of business, with dramatic consequences for vendors, service providers, and consumers. Spectacular advances in all layers of optical networking-leading to abundant, dynamic, cost-effective, and reliable wide-area and local-area connections-have been essential drivers of this evolution. As services and networks continue to evolve towards some notion of convergence, the continued role of optical networks must be explored. One vision of convergence renders all information in a common packet (especially IP) format. This vision is driven by the proliferation of data services. For example, time-division multiplexed (TDM) voice becomes VoIP. Analog cable-television signals become MPEG bits streamed to digital set-top boxes. T1 or OC-N private lines migrate to Ethernet virtual private networks (VPNs). All these packets coexist peacefully within a single packet-routing methodology built on an optical transport layer that combines the flexibility and cost of data networks with telecom-grade reliability. While this vision is appealing in its simplicity and shared widely, specifics of implementation raise many challenges and differences of opinion. For example, many seek to expand the role of Ethernet in these transport networks, while massive efforts are underway to make traditional TDM networks more data friendly within an evolved but backward-compatible SDH/SONET (synchronous digital hierarchy and

Convergence

Science.gov (United States)

Darcie, Thomas E.; Doverspike, Robert; Zirngibl, Martin; Korotky, Steven K.

2005-09-01

Call for Papers: Convergence The Journal of Optical Networking (JON) invites submissions to a special issue on Convergence. Convergence has become a popular theme in telecommunications, one that has broad implications across all segments of the industry. Continual evolution of technology and applications continues to erase lines between traditionally separate lines of business, with dramatic consequences for vendors, service providers, and consumers. Spectacular advances in all layers of optical networking-leading to abundant, dynamic, cost-effective, and reliable wide-area and local-area connections-have been essential drivers of this evolution. As services and networks continue to evolve towards some notion of convergence, the continued role of optical networks must be explored. One vision of convergence renders all information in a common packet (especially IP) format. This vision is driven by the proliferation of data services. For example, time-division multiplexed (TDM) voice becomes VoIP. Analog cable-television signals become MPEG bits streamed to digital set-top boxes. T1 or OC-N private lines migrate to Ethernet virtual private networks (VPNs). All these packets coexist peacefully within a single packet-routing methodology built on an optical transport layer that combines the flexibility and cost of data networks with telecom-grade reliability. While this vision is appealing in its simplicity and shared widely, specifics of implementation raise many challenges and differences of opinion. For example, many seek to expand the role of Ethernet in these transport networks, while massive efforts are underway to make traditional TDM networks more data friendly within an evolved but backward-compatible SDH/SONET (synchronous digital hierarchy and synchronous optical network) multiplexing hierarchy. From this common underlying theme follow many specific instantiations. Examples include the convergence at the physical, logical, and operational levels of voice and

ANALYSIS OF CONVERGENCE WITHIN THE EUROPEAN UNION SIGMA AND BETA CONVERGENCE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Begu Liviu-Stelian

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Real convergence study began with the development of neoclassical models of growth and especially with the passage of econometric applications of these models. In this paper we present applications of indicators and patterns of convergence on the example of European Union member countries and some current economic impact assessments on European convergence process. This analysis is based on the estimated a- and b convergence and on Markov chains. The study deals with the economic convergence of the European countries and especially the convergence of the EU countries, including Romania. In the end of the study presents several economic scenarios for a faster and easier exit from the current crisis in Romania.

Cost-Efficient and sustainable deployment of renewable energy sources towards the 20% target by 2020, and beyond. D3.3. Off Shore wind energy - Case study of cooperation mechanisms design

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Klinge Jacobsen, H.; Pade Hansen, L.-L. [Technical Univ. of Denmark. DTU Management Engineering, Roskilde (Denmark); Jansen, J. [ECN, Petten (Netherlands)

2012-10-15

Denmark is projected to have by 2020 a large excess potential for offshore wind capacity in the North Sea at shallow and near to the coast locations. The Netherlands on the other hand has low and expensive RES potentials for its 2020 RES target obligations. Therefore offshore wind potentials in Denmark constitute a possible cost reduction for the Netherlands in meeting its 2020 RES target. This case study examines a large amount of 2 GW offshore wind capacity in the Danish North Sea area. Cooperation unfolds in a joint project type with state to state negotiation and settlement. Different timing and implementation options are described with the possibility to implement a series of 200 MW joint projects with negotiation for each separate phase. The case study is focusing on the area around Horns Rev, where wind conditions are good, the distance to shore is 20-30 km and water depth is around 25 m. With these conditions the cost level will be around 12 c Euro/kWh and that is at least a 3 c Euro/kWh cost advantage to the expansion with offshore wind in the Netherlands. Joint project cooperation is a simple form of cooperation that does not involve a restructuring of national support schemes and legislator changes that can take a long time to implement and affect a lot of entities in the host country. Projects are negotiated between the host and the user country, with the major task to settle a transfer price for the credits transferred in 2020. The design of cooperation assigns the entire project risk to the host country as the host is the party that enters into the contract with the investors in renewable energy capacity. This case study identifies the main barriers for the joint project cooperation and concludes that the main barriers to cooperation between Denmark and the Netherlands is the missing detailed knowledge on the penalty for non-compliance with the 2020 targets, and the lack of post 2020 targets in the EU policy. The missing knowledge on the penalty may

Convergence Between Kazakhstan’S Financial Systemand International Standards: Overcoming Difficulties

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Uvarova Natalya

2015-06-01

Full Text Available This article deals with the convergence of the Kazakh financial system with international standards in light of the new, enhanced agreement with the European Union on partnership and cooperation (January 19, 2015. Based on this research, the approaches used by the Kazakh financial system to converge with the European Union (EU and the mechanism of implementing international standards in the national regulatory framework are determined. In practice, the study provides justification for the necessity of arranging the systematization of existing rules and regulations covering financial activity in the Republic, eliminating discrepancies between the national regulatory framework and international standards, and determining clear security guarantees for foreign investors’ financial activity in the Republic. The research results are primarily focused on the development of public finance management theory. Theories and conclusions present in the study can be used in the educational processes of economic and legal institutions and in the policymaking activity of public finance management bodies.

TESTING NONLINEAR INFLATION CONVERGENCE FOR THE CENTRAL AFRICAN ECONOMIC AND MONETARY COMMUNITY

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Emmanuel Anoruo

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper uses nonlinear unit root testing procedures to examine the issue of inflation convergence for the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC member states including Cameron, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of Congo. The results from nonlinear STAR unit root tests suggest that inflation differentials for the sample countries are nonlinear and mean reverting processes. These results provide evidence of inflation convergence among countries within CEMAC. The finding of inflation convergence indicates the feasibility of a common monetary policy and/or inflation targeting regime within CEMAC.

Evidence that convergence rather than accommodation controls intermittent distance exotropia.

Science.gov (United States)

Horwood, Anna M; Riddell, Patricia M

2012-03-01

This study considered whether vergence drives accommodation or accommodation drives vergence during the control of distance exotropia for near fixation. High accommodative convergence to accommodation (AC/A) ratios are often used to explain this control, but the role of convergence to drive accommodation (the CA/C relationship) is rarely considered. Atypical CA/C characteristics could equally, or better, explain common clinical findings. Nineteen distance exotropes, aged 4-11 years, were compared while controlling their deviation with 27 non-exotropic controls aged 5-9 years. Simultaneous vergence and accommodation responses were measured to a range of targets incorporating different combinations of blur, disparity and looming cues at four fixation distances between 2 m and 33 cm. Stimulus and response AC/A and CA/C ratios were calculated. Accommodation responses for near targets (p = 0.017) and response gains (p = 0.026) were greater in the exotropes than in the controls. Despite higher clinical stimulus AC/A ratios, the distance exotropes showed lower laboratory response AC/A ratios (p = 0.02), but significantly higher CA/C ratios (p = 0.02). All the exotropes, whether the angle changed most with lenses ('controlled by accommodation') or on occlusion ('controlled by fusion'), used binocular disparity not blur as their main cue to target distance. Increased vergence demand to control intermittent distance exotropia for near also drives significantly more accommodation. Minus lens therapy is more likely to act by correcting overaccommodation driven by controlling convergence, rather than by inducing blur-driven vergence. The use of convergence as a major drive to accommodation explains many clinical characteristics of distance exotropia, including apparently high near stimulus AC/A ratios. © 2012 The Authors. Acta Ophthalmologica © 2012 Acta Ophthalmologica Scandinavica Foundation.

A Cooperative Search and Coverage Algorithm with Controllable Revisit and Connectivity Maintenance for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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Zhong Liu

2018-05-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we mainly study a cooperative search and coverage algorithm for a given bounded rectangle region, which contains several unknown stationary targets, by a team of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs with non-ideal sensors and limited communication ranges. Our goal is to minimize the search time, while gathering more information about the environment and finding more targets. For this purpose, a novel cooperative search and coverage algorithm with controllable revisit mechanism is presented. Firstly, as the representation of the environment, the cognitive maps that included the target probability map (TPM, the uncertain map (UM, and the digital pheromone map (DPM are constituted. We also design a distributed update and fusion scheme for the cognitive map. This update and fusion scheme can guarantee that each one of the cognitive maps converges to the same one, which reflects the targets’ true existence or absence in each cell of the search region. Secondly, we develop a controllable revisit mechanism based on the DPM. This mechanism can concentrate the UAVs to revisit sub-areas that have a large target probability or high uncertainty. Thirdly, in the frame of distributed receding horizon optimizing, a path planning algorithm for the multi-UAVs cooperative search and coverage is designed. In the path planning algorithm, the movement of the UAVs is restricted by the potential fields to meet the requirements of avoiding collision and maintaining connectivity constraints. Moreover, using the minimum spanning tree (MST topology optimization strategy, we can obtain a tradeoff between the search coverage enhancement and the connectivity maintenance. The feasibility of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparison simulations by way of analyzing the effects of the controllable revisit mechanism and the connectivity maintenance scheme. The Monte Carlo method is employed to validate the influence of the number of UAVs, the sensing radius

ROMANIA IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION, REGIONALIZATION AND CONVERGENCE

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Elena Pelinescu

2007-04-01

Full Text Available The economic convergence is an instrument of harmonization in areas with high degree of economic integration. For Romania, it is important to know the degree of fulfillment of the convergence criteria and the impact of the policies which sustain their achievement, because few studies had as object the analysis of the degree of fulfillment in countries like Romania and Bulgaria, which were included in the latest EU extension wave. We use different methods in order to show the cointegration process and the results. The techniques applied to the statistical data regarding the nominal convergence (the consolidated budget deficit as a share of GDP, the share of public debt in GDP, the rate of inflation, the interest rate and the exchange rate have revealed some results which appear in others studies too, namely that Romania integrates in the fixed target Maastricht criteria (the budget deficit as a share of GDP, the share of public debt in GDP and follows a pattern of convergence for the other criteria.

Science and technology convergence: with emphasis for nanotechnology-inspired convergence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bainbridge, William S.; Roco, Mihail C., E-mail: mroco@nsf.gov [National Science Foundation (United States)

2016-07-15

Convergence offers a new universe of discovery, innovation, and application opportunities through specific theories, principles, and methods to be implemented in research, education, production, and other societal activities. Using a holistic approach with shared goals, convergence seeks to transcend existing human limitations to achieve improved conditions for work, learning, aging, physical, and cognitive wellness. This paper outlines ten key theories that offer complementary perspectives on this complex dynamic. Principles and methods are proposed to facilitate and enhance science and technology convergence. Several convergence success stories in the first part of the 21st century—including nanotechnology and other emerging technologies—are discussed in parallel with case studies focused on the future. The formulation of relevant theories, principles, and methods aims at establishing the convergence science.

Science and technology convergence: with emphasis for nanotechnology-inspired convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bainbridge, William S.; Roco, Mihail C.

2016-01-01

Convergence offers a new universe of discovery, innovation, and application opportunities through specific theories, principles, and methods to be implemented in research, education, production, and other societal activities. Using a holistic approach with shared goals, convergence seeks to transcend existing human limitations to achieve improved conditions for work, learning, aging, physical, and cognitive wellness. This paper outlines ten key theories that offer complementary perspectives on this complex dynamic. Principles and methods are proposed to facilitate and enhance science and technology convergence. Several convergence success stories in the first part of the 21st century—including nanotechnology and other emerging technologies—are discussed in parallel with case studies focused on the future. The formulation of relevant theories, principles, and methods aims at establishing the convergence science.

Gain and movement time of convergence-accommodation in preschool children.

Science.gov (United States)

Suryakumar, R; Bobier, W R

2004-11-01

Convergence-accommodation is the synkinetic change in accommodation driven by vergence. A few studies have investigated the static and dynamic properties of this cross-link in adults but little is known about convergence-accommodation in children. The purpose of this study was to develop a technique for measuring convergence-accommodation and to study its dynamics (gain and movement time) in a sample of pre-school children. Convergence-accommodation measures were examined on thiry-seven normal pre-school children (mean age = 4.0 +/- 1.31 yrs). Stimulus CA/C (sCA/C) ratios and movement time measures of convergence-accommodation were assessed using a photorefractor while subjects viewed a DOG target. Repeated measures were obtained on eight normal adults (mean age = 23 +/- 0.2 yrs). The mean sCA/C ratios and movement times were not significantly different between adults and children (0.10 D/Delta [0.61 D/M.A.], 743 +/- 70 ms and 0.11 D/Delta [0.50 D/M.A.], 787 +/- 216 ms). Repeated measures on adults showed a non-significant mean difference of 0.001 D/Delta. The results suggest that the possible differences in crystalline lens (plant) characteristics between children and adults do not appear to influence convergence-accommodation gain or duration.

Adaptive Hands-On Control for Reaching and Targeting Tasks in Surgery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elisa Beretta

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Cooperatively controlled robotic assistants can be used in surgery for the repetitive execution of targeting/reaching tasks, which require smooth motions and accurate placement of a tool inside a working area. A variable damping controller, based on a priori knowledge of the location of the surgical site, is proposed to enhance the physical human-robot interaction experience. The performance of this and of typical constant damping controllers is comparatively assessed using a redundant light-weight robot. Results show that it combines the positive features of both null (acceleration capabilities > 0.8m/s2 and optimal (mean pointing error < 1.5mm constant damping controllers, coupled with smooth and intuitive convergence to the target (direction changes reduced by 30%, which ensures that assisted tool trajectories feel natural to the user. An application scenario is proposed for brain cortex stimulation procedures, where the surgeon's intentions of motion are explicitly defined intra-operatively through an image-guided navigational system.

Cycles of cooperation and defection in imperfect learning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Galla, Tobias

2011-01-01

We investigate a model of learning the iterated prisoner's dilemma game. Players have the choice between three strategies: always defect (ALLD), always cooperate (ALLC) and tit-for-tat (TFT). The only strict Nash equilibrium in this situation is ALLD. When players learn to play this game convergence to the equilibrium is not guaranteed, for example we find cooperative behaviour if players discount observations in the distant past. When agents use small samples of observed moves to estimate their opponent's strategy the learning process is stochastic, and sustained oscillations between cooperation and defection can emerge. These cycles are similar to those found in stochastic evolutionary processes, but the origin of the noise sustaining the oscillations is different and lies in the imperfect sampling of the opponent's strategy. Based on a systematic expansion technique, we are able to predict the properties of these learning cycles, providing an analytical tool with which the outcome of more general stochastic adaptation processes can be characterised

Russia-EU energy efficiency cooperation in the Baltic region: the untapped potential

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Romanova T. A.

2014-03-01

Full Text Available A stereotypical understanding of EU-Russia energy relations is often reduced to trade in oil and natural gas, which downplays the importance of energy efficiency cooperation. Such cooperation is promoted within the Energy Charter and its Treaty, Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, Energy Dialogue, Common Economic Space, Partnership for Modernisation. However, it lacks practical development, which relates to the instability of the legal environment in Russia, insufficient mechanisms of financial support for energy conservation projects and poor political support. Nevertheless, energy efficiency cooperation is capable of changing Russia-EU energy cooperation qualitatively: it offers a cheaper way to meet the needs of the EU, redefines interdependence between the parties, and introduces new elements of equality between them. Energy efficiency cooperation also transforms the patterns of the EU-Russia legal harmonization, creates new conditions for the convergence of regulations and the development of the middle class in Russia. Due to its specific features, cooperation in the Baltic Sea region becomes a locomotive of the Russia-EU energy efficiency cooperation, and, as a result, is capable of changing the quality of relations between the partners.

IT-BT convergence technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2012-12-01

This book explains IT-BT convergence technology as the future technology, which includes a prolog, easy IT-BT convergence technology that has infinite potentials for new value, policy of IT-BT convergence technology showing the potential of smart Korea, IT-BT convergence opening happy future, for the new future of IT powerful nation Korea with IT-BT convergence technology and an epilogue. This book reveals the conception, policy, performance and future of IT-BT convergence technology.

Change in convergence and accommodation after two weeks of eye exercises in typical young adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Horwood, Anna M; Toor, Sonia S; Riddell, Patricia M

2014-04-01

Although eye exercises appear to help heterophoria, convergence insufficiency, and intermittent strabismus, results can be confounded by placebo, practice, and encouragement effects. This study assessed objective changes in vergence and accommodation responses in naive young adults after a 2-week period of eye exercises under controlled conditions to determine the extent to which treatment effects occur over other factors. Asymptomatic young adults were randomly assigned to one of two no-treatment (control) groups or to one of six eye exercise groups: accommodation, vergence, both, convergence in excess of accommodation, accommodation in excess of convergence, and placebo. Subjects were tested and retested under identical conditions, except for the second control group, who were additionally encouraged. Objective accommodation and vergence were assessed to a range of targets moving in depth containing combinations of blur, disparity, and proximity/looming cues. A total of 156 subjects were included. Response gain improved more for less naturalistic targets where more improvement was possible. Convergence exercises improved vergence for near across all targets (P = 0.035). Mean accommodation changed similarly but nonsignificantly. No other treatment group differed significantly from the nonencouraged control group, whereas encouraging effort produced significantly increased vergence (P = 0.004) and accommodation (P = 0.005) gains in the second control group. True treatment effects were small, significantly better only after vergence exercises to a nonaccommodative target, and rarely related to the response they were designed to improve. Exercising accommodation without convergence made no difference to accommodation to cues containing detail. Additional effort improved objective responses the most. Copyright © 2014 American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Convergence in Multispecies Interactions

OpenAIRE

Bittleston, Leonora Sophia; Pierce, Naomi E.; Ellison, Aaron M.; Pringle, Anne

2016-01-01

The concepts of convergent evolution and community convergence highlight how selective pressures can shape unrelated organisms or communities in similar ways. We propose a related concept, convergent interactions, to describe the independent evolution of multispecies interactions with similar physiological or ecological functions. A focus on convergent interactions clarifies how natural selection repeatedly favors particular kinds of associations among species. Characterizing convergent inter...

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the work of recyclable solid waste segregators: convergent-care research.

Science.gov (United States)

Coelho, Alexa Pupiara Flores; Beck, Carmem Lúcia Colomé; Silva, Rosângela Marion da; Prestes, Francine Cassol; Camponogara, Silviamar; Peserico, Anahlú

2017-04-01

describe elements that promote satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the work of recyclable solid waste segregators and conduct a nursing action focused on these elements. qualitative research, convergent-care, conducted with members of the cooperative. Data production occurred during 2015 through participation observation, semi-structured interviews, and a convergence group. Analysis comprised the phases Apprehension, Synthesis, Theorization, and Transference. four categories emerged. They showed satisfaction and dissatisfaction related to identification with tasks and work content, material and personal gains obtained from solid waste segregation, prejudice, lack of appreciation, and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. This last item, due to its importance, received a nursing action. the study contributed to the advancement of knowledge and the association of possibilities between the research performance and nursing care for workers.

On the convergence of finite state mean-field games through Γ-convergence

KAUST Repository

Ferreira, Rita C.; Gomes, Diogo A.

2014-01-01

In this study, we consider the long-term convergence (trend toward an equilibrium) of finite state mean-field games using Γ-convergence. Our techniques are based on the observation that an important class of mean-field games can be viewed as the Euler-Lagrange equation of a suitable functional. Therefore, using a scaling argument, one can convert a long-term convergence problem into a Γ-convergence problem. Our results generalize previous results related to long-term convergence for finite state problems. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.

On the convergence of finite state mean-field games through Γ-convergence

KAUST Repository

Ferreira, Rita C.

2014-10-01

In this study, we consider the long-term convergence (trend toward an equilibrium) of finite state mean-field games using Γ-convergence. Our techniques are based on the observation that an important class of mean-field games can be viewed as the Euler-Lagrange equation of a suitable functional. Therefore, using a scaling argument, one can convert a long-term convergence problem into a Γ-convergence problem. Our results generalize previous results related to long-term convergence for finite state problems. © 2014 Elsevier Inc.

Network Convergence

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

First page Back Continue Last page Overview Graphics. Network Convergence. User is interested in application and content - not technical means of distribution. Boundaries between distribution channels fade out. Network convergence leads to seamless application and content solutions.

A niche marketing guide for lamb cooperatives

OpenAIRE

Kazmierczak, Tamra Kirkpatrick; Bell, James B.

1995-01-01

The two types of niche markets targeted by lamb marketing cooperatives are described in this guide. The first type includes specialty middlemen outlets that cooperatives used to market lamb to specialized niches within the traditional meat marketing system of retail food stores, restaurants, food service outlets, and specialty distributors. The second type includes those outlets that cooperatives used to market lamb directly to the consumer, such as freezer markets, farmers' markets, mobile m...

A Cooperative Framework for Fireworks Algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Shaoqiu; Li, Junzhi; Janecek, Andreas; Tan, Ying

2017-01-01

This paper presents a cooperative framework for fireworks algorithm (CoFFWA). A detailed analysis of existing fireworks algorithm (FWA) and its recently developed variants has revealed that ( i) the current selection strategy has the drawback that the contribution of the firework with the best fitness (denoted as core firework) overwhelms the contributions of all other fireworks (non-core fireworks) in the explosion operator, ( ii) the Gaussian mutation operator is not as effective as it is designed to be. To overcome these limitations, the CoFFWA is proposed, which significantly improves the exploitation capability by using an independent selection method and also increases the exploration capability by incorporating a crowdness-avoiding cooperative strategy among the fireworks. Experimental results on the CEC2013 benchmark functions indicate that CoFFWA outperforms the state-of-the-art FWA variants, artificial bee colony, differential evolution, and the standard particle swarm optimization SPSO2007/SPSO2011 in terms of convergence performance.

Assessment of cooperation mechanism options: Cost-efficient and sustainable deployment of renewable energy sources towards the 20% target by 2020, and beyond. D3.2

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pade Hansen, L.-L.; Klinge Jacobsen, H.; Skovsgaard Nielsen, L.

2012-12-15

The RES Directive 2009/28/EC (European Commission 2009) set legally binding targets for EU Member States on energy consumption from renewable sources - the 2020 RES targets. A part of this can be achieved through the use of cooperation mechanisms: statistical transfer, joint project and joint support schemes. The intention of the cooperation mechanisms is to provide the flexibility needed to achieve Europe's renewable energy targets in a more cost-efficient way. In Task 3 of the RES4Less project we analyse the benefits and challenges of using the two cooperation mechanisms: joint project and joint support schemes. This report is the outcome of the work in Task 3.2 where we analyse how the barriers can be overcome and how different design options can be used under varying conditions and time horizons. Cooperation mechanisms have the potential to reduce the compliance costs of reaching the 2020 RES targets for EU member states. The largest benefits can be achieved under full harmonisation and one joints support scheme. However, the different national objectives along with uneven distribution of benefits and costs make this unrealistic in the near future. Cooperation between pairs or groups of countries with large net benefits that can be relatively easy estimated and shared is attractive and realisable in a shorter time horizon. Joint project cooperation is the most flexible instrument to use as it preserves the national legislation and support schemes (national objectives) and can be easily scaled in size. The drawback is the high transaction costs and some uncertainty regarding which party should carry the project implementation risk and guaranty the support for the projects for the entire lifetime. The joint projects can be realised in a short term horizon and as such pave the way for further cooperation. Large projects has a considerable advantage in the reduced transaction cost relative to project size and governments can be expected to be more willing to

Local Convergence and Radius of Convergence for Modified Newton Method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Măruşter Ştefan

2017-12-01

Full Text Available We investigate the local convergence of modified Newton method, i.e., the classical Newton method in which the derivative is periodically re-evaluated. Based on the convergence properties of Picard iteration for demicontractive mappings, we give an algorithm to estimate the local radius of convergence for considered method. Numerical experiments show that the proposed algorithm gives estimated radii which are very close to or even equal with the best ones.

Convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the EU: Legend or reality?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jobert, Thomas; Karanfil, Fatih; Tykhonenko, Anna

2010-01-01

Designing appropriate environmental and energy policies, in order to meet the Kyoto protocol's carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) reduction targets in the European Union (EU), requires a detailed examination and thorough understanding of CO 2 emission trends across the EU member states. This paper investigates whether CO 2 emissions have converged across 22 European countries over the 1971 to 2006 period. The Bayesian shrinkage estimation method is employed to do this work and the results reveal the following: first, the hypothesis of absolute convergence in per capita CO 2 emissions is supported and a slight upward convergence is observed; second, the fact that countries differ considerably in both their speed of convergence and volatility in emissions makes it possible to identify different groups of countries; third, the results with respect to convergence do not vary much once the share of industry in GDP is accounted for in a conditional convergence analysis. However, a decreasing share of industry in GDP seems to contribute to a decline in per capita emissions. These findings may carry important implications for both national and EU environmental policies.

Satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the work of recyclable solid waste segregators: convergent-care research

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexa Pupiara Flores Coelho

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Objectives: describe elements that promote satisfaction and dissatisfaction in the work of recyclable solid waste segregators and conduct a nursing action focused on these elements. Method: qualitative research, convergent-care, conducted with members of the cooperative. Data production occurred during 2015 through participation observation, semi-structured interviews, and a convergence group. Analysis comprised the phases Apprehension, Synthesis, Theorization, and Transference. Results: four categories emerged. They showed satisfaction and dissatisfaction related to identification with tasks and work content, material and personal gains obtained from solid waste segregation, prejudice, lack of appreciation, and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. This last item, due to its importance, received a nursing action. Conclusion: the study contributed to the advancement of knowledge and the association of possibilities between the research performance and nursing care for workers.

STRATEGIES FOR ACTION AND PUBLIC POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE THIRD DEGREE COOPERATIVES IN ARGENTINA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

María Cristina Acosta

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper researches the impact of the Argentine cooperative entities representing the contemporary public policy. We present a case study of the two largest third-degree cooperatives in the country, discuss the goals and strategies in interactions with State agencies. The results of the actions of actors define goals and strategies that can be convergent and / or divergent. We conclude that the links have been built with the State federations selected characteristics of complementarily and cooperation in general. Also, the power to influence the organizations surveyed in the definition of public policies is not only equity, but mainly the political opportunities and the ability to inter-stakeholder alliances through collective strategies.

Trophic convergence drives morphological convergence in marine tetrapods.

Science.gov (United States)

Kelley, Neil P; Motani, Ryosuke

2015-01-01

Marine tetrapod clades (e.g. seals, whales) independently adapted to marine life through the Mesozoic and Caenozoic, and provide iconic examples of convergent evolution. Apparent morphological convergence is often explained as the result of adaptation to similar ecological niches. However, quantitative tests of this hypothesis are uncommon. We use dietary data to classify the feeding ecology of extant marine tetrapods and identify patterns in skull and tooth morphology that discriminate trophic groups across clades. Mapping these patterns onto phylogeny reveals coordinated evolutionary shifts in diet and morphology in different marine tetrapod lineages. Similarities in morphology between species with similar diets-even across large phylogenetic distances-are consistent with previous hypotheses that shared functional constraints drive convergent evolution in marine tetrapods.

Convergence in Multispecies Interactions.

Science.gov (United States)

Bittleston, Leonora S; Pierce, Naomi E; Ellison, Aaron M; Pringle, Anne

2016-04-01

The concepts of convergent evolution and community convergence highlight how selective pressures can shape unrelated organisms or communities in similar ways. We propose a related concept, convergent interactions, to describe the independent evolution of multispecies interactions with similar physiological or ecological functions. A focus on convergent interactions clarifies how natural selection repeatedly favors particular kinds of associations among species. Characterizing convergent interactions in a comparative context is likely to facilitate prediction of the ecological roles of organisms (including microbes) in multispecies interactions and selective pressures acting in poorly understood or newly discovered multispecies systems. We illustrate the concept of convergent interactions with examples: vertebrates and their gut bacteria; ectomycorrhizae; insect-fungal-bacterial interactions; pitcher-plant food webs; and ants and ant-plants. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

High convergence, indirect drive inertial confinement fusion experiments at Nova

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lerche, R.A.; Cable, M.D.; Hatchett, S.P.; Caird, J.A.; Kilkenny, J.D.; Kornblum, H.N.; Lane, S.M.; Laumann, C.; Murphy, T.J.; Murray, J.; Nelson, M.B.; Phillion, D.W.; Powell, H.; Ress, D.

1996-01-01

High convergence, indirect drive implosion experiments have been done at the Nova Laser Facility. The targets were deuterium and deuterium/tritium filled, glass microballoons driven symmetrically by x rays produced in a surrounding uranium hohlraum. Implosions achieved convergence ratios of 24:1 with fuel densities of 19 g/cm 3 ; this is equivalent to the range required for the hot spot of ignition scale capsules. The implosions used a shaped drive and were well characterized by a variety of laser and target measurements. The primary measurement was the fuel density using the secondary neutron technique (neutrons from the reaction 2 H( 3 H,n) 4 He in initially pure deuterium fuel). Laser measurements include power, energy and pointing. Simultaneous measurement of neutron yield, fusion reaction rate, and x-ray images provide additional information about the implosion process. Computer models are in good agreement with measurement results. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics

Modeling the convergence accommodation of stereo vision for binocular endoscopy.

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Yuanqian; Li, Jinhua; Li, Jianmin; Wang, Shuxin

2018-02-01

The stereo laparoscope is an important tool for achieving depth perception in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery (MIS). A dynamic convergence accommodation algorithm is proposed to improve the viewing experience and achieve accurate depth perception. Based on the principle of the human vision system, a positional kinematic model of the binocular view system is established. The imaging plane pair is rectified to ensure that the two rectified virtual optical axes intersect at the fixation target to provide immersive depth perception. Stereo disparity was simulated with the roll and pitch movements of the binocular system. The chessboard test and the endoscopic peg transfer task were performed, and the results demonstrated the improved disparity distribution and robustness of the proposed convergence accommodation method with respect to the position of the fixation target. This method offers a new solution for effective depth perception with the stereo laparoscopes used in robot-assisted MIS. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

IT Convergence and Security 2012

CERN Document Server

Chung, Kyung-Yong

2013-01-01

The proceedings approaches the subject matter with problems in technical convergence and convergences of security technology. This approach is new because we look at new issues that arise from techniques converging. The general scope of the proceedings content is convergence security and the latest information technology. The intended readership are societies, enterprises, and research institutes, and intended content level is mid- to highly educated personals. The most important features and benefits of the proceedings are the introduction of the most recent information technology and its related ideas, applications and problems related to technology convergence, and its case studies and finally an introduction of converging existing security techniques through convergence security. Overall, through the proceedings, authors will be able to understand the most state of the art information strategies and technologies of convergence security.

Analysis of Trends in Cooperative Network Patterns for KAERI Researchers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chun, Young Choon; Lee, Hyun Soo

2016-01-01

There has been a trend toward faster results of research and accelerating inter-disciplinary convergence, under constraints in available resources. Under such reality, national and international cooperation with inter-sectoral research on science-technology-industry is becoming inevitable as a strategic approach for enhancing competitive edge on global dimension. This study gives an analysis on the cooperative network in nuclear research which bears multi-disciplinary technical feature. The study aims to visualize the cooperative network of KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) researchers, as the hub of the network, including academics and industry, with a view to provide insight on strengthening the cooperative network in nuclear research. This study accounted for the paper entries in SCI(E) in 2013 (538 papers) and 2015 (551 papers) with a view to identify cooperative research activities centered for KAERI. On international cooperation, the analysis showed a trend toward, first of all, diversification of partner countries. There were 118 entries of co-authorship with 22 countries in 2013 (41 with USA, 12 with Japan, 9 with India), which evolved to 121 entries in 2015 (34 for USA, 11 with China, 10 each with Japan and India). Secondly, there was a trend toward more number of countries evenly spread in 2015 compared to 2013, except a few major countries like USA, Japan, and India

Analysis of Trends in Cooperative Network Patterns for KAERI Researchers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chun, Young Choon; Lee, Hyun Soo [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

There has been a trend toward faster results of research and accelerating inter-disciplinary convergence, under constraints in available resources. Under such reality, national and international cooperation with inter-sectoral research on science-technology-industry is becoming inevitable as a strategic approach for enhancing competitive edge on global dimension. This study gives an analysis on the cooperative network in nuclear research which bears multi-disciplinary technical feature. The study aims to visualize the cooperative network of KAERI(Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute) researchers, as the hub of the network, including academics and industry, with a view to provide insight on strengthening the cooperative network in nuclear research. This study accounted for the paper entries in SCI(E) in 2013 (538 papers) and 2015 (551 papers) with a view to identify cooperative research activities centered for KAERI. On international cooperation, the analysis showed a trend toward, first of all, diversification of partner countries. There were 118 entries of co-authorship with 22 countries in 2013 (41 with USA, 12 with Japan, 9 with India), which evolved to 121 entries in 2015 (34 for USA, 11 with China, 10 each with Japan and India). Secondly, there was a trend toward more number of countries evenly spread in 2015 compared to 2013, except a few major countries like USA, Japan, and India.

Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pop, Paul; Scholle, Detlef; Sljivo, Irfan

2017-01-01

This paper presents an overview of the ECSEL project entitled ―Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication‖ (SafeCOP), which runs during the period 2016–2019. SafeCOP targets safety-related Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems (CO-CPS) characterised by use of wireless...... detection of abnormal behaviour, triggering if needed a safe degraded mode. SafeCOP will also develop methods and tools, which will be used to produce safety assurance evidence needed to certify cooperative functions. SafeCOP will extend current wireless technologies to ensure safe and secure cooperation...

Media Convergence: the Culture Dimensions of Thinking%Media Convergence:the Culture Dimensions of Thinking

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Shen Diao; Lan Ju

2017-01-01

In the process of meida Convergence,many researchers paid excessive attention to media technology,industry and management,and ignored the culture dimensions of media convergence.Therefore,to transcend media convergence technology,industrial thinking and more to the particularity attach importance to cultural media,it is a right way to achieve media convergence.But in the context of China's culture,media convergence should value the cultural uniqueness and the imbalance of the realistic problems,to reach innovation and breakthrough.

Almost convergence of triple sequences

OpenAIRE

Ayhan Esi; M.Necdet Catalbas

2013-01-01

In this paper we introduce and study the concepts of almost convergence and almost Cauchy for triple sequences. Weshow that the set of almost convergent triple sequences of 0's and 1's is of the first category and also almost everytriple sequence of 0's and 1's is not almost convergent.Keywords: almost convergence, P-convergent, triple sequence.

The environmental convergence hypothesis: Carbon dioxide emissions according to the source of energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Herrerias, M.J.

2013-01-01

The aim of this paper is to investigate the environmental convergence hypothesis in carbon dioxide emissions for a large group of developed and developing countries from 1980 to 2009. The novel aspect of this work is that we distinguish among carbon dioxide emissions according to the source of energy (coal, natural gas and petroleum) instead of considering the aggregate measure of per capita carbon dioxide emissions, where notable interest is given to the regional dimension due to the application of new club convergence tests. This allows us to determine the convergence behaviour of emissions in a more precise way and to detect it according to the source of energy used, thereby helping to address the environmental targets. More specifically, the convergence hypothesis is examined with a pair-wise test and another one is used to test for the existence of club convergence. Our results from using the pair-wise test indicate that carbon dioxide emissions for each type of energy diverge. However, club convergence is found for a large group of countries, although some still display divergence. These findings point to the need to apply specific environmental policies to each club detected, since specific countries converge to different clubs. - Highlights: • The environmental convergence hypothesis is investigated across countries. • We perform a pair-wise test and a club convergence test. • Results from the first of these two tests suggest that carbon dioxide emissions are diverging. • However, we find that carbon dioxide emissions are converging within groups of countries. • Active environmental policies are required

Emergence of super cooperation of prisoner's dilemma games on scale-free networks.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angsheng Li

Full Text Available Recently, the authors proposed a quantum prisoner's dilemma game based on the spatial game of Nowak and May, and showed that the game can be played classically. By using this idea, we proposed three generalized prisoner's dilemma (GPD, for short games based on the weak Prisoner's dilemma game, the full prisoner's dilemma game and the normalized Prisoner's dilemma game, written by GPDW, GPDF and GPDN respectively. Our games consist of two players, each of which has three strategies: cooperator (C, defector (D and super cooperator (denoted by Q, and have a parameter γ to measure the entangled relationship between the two players. We found that our generalised prisoner's dilemma games have new Nash equilibrium principles, that entanglement is the principle of emergence and convergence (i.e., guaranteed emergence of super cooperation in evolutions of our generalised prisoner's dilemma games on scale-free networks, that entanglement provides a threshold for a phase transition of super cooperation in evolutions of our generalised prisoner's dilemma games on scale-free networks, that the role of heterogeneity of the scale-free networks in cooperations and super cooperations is very limited, and that well-defined structures of scale-free networks allow coexistence of cooperators and super cooperators in the evolutions of the weak version of our generalised prisoner's dilemma games.

Societal response to nanotechnology: converging technologies–converging societal response research?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ronteltap, A.; Fischer, A.R.H.; Tobi, H.

2011-01-01

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology particularly vulnerable to societal unrest, which may hinder its further development. With the increasing convergence of several technological domains in the field of nanotechnology, so too could convergence of social science methods help to anticipate

Summable series and convergence factors

CERN Document Server

Moore, Charles N

1938-01-01

Fairly early in the development of the theory of summability of divergent series, the concept of convergence factors was recognized as of fundamental importance in the subject. One of the pioneers in this field was C. N. Moore, the author of the book under review.... Moore classifies convergence factors into two types. In type I he places the factors which have only the property that they preserve convergence for a convergent series or produce convergence for a summable series. In type II he places the factors which not only maintain or produce convergence but have the additional property that

Who benefits from cooperation? A numerical analysis of redistribution effects resulting from cooperation in European RES-E support

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Unteutsch, Michaela

2014-01-15

This paper numerically analyzes redistribution effects resulting from cooperation among European countries in achieving the 2020 targets for electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES-E). The quanti cation of redistribution effects builds on the theoretical analysis by Unteutsch (2014), who shows that cooperation in RES-E support increases overall welfare but is not beneficial for all groups. In this paper, we use a dynamic investment and dispatch optimization model of the European electricity system to investigate which groups potentially benefit from cooperation and which groups would be worse off compared to a situation in which national RES-E targets are reached solely by domestic RES-E production. In the analysis, cooperation in RES-E support is implemented as a European-wide green certificate trading scheme. Main findings of the analysis include that in the European electricity system, effects of the change in the certificate price in most countries would overcompensate for the effects of the change in the wholesale electricity price. Thus, in most countries with comparatively high (low) generation costs for renewable energies, consumer rents increase (decrease) due to cooperation and producers yield lower (higher) profits. In addition, it is found that the magnitude of redistribution effects between the individual groups is quite large: In some countries, the change in consumer rents or producer profits resulting from cooperation is nearly twice as high as the overall welfare effect of cooperation in the whole European electricity system. Moreover, we find that the sign, but not always the magnitude, of redistribution effects is quite robust to different developments of interconnector extensions, the CO{sub 2} price and RES-E investment costs.

Who benefits from cooperation? A numerical analysis of redistribution effects resulting from cooperation in European RES-E support

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unteutsch, Michaela

2014-01-01

This paper numerically analyzes redistribution effects resulting from cooperation among European countries in achieving the 2020 targets for electricity generation from renewable energy sources (RES-E). The quanti cation of redistribution effects builds on the theoretical analysis by Unteutsch (2014), who shows that cooperation in RES-E support increases overall welfare but is not beneficial for all groups. In this paper, we use a dynamic investment and dispatch optimization model of the European electricity system to investigate which groups potentially benefit from cooperation and which groups would be worse off compared to a situation in which national RES-E targets are reached solely by domestic RES-E production. In the analysis, cooperation in RES-E support is implemented as a European-wide green certificate trading scheme. Main findings of the analysis include that in the European electricity system, effects of the change in the certificate price in most countries would overcompensate for the effects of the change in the wholesale electricity price. Thus, in most countries with comparatively high (low) generation costs for renewable energies, consumer rents increase (decrease) due to cooperation and producers yield lower (higher) profits. In addition, it is found that the magnitude of redistribution effects between the individual groups is quite large: In some countries, the change in consumer rents or producer profits resulting from cooperation is nearly twice as high as the overall welfare effect of cooperation in the whole European electricity system. Moreover, we find that the sign, but not always the magnitude, of redistribution effects is quite robust to different developments of interconnector extensions, the CO 2 price and RES-E investment costs.

Cooperation, competition and the emergence of criticality in communities of adaptive systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hidalgo, Jorge; Muñoz, Miguel A; Grilli, Jacopo; Suweis, Samir; Maritan, Amos

2016-01-01

The hypothesis that living systems can benefit from operating at the vicinity of critical points has gained momentum in recent years. Criticality may confer an optimal balance between too ordered and exceedingly noisy states. Here we present a model, based on information theory and statistical mechanics, illustrating how and why a community of agents aimed at understanding and communicating with each other converges to a globally coherent state in which all individuals are close to an internal critical state, i.e. at the borderline between order and disorder. We study—both analytically and computationally—the circumstances under which criticality is the best possible outcome of the dynamical process, confirming the convergence to critical points under very generic conditions. Finally, we analyze the effect of cooperation (agents trying to enhance not only their fitness, but also that of other individuals) and competition (agents trying to improve their own fitness and to diminish those of competitors) within our setting. The conclusion is that, while competition fosters criticality, cooperation hinders it and can lead to more ordered or more disordered consensual outcomes. (paper: classical statistical mechanics, equilibrium and non-equilibrium)

Cooperativity, Specificity, and Evolutionary Stability of Polycomb Targeting in Drosophila

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernd Schuettengruber

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Summary: Metazoan genomes are partitioned into modular chromosomal domains containing active or repressive chromatin. In flies, Polycomb group (PcG response elements (PREs recruit PHO and other DNA-binding factors and act as nucleation sites for the formation of Polycomb repressive domains. The sequence specificity of PREs is not well understood. Here, we use comparative epigenomics and transgenic assays to show that Drosophila domain organization and PRE specification are evolutionarily conserved despite significant cis-element divergence within Polycomb domains, whereas cis-element evolution is strongly correlated with transcription factor binding divergence outside of Polycomb domains. Cooperative interactions of PcG complexes and their recruiting factor PHO stabilize PHO recruitment to low-specificity sequences. Consistently, PHO recruitment to sites within Polycomb domains is stabilized by PRC1. These data suggest that cooperative rather than hierarchical interactions among low-affinity sequences, DNA-binding factors, and the Polycomb machinery are giving rise to specific and strongly conserved 3D structures in Drosophila. : Schuettengruber et al. present an extensive comparative epigenomics data set, providing new insights into cis-driven versus buffered evolution of Polycomb recruitment and Polycomb domain specificity. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing and transgenic assays, they demonstrate an extremely high conservation of Polycomb repressive domains in five Drosophila species. Using Hi-C and knockout experiments, they challenge the standard hierarchical Polycomb recruitment model and demonstrate that cooperative rather than hierarchical interactions among DNA motifs, transcription factors, and Polycomb group complexes define Polycomb domains.

Convergence analysis of household expenditures using the absolute β-convergence method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anto Domazet

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Background: The paper examines the convergence of household expenditures, in terms of a possible usage of the standardized, rather than consumer-tailored marketing, mainly on a regional level. Objectives: The main goal of this research is to study the existence of consumption expenditure convergence in the EU-27 countries, in the period between 2000 and 2007. Methods/Approach: The analysis used the absolute β-convergence method, in order to investigate the existence of a negative correlation between the growth over time in the overall consumption expenditure in EU member- countries for each individual product and service category and the initial expenditure level. Results: According to the obtained results, in the period between 2000 and 2007, the EU-27 countries reached a high level of consumer expenditure convergence, which provides a basis for developing a regional concept of the standardized international marketing for these countries’ markets. Conclusions: The results provide an empirical contribution to claims on consumer convergence in the countries included into economic integrations. Also, the obtained results can be used to create a basis for defining and applying the regional marketing concept for companies focusing on the EU-27 countries’ market.

A hypothesis of coevolution between cooperation and responses to inequity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah F Brosnan

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Recent evidence demonstrates that humans are not the only species to respond negatively to inequitable outcomes which are to their disadvantage. Several species respond negatively if they subsequently receive a less good reward than a social partner for completing the same task. While these studies suggest that the negative response to inequity is not a uniquely human behavior, they do not provide a functional explanation for the emergence of these responses due to similar characteristics among these species. Emerging data support the hypothesis that an aversion to inequity is a mechanism to promote successful long-term cooperative relationships amongst non-kin. In this paper, I discuss several converging lines of evidence which illustrate the need to further evaluate this relationship. First, cooperation can survive modest inequity; in explicitly cooperative interactions, individuals are willing to continue to cooperate despite inequitable outcomes as long as the partner’s overall behavior is equitable. Second, the context of inequity affects reactions to it in ways which support the idea that joint efforts lead to an expectation of joint payoffs. Finally, comparative studies indicate a link between the degree and extent of cooperation between unrelated individuals in a species and that species’ response to inequitable outcomes. This latter line of evidence indicates that this behavior evolved in conjunction with cooperation and may represent an adaptation to increase the payoffs associated with cooperative interactions. Together these data inform a testable working hypothesis for understanding decision-making in the context of inequity and provide a new, comparative framework for evaluating decision-making behavior.

Monetary Cooperation in East Asia: Major Issues and Future Prospects

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jai-Won Ryou

2004-06-01

Full Text Available The Asian currency crisis in 1997 and the launch of the euro in 1999 made the possibility and desirability of introducing a regional currency union in East Asia a point of debate. At present, the empirical findings and policy implications of previous studies are mixed. We are still in need of theoretical and empirical studies that capture the salient features of East Asia, and give us reliable recommendations for incentive structures, configurations and policy instruments in monetary cooperation in its various stages. This paper aims to review major conceptual and empirical issues relevant to monetary cooperation in East Asia, including proposals for a regional cooperative framework for exchange rate stability or forming a currency union in the region. East Asian countries have no experience with any type of monetary cooperation and all we have are hypothetical predictions. Nevertheless, East Asian countries may be on the brink of an historical evolution to economic and monetary integration, as Europe was half a century ago. The progressive integration of markets in East Asia has conferred a commonality of economic interest upon the countries in the region. As the economic structures of East Asian countries converge with one another through closer ties of trade, investment and finance, the necessity for monetary cooperation will be more likely to emerge in the future. Monetary cooperation in East Asia will be a long process. East Asian countries should make efforts to build collective institutions in the beginning.

[Effects of visual optical stimuli for accommodation-convergence system on asthenopia].

Science.gov (United States)

Iwasaki, Tsuneto; Tawara, Akihiko; Miyake, Nobuyuki

2006-01-01

We investigated the effect on eyestrain of optical stimuli that we designed for accommodation and convergence systems. Eight female students were given optical stimuli for accommodation and convergence systems for 1.5 min immediately after 20 min of a sustained task on a 3-D display. Before and after the trial, their ocular functions were measured and their symptoms were assessed. The optical stimuli were applied by moving targets of scenery images far and near around the far point position of both eyes on a horizonal place, which induced divergence in the direction of the eye position of rest. In a control group, subjects rested with closed eyes for 1.5 min instead of applying the optical stimuli. There were significant changes in the accommodative contraction time (from far to near) and the accommodative relaxation time (from near to far) and the lag of accommodation at near target, from 1.26 s to 1.62 s and from 1.49 s to 1.63 s and from 0.5 D to 0.65 D, respectively, and in the symptoms in the control group after the duration of closed-eye rest. In the stimulus group, however, the changes of those functions were smaller than in the control group. From these results, we suggest that our designed optical stimuli for accommodation and convergence systems are effective on asthenopia following accommodative dysfunction.

Cultura da Convergência

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rogério Christofoletti

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Three ideas would suffice for the reading of “Cultura da Convergência” (Culture of Convergence by Henry Jenkins to be of interest to journalists and researchers in the area: media convergence as a cultural process; the strengthening of an emotional economy which guides consumers of symbolic goods and media creators; the expansion of trans-media narrative forms.

Cultura da Convergência

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rogério Christofoletti

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Three ideas would suffice for the reading of “Cultura da Convergência” (Culture of Convergence by Henry Jenkins to be of interest to journalists and researchers in the area: media convergence as a cultural process; the strengthening of an emotional economy which guides consumers of symbolic goods and media creators; the expansion of trans-media narrative forms.

Cooperative path planning of unmanned aerial vehicles

CERN Document Server

Tsourdos, Antonios; Shanmugavel, Madhavan

2010-01-01

An invaluable addition to the literature on UAV guidance and cooperative control, Cooperative Path Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is a dedicated, practical guide to computational path planning for UAVs. One of the key issues facing future development of UAVs is path planning: it is vital that swarm UAVs/ MAVs can cooperate together in a coordinated manner, obeying a pre-planned course but able to react to their environment by communicating and cooperating. An optimized path is necessary in order to ensure a UAV completes its mission efficiently, safely, and successfully. Focussing on the path planning of multiple UAVs for simultaneous arrival on target, Cooperative Path Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles also offers coverage of path planners that are applicable to land, sea, or space-borne vehicles. Cooperative Path Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is authored by leading researchers from Cranfield University and provides an authoritative resource for researchers, academics and engineers working in...

The registration of non-cooperative moving targets laser point cloud in different view point

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shuai; Sun, Huayan; Guo, Huichao

2018-01-01

Non-cooperative moving target multi-view cloud registration is the key technology of 3D reconstruction of laser threedimension imaging. The main problem is that the density changes greatly and noise exists under different acquisition conditions of point cloud. In this paper, firstly, the feature descriptor is used to find the most similar point cloud, and then based on the registration algorithm of region segmentation, the geometric structure of the point is extracted by the geometric similarity between point and point, The point cloud is divided into regions based on spectral clustering, feature descriptors are created for each region, searching to find the most similar regions in the most similar point of view cloud, and then aligning the pair of point clouds by aligning their minimum bounding boxes. Repeat the above steps again until registration of all point clouds is completed. Experiments show that this method is insensitive to the density of point clouds and performs well on the noise of laser three-dimension imaging.

Convergent close-coupling calculations of low-energy positron-atomic-hydrogen scattering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bray, I.; Stelbovics, A.T.

1993-07-01

The convergent close coupling approach developed by the authors is applied to positron scattering from atomic hydrogen below the first excitation threshold. In this approach the multi-channel expansion one-electron states are obtained by diagonalizing the target Hamiltonian in a large Laguerre basis. It is demonstrated that this expansion of the scattering wave function is sufficient to reproduce the very accurate low-energy variational results, provided target states with l≤ 15 are included in the expansions. 10 refs., 1 tab

The long road to convergence and back. Convergence and crossmedia journalism at Dutch Newsmedia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tameling, Klaske; Broersma, Marcel

2012-01-01

KLASKE TAMELING & MARCEL BROERSMA The long road to convergence and back. Convergence and crossmedia journalism at Dutch Newsmedia Since the end of the twentieth century, convergence and cross-media journalism are concepts that are widely used to guide the future of journalism world wide. This study

Impact of MicroRNA Levels, Target-Site Complementarity, and Cooperativity on Competing Endogenous RNA-Regulated Gene Expression.

Science.gov (United States)

Denzler, Rémy; McGeary, Sean E; Title, Alexandra C; Agarwal, Vikram; Bartel, David P; Stoffel, Markus

2016-11-03

Expression changes of competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) have been proposed to influence microRNA (miRNA) activity and thereby regulate other transcripts containing miRNA-binding sites. Here, we find that although miRNA levels define the extent of repression, they have little effect on the magnitude of the ceRNA expression change required to observe derepression. Canonical 6-nt sites, which typically mediate modest repression, can nonetheless compete for miRNA binding, with potency ∼20% of that observed for canonical 8-nt sites. In aggregate, low-affinity/background sites also contribute to competition. Sites with extensive additional complementarity can appear as more potent, but only because they induce miRNA degradation. Cooperative binding of proximal sites for the same or different miRNAs does increase potency. These results provide quantitative insights into the stoichiometric relationship between miRNAs and target abundance, target-site spacing, and affinity requirements for ceRNA-mediated gene regulation, and the unusual circumstances in which ceRNA-mediated gene regulation might be observed. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Nuclear cooperation targets global challenges. States back main pillars of the IAEA's work to strengthen nuclear safety, verification and technology transfer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2000-01-01

States meeting at the 44th IAEA General Conference in Vienna have set a challenging agenda for international nuclear cooperation into the 21st century that targets issues of global safety, security, and sustainable development. They adopted resolutions endorsing the Agency's programmes for strengthening activities under its three main pillars of work - nuclear verification, safety, and technology - that are closely linked to major challenges before the world. The document presents the main actions taken during the conference

Societal response to nanotechnology: converging technologies–converging societal response research?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ronteltap, Amber; Fischer, Arnout R. H.; Tobi, Hilde

2011-01-01

Nanotechnology is an emerging technology particularly vulnerable to societal unrest, which may hinder its further development. With the increasing convergence of several technological domains in the field of nanotechnology, so too could convergence of social science methods help to anticipate societal response. This paper systematically reviews the current state of convergence in societal response research by first sketching the predominant approaches to previous new technologies, followed by an analysis of current research into societal response to nanotechnology. A set of 107 papers on previous new technologies shows that rational actor models have played an important role in the study of societal response to technology, in particular in the field of information technology and the geographic region of Asia. Biotechnology and nuclear power have, in contrast, more often been investigated through risk perception and other affective determinants, particularly in Europe and the USA. A set of 42 papers on societal response to nanotechnology shows similarities to research in biotechnology, as it also builds on affective variables such as risk perception. Although there is a tendency to extend the rational models with affective variables, convergence in social science approaches to response to new technologies still has a long way to go. The challenge for researchers of societal response to technologies is to converge to some shared principles by taking up the best parts from the rational actor models dominant in information technology, whilst integrating non-rational constructs from biotechnology research. The introduction of nanotechnology gives a unique opportunity to do so.

Cooperative Path-Planning for Multi-Vehicle Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qichen Wang

2014-11-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we propose a collision avoidance algorithm for multi-vehicle systems, which is a common problem in many areas, including navigation and robotics. In dynamic environments, vehicles may become involved in potential collisions with each other, particularly when the vehicle density is high and the direction of travel is unrestricted. Cooperatively planning vehicle movement can effectively reduce and fairly distribute the detour inconvenience before subsequently returning vehicles to their intended paths. We present a novel method of cooperative path planning for multi-vehicle systems based on reinforcement learning to address this problem as a decision process. A dynamic system is described as a multi-dimensional space formed by vectors as states to represent all participating vehicles’ position and orientation, whilst considering the kinematic constraints of the vehicles. Actions are defined for the system to transit from one state to another. In order to select appropriate actions whilst satisfying the constraints of path smoothness, constant speed and complying with a minimum distance between vehicles, an approximate value function is iteratively developed to indicate the desirability of every state-action pair from the continuous state space and action space. The proposed scheme comprises two phases. The convergence of the value function takes place in the former learning phase, and it is then used as a path planning guideline in the subsequent action phase. This paper summarizes the concept and methodologies used to implement this online cooperative collision avoidance algorithm and presents results and analysis regarding how this cooperative scheme improves upon two baseline schemes where vehicles make movement decisions independently.

Convergent validity of actigraphy with polysomnography and parent reports when measuring sleep in children with Down syndrome.

Science.gov (United States)

Esbensen, A J; Hoffman, E K; Stansberry, E; Shaffer, R

2018-04-01

There is a need for rigorous measures of sleep in children with Down syndrome as sleep is a substantial problem in this population and there are barriers to obtaining the gold standard polysomnography (PSG). PSG is cost-prohibitive when measuring treatment effects in some clinical trials, and children with Down syndrome may not cooperate with undergoing a PSG. Minimal information is available on the validity of alternative methods of assessing sleep in children with Down syndrome, such as actigraphy and parent ratings. Our study examined the concurrent and convergent validity of different measures of sleep, including PSG, actigraphy and parent reports of sleep among children with Down syndrome. A clinic (n = 27) and a community (n = 47) sample of children with Down syndrome were examined. In clinic, children with Down syndrome wore an actigraph watch during a routine PSG. In the community, children with Down syndrome wore an actigraph watch for a week at home at night as part of a larger study on sleep and behaviour. Their parent completed ratings of the child's sleep during that same week. Actigraph watches demonstrated convergent validity with PSG when measuring a child with Down syndrome's total amount of sleep time, total wake time after sleep onset and sleep period efficiency. In contrast, actigraph watches demonstrated poor correlations with parent reports of sleep, and with PSG when measuring the total time in bed and total wake episodes. Actigraphy, PSG and parent ratings of sleep demonstrated poor concurrent validity with clinical diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnoea. Our current data suggest that actigraph watches demonstrate convergent validity and are sensitive to measuring certain sleep constructs (duration, efficiency) in children with Down syndrome. However, parent reports, such as the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire, may be measuring other sleep constructs. These findings highlight the importance of selecting measures of sleep related to

Convergence of Nelson diffusions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dell'Antonio, G.; Posilicano, A.

1991-01-01

Let ψ t , ψ t n , n≥1, be solutions of Schroedinger equations with potentials form-bounded by -1/2 Δ and initial data in H 1 (R d ). Let P, P n , n≥1, be the probability measures on the path space Ω=C(R + , R d ) given by the corresponding Nelson diffusions. We show that if {ψ t n } n≥1 converges to ψ t in H 2 (R d ), uniformly in t over compact intervals, then {P n } n≥1 converges to P in total variation. Moreover, if the potentials are in the Kato class K d , we show that the above result follows from H 1 -convergence of initial data, and K d -convergence of potentials. (orig.)

CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE IN EUROPEAN UNION: EVIDENCE FOR BETA CONVERGENCE AMONG NEW EU MEMBER STATES

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ioana Sorina Mihuț

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Abstract: Convergence may be considered a central issue of the current economic literature, and not only, concentrating upon income distribution within different economies, but also focusing on different aspects of polarity and inequality that characterize especially the emerging economies. Testing convergence within economies may serve as a useful instrument for the validation of the economic growth models. While convergence was considered a defining element of the neoclassical growth models, the majority of the new endogenous growth models argue in favour of divergence across different economies. Testing convergence among European Union is even more challenging due to the high degree of heterogeneity that characterizes these economies. The recent accessions with ten new countries in 2004 and with another two in 2007 were considered only the first step towards assuring a sustainable convergence and finally adopting a common currency-the euro. A series of empirical studies concentrated upon testing convergence among EU, using as benchmark the real convergence quantified by the level of GDP/capita as an indicator for the living standards of every economy. The most popular approach rely on Beta and Sigma convergence, the first one being and indicator of the GDP/capita dispersion between different economies, and the later one being an estimator of the reverse relationship between GDP/capita and its initial level. The main purpose of this paper is to test Beta converge among the new EU member states, in order to obtained more information about the fact whether the poor countries are trying to catch-up with the more developed one. Also Beta convergence indicator embodies useful information about conditional and un-conditional convergence, two leading hypothesis within the neoclassical and endogenous growth models. For Beta convergence hypothesis to be valid it should be taken into consideration a ”catch-up” mechanism over a longer period of time

Technology assessment using NBIC convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vaseashta, Ashok

2009-01-01

Full text: Notwithstanding progress in the areas of nanotechnology/nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences (NBIC), the synergy arising from convergence of these disciplines offers great potential for transformational, revolutionary, and embryonic opportunities with many technological applications. In addition, advances in synthesis and characterization methods have provided the means to study, understand, control, or even manipulate the transitional characteristics between isolated atoms and bulk material. In recent years, newly developed architectures in nanostructures and nanosystems with improved functionality, and ensuing unique characteristics have been developed with applications in chemical and biological sensors, nanobiotechnology, nanophotonics, and analysis of cellular processes. Novel convergence methodologies will integrate and advance next generation solutions to current and future technical challenges. Convergence in research methodologies transform the way research is conducted by overcoming specific barriers or filling existing knowledge gaps. NBIC Convergence and associated research methodologies has exceptionally high potential for transforming the manner in which state-of-the-art information is gathered, analyzed, and leveraged to enable future advances and applications. Examples of synergy of these disciplines include: label free, highly multiplexed over broad dynamic range, and decentralized nanotechnology based sensor platform for detection of biological and chemical agents; nucleic acid layers in conjunction with nanomaterials-based electrochemical or optical transducers as DNA Biosensor; potential targets for the next generation of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to enhance human performance; basis for 'Gene Ontology' to provides an important link between gene function and systems biology to understand a global picture of host-microbe interactions - to name a few. Since the idea of 'Converging

The convergent close-coupling method for a Coulomb three-body problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bray, I.; Stelbovics, A.T.

1994-09-01

The close-coupling method relies on the reformulation of the Schroedinger equation into an infinite set of coupled-channel equations by expanding over the complete set of target states. The difficulty in applying this approach is that the continuum channels are known to be very important in the intermediate-energy region and coupling to them must be included with little approximation. The application of the Convergent Close-Coupling (CCC) method is discussed which allows the continuum to be treated in a systematic manner via the use of square-integrable states. The CCC method utilizes an expansion of the target in a complete set of orthogonal L 2 functions which form a basis for the underlying Hilbert space. The utility of the method relies on being able to demonstrate convergence in the scattering amplitudes of interest as the basis size is increased. Numerical examples for the well known Temkin-Poet problem are used to illustrate the method. It is estimated the methods may be readily applied to full electron-atom scattering problem. 17 refs., 4 figs

Stable convergence and stable limit theorems

CERN Document Server

Häusler, Erich

2015-01-01

The authors present a concise but complete exposition of the mathematical theory of stable convergence and give various applications in different areas of probability theory and mathematical statistics to illustrate the usefulness of this concept. Stable convergence holds in many limit theorems of probability theory and statistics – such as the classical central limit theorem – which are usually formulated in terms of convergence in distribution. Originated by Alfred Rényi, the notion of stable convergence is stronger than the classical weak convergence of probability measures. A variety of methods is described which can be used to establish this stronger stable convergence in many limit theorems which were originally formulated only in terms of weak convergence. Naturally, these stronger limit theorems have new and stronger consequences which should not be missed by neglecting the notion of stable convergence. The presentation will be accessible to researchers and advanced students at the master's level...

Giant lobelias exemplify convergent evolution

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Givnish Thomas J

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract Giant lobeliads on tropical mountains in East Africa and Hawaii have highly unusual, giant-rosette growth forms that appear to be convergent on each other and on those of several independently evolved groups of Asteraceae and other families. A recent phylogenetic analysis by Antonelli, based on sequencing the widest selection of lobeliads to date, raises doubts about this paradigmatic example of convergent evolution. Here I address the kinds of evidence needed to test for convergent evolution and argue that the analysis by Antonelli fails on four points. Antonelli's analysis makes several important contributions to our understanding of lobeliad evolution and geographic spread, but his claim regarding convergence appears to be invalid. Giant lobeliads in Hawaii and Africa represent paradigmatic examples of convergent evolution.

Emergence of dynamic cooperativity in the stochastic kinetics of fluctuating enzymes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kumar, Ashutosh; Chatterjee, Sambarta; Nandi, Mintu; Dua, Arti

2016-01-01

Dynamic co-operativity in monomeric enzymes is characterized in terms of a non-Michaelis-Menten kinetic behaviour. The latter is believed to be associated with mechanisms that include multiple reaction pathways due to enzymatic conformational fluctuations. Recent advances in single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy have provided new fundamental insights on the possible mechanisms underlying reactions catalyzed by fluctuating enzymes. Here, we present a bottom-up approach to understand enzyme turnover kinetics at physiologically relevant mesoscopic concentrations informed by mechanisms extracted from single-molecule stochastic trajectories. The stochastic approach, presented here, shows the emergence of dynamic co-operativity in terms of a slowing down of the Michaelis-Menten (MM) kinetics resulting in negative co-operativity. For fewer enzymes, dynamic co-operativity emerges due to the combined effects of enzymatic conformational fluctuations and molecular discreteness. The increase in the number of enzymes, however, suppresses the effect of enzymatic conformational fluctuations such that dynamic co-operativity emerges solely due to the discrete changes in the number of reacting species. These results confirm that the turnover kinetics of fluctuating enzyme based on the parallel-pathway MM mechanism switches over to the single-pathway MM mechanism with the increase in the number of enzymes. For large enzyme numbers, convergence to the exact MM equation occurs in the limit of very high substrate concentration as the stochastic kinetics approaches the deterministic behaviour.

Emergence of dynamic cooperativity in the stochastic kinetics of fluctuating enzymes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kumar, Ashutosh; Chatterjee, Sambarta; Nandi, Mintu; Dua, Arti, E-mail: arti@iitm.ac.in [Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai 600036 (India)

2016-08-28

Dynamic co-operativity in monomeric enzymes is characterized in terms of a non-Michaelis-Menten kinetic behaviour. The latter is believed to be associated with mechanisms that include multiple reaction pathways due to enzymatic conformational fluctuations. Recent advances in single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy have provided new fundamental insights on the possible mechanisms underlying reactions catalyzed by fluctuating enzymes. Here, we present a bottom-up approach to understand enzyme turnover kinetics at physiologically relevant mesoscopic concentrations informed by mechanisms extracted from single-molecule stochastic trajectories. The stochastic approach, presented here, shows the emergence of dynamic co-operativity in terms of a slowing down of the Michaelis-Menten (MM) kinetics resulting in negative co-operativity. For fewer enzymes, dynamic co-operativity emerges due to the combined effects of enzymatic conformational fluctuations and molecular discreteness. The increase in the number of enzymes, however, suppresses the effect of enzymatic conformational fluctuations such that dynamic co-operativity emerges solely due to the discrete changes in the number of reacting species. These results confirm that the turnover kinetics of fluctuating enzyme based on the parallel-pathway MM mechanism switches over to the single-pathway MM mechanism with the increase in the number of enzymes. For large enzyme numbers, convergence to the exact MM equation occurs in the limit of very high substrate concentration as the stochastic kinetics approaches the deterministic behaviour.

Emergence of dynamic cooperativity in the stochastic kinetics of fluctuating enzymes

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Ashutosh; Chatterjee, Sambarta; Nandi, Mintu; Dua, Arti

2016-08-01

Dynamic co-operativity in monomeric enzymes is characterized in terms of a non-Michaelis-Menten kinetic behaviour. The latter is believed to be associated with mechanisms that include multiple reaction pathways due to enzymatic conformational fluctuations. Recent advances in single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy have provided new fundamental insights on the possible mechanisms underlying reactions catalyzed by fluctuating enzymes. Here, we present a bottom-up approach to understand enzyme turnover kinetics at physiologically relevant mesoscopic concentrations informed by mechanisms extracted from single-molecule stochastic trajectories. The stochastic approach, presented here, shows the emergence of dynamic co-operativity in terms of a slowing down of the Michaelis-Menten (MM) kinetics resulting in negative co-operativity. For fewer enzymes, dynamic co-operativity emerges due to the combined effects of enzymatic conformational fluctuations and molecular discreteness. The increase in the number of enzymes, however, suppresses the effect of enzymatic conformational fluctuations such that dynamic co-operativity emerges solely due to the discrete changes in the number of reacting species. These results confirm that the turnover kinetics of fluctuating enzyme based on the parallel-pathway MM mechanism switches over to the single-pathway MM mechanism with the increase in the number of enzymes. For large enzyme numbers, convergence to the exact MM equation occurs in the limit of very high substrate concentration as the stochastic kinetics approaches the deterministic behaviour.

The Higher Essence of Economic Convergence Regarding Monetary Impacts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hudec Martin

2017-06-01

Full Text Available The increasing pace of achieving socio-economic growth and convergence into developed structures represents the main desire of most countries. Moreover, membership in monetary unions has quite a significant impact on the economies of participating countries, since integration processes have become undoubtedly the undisputed accelerator of convergence and integration catalyst, reflecting on the development of the world economy. The growing intensity of world trade, the ever-deepening division of labor and specialization, international movement of capital and labor mobility as wells as investments into education, research and development, innovations are among the factors that lead to the creation of increasingly closer ties between economies, deepening their mutual dependence, further reflected in knowledge-based societies. Thus, the close ties between national economies themselves represent a further incentive for more intensive cooperation through the different stages of economic integration. International economic integration is an objective to promote a gradual process of linking and connecting existing economic units, i.e. national economies to the greater interconnected units in the global economy. The aim of our research paper, by using the methods of analysis and comparison, is to closely present the issue of monetary integration, focusing on the impact of monetary integration on countries’ economy, resulting in the issue of benefits and costs of the countries’ entry into the monetary union, associated with initial economic shocks.

Benchmarking of Governmental Support Measures for University-Industry Cooperation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kärt Rõigas

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to benchmark Estonian governmental support measures targeted toward enhancing university-industry collaboration to European best practice and make suggestions for the development of these measures. The intensity and scope of university-industry cooperation support measures varies heavily in Europe. The survey of European University-Business Cooperation, Pro Inno Europe and Erawatch database of policy measures, and Community Innovation Survey reveal that Finnish, German and Austrian support systems are best balanced and provide good university-industry cooperation intensity. The cooperation measures in Estonia are weak and improvement should be made by increasing the Estonian governmental funding, mandatory cooperation in support measures, networking and applied research in universities, on-going application possibilities, reducing the bureaucracy, and improving the timing of measures.

Application priority framework for fixed mobile converged communication networks

OpenAIRE

Chaudhry, Saqib Rasool

2011-01-01

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University. The current prospects in wired and wireless access networks, it is becoming increasingly important to address potential convergence in order to offer integrated broadband services. These systems will need to offer higher data transmission capacities and long battery life, which is the catalyst for an everincreasing variety of air interface technologies targeting local area to wide area connec...

Convergence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Ole Brun; Nielsen, Jens Frederik Dalsgaard; Schiøler, Henrik

2002-01-01

Convergence trends between the WAN Internet area, characterized by best effort service provision, and the real time LAN domain, with requirements for guaranteed services, are identified and discussed. A bilateral evolution is identified, where typical bulk service applications from WAN, such as m......Convergence trends between the WAN Internet area, characterized by best effort service provision, and the real time LAN domain, with requirements for guaranteed services, are identified and discussed. A bilateral evolution is identified, where typical bulk service applications from WAN...... with the emergence of remote service provision, such as supervision and control of decentralized heating facilities and wind based electrical power production. The reliability issue is addressed from a structural viewpoint, where the concept of Structural QoS (SQoS) is defined to support reliability modelling...

Distributed and Cooperative Link Scheduling for Large-Scale Multihop Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Swami Ananthram

2007-01-01

Full Text Available A distributed and cooperative link-scheduling (DCLS algorithm is introduced for large-scale multihop wireless networks. With this algorithm, each and every active link in the network cooperatively calibrates its environment and converges to a desired link schedule for data transmissions within a time frame of multiple slots. This schedule is such that the entire network is partitioned into a set of interleaved subnetworks, where each subnetwork consists of concurrent cochannel links that are properly separated from each other. The desired spacing in each subnetwork can be controlled by a tuning parameter and the number of time slots specified for each frame. Following the DCLS algorithm, a distributed and cooperative power control (DCPC algorithm can be applied to each subnetwork to ensure a desired data rate for each link with minimum network transmission power. As shown consistently by simulations, the DCLS algorithm along with a DCPC algorithm yields significant power savings. The power savings also imply an increased feasible region of averaged link data rates for the entire network.

Distributed and Cooperative Link Scheduling for Large-Scale Multihop Wireless Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ananthram Swami

2007-12-01

Full Text Available A distributed and cooperative link-scheduling (DCLS algorithm is introduced for large-scale multihop wireless networks. With this algorithm, each and every active link in the network cooperatively calibrates its environment and converges to a desired link schedule for data transmissions within a time frame of multiple slots. This schedule is such that the entire network is partitioned into a set of interleaved subnetworks, where each subnetwork consists of concurrent cochannel links that are properly separated from each other. The desired spacing in each subnetwork can be controlled by a tuning parameter and the number of time slots specified for each frame. Following the DCLS algorithm, a distributed and cooperative power control (DCPC algorithm can be applied to each subnetwork to ensure a desired data rate for each link with minimum network transmission power. As shown consistently by simulations, the DCLS algorithm along with a DCPC algorithm yields significant power savings. The power savings also imply an increased feasible region of averaged link data rates for the entire network.

A Clustering Approach Using Cooperative Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenping Zou

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Artificial Bee Colony (ABC is one of the most recently introduced algorithms based on the intelligent foraging behavior of a honey bee swarm. This paper presents an extended ABC algorithm, namely, the Cooperative Article Bee Colony (CABC, which significantly improves the original ABC in solving complex optimization problems. Clustering is a popular data analysis and data mining technique; therefore, the CABC could be used for solving clustering problems. In this work, first the CABC algorithm is used for optimizing six widely used benchmark functions and the comparative results produced by ABC, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO, and its cooperative version (CPSO are studied. Second, the CABC algorithm is used for data clustering on several benchmark data sets. The performance of CABC algorithm is compared with PSO, CPSO, and ABC algorithms on clustering problems. The simulation results show that the proposed CABC outperforms the other three algorithms in terms of accuracy, robustness, and convergence speed.

Convergence from divergence

Science.gov (United States)

Costin, Ovidiu; Dunne, Gerald V.

2018-01-01

We show how to convert divergent series, which typically occur in many applications in physics, into rapidly convergent inverse factorial series. This can be interpreted physically as a novel resummation of perturbative series. Being convergent, these new series allow rigorous extrapolation from an asymptotic region with a large parameter, to the opposite region where the parameter is small. We illustrate the method with various physical examples, and discuss how these convergent series relate to standard methods such as Borel summation, and also how they incorporate the physical Stokes phenomenon. We comment on the relation of these results to Dyson’s physical argument for the divergence of perturbation theory. This approach also leads naturally to a wide class of relations between bosonic and fermionic partition functions, and Klein-Gordon and Dirac determinants.

Adaptive evolution of cooperation through Darwinian dynamics in Public Goods games.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Kuiying; Chu, Tianguang

2011-01-01

The linear or threshold Public Goods game (PGG) is extensively accepted as a paradigmatic model to approach the evolution of cooperation in social dilemmas. Here we explore the significant effect of nonlinearity of the structures of public goods on the evolution of cooperation within the well-mixed population by adopting Darwinian dynamics, which simultaneously consider the evolution of populations and strategies on a continuous adaptive landscape, and extend the concept of evolutionarily stable strategy (ESS) as a coalition of strategies that is both convergent-stable and resistant to invasion. Results show (i) that in the linear PGG contributing nothing is an ESS, which contradicts experimental data, (ii) that in the threshold PGG contributing the threshold value is a fragile ESS, which cannot resist the invasion of contributing nothing, and (iii) that there exists a robust ESS of contributing more than half in the sigmoid PGG if the return rate is relatively high. This work reveals the significant effect of the nonlinearity of the structures of public goods on the evolution of cooperation, and suggests that, compared with the linear or threshold PGG, the sigmoid PGG might be a more proper model for the evolution of cooperation within the well-mixed population.

Investigation of Surface Phenomena in Shocked Tin in Converging Geometry

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rousculp, Christopher L. [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Oro, David Michael [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Griego, Jeffrey Randall [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Turchi, Peter John [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Reinovsky, Robert Emil [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Bradley, Joseph Thomas [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Cheng, Baolian [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Freeman, Matthew Stouten [Los Alamos National Laboratory; Patten, Austin Randall [Los Alamos National Laboratory

2016-03-21

There is great interest in the behavior of the free surface of tin under shock loading. While it is known that meso-scale surface imperfections can seed the Richtmyer- Meshkov Instability (RMI) for a surface that is melted on release, much less is known about a tin surface that is solid, but plastically deforming. Here material properties such as shear and yield strength come into play especially in converging geometry. Previous experiments have been driven by direct contact HE. Usually a thin, flat target coupon is fielded with various single-mode, sinusoidal, machined, profiles on the free surface. The free surface is adjacent to either vacuum or an inert receiver gas. Most of these previous driver/target configurations have been nominal planer geometry. With modern HE it has been straightforward to shock tin into melt on release. However it has been challenging to achieve a low enough pressure for solid state on release. Here we propose to extend the existing base of knowledge to include the behavior of the free surface of tin in cylindrical converging geometry. By shock loading a cylindrical tin shell with a magnetically driven cylindrical liner impactor, the free surface evolution can be diagnosed with proton radiography. With the PHELIX capacitor bank, the drive can easily be varied to span the pressure range to achieve solid, mixed, and liquid states on release. A conceptual cylindrical liner and target is shown in Figure 1.

Collaborative action research: implementation of cooperative learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith-Stoner, Marilyn; Molle, Mary E

2010-06-01

Nurse educators must continually improve their teaching skills through innovation. However, research about the process used by faculty members to transform their teaching methods is limited. This collaborative study uses classroom action research to describe, analyze, and address problems encountered in implementing cooperative learning in two undergraduate nursing courses. After four rounds of action and reflection, the following themes emerged: students did not understand the need for structured cooperative learning; classroom structure and seating arrangement influenced the effectiveness of activities; highly structured activities engaged the students; and short, targeted activities that involved novel content were most effective. These findings indicate that designing specific activities to prepare students for class is critical to cooperative learning. Copyright 2010, SLACK Incorporated.

Density by Moduli and Lacunary Statistical Convergence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vinod K. Bhardwaj

2016-01-01

Full Text Available We have introduced and studied a new concept of f-lacunary statistical convergence, where f is an unbounded modulus. It is shown that, under certain conditions on a modulus f, the concepts of lacunary strong convergence with respect to a modulus f and f-lacunary statistical convergence are equivalent on bounded sequences. We further characterize those θ for which Sθf=Sf, where Sθf and Sf denote the sets of all f-lacunary statistically convergent sequences and f-statistically convergent sequences, respectively. A general description of inclusion between two arbitrary lacunary methods of f-statistical convergence is given. Finally, we give an Sθf-analog of the Cauchy criterion for convergence and a Tauberian theorem for Sθf-convergence is also proved.

Cooperated Bayesian algorithm for distributed scheduling problem

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

QIANG Lei; XIAO Tian-yuan

2006-01-01

This paper presents a new distributed Bayesian optimization algorithm (BOA) to overcome the efficiency problem when solving NP scheduling problems.The proposed approach integrates BOA into the co-evolutionary schema,which builds up a concurrent computing environment.A new search strategy is also introduced for local optimization process.It integrates the reinforcement learning(RL) mechanism into the BOA search processes,and then uses the mixed probability information from BOA (post-probability) and RL (pre-probability) to enhance the cooperation between different local controllers,which improves the optimization ability of the algorithm.The experiment shows that the new algorithm does better in both optimization (2.2%) and convergence (11.7%),compared with classic BOA.

A sub-target approach to the kinodynamic motion control of a wheeled mobile robot

Science.gov (United States)

Motonaka, Kimiko; Watanabe, Keigo; Maeyama, Shoichi

2018-02-01

A mobile robot with two independently driven wheels is popular, but it is difficult to stabilize it by a continuous controller with a constant gain, due to its nonholonomic property. It is guaranteed that a nonholonomic controlled object can always be converged to an arbitrary point using a switching control method or a quasi-continuous control method based on an invariant manifold in a chained form. From this, the authors already proposed a kinodynamic controller to converge the states of such a two-wheeled mobile robot to the arbitrary target position while avoiding obstacles, by combining the control based on the invariant manifold and the harmonic potential field (HPF). On the other hand, it was confirmed in the previous research that there is a case that the robot cannot avoid the obstacle because there is no enough space to converge the current state to the target state. In this paper, we propose a method that divides the final target position into some sub-target positions and moves the robot step by step, and it is confirmed by the simulation that the robot can converge to the target position while avoiding obstacles using the proposed method.

Vadose zone flow convergence test suite

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Butcher, B. T. [Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)

2017-06-05

Performance Assessment (PA) simulations for engineered disposal systems at the Savannah River Site involve highly contrasting materials and moisture conditions at and near saturation. These conditions cause severe convergence difficulties that typically result in unacceptable convergence or long simulation times or excessive analyst effort. Adequate convergence is usually achieved in a trial-anderror manner by applying under-relaxation to the Saturation or Pressure variable, in a series of everdecreasing RELAxation values. SRNL would like a more efficient scheme implemented inside PORFLOW to achieve flow convergence in a more reliable and efficient manner. To this end, a suite of test problems that illustrate these convergence problems is provided to facilitate diagnosis and development of an improved convergence strategy. The attached files are being transmitted to you describing the test problem and proposed resolution.

Synaptic convergence regulates synchronization-dependent spike transfer in feedforward neural networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Sailamul, Pachaya; Jang, Jaeson; Paik, Se-Bum

2017-12-01

Correlated neural activities such as synchronizations can significantly alter the characteristics of spike transfer between neural layers. However, it is not clear how this synchronization-dependent spike transfer can be affected by the structure of convergent feedforward wiring. To address this question, we implemented computer simulations of model neural networks: a source and a target layer connected with different types of convergent wiring rules. In the Gaussian-Gaussian (GG) model, both the connection probability and the strength are given as Gaussian distribution as a function of spatial distance. In the Uniform-Constant (UC) and Uniform-Exponential (UE) models, the connection probability density is a uniform constant within a certain range, but the connection strength is set as a constant value or an exponentially decaying function, respectively. Then we examined how the spike transfer function is modulated under these conditions, while static or synchronized input patterns were introduced to simulate different levels of feedforward spike synchronization. We observed that the synchronization-dependent modulation of the transfer function appeared noticeably different for each convergence condition. The modulation of the spike transfer function was largest in the UC model, and smallest in the UE model. Our analysis showed that this difference was induced by the different spike weight distributions that was generated from convergent synapses in each model. Our results suggest that, the structure of the feedforward convergence is a crucial factor for correlation-dependent spike control, thus must be considered important to understand the mechanism of information transfer in the brain.

Morphological convergence in ‘river dolphin’ skulls

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Charlotte E. Page

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Convergent evolution can provide insights into the predictability of, and constraints on, the evolution of biodiversity. One striking example of convergence is seen in the ‘river dolphins’. The four dolphin genera that make up the ‘river dolphins’ (Inia geoffrensis, Pontoporia blainvillei, Platanista gangetica and Lipotes vexillifer do not represent a single monophyletic group, despite being very similar in morphology. This has led many to using the ‘river dolphins’ as an example of convergent evolution. We investigate whether the skulls of the four ‘river dolphin’ genera are convergent when compared to other toothed dolphin taxa in addition to identifying convergent cranial and mandibular features. We use geometric morphometrics to uncover shape variation in the skulls of the ‘river dolphins’ and then apply a number of phylogenetic techniques to test for convergence. We find significant convergence in the skull morphology of the ‘river dolphins’. The four genera seem to have evolved similar skull shapes, leading to a convergent morphotype characterised by elongation of skull features. The cause of this morphological convergence remains unclear. However, the features we uncover as convergent, in particular elongation of the rostrum, support hypotheses of shared feeding mode or diet and thus provide the foundation for future work into convergence within the Odontoceti.

Cross-coupling between accommodation and convergence is optimized for a broad range of directions and distances of gaze.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Dorothy; Vedamurthy, Indu; Schor, Clifton

2008-03-01

Accommodation and convergence systems are cross-coupled so that stimulation of one system produces responses by both systems. Ideally, the cross-coupled responses of accommodation and convergence match their respective stimuli. When expressed in diopters and meter angles, respectively, stimuli for accommodation and convergence are equal in the mid-sagittal plane when viewed with symmetrical convergence, where historically, the gains of the cross coupling (AC/A and CA/C ratios) have been quantified. However, targets at non-zero azimuth angles, when viewed with asymmetric convergence, present unequal stimuli for accommodation and convergence. Are the cross-links between the two systems calibrated to compensate for stimulus mismatches that increase with gaze-azimuth? We measured the response AC/A and stimulus CA/C ratios at zero azimuth, 17.5 and 30 deg of rightward gaze eccentricities with a Badal Optometer and Wheatstone-mirror haploscope. AC/A ratios were measured under open-loop convergence conditions along the iso-accommodation circle (locus of points that stimulate approximately equal amounts of accommodation to the two eyes at all azimuth angles). CA/C ratios were measured under open-loop accommodation conditions along the iso-vergence circle (locus of points that stimulate constant convergence at all azimuth angles). Our results show that the gain of accommodative-convergence (AC/A ratio) decreased and the bias of convergence-accommodation increased at the 30 deg gaze eccentricity. These changes are in directions that compensate for stimulus mismatches caused by spatial-viewing geometry during asymmetric convergence.

Testing Convergence Versus History: Convergence Dominates Phenotypic Evolution for over 150 Million Years in Frogs.

Science.gov (United States)

Moen, Daniel S; Morlon, Hélène; Wiens, John J

2016-01-01

Striking evolutionary convergence can lead to similar sets of species in different locations, such as in cichlid fishes and Anolis lizards, and suggests that evolution can be repeatable and predictable across clades. Yet, most examples of convergence involve relatively small temporal and/or spatial scales. Some authors have speculated that at larger scales (e.g., across continents), differing evolutionary histories will prevent convergence. However, few studies have compared the contrasting roles of convergence and history, and none have done so at large scales. Here we develop a two-part approach to test the scale over which convergence can occur, comparing the relative importance of convergence and history in macroevolution using phylogenetic models of adaptive evolution. We apply this approach to data from morphology, ecology, and phylogeny from 167 species of anuran amphibians (frogs) from 10 local sites across the world, spanning ~160 myr of evolution. Mapping ecology on the phylogeny revealed that similar microhabitat specialists (e.g., aquatic, arboreal) have evolved repeatedly across clades and regions, producing many evolutionary replicates for testing for morphological convergence. By comparing morphological optima for clades and microhabitat types (our first test), we find that convergence associated with microhabitat use dominates frog morphological evolution, producing recurrent ecomorphs that together encompass all sampled species in each community in each region. However, our second test, which examines whether and how much species differ from their inferred optima, shows that convergence is incomplete: that is, phenotypes of most species are still somewhat distant from the estimated optimum for each microhabitat, seemingly because of insufficient time for more complete adaptation (an effect of history). Yet, these effects of history are related to past ecologies, and not clade membership. Overall, our study elucidates the dominant drivers of

Weak entropy inequalities and entropic convergence

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2008-01-01

A criterion for algebraic convergence of the entropy is presented and an algebraic convergence result for the entropy of an exclusion process is improved. A weak entropy inequality is considered and its relationship to entropic convergence is discussed.

Convergence of mayer expansions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brydges, D.C.

1986-01-01

The tree graph bound of Battle and Federbush is extended and used to provide a simple criterion for the convergence of (iterated) Mayer expansions. As an application estimates on the radius of convergence of the Mayer expansion for the two-dimensional Yukawa gas (nonstable interaction) are obtained

Converging cellular themes for the hereditary spastic paraplegias.

Science.gov (United States)

Blackstone, Craig

2018-05-10

Hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs) are neurologic disorders characterized by prominent lower-extremity spasticity, resulting from a length-dependent axonopathy of corticospinal upper motor neurons. They are among the most genetically-diverse neurologic disorders, with >80 distinct genetic loci and over 60 identified genes. Studies investigating the molecular pathogenesis underlying HSPs have emphasized the importance of converging cellular pathogenic themes in the most common forms of HSP, providing compelling targets for therapy. Most notably, these include organelle shaping and biogenesis as well as membrane and cargo trafficking. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Parallel and Cooperative Particle Swarm Optimizer for Multimodal Problems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Geng Zhang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Although the original particle swarm optimizer (PSO method and its related variant methods show some effectiveness for solving optimization problems, it may easily get trapped into local optimum especially when solving complex multimodal problems. Aiming to solve this issue, this paper puts forward a novel method called parallel and cooperative particle swarm optimizer (PCPSO. In case that the interacting of the elements in D-dimensional function vector X=[x1,x2,…,xd,…,xD] is independent, cooperative particle swarm optimizer (CPSO is used. Based on this, the PCPSO is presented to solve real problems. Since the dimension cannot be split into several lower dimensional search spaces in real problems because of the interacting of the elements, PCPSO exploits the cooperation of two parallel CPSO algorithms by orthogonal experimental design (OED learning. Firstly, the CPSO algorithm is used to generate two locally optimal vectors separately; then the OED is used to learn the merits of these two vectors and creates a better combination of them to generate further search. Experimental studies on a set of test functions show that PCPSO exhibits better robustness and converges much closer to the global optimum than several other peer algorithms.

Quantifying the Role of Homophily in Human Cooperation Using Multiplex Evolutionary Game Theory.

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Alessandro Di Stefano

Full Text Available Nature shows as human beings live and grow inside social structures. This assumption allows us to explain and explore how it may shape most of our behaviours and choices, and why we are not just blindly driven by instincts: our decisions are based on more complex cognitive reasons, based on our connectedness on different spaces. Thus, human cooperation emerges from this complex nature of social network. Our paper, focusing on the evolutionary dynamics, is intended to explore how and why it happens, and what kind of impact is caused by homophily among people. We investigate the evolution of human cooperation using evolutionary game theory on multiplex. Multiplexity, as an extra dimension of analysis, allows us to unveil the hidden dynamics and observe non-trivial patterns within a population across network layers. More importantly, we find a striking role of homophily, as the higher the homophily between individuals, the quicker is the convergence towards cooperation in the social dilemma. The simulation results, conducted both macroscopically and microscopically across the network layers in the multiplex, show quantitatively the role of homophily in human cooperation.

Promotion of electricity from renewable energy in Europe post 2020. The economic benefits of cooperation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fuersch, Michaela; Lindenberger, Dietmar

2013-08-15

In Europe, the availability of renewable energies, especially from sun and wind, differs significantly across regions. Consequently, cooperation in the deployment of renewable energy among European countries potentially yields substantial efficiency gains. However, in order to achieve the 2020 renewable energy targets for electricity, Member States of the European Union almost purely rely on domestic production. For the period after 2020, a European renewable energy target has not yet been defined, but decarbonization pathways outlined in the Roadmap of the European Commission include renewable energy shares of electricity generation to be 50-60% by 2030. Therefore, we analyze the benefits of cooperation compared to continuing with national renewable energy support after 2020. We use a large-scale dynamic investment and dispatch model of the European electricity system and find that compared to a 2030 CO{sub 2}-only target (-40% compared to 1990 emission levels), electricity system costs increase by 5 to 7% when a European-wide renewable energy target for electricity generation (of around 55%) is additionally implemented. However, these additional costs are lower by 41 to 45% compared to the additional electricity system costs which would arise if the renewable energy target was reached through national support systems (without cooperation). Furthermore, we find that the cooperation gains (i.e., the cost reduction achieved by cooperation) are quite robust: They decrease only slightly when interconnectors are not further extended (compared to today) and depend only slightly on assumptions about investment cost developments of renewable energy technologies. With regard to the practical implementation of cooperation, however, unclear administrative issues and questions concerning the fair sharing of costs and benefits between the Member States represent major obstacles that need to be tackled in order to reach renewable energy targets at the lowest costs possible.

Outage analysis of blind cooperative diversity

KAUST Repository

Tourki, Kamel; Alouini, Mohamed-Slim

2011-01-01

Mobile users with single antennas can still take advantage of spatial diversity through cooperative space-time-encoded transmission. In this paper, we considered a scheme in which a relay chooses to cooperate only if its source-relay channel is of an acceptable quality, and we evaluate the usefulness of relaying when the source acts blindly and ignores the decision of the relays whether they may cooperate or not. In our study, we consider the regenerative relays in which the decisions to cooperate are based on a targeted end-to-end data rate R. We derived the end-to-end outage probability for a transmission rate R and a code rate ρ and look at a power allocation strategy between the source and the relays in order to minimize the end-to-end outage probability at the destination for high signal-to-noise ratio, by using the golden section search method. Performance results show that the computer simulations-based results coincide with our analytical results. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Outage analysis of blind cooperative diversity

KAUST Repository

Tourki, Kamel

2011-06-06

Mobile users with single antennas can still take advantage of spatial diversity through cooperative space-time-encoded transmission. In this paper, we considered a scheme in which a relay chooses to cooperate only if its source-relay channel is of an acceptable quality, and we evaluate the usefulness of relaying when the source acts blindly and ignores the decision of the relays whether they may cooperate or not. In our study, we consider the regenerative relays in which the decisions to cooperate are based on a targeted end-to-end data rate R. We derived the end-to-end outage probability for a transmission rate R and a code rate ρ and look at a power allocation strategy between the source and the relays in order to minimize the end-to-end outage probability at the destination for high signal-to-noise ratio, by using the golden section search method. Performance results show that the computer simulations-based results coincide with our analytical results. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cooperative nanomaterials systems for cancer diagnosis and therapeutics

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Ji Ho

The unique electromagnetic and biologic properties of nanomaterials are being harnessed to build powerful new medical technologies. Particularly, there have been recently increasing interests in cancer nanotechnology, wherein nanomaterials play an important role in ultrasensitive imaging, targeting, and therapy of cancer. However, these nanomaterials typically function as individual units and are designed to independently perform their tasks. In this dissertation, new cooperative nanosystems consisting of two distinct nanomaterials that work together to target, identify, or treat tumors in vivo were studied. In the first two chapters, the synthesis of worm-shaped dextran-coated iron oxide nanoparticles (nanoworms, NW) exhibiting substantial in vivo circulation times and significant tumor targeting when coated with tumor-homing peptides were studied. NWs are also found to display a greater magnetic resonance (MR) response than the spherical nanoparticles. Next, two types of multifunctional nanoparticles were fabricated for simultaneous detection and treatment of cancer. Micellar hybrid nanoparticles (MHN) that contain magnetic nanoparticles, quantum dots, and an anti-cancer drug doxorubicin (DOX) within a single PEG-modified phospholipid micelle were first prepared. Simultaneous multimodal imaging (MR and fluorescence) and targeted drug delivery in vitro and in vivo was performed using DOX-incorporated targeted MHN. Secondly, luminescent porous silicon nanoparticles (LPSINP) that were drug-loadable, biodegradable and relatively non-toxic were prepared. In contrast to most inorganic nanomaterials, LPSINP were degraded in vivo in a relatively short time with no noticeable toxicity. The clearance and degradation of intravenously injected LPSINP in the bladder, liver, and spleen were established by whole-body fluorescence imaging. Finally, two types of cooperative nanomaterials systems to amplify targeting and deliver drugs efficiently to regions of tumor invasion were

Beyond Brainstorming: Exploring Convergence in Teams

Science.gov (United States)

Seeber, Isabella; de Vreede, Gert-Jan; Maier, Ronald; Weber, Barbara

2017-01-01

Abstract Collaborative brainstorming is often followed by a convergence activity where teams extract the most promising ideas on a useful level of detail from the brainstorming results. Contrary to the wealth of research on electronic brainstorming, there is a dearth of research on convergence. We used experimental methods for an in-depth exploration of two facilitation-based interventions in a convergence activity: attention guidance (focusing participants on procedures to execute a convergence task) and discussion encouragement (engaging participants in conversations to combine knowledge on ideas). Our findings show that both attention guidance and discussion encouragement are correlated with higher convergence quality. We argue that attention guidance’s contribution is in its support of coordination, information processing, and goal specification. Similar, we argue that discussion encouragement’s contribution is in its stimulation of idea clarification and idea combination. Contrary to past research, our findings further show that satisfaction was higher after convergence than after brainstorming. PMID:29399005

Novel targets for ATM-deficient malignancies

Science.gov (United States)

Winkler, Johannes; Hofmann, Kay; Chen, Shuhua

2014-01-01

Conventional chemo- and radiotherapies for the treatment of cancer target rapidly dividing cells in both tumor and non-tumor tissues and can exhibit severe cytotoxicity in normal tissue and impair the patient's immune system. Novel targeted strategies aim for higher efficacy and tumor specificity. The role of ATM protein in the DNA damage response is well known and ATM deficiency frequently plays a role in tumorigenesis and development of malignancy. In addition to contributing to disease development, ATM deficiency also renders malignant cells heavily dependent on other pathways that cooperate with the ATM-mediated DNA damage response to ensure tumor cell survival. Disturbing those cooperative pathways by inhibiting critical protein components allows specific targeting of tumors while sparing healthy cells with normal ATM status. We review druggable candidate targets for the treatment of ATM-deficient malignancies and the mechanisms underlying such targeted therapies. PMID:27308314

Distributed Economic Dispatch in Microgrids Based on Cooperative Reinforcement Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Weirong; Zhuang, Peng; Liang, Hao; Peng, Jun; Huang, Zhiwu; Weirong Liu; Peng Zhuang; Hao Liang; Jun Peng; Zhiwu Huang; Liu, Weirong; Liang, Hao; Peng, Jun; Zhuang, Peng; Huang, Zhiwu

2018-06-01

Microgrids incorporated with distributed generation (DG) units and energy storage (ES) devices are expected to play more and more important roles in the future power systems. Yet, achieving efficient distributed economic dispatch in microgrids is a challenging issue due to the randomness and nonlinear characteristics of DG units and loads. This paper proposes a cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm for distributed economic dispatch in microgrids. Utilizing the learning algorithm can avoid the difficulty of stochastic modeling and high computational complexity. In the cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm, the function approximation is leveraged to deal with the large and continuous state spaces. And a diffusion strategy is incorporated to coordinate the actions of DG units and ES devices. Based on the proposed algorithm, each node in microgrids only needs to communicate with its local neighbors, without relying on any centralized controllers. Algorithm convergence is analyzed, and simulations based on real-world meteorological and load data are conducted to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

On species preservation and Non-Cooperative Exploiters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kronbak, Lone Grønbæk; Lindroos, Marko

cases where several non-cooperative exploiters are involved in mixed fisheries. This paper is targeting biodiversity preservation by setting up a two species model with the aim of ensuring both species survive harvesting of exploiters adapting a non-cooperative behaviour. The model starts out as a multi......-species model without biological dependency and is then modified to include also biological dependency. We contribute to the literature by analytically finding the limits on the number of players preserving both species including the conditions to be satisfied. For visual purposes we simulate a two species...

Social penalty promotes cooperation in a cooperative society.

Science.gov (United States)

Ito, Hiromu; Yoshimura, Jin

2015-08-04

Why cooperation is well developed in human society is an unsolved question in biological and human sciences. Vast studies in game theory have revealed that in non-cooperative games selfish behavior generally dominates over cooperation and cooperation can be evolved only under very limited conditions. These studies ask the origin of cooperation; whether cooperation can evolve in a group of selfish individuals. In this paper, instead of asking the origin of cooperation, we consider the enhancement of cooperation in a small already cooperative society. We ask whether cooperative behavior is further promoted in a small cooperative society in which social penalty is devised. We analyze hawk-dove game and prisoner's dilemma introducing social penalty. We then expand it for non-cooperative games in general. The results indicate that cooperation is universally favored if penalty is further imposed. We discuss the current result in terms of the moral, laws, rules and regulations in a society, e.g., criminology and traffic violation.

Semantic Convergence in the Bilingual Lexicon

Science.gov (United States)

Ameel, Eef; Malt, Barbara C.; Storms, Gert; Van Assche, Fons

2009-01-01

Bilinguals' lexical mappings for their two languages have been found to converge toward a common naming pattern. The present paper investigates in more detail how semantic convergence is manifested in bilingual lexical knowledge. We examined how semantic convergence affects the centers and boundaries of lexical categories for common household…

Convergence semigroup actions: generalized quotients

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

H. Boustique

2009-10-01

Full Text Available Continuous actions of a convergence semigroup are investigated in the category of convergence spaces. Invariance properties of actions as well as properties of a generalized quotient space are presented

Physical characterization of single convergent beam device for teletherapy: theoretical and Monte Carlo approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Figueroa, R G; Valente, M

2015-09-21

The main purpose of this work is to determine the feasibility and physical characteristics of a new teletherapy device of radiation therapy based on the application of a convergent x-ray beam of energies like those used in radiotherapy providing highly concentrated dose delivery to the target. We have denominated it Convergent Beam Radio Therapy (CBRT). Analytical methods are developed first in order to determine the dosimetry characteristic of an ideal convergent photon beam in a hypothetical water phantom. Then, using the PENELOPE Monte Carlo code, a similar convergent beam that is applied to the water phantom is compared with that of the analytical method. The CBRT device (Converay(®)) is designed to adapt to the head of LINACs. The converging beam photon effect is achieved thanks to the perpendicular impact of LINAC electrons on a large thin spherical cap target where Bremsstrahlung is generated (high-energy x-rays). This way, the electrons impact upon various points of the cap (CBRT condition), aimed at the focal point. With the X radiation (Bremsstrahlung) directed forward, a system of movable collimators emits many beams from the output that make a virtually definitive convergent beam. Other Monte Carlo simulations are performed using realistic conditions. The simulations are performed for a thin target in the shape of a large, thin, spherical cap, with an r radius of around 10-30 cm and a curvature radius of approximately 70 to 100 cm, and a cubed water phantom centered in the focal point of the cap. All the interaction mechanisms of the Bremsstrahlung radiation with the phantom are taken into consideration for different energies and cap thicknesses. Also, the magnitudes of the electric and/or magnetic fields, which are necessary to divert clinical-use electron beams (0.1 to 20 MeV), are determined using electromagnetism equations with relativistic corrections. This way the above-mentioned beam is manipulated and guided for its perpendicular impact

Globalization and Contemporary Fertility Convergence.

Science.gov (United States)

Hendi, Arun S

2017-09-01

The rise of the global network of nation-states has precipitated social transformations throughout the world. This article examines the role of political and economic globalization in driving fertility convergence across countries between 1965 and 2009. While past research has typically conceptualized fertility change as a country-level process, this study instead employs a theoretical and methodological framework that examines differences in fertility between pairs of countries over time. Convergence in fertility between pairs of countries is hypothesized to result from increased cross-country connectedness and cross-national transmission of fertility-related schemas. I investigate the impact of various cross-country ties, including ties through bilateral trade, intergovernmental organizations, and regional trade blocs, on fertility convergence. I find that globalization acts as a form of social interaction to produce fertility convergence. There is significant heterogeneity in the effects of different cross-country ties. In particular, trade with rich model countries, joint participation in the UN and UNESCO, and joining a free trade agreement all contribute to fertility convergence between countries. Whereas the prevailing focus in fertility research has been on factors producing fertility declines, this analysis highlights specific mechanisms-trade and connectedness through organizations-leading to greater similarity in fertility across countries. Globalization is a process that propels the spread of culturally laden goods and schemas impinging on fertility, which in turn produces fertility convergence.

Multi-robot motion control for cooperative observation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Parker, L.E. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States). Center for Engineering Systems Advanced Research

1997-06-01

An important issue that arises in the automation of many security, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks is that of monitoring (or observing) the movements of targets navigating in a bounded area of interest. A key research issue in these problems is that of sensor placement--determining where sensors should be located to maintain the targets in view. In complex applications involving limited-range sensors, the use of multiple sensors dynamically moving over time is required. In this paper, the authors investigate the use of a cooperative team of autonomous sensor-based robots for the observation of multiple moving targets. They focus primarily on developing the distributed control strategies that allow the robot team to attempt to minimize the total time in which targets escape observation by some robot team member in the area of interest. This paper first formalizes the problem and discusses related work. The authors then present a distributed approximate approach to solving this problem that combines low-level multi-robot control with higher-level reasoning control based on the ALLIANCE formalism. They analyze the effectiveness of the approach by comparing it to 3 other feasible algorithms for cooperative control, showing the superiority of the approach for a large class of problems.

Multi-robot motion control for cooperative observation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parker, L.E.

1997-01-01

An important issue that arises in the automation of many security, surveillance, and reconnaissance tasks is that of monitoring (or observing) the movements of targets navigating in a bounded area of interest. A key research issue in these problems is that of sensor placement--determining where sensors should be located to maintain the targets in view. In complex applications involving limited-range sensors, the use of multiple sensors dynamically moving over time is required. In this paper, the authors investigate the use of a cooperative team of autonomous sensor-based robots for the observation of multiple moving targets. They focus primarily on developing the distributed control strategies that allow the robot team to attempt to minimize the total time in which targets escape observation by some robot team member in the area of interest. This paper first formalizes the problem and discusses related work. The authors then present a distributed approximate approach to solving this problem that combines low-level multi-robot control with higher-level reasoning control based on the ALLIANCE formalism. They analyze the effectiveness of the approach by comparing it to 3 other feasible algorithms for cooperative control, showing the superiority of the approach for a large class of problems

Face and Convergent Validity of Persian Version of Rapid Office Strain Assessment (ROSA Checklist

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Afrouz Armal

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Objective: The aim of this work was the translation, cultural adaptation and validation of the Persian version of the Rapid Office Stress Assessment (ROSA checklist. Material & Methods: This methodological study was conducted according of IQOLA method. 100 office worker were selected in order to carry out a psychometric evaluation of the ROSA checklist by performing validity (face and convergent analyses. The convergent validity was evaluated using RULA checklist. Results: Upon major changes made to the ROSA checklist during the translation/cultural adaptation process, face validity of the Persian version was obtained. Spearman correlation coefficient between total score of ROSA check list and RULA checklist was significant (r=0.76, p<0.0001. Conclusion: The results indicated that the translated version of the ROSA checklist is acceptable in terms of face validity, convergent validity in target society, and hence provides a useful instrument for assessing Iranian office workers

Convergence of Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Prasad, Ramjee; Ruggieri, Marina

2008-01-01

The paper focuses on the revolutionary changes that could characterise the future of networks. Those changes involve many aspects in the conceivement and exploitation of networks: architecture, services, technologies and modeling. The convergence of wired and wireless technologies along...... with the integration of system componennts and the convergence of services (e.g. communications and navigation) are only some of the elements that shape the perpsected mosaic. Authors delineate this vision, highlighting the presence of the space and stratospheric components and the related services as building block...

OpenMC In Situ Source Convergence Detection

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Aldrich, Garrett Allen [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States); Dutta, Soumya [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States); Woodring, Jonathan Lee [Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

2016-05-07

We designed and implemented an in situ version of particle source convergence for the OpenMC particle transport simulator. OpenMC is a Monte Carlo based-particle simulator for neutron criticality calculations. For the transport simulation to be accurate, source particles must converge on a spatial distribution. Typically, convergence is obtained by iterating the simulation by a user-settable, fixed number of steps, and it is assumed that convergence is achieved. We instead implement a method to detect convergence, using the stochastic oscillator for identifying convergence of source particles based on their accumulated Shannon Entropy. Using our in situ convergence detection, we are able to detect and begin tallying results for the full simulation once the proper source distribution has been confirmed. Our method ensures that the simulation is not started too early, by a user setting too optimistic parameters, or too late, by setting too conservative a parameter.

International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability: Disability Inclusive Development and International Development Cooperation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kozue Kay Nagata

2007-09-01

Full Text Available The adoption of the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is a historical momentum for disabled persons and their associates, as well as ODA workers in the development cooperation field all over the world. For the last two decades, persons with disabilities, their associates and professionals working in this field have promoted their human rights, equality, nondiscrimination and full participation. This Convention is beyond the concept of non-discrimination, and it is very comprehensive in its structure, scope and coverage, promoting developmental activities too in order to realize disabled people’s socio-economic rights. Furthermore it calls for international and regional development cooperation. Prior to its adoption, in September 2000 at the Millennium Summit the Member States of the Untied Nations issued the Millennium Declaration, committing themselves to a series of development targets, most of which are to be achieved by 2015. Known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs, they represent a framework for achieving sustainable and "just" human development through broadening the benefits of development for all categories individuals, women and men, the poor and the rich, the disabled and the non-disabled. The very first goal of the MDG is the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Poverty is both a cause and consequence of disability. Poverty and disability reinforce one another. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that persons with disabilities be an integral part of efforts to achieve MDGs, particularly in the areas of poverty alleviation, primary education, gender, employment and international development cooperation. In the Asian and Pacific region, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP has proclaimed two decades of disabled persons 1993-2002, and 2003-2013 (to which Iran became a signatory in 1994, and promoted the inclusive, barrier-free and rights

Implementation of Cooperation for Recycling Vehicle Routing Optimization in Two-Echelon Reverse Logistics Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yong Wang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The formation of a cooperative alliance is an effective means of approaching the vehicle routing optimization in two-echelon reverse logistics networks. Cooperative mechanisms can contribute to avoiding the inefficient assignment of resources for the recycling logistics operations and reducing long distance transportation. With regard to the relatively low performance of waste collection, this paper proposes a three-phase methodology to properly address the corresponding vehicle routing problem on two echelons. First, a bi-objective programming model is established to minimize the total cost and the number of vehicles considering semitrailers and vehicles sharing. Furthermore, the Clarke–Wright (CW savings method and the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II are combined to design a hybrid routing optimization heuristic, which is denoted CW_NSGA-II. Routes on the first and second echelons are obtained on the basis of sub-optimal solutions provided by CW algorithm. Compared to other intelligent algorithms, CW_NSGA-II reduces the complexity of the multi-objective solutions search and mostly converges to optimality. The profit generated by cooperation among retail stores and the recycling hub in the reverse logistics network is fairly and reasonably distributed to the participants by applying the Minimum Costs-Remaining Savings (MCRS method. Finally, an empirical study in Chengdu City, China, reveals the superiority of CW_NSGA over the multi-objective particle swarm optimization and the multi objective genetic algorithms in terms of solutions quality and convergence. Meanwhile, the comparison of MCRS method with the Shapley value model, equal profit method and cost gap allocation proves that MCRS method is more conducive to the stability of the cooperative alliance. In general, the implementation of cooperation in the optimization of the reverse logistics network effectively leads to the sustainable development of urban and sub

The Convergence in Spatial Tasks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vladimir P. Kulagin

2013-01-01

Full Text Available The article reveals the problem of convergence of direct and inverse problems in Earth Sciences, describes the features and application of these problems, discloses analytical features of direct and inverse problems. The convergence criteria and conditions for convergence were presented. This work is supported by the Grant of the Government of the Russian Federation for support of scientific research, implemented under the supervision of leading scientists in Russian institutions of higher education in the field "Space Research and Technologies" in 2011–2013.

APPLICATION OF EUROPEAN STANDARDS OF FINANCIAL STATEMENTS – INFORMATIONAL RESOURSE OF CONSUMER COOPERATION DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stepan KOSHKAROV

2016-07-01

Full Text Available More than 120 countries use the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS and the International Accounting Standards (IAS. The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU obliges Ukraine to consider European convergence of accounting and reporting. Since 2012 for some entities the use of IFRS has been compulsory, but for others – voluntary. This trend coincides with the imperative necessity of the consumer cooperation of Ukraine to reform its multilevel informational system as a key component of its effective management and successful implementation of controlling. It is proposed to start reforming with the introduction of IFRS and IAS. Consumer cooperation represents cooperative sector of Ukrainian economy and is included into different international and European cooperative associations. With its historic mission to meet the needs of its members, socio-economic and cultural development of rural areas, in terms of the crisis it faces the serious problem of the systemic reforming under existing conditions through the innovative development and use of experience of economically developed countries, especially the EU.

Relativistic convergent close-coupling method applied to electron scattering from mercury

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bostock, Christopher J.; Fursa, Dmitry V.; Bray, Igor

2010-01-01

We report on the extension of the recently formulated relativistic convergent close-coupling (RCCC) method to accommodate two-electron and quasi-two-electron targets. We apply the theory to electron scattering from mercury and obtain differential and integrated cross sections for elastic and inelastic scattering. We compared with previous nonrelativistic convergent close-coupling (CCC) calculations and for a number of transitions obtained significantly better agreement with the experiment. The RCCC method is able to resolve structure in the integrated cross sections for the energy regime in the vicinity of the excitation thresholds for the (6s6p) 3 P 0,1,2 states. These cross sections are associated with the formation of negative ion (Hg - ) resonances that could not be resolved with the nonrelativistic CCC method. The RCCC results are compared with the experiment and other relativistic theories.

Effects of high-frequency damping on iterative convergence of implicit viscous solver

Science.gov (United States)

Nishikawa, Hiroaki; Nakashima, Yoshitaka; Watanabe, Norihiko

2017-11-01

This paper discusses effects of high-frequency damping on iterative convergence of an implicit defect-correction solver for viscous problems. The study targets a finite-volume discretization with a one parameter family of damped viscous schemes. The parameter α controls high-frequency damping: zero damping with α = 0, and larger damping for larger α (> 0). Convergence rates are predicted for a model diffusion equation by a Fourier analysis over a practical range of α. It is shown that the convergence rate attains its minimum at α = 1 on regular quadrilateral grids, and deteriorates for larger values of α. A similar behavior is observed for regular triangular grids. In both quadrilateral and triangular grids, the solver is predicted to diverge for α smaller than approximately 0.5. Numerical results are shown for the diffusion equation and the Navier-Stokes equations on regular and irregular grids. The study suggests that α = 1 and 4/3 are suitable values for robust and efficient computations, and α = 4 / 3 is recommended for the diffusion equation, which achieves higher-order accuracy on regular quadrilateral grids. Finally, a Jacobian-Free Newton-Krylov solver with the implicit solver (a low-order Jacobian approximately inverted by a multi-color Gauss-Seidel relaxation scheme) used as a variable preconditioner is recommended for practical computations, which provides robust and efficient convergence for a wide range of α.

Cost-Efficient and Sustainable Deployment of Renewable Energy Sources towards the 20% Target by 2020, and beyond. Summary of case studies for cooperation mechanisms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dalla Longa, F. [ECN Policy Studies, Amsterdam (Netherlands); Klinge Jacobsen, H.; Pade Hnasen, L. [Technical University of Denmark DTU, Lyngby (Denmark); Tantareanu, C. [Center for Promotion of Clean and Efficient Energy ENERO, Bucharest (Romania); Caldes-Gomez, N.; Santamaria-Belda, M. [CIEMAT, Madrid (Spain)

2012-09-15

This document is a summary report highlighting the main aspect analyzed in the RES4LESS case studies. The document starts with an introductory chapter where the background that led to the selection of the case studies is outlined. In the following three chapters the case studies are presented, highlighting the most relevant results. A brief chapter concludes the document, giving an outlook on the follow-up activities of the RES4LESS project. This summary is intended not only as an introduction to the RES4LESS cases studies, but also as a guideline to read and interpret the in-depth analysis carried out in the final documents that describe the case studies in detail. These documents will be published in September 2012 on the RES4LESS website, www.res4less.eu. The objective of the RES4LESS project is to develop a Roadmap to cost-efficient deployment of energy from renewable sources (RES) in Europe, via cross-border cooperation mechanisms. The Commission has indicated that the 2020 targets for renewable energy (European Commission 2009) can be achieved through cooperation between Member States. This cooperation could lead to win-win situations, when a country with a large low-cost potential for renewable electricity could sell part of its surplus to a country with a limited and/or expensive potential. In the project, first a scoping exercise has been carried out to identify which countries could be candidates for cooperation. Next, three case studies have been elaborated to give a better view of what these cooperation mechanisms would entail in practice. The analysis has focused on renewable electricity (RES-E), although cooperation mechanisms could also be envisaged for renewable heat. Among the Member States providing the largest and cheapest surpluses Denmark, Romania and Spain have been chosen as Host Countries for the RES4LESS case studies. The technologies considered in the case studies are Offshore Wind for Denmark, Biomass for Romania, and CSP for Spain.

The convergence theory for vitiligo: A reappraisal.

Science.gov (United States)

Kundu, Roopal V; Mhlaba, Julia M; Rangel, Stephanie M; Le Poole, I Caroline

2018-04-28

Vitiligo is characterized by progressive loss of skin pigmentation. The search for etiologic factors has led to the biochemical, the neurologic and the autoimmune theory. The convergence theory was then proposed several years ago to incorporate existing theories of vitiligo development into a single overview of vitiligo etiology. The viewpoint that vitiligo is not caused only by predisposing mutations, or only by melanocytes responding to chemical/radiation exposure, or only by hyperreactive T cells, but rather results from a combination of etiologic factors that impact melanocyte viability, has certainly stood the test of time. New findings have since informed the description of progressive depigmentation. Understanding the relative importance of such etiologic factors combined with a careful selection of the most targetable pathways will continue to drive the next phase in vitiligo research: the development of effective therapeutics. In that arena it is likewise important to acknowledge that pathways affected in some patients may not be altered in others. Taken together, the convergence theory continues to provide a comprehensive viewpoint of vitiligo etiology. The theory serves to intertwine etiologic pathways and will help to define pathways amenable to disease intervention in individual patients. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Trends in COPD mortality and in-patient admissions in men & women: evidence of convergence.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

O'Farrell, A

2011-09-01

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is one of the leading causes of mortality. Although more prevalent in men, it is anticipated that, due to the convergence in smoking rates, the prevalence rate in women will surpass that of men. There were 14,519 deaths attributable to COPD in the period 2000-2009. Although deaths decreased for both sexes, reduction in deaths was significantly higher among men (test for trend, p<0.01 for men vs. p=0.06 for women). Smoking rates decreased for both sexes from 1980-2009 with the percentage reduction in smoking significantly greater in men (11.5% vs. 7.0%, p<0.001). There has been a convergence in COPD deaths and COPD hospital in-patient discharges for men and women that mirrors the trend in the convergence of male and female smoking rates. This study provides evidence of the need for effective smoking cessation programmes that are targeted at women as well as men.

Distributed Cooperative Optimal Control for Multiagent Systems on Directed Graphs: An Inverse Optimal Approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Huaguang; Feng, Tao; Yang, Guang-Hong; Liang, Hongjing

2015-07-01

In this paper, the inverse optimal approach is employed to design distributed consensus protocols that guarantee consensus and global optimality with respect to some quadratic performance indexes for identical linear systems on a directed graph. The inverse optimal theory is developed by introducing the notion of partial stability. As a result, the necessary and sufficient conditions for inverse optimality are proposed. By means of the developed inverse optimal theory, the necessary and sufficient conditions are established for globally optimal cooperative control problems on directed graphs. Basic optimal cooperative design procedures are given based on asymptotic properties of the resulting optimal distributed consensus protocols, and the multiagent systems can reach desired consensus performance (convergence rate and damping rate) asymptotically. Finally, two examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

How chimpanzees cooperate in a competitive world

Science.gov (United States)

Suchak, Malini; Eppley, Timothy M.; Campbell, Matthew W.; Feldman, Rebecca A.; Quarles, Luke F.; de Waal, Frans B. M.

2016-01-01

Our species is routinely depicted as unique in its ability to achieve cooperation, whereas our closest relative, the chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes), is often characterized as overly competitive. Human cooperation is assisted by the cost attached to competitive tendencies through enforcement mechanisms, such as punishment and partner choice. To examine if chimpanzees possess the same ability to mitigate competition, we set up a cooperative task in the presence of the entire group of 11 adults, which required two or three individuals to pull jointly to receive rewards. This open-group set-up provided ample opportunity for competition (e.g., freeloading, displacements) and aggression. Despite this unique set-up and initial competitiveness, cooperation prevailed in the end, being at least five times as common as competition. The chimpanzees performed 3,565 cooperative acts while using a variety of enforcement mechanisms to overcome competition and freeloading, as measured by (attempted) thefts of rewards. These mechanisms included direct protest by the target, third-party punishment in which dominant individuals intervened against freeloaders, and partner choice. There was a marked difference between freeloading and displacement; freeloading tended to elicit withdrawal and third-party interventions, whereas displacements were met with a higher rate of direct retaliation. Humans have shown similar responses in controlled experiments, suggesting shared mechanisms across the primates to mitigate competition for the sake of cooperation. PMID:27551075

A User Cooperation Stimulating Strategy Based on Cooperative Game Theory in Cooperative Relay Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Zhang

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a user cooperation stimulating strategy among rational users. The strategy is based on cooperative game theory and enacted in the context of cooperative relay networks. Using the pricing-based mechanism, the system is modeled initially with two nodes and a Base Station (BS. Within this framework, each node is treated as a rational decision maker. To this end, each node can decide whether to cooperate and how to cooperate. Cooperative game theory assists in providing an optimal system utility and provides fairness among users. Under different cooperative forwarding modes, certain questions are carefully investigated, including “what is each node's best reaction to maximize its utility?” and “what is the optimal reimbursement to encourage cooperation?” Simulation results show that the nodes benefit from the proposed cooperation stimulating strategy in terms of utility and thus justify the fairness between each user.

A User Cooperation Stimulating Strategy Based on Cooperative Game Theory in Cooperative Relay Networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiang Fan

2009-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a user cooperation stimulating strategy among rational users. The strategy is based on cooperative game theory and enacted in the context of cooperative relay networks. Using the pricing-based mechanism, the system is modeled initially with two nodes and a Base Station (BS. Within this framework, each node is treated as a rational decision maker. To this end, each node can decide whether to cooperate and how to cooperate. Cooperative game theory assists in providing an optimal system utility and provides fairness among users. Under different cooperative forwarding modes, certain questions are carefully investigated, including "what is each node's best reaction to maximize its utility?" and "what is the optimal reimbursement to encourage cooperation?" Simulation results show that the nodes benefit from the proposed cooperation stimulating strategy in terms of utility and thus justify the fairness between each user.

Network coding and evolutionary theory for performance enhancement in wireless cooperative clusters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Militano, Leonardo; Fitzek, Frank; Iera, Antonio

2010-01-01

Cooperation over short-range wireless links among user devices, which download remote contents through cellular links, is a paradigm quickly gaining ground, given that it can answer several technological and design issues that next-generation wireless applications will raise. Among others, energy...... are investigated and an ad hoc conceived Genetic Algorithm (GA) designed. Either the service time (the time needed for all nodes to receive the complete file) or the energy consumption for the nodes is used as objective function, showing in both cases the fast convergence for the algorithm that makes it preferable...

Positioning of equity in financial intermediation cooperatives compared to IFRS on financial instruments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francisco Martínez Batista

2017-04-01

Full Text Available This research has not transeccional experimental and design, it focuses on analyzing the equity position of financial intermediation cooperatives (I.F. against the contributions of its partners. Begins with theoretical approaches of international and local accounting standards, the ratio of total invested assets versus liabilities, Heritage and Contributions. The case study analyzed the balance sheet figures, the real differences under the uncertainty of the full standard. The results show 14.8% equity and deterioration of overall indebtedness in the same order. Case Study In the real situation, versus the full standard, and considering the irreducible minimum of Capital Contributions, as decreases in 10.2% Equity and Financial Liabilities increased 10.2%. In conclusion, it is considered solvent use some strategy that the situation of international accounting standards with national converge for the benefit of cooperatives.

Nash Bargaining Game-Theoretic Framework for Power Control in Distributed Multiple-Radar Architecture Underlying Wireless Communication System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chenguang Shi

2018-04-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a novel Nash bargaining solution (NBS-based cooperative game-theoretic framework for power control in a distributed multiple-radar architecture underlying a wireless communication system. Our primary objective is to minimize the total power consumption of the distributed multiple-radar system (DMRS with the protection of wireless communication user’s transmission, while guaranteeing each radar’s target detection requirement. A unified cooperative game-theoretic framework is proposed for the optimization problem, where interference power constraints (IPCs are imposed to protect the communication user’s transmission, and a minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR requirement is employed to provide reliable target detection for each radar. The existence, uniqueness and fairness of the NBS to this cooperative game are proven. An iterative Nash bargaining power control algorithm with low computational complexity and fast convergence is developed and is shown to converge to a Pareto-optimal equilibrium for the cooperative game model. Numerical simulations and analyses are further presented to highlight the advantages and testify to the efficiency of our proposed cooperative game algorithm. It is demonstrated that the distributed algorithm is effective for power control and could protect the communication system with limited implementation overhead.

Statistical convergence on intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karakus, S.; Demirci, K.; Duman, O.

2008-01-01

Saadati and Park [Saadati R, Park JH, Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 2006;27:331-44] has recently introduced the notion of intuitionistic fuzzy normed space. In this paper, we study the concept of statistical convergence on intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces. Then we give a useful characterization for statistically convergent sequences. Furthermore, we display an example such that our method of convergence is stronger than the usual convergence on intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces

Allograft cytotoxicity co-operation between alloimmune T cells and macrophages

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jones, B.; Jones, T.C.

1978-01-01

T cells from the spleens of C57BL 10 (H-2sup(b)) mice 7 to 12 days after immunization with P815Y (H-2sup(d)) mastocytoma cells have been shown to co-operate synergistically with an adherent component of non-immune starch induced peritoneal cells in the cytostasis of target cells. Although significant values for synergy could be obtained using the ( 125 I) UdR incorporation assay to measure cytostasis, normal peritoneal cells were incapable of co-operating with T cells in cytolysis as measured by 51 Cr release from pre-labelled target cells. Initially, the synergistic interaction was immunologically specific, but non-specific activity could be induced by challenge with specific antigen. (author)

Convergent Close-Coupling Calculations for Electron-Atom and Electron-Molecule Scattering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fursa, Dmitry; Zammit, M.C.; Bostock, C.J.; Bray, I.

2014-01-01

The Convergent Close-Coupling (CCC) method developed in our group has been applied extensively to study electron-atom/ion collisions and recently has been extended to electron collisions with diatomic molecules. This approach relies on the ability to represent the infinite number of target bound states and its continuum via a finite number of states obtained by a diagonalization of the target in a square-integrable (Sturmian) one-electron basis. We normally use a Laguerre basis though other choices are possible, for example a boxed-based basis or a B-spline basis. The choice of the basis is governed by the physical problem under consideration. As the size of a Sturmian basis increases the calculated negative energy states (relative to the corresponding ionization stage of the target) converge to the target true bound states and the positive energy states provide an increasingly dense representation of the target continuum. We then perform a multichannel expansion of the total (projectile plus target electrons) wave function and formulate a set of close-coupling equations. These equations are transformed into momentum space where they take the form of the Lippmann-Schwinger equations for the T-matrix. A solution of the T-matrix equations is obtained at each total energy E by converting them into a set of linear equations that are solved by standard techniques. We perform a partial-wave expansion of the projectile wave function and take into account the symmetry of the scattering system (e.g, total spin, parity, etc.) in order to reduce the size of the coupled equations and make calculations feasible. As soon as the T-matrix is obtained we can evaluate scattering amplitudes and cross sections for the transitions of interest. For the case of molecular targets the formulation is done within the fixed-nuclei approximation. We adopt a single-centre approach in CCC calculations. This allows us to utilize a great deal of computational development thoroughly tested for

Cultura da Convergência

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rogério Christofoletti

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Três idéias já seriam suficientes para que a leitura de “Culturada Convergência”, de Henry Jenkins, interessasse a jornalistas epesquisadores da área: a convergência midiática como um processo cultural; o fortalecimento de uma economia afetiva que orienta consumidores de bens simbólicos e criadores midiáticos; a expansão de formas narrativas transmidiáticas.

The SafeCOP ECSEL Project: Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems Using Wireless Communication

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pop, Paul; Scholle, Detlef; Hansson, Hans

2016-01-01

This paper presents an overview of the ECSEL project entitled "Safe Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems using Wireless Communication" (SafeCOP), which runs during the period 2016 -- 2019. SafeCOP targets safety-related Cooperating Cyber-Physical Systems (CO-CPS) characterised by use of wireless...... detection of abnormal behaviour, triggering if needed a safe degraded mode. SafeCOP will also develop methods and tools, which will be used to produce safety assurance evidence needed to certify cooperative functions. SafeCOP will extend current wireless technologies to ensure safe and secure cooperation...

Studies on the mechanism of functional cooperativity between progesterone and estrogen receptors.

Science.gov (United States)

Bradshaw, M S; Tsai, S Y; Leng, X H; Dobson, A D; Conneely, O M; O'Malley, B W; Tsai, M J

1991-09-05

Steroid response elements (SREs) cooperate with many different cis-acting elements including NF-1 sites, CACCC boxes, and other SREs to induce target gene expression (Schule, R., Muller, M., Otsuka-Murakami, H., and Renkawitz, R. (1988) Nature 332, 87-90; Strahle, U., Schmid, W., and Schutz, G. (1988) EMBO J. 7, 3389-3395). Induction of gene expression can be additive or synergistic with respect to the level of activation by either transactivators. Two mechanisms have been proposed for how synergism occurs: 1) cooperative binding of transcriptional activators to DNA or 2) simultaneous interaction of individually bound activators with a common target protein. We have shown previously that cooperative binding of receptors is important for synergism between two progesterone response elements (PREs). Here we showed that an estrogen response element (ERE) and a PRE can also functionally cooperate and this synergism between an ERE and a PRE is not contributed by cooperative DNA binding. Furthermore, we have demonstrated that the activation domains of the progesterone receptor (PR) (C1Act) are required for synergism between two PREs and sufficient for confirming cooperative binding. However these two activation domains of PR are not sufficient for synergism between an ERE and a PRE. Additional regions within the NH2-terminal and COOH-terminal domains are also required for synergistic interaction between two heterologous SREs.

Convergent systems vs. incremental stability

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rüffer, B.S.; Wouw, van de N.; Mueller, M.

2013-01-01

Two similar stability notions are considered; one is the long established notion of convergent systems, the other is the younger notion of incremental stability. Both notions require that any two solutions of a system converge to each other. Yet these stability concepts are different, in the sense

Regional Convergence and Sustainable Development in China

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fang Yang

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Based on the convergence theory of economic growth, this paper extends this concept to the human development index and carries out an empirical analysis of regional development in China between 1997 and 2006. Our research shows that the conditional convergence has been identified. Investment in fixed assets, government expenditure on education, health and infrastructure construction have positive effects on regional convergence of social development. Population weighted analysis of human development index provides support for weak convergence amongst provinces. Analysis of dynamics of regional distribution reveals the club convergence, which indicate two different convergence states. Central China is in the shade and lags behind, giving rise to the so-called “central downfall”. To solve this problem, the “Rise of Central China” Plan is necessary to promote the connection between coastal and inland regions of China and reduce the regional development gap.

Explicit demonstration of the convergence of the close-coupling method for a Coulomb three-body problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bray, I.; Stelbovics, A.T.

1992-01-01

Convergence as a function of the number of states is studied and demonstrated for the Poet-Temkin model of electron-hydrogen scattering. In this Coulomb three-body problem only the l=0 partial waves are treated. By taking as many as thirty target states, obtained by diagonalizing the target Hamiltonian in a Laguerre basis, complete agreement with the smooth results of Poet is obtained at all energies. We show that the often-encountered pseudoresonance features in the cross sections are simply an indication of an inadequate target state representation

Convergence as conditionant for Media Regulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Othon Jambeiro

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Convergence comprises a combination of interlinked and interdependent transformations, of technological, industrial, commercial, cultural and social nature, which affect communication regulation. Customers, at their time, turned also convergent, involved in an intense participative culture, which is too, from the point of view of its social and geographical range, thanks to convergence, more and more extense. Instead of passive consumers of media and information and communication services, we have now active and socially connected consumers, no more readers/spectators/listeners, but noisy activists and publishers. To understand this phenomenon is essential to discern a regulatory frame suitable for it. This paper tries to define convergence and to discuss its consequences.

Cultura da Convergência

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rogério Christofoletti

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Três idéias já seriam suficientes para que a leitura de “Cultura da Convergência”, de Henry Jenkins, interessasse a jornalistas e pesquisadores da área: a convergência midiática como um processo cultural; o fortalecimento de uma economia afetiva que orienta consumidores de bens simbólicos e criadores midiáticos; a expansão de formas narrativas transmidiáticas.

Convergence of barycentric coordinates to barycentric kernels

KAUST Repository

Kosinka, Jiří

2016-02-12

We investigate the close correspondence between barycentric coordinates and barycentric kernels from the point of view of the limit process when finer and finer polygons converge to a smooth convex domain. We show that any barycentric kernel is the limit of a set of barycentric coordinates and prove that the convergence rate is quadratic. Our convergence analysis extends naturally to barycentric interpolants and mappings induced by barycentric coordinates and kernels. We verify our theoretical convergence results numerically on several examples.

Convergence of barycentric coordinates to barycentric kernels

KAUST Repository

Kosinka, Jiří ; Barton, Michael

2016-01-01

We investigate the close correspondence between barycentric coordinates and barycentric kernels from the point of view of the limit process when finer and finer polygons converge to a smooth convex domain. We show that any barycentric kernel is the limit of a set of barycentric coordinates and prove that the convergence rate is quadratic. Our convergence analysis extends naturally to barycentric interpolants and mappings induced by barycentric coordinates and kernels. We verify our theoretical convergence results numerically on several examples.

A Three-Dimensional Cooperative Guidance Law of Multimissile System

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xing Wei

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In order to conduct saturation attacks on a static target, the cooperative guidance problem of multimissile system is researched. A three-dimensional guidance model is built using vector calculation and the classic proportional navigation guidance (PNG law is extended to three dimensions. Based on this guidance law, a distributed cooperative guidance strategy is proposed and a consensus protocol is designed to coordinate the time-to-go commands of all missiles. Then an expert system, which contains two extreme learning machines (ELM, is developed to regulate the local proportional coefficient of each missile according to the command. All missiles can arrive at the target simultaneously under the assumption that the multimissile network is connected. A simulation scenario is given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed method.

Δim-lacunary statistical convergence of order α

Science.gov (United States)

Altınok, Hıfsı; Et, Mikail; Işık, Mahmut

2018-01-01

The purpose of this work is to introduce the concepts of Δim-lacunary statistical convergence of order α and lacunary strongly (Δim,p )-convergence of order α. We establish some connections between lacunary strongly (Δim,p )-convergence of order α and Δim-lacunary statistical convergence of order α. It is shown that if a sequence is lacunary strongly (Δim,p )-summable of order α then it is Δim-lacunary statistically convergent of order α.

To cooperate or not to cooperate

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wessels, Josepha Ivanka

To Cooperate or not to Cooperate...? discusses results of a research project to study the rehabilitation of 1500-year old water tunnels, so called "qanats", in Syria. Communities all over the world are using traditional technologies to extract drinkingwater, irrigate their lands and feed...... their livestock. But these often sustainable and ancient ways to make use of groundwater are in rapid decline worldwide. A research project started in 1999 to study the rehabilitation of 1500-year old water tunnels called "qanats"in Syria. To Cooperate or not to Cooperate...? discusses results and outcomes...

Increasing dominance of IT in ICT convergence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Henten, Anders; Tadayoni, Reza

The aim of the paper is to examine the increasing dominance of IT companies in the converging ICT industry and, on the basis of this development, to contribute to extending the theoretical understanding of market and industry convergence in the ICT area.......The aim of the paper is to examine the increasing dominance of IT companies in the converging ICT industry and, on the basis of this development, to contribute to extending the theoretical understanding of market and industry convergence in the ICT area....

Strategic business transformation through technology convergence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Agarwal, Nivedita; Brem, Alexander

2015-01-01

-time intelligence. This paper presents the case of General Electric (GE) and studies the various transitional phases and transformation dimensions that GE is experiencing, to manage this technology convergence. The evaluation of GE's experience indicates that convergence-related business transformation is nonlinear......Technology adoption is crucial for an organisation to remain competitive in the marketplace. Traditionally, two technologies - operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) - have operated independently from one another; however, technological advancements that businesses...... are experiencing have increased the overlap and convergence of these two areas. Industrial organisations are investing heavily in the integration and alignment of these technologies and expect to benefit in several ways from this convergence, such as through increased productivity, reduction in cost, and real...

Fixed mobile convergence handbook

CERN Document Server

Ahson, Syed A

2010-01-01

From basic concepts to future directions, this handbook provides technical information on all aspects of fixed-mobile convergence (FMC). The book examines such topics as integrated management architecture, business trends and strategic implications for service providers, personal area networks, mobile controlled handover methods, SIP-based session mobility, and supervisory and notification aggregator service. Case studies are used to illustrate technical and systematic implementation of unified and rationalized internet access by fixed-mobile network convergence. The text examines the technolo

A Globally Convergent Matrix-Free Method for Constrained Equations and Its Linear Convergence Rate

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Min Sun

2014-01-01

Full Text Available A matrix-free method for constrained equations is proposed, which is a combination of the well-known PRP (Polak-Ribière-Polyak conjugate gradient method and the famous hyperplane projection method. The new method is not only derivative-free, but also completely matrix-free, and consequently, it can be applied to solve large-scale constrained equations. We obtain global convergence of the new method without any differentiability requirement on the constrained equations. Compared with the existing gradient methods for solving such problem, the new method possesses linear convergence rate under standard conditions, and a relax factor γ is attached in the update step to accelerate convergence. Preliminary numerical results show that it is promising in practice.

"Nanoselves": NBIC and the Culture of Convergence

Science.gov (United States)

Venkatesan, Priya

2010-01-01

The subject of this essay is NBIC convergence (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science convergence). NBIC convergence is a recurring trope that is dominated by the paradigm of integration of the sciences. It is largely influenced by the considerations of social and economic impact, and it assumes positivism in…

Sectoral Energy, and Labour, Productivity Convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mulder, P.; De Groot, H.L.F.

2007-01-01

This paper empirically investigates the development of cross-country differences in energy- and labour productivity. The analysis is performed at a detailed sectoral level for 14 OECD countries, covering the period 1970-1997. A ρ-convergence analysis reveals that the development over time of the cross-country variation in productivity performance differs across sectors as well as across different levels of aggregation. Both patterns of convergence as well as divergence are found. Cross-country variation of productivity levels is typically larger for energy than for labour. A β-convergence analysis provides support for the hypothesis that in most sectors lagging countries tend to catch up with technological leaders, in particular in terms of energy productivity. Moreover, the results show that convergence is conditional, meaning that productivity levels converge to country-specific steady states. Energy prices and wages are shown to positively affect energy- and labour-productivity growth, respectively. We also find evidence for the importance of economies of scale, whereas the investment share, openness and specialization play only a modest role in explaining cross-country variation in energy- and labour-productivity growth

Convergent evolution of the genomes of marine mammals

Science.gov (United States)

Foote, Andrew D.; Liu, Yue; Thomas, Gregg W.C.; Vinař, Tomáš; Alföldi, Jessica; Deng, Jixin; Dugan, Shannon; van Elk, Cornelis E.; Hunter, Margaret; Joshi, Vandita; Khan, Ziad; Kovar, Christie; Lee, Sandra L.; Lindblad-Toh, Kerstin; Mancia, Annalaura; Nielsen, Rasmus; Qin, Xiang; Qu, Jiaxin; Raney, Brian J.; Vijay, Nagarjun; Wolf, Jochen B. W.; Hahn, Matthew W.; Muzny, Donna M.; Worley, Kim C.; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Gibbs, Richard A.

2015-01-01

Marine mammals from different mammalian orders share several phenotypic traits adapted to the aquatic environment and therefore represent a classic example of convergent evolution. To investigate convergent evolution at the genomic level, we sequenced and performed de novo assembly of the genomes of three species of marine mammals (the killer whale, walrus and manatee) from three mammalian orders that share independently evolved phenotypic adaptations to a marine existence. Our comparative genomic analyses found that convergent amino acid substitutions were widespread throughout the genome and that a subset of these substitutions were in genes evolving under positive selection and putatively associated with a marine phenotype. However, we found higher levels of convergent amino acid substitutions in a control set of terrestrial sister taxa to the marine mammals. Our results suggest that, whereas convergent molecular evolution is relatively common, adaptive molecular convergence linked to phenotypic convergence is comparatively rare.

Convergence Insufficiency

Science.gov (United States)

... is also found to be weak. If both accommodation and convergence are weak, reading glasses, sometimes with prism added, may be a great option for these patients. It is very difficult to improve accommodation with exercises. Updated 7/2017 Eye Terms & Conditions ...

Sensory-motor relationships in speech production in post-lingually deaf cochlear-implanted adults and normal-hearing seniors: Evidence from phonetic convergence and speech imitation.

Science.gov (United States)

Scarbel, Lucie; Beautemps, Denis; Schwartz, Jean-Luc; Sato, Marc

2017-07-01

Speech communication can be viewed as an interactive process involving a functional coupling between sensory and motor systems. One striking example comes from phonetic convergence, when speakers automatically tend to mimic their interlocutor's speech during communicative interaction. The goal of this study was to investigate sensory-motor linkage in speech production in postlingually deaf cochlear implanted participants and normal hearing elderly adults through phonetic convergence and imitation. To this aim, two vowel production tasks, with or without instruction to imitate an acoustic vowel, were proposed to three groups of young adults with normal hearing, elderly adults with normal hearing and post-lingually deaf cochlear-implanted patients. Measure of the deviation of each participant's f 0 from their own mean f 0 was measured to evaluate the ability to converge to each acoustic target. showed that cochlear-implanted participants have the ability to converge to an acoustic target, both intentionally and unintentionally, albeit with a lower degree than young and elderly participants with normal hearing. By providing evidence for phonetic convergence and speech imitation, these results suggest that, as in young adults, perceptuo-motor relationships are efficient in elderly adults with normal hearing and that cochlear-implanted adults recovered significant perceptuo-motor abilities following cochlear implantation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Convergence theorems for Banach space valued integrable multifunctions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nikolaos S. Papageorgiou

1987-01-01

Full Text Available In this work we generalize a result of Kato on the pointwise behavior of a weakly convergent sequence in the Lebesgue-Bochner spaces LXP(Ω (1≤p≤∞. Then we use that result to prove Fatou's type lemmata and dominated convergence theorems for the Aumann integral of Banach space valued measurable multifunctions. Analogous convergence results are also proved for the sets of integrable selectors of those multifunctions. In the process of proving those convergence theorems we make some useful observations concerning the Kuratowski-Mosco convergence of sets.

Weak convergence and uniform normalization in infinitary rewriting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Simonsen, Jakob Grue

2010-01-01

the starkly surprising result that for any orthogonal system with finitely many rules, the system is weakly normalizing under weak convergence if{f} it is strongly normalizing under weak convergence if{f} it is weakly normalizing under strong convergence if{f} it is strongly normalizing under strong...... convergence. As further corollaries, we derive a number of new results for weakly convergent rewriting: Systems with finitely many rules enjoy unique normal forms, and acyclic orthogonal systems are confluent. Our results suggest that it may be possible to recover some of the positive results for strongly...

A joint mid-course and terminal course cooperative guidance law for multi-missile salvo attack

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jie ZENG

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Salvo attacking a surface target by multiple missiles is an effective tactic to enhance the lethality and penetrate the defense system. However, existing cooperative guidance laws in the mid-course or terminal course are not suitable for long- and medium-range missiles or stand-off attacking. Because the initial conditions of cooperative terminal guidance that are generally generated from the mid-course flight may not lead to a successful cooperative terminal guidance without proper mid-course flight adjustment. Meanwhile, cooperative guidance in the mid-course cannot solely guarantee the accuracy of a simultaneous arrival of multiple missiles. Therefore, a joint mid-course and terminal course cooperative guidance law is developed. By building a distinct leader-follower framework, this paper proposes an efficient coordinated Dubins path planning method to synchronize the arrival time of all engaged missiles in the mid-course flight. The planned flight can generate proper initial conditions for cooperative terminal guidance, and also benefit an earliest simultaneous arrival. In the terminal course, an existing cooperative proportional navigation guidance law guides all the engaged missiles to arrive at a target accurately and simultaneously. The integrated guidance law for an intuitive application is summarized. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed method can generate fast and accurate salvo attack. Keywords: Cooperative systems, Dubins path, Mid-course flight, Missile guidance, Salvo attack

Quantification of Cooperativity in Heterodimer-DNA Binding Improves the Accuracy of Binding Specificity Models*

Science.gov (United States)

Isakova, Alina; Berset, Yves; Hatzimanikatis, Vassily; Deplancke, Bart

2016-01-01

Many transcription factors (TFs) have the ability to cooperate on DNA elements as heterodimers. Despite the significance of TF heterodimerization for gene regulation, a quantitative understanding of cooperativity between various TF dimer partners and its impact on heterodimer DNA binding specificity models is still lacking. Here, we used a novel integrative approach, combining microfluidics-steered measurements of dimer-DNA assembly with mechanistic modeling of the implicated protein-protein-DNA interactions to quantitatively interrogate the cooperative DNA binding behavior of the adipogenic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ):retinoid X receptor α (RXRα) heterodimer. Using the high throughput MITOMI (mechanically induced trapping of molecular interactions) platform, we derived equilibrium DNA binding data for PPARγ, RXRα, as well as the PPARγ:RXRα heterodimer to more than 300 target DNA sites and variants thereof. We then quantified cooperativity underlying heterodimer-DNA binding and derived an integrative heterodimer DNA binding constant. Using this cooperativity-inclusive constant, we were able to build a heterodimer-DNA binding specificity model that has superior predictive power than the one based on a regular one-site equilibrium. Our data further revealed that individual nucleotide substitutions within the target site affect the extent of cooperativity in PPARγ:RXRα-DNA binding. Our study therefore emphasizes the importance of assessing cooperativity when generating DNA binding specificity models for heterodimers. PMID:26912662

Quantification of Cooperativity in Heterodimer-DNA Binding Improves the Accuracy of Binding Specificity Models.

Science.gov (United States)

Isakova, Alina; Berset, Yves; Hatzimanikatis, Vassily; Deplancke, Bart

2016-05-06

Many transcription factors (TFs) have the ability to cooperate on DNA elements as heterodimers. Despite the significance of TF heterodimerization for gene regulation, a quantitative understanding of cooperativity between various TF dimer partners and its impact on heterodimer DNA binding specificity models is still lacking. Here, we used a novel integrative approach, combining microfluidics-steered measurements of dimer-DNA assembly with mechanistic modeling of the implicated protein-protein-DNA interactions to quantitatively interrogate the cooperative DNA binding behavior of the adipogenic peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ (PPARγ):retinoid X receptor α (RXRα) heterodimer. Using the high throughput MITOMI (mechanically induced trapping of molecular interactions) platform, we derived equilibrium DNA binding data for PPARγ, RXRα, as well as the PPARγ:RXRα heterodimer to more than 300 target DNA sites and variants thereof. We then quantified cooperativity underlying heterodimer-DNA binding and derived an integrative heterodimer DNA binding constant. Using this cooperativity-inclusive constant, we were able to build a heterodimer-DNA binding specificity model that has superior predictive power than the one based on a regular one-site equilibrium. Our data further revealed that individual nucleotide substitutions within the target site affect the extent of cooperativity in PPARγ:RXRα-DNA binding. Our study therefore emphasizes the importance of assessing cooperativity when generating DNA binding specificity models for heterodimers. © 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

75 FR 10319 - Cooper Tools-Sumter, Cooper Tools Divisions, a Subsidiary of Cooper Industries, Inc., Including...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-03-05

... DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employment and Training Administration [TA-W-71,602] Cooper Tools--Sumter, Cooper Tools Divisions, a Subsidiary of Cooper Industries, Inc., Including On-Site Leased Workers From... January 26, 2010, applicable to workers of Cooper Tools--Sumter, Cooper Tools Division, a subsidiary of...

Electricity and gas : market and price convergence : fundamentals of restructuring and convergence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Heintz, H.; Spragins, R.

2000-07-01

One of the results of the transition from regulation to competition in the Canadian and American natural gas and electricity industries is convergence of the two industries. Convergence is occurring in the areas of corporate structuring activities (mergers and acquisitions), natural gas and electricity prices, products and services, and on a geographic basis. This study examines the restructuring and convergence from the perspective of industry stakeholders, consumers, competitors and regulators. The trend to deregulate to establish competitive markets has been driven by the assumption that lower prices and more choices will result. Deregulation has been made easier by technological developments and innovations in the area of conventional generation, distributed generation, information management and analysis, as well as mass communication channels such as the Internet. These changes have made it possible to measure and monitor energy use in real-time. Technological changes will continue to influence the energy industry. The use of different restructuring rules and regulations in jurisdictions that are implementing change may be one of the primary factors that could limit the extent of convergence. Successful competition by energy service providers in converged retail energy markets will depend on several factors, the first of which is the ability to control the customer interface through retail cycle services such as metering and billing. The second is the successful branding of corporate identities, products and services. These will ensure customer loyalty and facilitate the marketing of new products. Another factor would be the effective management of information regarding natural gas and electricity consumption patterns and the establishment of low cost operations through the use of conventional generation technologies. The final factor for successful competition is the effective use of low cost communication technologies such as the Internet. The transition

Electricity and gas : market and price convergence : fundamentals of restructuring and convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heintz, H.; Spragins, R.

2000-01-01

One of the results of the transition from regulation to competition in the Canadian and American natural gas and electricity industries is convergence of the two industries. Convergence is occurring in the areas of corporate structuring activities (mergers and acquisitions), natural gas and electricity prices, products and services, and on a geographic basis. This study examines the restructuring and convergence from the perspective of industry stakeholders, consumers, competitors and regulators. The trend to deregulate to establish competitive markets has been driven by the assumption that lower prices and more choices will result. Deregulation has been made easier by technological developments and innovations in the area of conventional generation, distributed generation, information management and analysis, as well as mass communication channels such as the Internet. These changes have made it possible to measure and monitor energy use in real-time. Technological changes will continue to influence the energy industry. The use of different restructuring rules and regulations in jurisdictions that are implementing change may be one of the primary factors that could limit the extent of convergence. Successful competition by energy service providers in converged retail energy markets will depend on several factors, the first of which is the ability to control the customer interface through retail cycle services such as metering and billing. The second is the successful branding of corporate identities, products and services. These will ensure customer loyalty and facilitate the marketing of new products. Another factor would be the effective management of information regarding natural gas and electricity consumption patterns and the establishment of low cost operations through the use of conventional generation technologies. The final factor for successful competition is the effective use of low cost communication technologies such as the Internet. The transition

Effect of Finite Particle Size on Convergence of Point Particle Models in Euler-Lagrange Multiphase Dispersed Flow

Science.gov (United States)

Nili, Samaun; Park, Chanyoung; Haftka, Raphael T.; Kim, Nam H.; Balachandar, S.

2017-11-01

Point particle methods are extensively used in simulating Euler-Lagrange multiphase dispersed flow. When particles are much smaller than the Eulerian grid the point particle model is on firm theoretical ground. However, this standard approach of evaluating the gas-particle coupling at the particle center fails to converge as the Eulerian grid is reduced below particle size. We present an approach to model the interaction between particles and fluid for finite size particles that permits convergence. We use the generalized Faxen form to compute the force on a particle and compare the results against traditional point particle method. We apportion the different force components on the particle to fluid cells based on the fraction of particle volume or surface in the cell. The application is to a one-dimensional model of shock propagation through a particle-laden field at moderate volume fraction, where the convergence is achieved for a well-formulated force model and back coupling for finite size particles. Comparison with 3D direct fully resolved numerical simulations will be used to check if the approach also improves accuracy compared to the point particle model. Work supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, Advanced Simulation and Computing Program, as a Cooperative Agreement under the Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program, under Contract No. DE-NA0002378.

Quadratically convergent MCSCF scheme using Fock operators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Das, G.

1981-01-01

A quadratically convergent formulation of the MCSCF method using Fock operators is presented. Among its advantages the present formulation is quadratically convergent unlike the earlier ones based on Fock operators. In contrast to other quadratically convergent schemes as well as the one based on generalized Brillouin's theorem, this method leads easily to a hybrid scheme where the weakly coupled orbitals (such as the core) are handled purely by Fock equations, while the rest of the orbitals are treated by a quadratically convergent approach with a truncated virtual space obtained by the use of the corresponding Fock equations

Ray convergence in a flux-like propagation formulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrison, Chris H

2013-06-01

The energy flux formulation of waveguide propagation is closely related to the incoherent mode sum, and its simplicity has led to development of efficient computational algorithms for reverberation and target echo strength, but it lacks the effects of convergence or modal interference. By starting with the coherent mode sum and rejecting the most rapid interference but retaining beats on a scale of a ray cycle distance it is shown that convergence can be included in a hybrid formulation requiring minimal extra computation. Three solutions are offered by evaluating the modal intensity cross terms using Taylor expansions. In the most efficient approach the double summation of the cross terms is reduced to a single numerical sum by solving the other summation analytically. The other two solutions are a local range average and a local depth average. Favorable comparisons are made between these three solutions and the wave model Orca with, and without, spatial averaging in an upward refracting duct. As a by-product, it is shown that the running range average is very close to the mode solution excluding its fringes, given a relation between averaging window size and effective number of modes which, in turn, is related to the waveguide invariant.

Competition and convergence between auditory and cross-modal visual inputs to primary auditory cortical areas

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Yu-Ting; Hua, Tian-Miao

2011-01-01

Sensory neocortex is capable of considerable plasticity after sensory deprivation or damage to input pathways, especially early in development. Although plasticity can often be restorative, sometimes novel, ectopic inputs invade the affected cortical area. Invading inputs from other sensory modalities may compromise the original function or even take over, imposing a new function and preventing recovery. Using ferrets whose retinal axons were rerouted into auditory thalamus at birth, we were able to examine the effect of varying the degree of ectopic, cross-modal input on reorganization of developing auditory cortex. In particular, we assayed whether the invading visual inputs and the existing auditory inputs competed for or shared postsynaptic targets and whether the convergence of input modalities would induce multisensory processing. We demonstrate that although the cross-modal inputs create new visual neurons in auditory cortex, some auditory processing remains. The degree of damage to auditory input to the medial geniculate nucleus was directly related to the proportion of visual neurons in auditory cortex, suggesting that the visual and residual auditory inputs compete for cortical territory. Visual neurons were not segregated from auditory neurons but shared target space even on individual target cells, substantially increasing the proportion of multisensory neurons. Thus spatial convergence of visual and auditory input modalities may be sufficient to expand multisensory representations. Together these findings argue that early, patterned visual activity does not drive segregation of visual and auditory afferents and suggest that auditory function might be compromised by converging visual inputs. These results indicate possible ways in which multisensory cortical areas may form during development and evolution. They also suggest that rehabilitative strategies designed to promote recovery of function after sensory deprivation or damage need to take into

Convergent Double Auction Mechanism for a Prosumers’ Decentralized Smart Grid

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tadahiro Taniguchi

2015-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we propose a novel automated double auction mechanism called convergent linear function submission-based double-auction (CLFS-DA for a prosumers’ decentralized smart grid. The target decentralized smart grid is a regional electricity network that consists of many prosumers that have a battery and a renewable energy-based generator, such as photovoltaic cells. In the proposed double-auction mechanism, each intelligent software agent representing each prosumer submits linear demand and supply functions to an automated regional electricity market where they are registered. It is proven that the CLFS-DA mechanism is guaranteed to obtain one of the global optimal price profiles in addition to it achieving an exact balance between demand and supply, even through the learning period. The proof of convergence is provided on the basis of the theory of LFS-DA, which gives a clear bridge between a function submission-based double auction and a dual decomposition (DD-based real-time pricing procedure. The performance of the proposed mechanism is demonstrated numerically through a simulation experiment.

CONVERGENT (NBIC TECHNOLOGIES: PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATIONAL POTENTIAL

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

И В Данилин

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Modern innovation policy is formed under strong influence of disruptive technologies con-cepts, which help mobilize support for Science and Technology (S&T policy, structure international S&T cooperation and system, etc. They are also important for the global processes, promising changes in leading powers cohort. This is why disruptive technology concepts are accented by the emerging economics, especially by BRIC nations. A concept of converging (or nano-bio-info-cognitive, also known as NBIC technologies is very illustrative. Being originally a part of the USA nanotechnology policy and transhumanistic discourse, it gradually evolved globally with focus on “Grand Challenges”. But, despite successes of technology convergence since 2000s, concept itself proved to be not fully operational, being mostly a metaphor for rising interdisciplinarity and discipline convergence. Nonetheless its revolutionary potential was meaningful, but linked not to technological, but institu-tional and socio-cultural dimensions. Among them were human capital development, changing logic of S&T organization, reforming S&T policies, formation of new culture and ethics of research and development, systemic development of national innovation systems. These ideas, implicitly present in the NBIC concept, were of a special importance for the emerging economies as key factors for their enforced growth and rising quality of development processes. But these issues were surprisingly weak articulated in NBIC concept. Partly that was the influence of transhumanist discourse with its escape from solving societal challenges by technological change of human self. Not less important was that NBIC were seen by elites as a mean to bypass deep reforms and buildup of innovation institutions. I.e., concepts of disruptive technologies represent a psychological sub-stitute for a really intense development. Uniqueness of NBIC is that it makes this contradiction very visible. As shown in

[Global health 2035: a world converging within a generation].

Science.gov (United States)

Jamison, Dean T; Summers, Lawrence H; Alleyne, George; Arrow, Kenneth J; Berkley, Seth; Binagwaho, Agnes; Bustreo, Flavia; Evans, David; Feachem, Richard G A; Frenk, Julio; Ghosh, Gargee; Goldie, Sue J; Guo, Yan; Gupta, Sanjeev; Horton, Richard; Kruk, Margaret E; Mahmoud, Adel; Mohohlo, Linah K; Ncube, Mthuli; Pablos-Mendez, Ariel; Reddy, K Srinath; Saxenian, Helen; Soucat, Agnes; Ulltveit-Moe, Karen H; Yamey, Gavin

2015-01-01

Prompted by the 20th anniversary of the 1993 World Development Report, a Lancet Commission revisited the case for investment in health and developed a new investment framework to achieve dramatic health gains by 2035. The Commission's report has four key messages, each accompanied by opportunities for action by national governments of low-income and middle-income countries and by the international community. First, there is an enormous economic payoff from investing in health. The impressive returns make a strong case for both increased domestic financing of health and for allocating a higher proportion of official development assistance to development of health. Second, modeling by the Commission found that a "grand convergence" in health is achievable by 2035-that is, a reduction in infectious, maternal, and child mortality down to universally low levels. Convergence would require aggressive scale up of existing and new health tools, and it could mostly be financed from the expected economic growth of low- and middle-income countries. The international community can best support convergence by funding the development and delivery of new health technologies and by curbing antibiotic resistance. Third, fiscal policies -such as taxation of tobacco and alcohol- are a powerful and underused lever that governments can use to curb non-communicable diseases and injuries while also raising revenue for health. International action on NCDs and injuries should focus on providing technical assistance on fiscal policies, regional cooperation on tobacco, and funding policy and implementation research on scaling-up of interventions to tackle these conditions. Fourth, progressive universalism, a pathway to universal health coverage (UHC) that includes the poor from the outset, is an efficient way to achieve health and financial risk protection. For national governments, progressive universalism would yield high health gains per dollar spent and poor people would gain the most in

a globally convergent hyperpl onvergent hyperplane

African Journals Online (AJOL)

userpc

Bayero Journal of Pure and App. ISSN 2006 – 6996 ... Globally Convergent Hyper plane-BFGS method for solving nonline. The attractive ... Numerical performance on some b rates there liability ..... convergence of a class of quasi methods on ...

Ayahuasca enhances creative divergent thinking while decreasing conventional convergent thinking.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuypers, K P C; Riba, J; de la Fuente Revenga, M; Barker, S; Theunissen, E L; Ramaekers, J G

2016-09-01

Ayahuasca is a South American psychotropic plant tea traditionally used in Amazonian shamanism. The tea contains the psychedelic 5-HT2A receptor agonist N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), plus β-carboline alkaloids with monoamine oxidase-inhibiting properties. Increasing evidence from anecdotal reports and open-label studies indicates that ayahuasca may have therapeutic effects in treatment of substance use disorders and depression. A recent study on the psychological effects of ayahuasca found that the tea reduces judgmental processing and inner reactivity, classic goals of mindfulness psychotherapy. Another psychological facet that could potentially be targeted by ayahuasca is creative divergent thinking. This mode of thinking can enhance and strengthen psychological flexibility by allowing individuals to generate new and effective cognitive, emotional, and behavioral strategies. The present study aimed to assess the potential effects of ayahuasca on creative thinking. We visited two spiritual ayahuasca workshops and invited participants to conduct creativity tests before and during the acute effects of ayahuasca. In total, 26 participants consented. Creativity tests included the "pattern/line meanings test" (PLMT) and the "picture concept test" (PCT), both assessing divergent thinking and the latter also assessing convergent thinking. While no significant effects were found for the PLMT, ayahuasca intake significantly modified divergent and convergent thinking as measured by the PCT. While convergent thinking decreased after intake, divergent thinking increased. The present data indicate that ayahuasca enhances creative divergent thinking. They suggest that ayahuasca increases psychological flexibility, which may facilitate psychotherapeutic interventions and support clinical trial initiatives.

The Mackey convergence condition for spaces with webs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas E. Gilsdorf

1988-01-01

Full Text Available If each sequence converging to 0 in a locally convex space is also Mackey convergent to 0, that space is said to satisfy the Mackey convergence condition. The problem of characterizing those locally convex spaces with this property is still open. In this paper, spaces with compatible webs are used to construct both a necessary and a sufficient condition for a locally convex space to satisfy the Mackey convergence condition.

On the Fuzzy Convergence

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Abdul Hameed Q. A. Al-Tai

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to introduce and study the fuzzy neighborhood, the limit fuzzy number, the convergent fuzzy sequence, the bounded fuzzy sequence, and the Cauchy fuzzy sequence on the base which is adopted by Abdul Hameed (every real number r is replaced by a fuzzy number r¯ (either triangular fuzzy number or singleton fuzzy set (fuzzy point. And then, we will consider that some results respect effect of the upper sequence on the convergent fuzzy sequence, the bounded fuzzy sequence, and the Cauchy fuzzy sequence.

On statistical acceleration convergence of double sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bipan Hazarika

2017-04-01

Full Text Available In this article the notion of statistical acceleration convergence of double sequences in Pringsheim's sense has been introduced. We prove the decompostion theorems for  statistical acceleration convergence of double sequences and some theorems related to that concept have been established using the four dimensional matrix transformations. We provided some examples, where the results of acceleration convergence fails to hold for the statistical cases.

Convergence of carbon dioxide emissions in different sectors in China

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Juan; Zhang, Kezhong

2014-01-01

In this paper, we analyze differences in per capita carbon dioxide emissions from 1996 to 2010 in six sectors across 28 provinces in China and examine the σ-convergence, stochastic convergence and β-convergence of these emissions. We also investigate the factors that impact the convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in each sector. The results show that per capita carbon dioxide emissions in all sectors converged across provinces from 1996 to 2010. Factors that impact the convergence of per capita carbon dioxide emissions in each sector vary: GDP (gross domestic product) per capita, industrialization process and population density impact convergence in the Industry sector, while GDP per capita and population density impact convergence in the Transportation, Storage, Postal, and Telecommunications Services sector. Aside from GDP per capita and population density, trade openness also impacts convergence in the Wholesale, Retail, Trade, and Catering Service sector. Population density is the only factor that impacts convergence in the Residential Consumption sector. - Highlights: • Analyze differences in CO 2 emissions in six sectors among 28 provinces in China. • Examine the convergence of CO 2 emissions in six sectors. • Investigate factors impact on convergence of CO 2 emissions in each sector. • Factors impact on convergence of per capita CO 2 emissions in each sector vary

Study and Application of Reinforcement Learning in Cooperative Strategy of the Robot Soccer Based on BDI Model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wu Bo-ying

2009-11-01

Full Text Available The dynamic cooperation model of multi-Agent is formed by combining reinforcement learning with BDI model. In this model, the concept of the individual optimization loses its meaning, because the repayment of each Agent dose not only depend on itsself but also on the choice of other Agents. All Agents can pursue a common optimum solution and try to realize the united intention as a whole to a maximum limit. The robot moves to its goal, depending on the present positions of the other robots that cooperate with it and the present position of the ball. One of these robots cooperating with it is controlled to move by man with a joystick. In this way, Agent can be ensured to search for each state-action as frequently as possible when it carries on choosing movements, so as to shorten the time of searching for the movement space so that the convergence speed of reinforcement learning can be improved. The validity of the proposed cooperative strategy for the robot soccer has been proved by combining theoretical analysis with simulation robot soccer match (11vs11 .

Near Point of Convergence Break for Different Age Groups in Turkish Population with Normal Binocular Vision: Normative Data

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nihat Sayın

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the near point of convergence break in Turkish population with normal binocular vision and to obtain the normative data for the near point of convergence break in different age groups. Such database has not been previously reported. Material and Method: In this prospective study, 329 subjects with normal binocular vision (age range, 3-72 years were evaluated. The near point of convergence break was measured 4 times repeatedly with an accommodative target. Mean values of near point of convergence break were provided for these age groups (≤10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60, and >60 years old. A statistical comparison (one-way ANOVA and post-hoc test of these values between age groups was performed. A correlation between the near point of convergence break and age was evaluated by Pearson’s correlation test. Results: The mean value for near point of convergence break was 2.46±1.88 (0.5-14 cm. Specifically, 95% of measurements in all subjects were 60 year-old age groups in the near point of convergence break values (p=0.0001, p=0.0001, p=0.006, p=0.001, p= 0.004. A mild positive correlation was observed between the increase in near point of convergence break and increase of age (r=0.355 (p<0.001. Discussion: The values derived from a relatively large study population to establish a normative database for the near point of convergence break in the Turkish population with normal binocular vision are in relevance with age. This database has not been previously reported. (Turk J Ophthalmol 2013; 43: 402-6

Cooperative MIMO Communication at Wireless Sensor Network: An Error Correcting Code Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Islam, Mohammad Rakibul; Han, Young Shin

2011-01-01

Cooperative communication in wireless sensor network (WSN) explores the energy efficient wireless communication schemes between multiple sensors and data gathering node (DGN) by exploiting multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and multiple input single output (MISO) configurations. In this paper, an energy efficient cooperative MIMO (C-MIMO) technique is proposed where low density parity check (LDPC) code is used as an error correcting code. The rate of LDPC code is varied by varying the length of message and parity bits. Simulation results show that the cooperative communication scheme outperforms SISO scheme in the presence of LDPC code. LDPC codes with different code rates are compared using bit error rate (BER) analysis. BER is also analyzed under different Nakagami fading scenario. Energy efficiencies are compared for different targeted probability of bit error pb. It is observed that C-MIMO performs more efficiently when the targeted pb is smaller. Also the lower encoding rate for LDPC code offers better error characteristics. PMID:22163732

Cooperative MIMO communication at wireless sensor network: an error correcting code approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Islam, Mohammad Rakibul; Han, Young Shin

2011-01-01

Cooperative communication in wireless sensor network (WSN) explores the energy efficient wireless communication schemes between multiple sensors and data gathering node (DGN) by exploiting multiple input multiple output (MIMO) and multiple input single output (MISO) configurations. In this paper, an energy efficient cooperative MIMO (C-MIMO) technique is proposed where low density parity check (LDPC) code is used as an error correcting code. The rate of LDPC code is varied by varying the length of message and parity bits. Simulation results show that the cooperative communication scheme outperforms SISO scheme in the presence of LDPC code. LDPC codes with different code rates are compared using bit error rate (BER) analysis. BER is also analyzed under different Nakagami fading scenario. Energy efficiencies are compared for different targeted probability of bit error p(b). It is observed that C-MIMO performs more efficiently when the targeted p(b) is smaller. Also the lower encoding rate for LDPC code offers better error characteristics.

Quantifying convergence in the sciences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sara Lumbreras

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Traditional epistemological models classify knowledge into separate disciplines with different objects of study and specific techniques, with some frameworks even proposing hierarchies (such as Comte’s. According to thinkers such as John Holland or Teilhard de Chardin, the advancement of science involves the convergence of disciplines. This proposed convergence can be studied in a number of ways, such as how works impact research outside a specific area (citation networks or how authors collaborate with other researchers in different fields (collaboration networks. While these studies are delivering significant new insights, they cannot easily show the convergence of different topics within a body of knowledge. This paper attempts to address this question in a quantitative manner, searching for evidence that supports the idea of convergence in the content of the sciences themselves (that is, whether the sciences are dealing with increasingly the same topics. We use Latent Dirichlet Analysis (LDA, a technique that is able to analyze texts and estimate the relative contributions of the topics that were used to generate them. We apply this tool to the corpus of the Santa Fe Institute (SFI working papers, which spans research on Complexity Science from 1989 to 2015. We then analyze the relatedness of the different research areas, the rise and demise of these sub-disciplines over time and, more broadly, the convergence of the research body as a whole. Combining the topic structure obtained from the collected publication history of the SFI community with techniques to infer hierarchy and clustering, we reconstruct a picture of a dynamic community which experiences trends, periodically recurring topics, and shifts in the closeness of scholarship over time. We find that there is support for convergence, and that the application of quantitative methods such as LDA to the study of knowledge can provide valuable insights that can help

Beyond Brainstorming: Exploring Convergence in Teams

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Seeber, Isabella; de Vreede, Gert-Jan; Maier, Ronald

2017-01-01

Collaborative brainstorming is often followed by a convergence activity where teams extract the most promising ideas on a useful level of detail from the brainstorming results. Contrary to the wealth of research on electronic brainstorming, there is a dearth of research on convergence. We used...

Redistribution effects resulting from cross-border cooperation in support for renewable energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unteutsch, Michaela

2014-01-01

It has been shown that international cooperation in achieving renewable energy targets, e.g., via a common tradable green certificate market, increases overall welfare. However, cooperation in the support of electricity from renewable energy sources also leads to regional price effects, from which some groups benefit while others lose. On a regional level, the introduction of cross-border cooperation in RES-E support generally has an opposite effect on support expenditures and wholesale electricity prices, as long as grid congestion between the different regions exists. In this paper, a theoretical model is used to analyze under which conditions different groups bene t or suffer from the introduction of cooperation. Findings of the analysis include that effects on consumers and total producers per country can only be clearly determined if no grid congestions between the countries exist. If bottlenecks in the transmission system exist, the relationship between the slopes of the renewable and the non-renewable marginal generation cost curves for electricity generation as well as the level of the RES-E target essentially determine whether these groups bene t or lose from the introduction of green certificate trading. In contrast, system-wide welfare always increases once cooperation in RES-E support is introduced. Similarly, welfare on the country level always increases (compared to a situation without RES-E cooperation) if the countries are perfectly or not at all physically interconnected. In the case of congested interconnectors, each country always at least potentially benefits from the introduction of certificate trade, taking into account possible distributions of congestion rents between the countries.

Redistribution effects resulting from cross-border cooperation in support for renewable energy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Unteutsch, Michaela

2014-01-15

It has been shown that international cooperation in achieving renewable energy targets, e.g., via a common tradable green certificate market, increases overall welfare. However, cooperation in the support of electricity from renewable energy sources also leads to regional price effects, from which some groups benefit while others lose. On a regional level, the introduction of cross-border cooperation in RES-E support generally has an opposite effect on support expenditures and wholesale electricity prices, as long as grid congestion between the different regions exists. In this paper, a theoretical model is used to analyze under which conditions different groups bene t or suffer from the introduction of cooperation. Findings of the analysis include that effects on consumers and total producers per country can only be clearly determined if no grid congestions between the countries exist. If bottlenecks in the transmission system exist, the relationship between the slopes of the renewable and the non-renewable marginal generation cost curves for electricity generation as well as the level of the RES-E target essentially determine whether these groups bene t or lose from the introduction of green certificate trading. In contrast, system-wide welfare always increases once cooperation in RES-E support is introduced. Similarly, welfare on the country level always increases (compared to a situation without RES-E cooperation) if the countries are perfectly or not at all physically interconnected. In the case of congested interconnectors, each country always at least potentially benefits from the introduction of certificate trade, taking into account possible distributions of congestion rents between the countries.

Convergence analysis of canonical genetic algorithms.

Science.gov (United States)

Rudolph, G

1994-01-01

This paper analyzes the convergence properties of the canonical genetic algorithm (CGA) with mutation, crossover and proportional reproduction applied to static optimization problems. It is proved by means of homogeneous finite Markov chain analysis that a CGA will never converge to the global optimum regardless of the initialization, crossover, operator and objective function. But variants of CGA's that always maintain the best solution in the population, either before or after selection, are shown to converge to the global optimum due to the irreducibility property of the underlying original nonconvergent CGA. These results are discussed with respect to the schema theorem.

convergent methods for calculating thermodynamic Green functions

OpenAIRE

Bowen, S. P.; Williams, C. D.; Mancini, J. D.

1984-01-01

A convergent method of approximating thermodynamic Green functions is outlined briefly. The method constructs a sequence of approximants which converges independently of the strength of the Hamiltonian's coupling constants. Two new concepts associated with the approximants are introduced: the resolving power of the approximation, and conditional creation (annihilation) operators. These ideas are illustrated on an exactly soluble model and a numerical example. A convergent expression for the s...

Log-binomial models: exploring failed convergence.

Science.gov (United States)

Williamson, Tyler; Eliasziw, Misha; Fick, Gordon Hilton

2013-12-13

Relative risk is a summary metric that is commonly used in epidemiological investigations. Increasingly, epidemiologists are using log-binomial models to study the impact of a set of predictor variables on a single binary outcome, as they naturally offer relative risks. However, standard statistical software may report failed convergence when attempting to fit log-binomial models in certain settings. The methods that have been proposed in the literature for dealing with failed convergence use approximate solutions to avoid the issue. This research looks directly at the log-likelihood function for the simplest log-binomial model where failed convergence has been observed, a model with a single linear predictor with three levels. The possible causes of failed convergence are explored and potential solutions are presented for some cases. Among the principal causes is a failure of the fitting algorithm to converge despite the log-likelihood function having a single finite maximum. Despite these limitations, log-binomial models are a viable option for epidemiologists wishing to describe the relationship between a set of predictors and a binary outcome where relative risk is the desired summary measure. Epidemiologists are encouraged to continue to use log-binomial models and advocate for improvements to the fitting algorithms to promote the widespread use of log-binomial models.

Energy Efficiency Analysis of a Two Dimensional Cooperative Wireless Sensor Network with Relay Selection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. Kakitani

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The energy efficiency of non-cooperative and cooperative transmissions are investigated in a two-dimensional wireless sensor network, considering a target outage probability and the same end-to-end throughput for all transmission schemes. The impact of the relay selection method in the cooperative schemes is also analyzed. We show that under non line-of-sight conditions the relay selection method has a greater impact in the energy efficiency than the availability of a return channel. By its turn, under line-of-sight conditions a return channel is more valuable to the energy efficiency of cooperative transmission than the specific relay selection method. Finally, we demonstrate that the energy efficiency advantage of the cooperative over the non-cooperative transmission increases with the distance among nodes and with the nodes density.

A class of convergent neural network dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

Fiedler, Bernold; Gedeon, Tomáš

1998-01-01

We consider a class of systems of differential equations in Rn which exhibits convergent dynamics. We find a Lyapunov function and show that every bounded trajectory converges to the set of equilibria. Our result generalizes the results of Cohen and Grossberg (1983) for convergent neural networks. It replaces the symmetry assumption on the matrix of weights by the assumption on the structure of the connections in the neural network. We prove the convergence result also for a large class of Lotka-Volterra systems. These are naturally defined on the closed positive orthant. We show that there are no heteroclinic cycles on the boundary of the positive orthant for the systems in this class.

Convergence of knowledge, technology and society beyond convergence of nano-bio-info-cognitive technologies

CERN Document Server

Bainbridge, William; Tonn, Bruce; Whitesides, George

2013-01-01

Convergence of knowledge and technology for the benefit of society (CKTS) is the core opportunity for progress in the 21st century, based on five principles: (1) the interdependence of all components of nature and society, (2) enhancement of creativity and innovation through evolutionary processes of convergence that combine existing principles, and divergence that generates new ones, (3) decision analysis for research and development based on system-logic deduction, (4) higher-level cross-domain languages to generate new solutions and support transfer of new knowledge, and (5) vision-inspired basic research embodied in grand challenges. Solutions are outlined for key societal challenges, including creating new industries and jobs, improving lifelong wellness and human potential, achieving personalized and integrated healthcare and education, and securing a sustainable quality of life for all. This report provides a ten-year “NBIC2” vision within a longer-term framework for converging technology and human...

Proof of cipher text ownership based on convergence encryption

Science.gov (United States)

Zhong, Weiwei; Liu, Zhusong

2017-08-01

Cloud storage systems save disk space and bandwidth through deduplication technology, but with the use of this technology has been targeted security attacks: the attacker can get the original file just use hash value to deceive the server to obtain the file ownership. In order to solve the above security problems and the different security requirements of cloud storage system files, an efficient information theory security proof of ownership scheme is proposed. This scheme protects the data through the convergence encryption method, and uses the improved block-level proof of ownership scheme, and can carry out block-level client deduplication to achieve efficient and secure cloud storage deduplication scheme.

Explaining convergence of oecd welfare states

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schmitt, C.; Starke, Peter

2011-01-01

of conditional convergence helps to both better describe and explain the phenomenon. By applying error correction models, we examine conditional convergence of various types of social expenditure in 21 OECD countries between 1980 and 2005. Our empirical findings go beyond the existing literature in two respects...

AGS Spallation Target Experiment (ASTE) Collaboration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Oyama, Yukio

1999-01-01

An experiment on mercury spallation target with high energy proton beam, called as the AGS Spallation Target Experiment (ASTE) Collaboration, has been performed at Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in USA, in cooperation among the laboratories in Japan, Europe and USA. The experimental setup, scope and preliminary results are presented in the paper. (author)

Upstream-downstream cooperation approach in Guanting Reservoir watershed.

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Zhi-Feng; Zhang, Wen-Guo

2005-01-01

A case study is introduced and discussed concerning water dispute of misuse and pollution between up- and down-stream parts. The relations between water usage and local industrial structures are analyzed. Results show it is important to change industrial structures of the target region along with controlling water pollution by technical and engineering methods. Three manners of upstream-downstream cooperation are presented and discussed based on the actual conditions of Guangting Reservoir watershed. Two typical scenarios are supposed and studied along with the local plan on water resources development. The best solution for this cooperation presents a good way to help the upstream developing in a new pattern of eco-economy.

5G: The Convergence of Wireless Communications.

Science.gov (United States)

Chávez-Santiago, Raúl; Szydełko, Michał; Kliks, Adrian; Foukalas, Fotis; Haddad, Yoram; Nolan, Keith E; Kelly, Mark Y; Masonta, Moshe T; Balasingham, Ilangko

As the rollout of 4G mobile communication networks takes place, representatives of industry and academia have started to look into the technological developments toward the next generation (5G). Several research projects involving key international mobile network operators, infrastructure manufacturers, and academic institutions, have been launched recently to set the technological foundations of 5G. However, the architecture of future 5G systems, their performance, and mobile services to be provided have not been clearly defined. In this paper, we put forth the vision for 5G as the convergence of evolved versions of current cellular networks with other complementary radio access technologies. Therefore, 5G may not be a single radio access interface but rather a "network of networks". Evidently, the seamless integration of a variety of air interfaces, protocols, and frequency bands, requires paradigm shifts in the way networks cooperate and complement each other to deliver data rates of several Gigabits per second with end-to-end latency of a few milliseconds. We provide an overview of the key radio technologies that will play a key role in the realization of this vision for the next generation of mobile communication networks. We also introduce some of the research challenges that need to be addressed.

International cooperation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2008-01-01

In this chapter international cooperation of the Division for Radiation Safety, NPP Decommissioning and Radwaste Management of the VUJE, a. s. is presented. Very important is cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. This cooperation has various forms - national and regional projects of technical cooperation, coordinated research activities, participation of our experts in preparation of the IAEA documentation etc.

TALE-Like Effectors Are an Ancestral Feature of the Ralstonia solanacearum Species Complex and Converge in DNA Targeting Specificity.

Science.gov (United States)

Schandry, Niklas; de Lange, Orlando; Prior, Philippe; Lahaye, Thomas

2016-01-01

RipTAL repeats allows for a reconstruction of repeat array biogenesis, for example through slipped strand mispairing or gene conversion. Using these studies we show how RipTALs of broad host range strains evolved convergently toward a shared target sequence. Finally, we discuss the differences between TALE-likes of plant pathogens in the context of disease ecology.

Convergence Performance of Adaptive Algorithms of L-Filters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Robert Hudec

2003-01-01

Full Text Available This paper deals with convergence parameters determination of adaptive algorithms, which are used in adaptive L-filters design. Firstly the stability of adaptation process, convergence rate or adaptation time, and behaviour of convergence curve belong among basic properties of adaptive algorithms. L-filters with variety of adaptive algorithms were used to their determination. Convergence performances finding of adaptive filters is important mainly for their hardware applications, where filtration in real time or adaptation of coefficient filter with low capacity of input data are required.

GCPSO in cooperation with graph theory to distribution network reconfiguration for energy saving

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Assadian, Mehdi; Farsangi, Malihe M.; Nezamabadi-pour, Hossein

2010-01-01

Network reconfiguration for loss reduction in distribution system is an important way to save energy. This paper investigates the ability of guaranteed convergence particle swarm optimization (GCPSO) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) in cooperation with graph theory for network reconfiguration to reduce the power loss and enhancement of voltage profile of distribution systems. Numerical results of three distribution systems are presented which illustrate the feasibility of the proposed method by GCPSO and PSO using the graph theory. To validate the obtained results, genetic algorithm (GA) using graph theory is also applied and is compared with the proposed GCPSO and PSO using graph theory.

Convergence estimates in probability and in expectation for discrete least squares with noisy evaluations at random points

KAUST Repository

Migliorati, Giovanni

2015-08-28

We study the accuracy of the discrete least-squares approximation on a finite dimensional space of a real-valued target function from noisy pointwise evaluations at independent random points distributed according to a given sampling probability measure. The convergence estimates are given in mean-square sense with respect to the sampling measure. The noise may be correlated with the location of the evaluation and may have nonzero mean (offset). We consider both cases of bounded or square-integrable noise / offset. We prove conditions between the number of sampling points and the dimension of the underlying approximation space that ensure a stable and accurate approximation. Particular focus is on deriving estimates in probability within a given confidence level. We analyze how the best approximation error and the noise terms affect the convergence rate and the overall confidence level achieved by the convergence estimate. The proofs of our convergence estimates in probability use arguments from the theory of large deviations to bound the noise term. Finally we address the particular case of multivariate polynomial approximation spaces with any density in the beta family, including uniform and Chebyshev.

Advances and Challenges in Convergent Communication Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Toral-Cruz, Homero; Mihovska, Albena

2017-01-01

Welcome to this special issue of Wireless Personal Communications on Advances and Challenges in Convergent Communication Networks. The main purpose of this special issue is to present new progresses and challenges in convergent networks. Communication networks play an important role in our daily...... life because they allow communicating and sharing contents between heterogeneous nodes around the globe. The emergence of multiple network architectures and emerging technologies have resulted in new applications and services over a heterogeneous network. This heterogeneous network has undergone...... significant challenges in recent years, such as the evolution to a converged network with the capability to support multiple services, while maintaining a satisfactory level of QoE/QoS, security, efficiency and trust. The special issue on Advances and Challenges in Convergent Communication Networks...

Cooperation in reactor design evaluation and licensing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kaufer, B.; Wasylyk, A.

2014-01-01

In January 2007 the World Nuclear Association (WNA) established the Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing (CORDEL) Working Group with the aim of stimulating a dialogue between the nuclear industry (including reactor vendors, operators and utilities) and nuclear regulators (national and international organisations) on the benefits and means of achieving a worldwide convergence of reactor safety standards for reactor designs. From the time of its inception to the present, CORDEL has evolved from a group of experts discussing how to achieve international standardisation in nuclear safety design to an established and recognised working group dedicated to analysing and forging common understandings in key areas as input to major decisions on nuclear energy policy. This paper will review the general directions and activities CORDEL plans to undertake during the next five-year period, including its general strategy, activities, priorities and interactions with its customers in order to meet its objectives. (author)

Cooperation in reactor design evaluation and licensing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kaufer, B.; Wasylyk, A. [World Nuclear Association, London (United Kingdom)

2014-07-01

In January 2007 the World Nuclear Association (WNA) established the Cooperation in Reactor Design Evaluation and Licensing (CORDEL) Working Group with the aim of stimulating a dialogue between the nuclear industry (including reactor vendors, operators and utilities) and nuclear regulators (national and international organisations) on the benefits and means of achieving a worldwide convergence of reactor safety standards for reactor designs. From the time of its inception to the present, CORDEL has evolved from a group of experts discussing how to achieve international standardisation in nuclear safety design to an established and recognised working group dedicated to analysing and forging common understandings in key areas as input to major decisions on nuclear energy policy. This paper will review the general directions and activities CORDEL plans to undertake during the next five-year period, including its general strategy, activities, priorities and interactions with its customers in order to meet its objectives. (author)

Neutron gain for converging guide tubes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mildner, D.F.R.

1982-01-01

The method of acceptance diagrams is used to obtain analytical expressions for the neutron gain of a one-dimensional converging guide tube. It is found that the results are more easily expressed by analyzing the acceptance diagram at the exit of the funnel. The results are compared with those for the straight guide. When both guides have the same dimensions at the guide exit, the converging guide has higher transmitted intensity but with greater divergence of the beam. This analytical method is useful to assess the performance of a converging guide, though numerical computations may be required for detailed analysis of a guide system. (orig.)

Convergence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Prasad, Ramjee

2009-01-01

This paper presents the main conclusions which can be drawn from the discussions on Future Communication Systems and lessons on Unpredictable Future of Wireless Communication Systems. Future systems beyond the third generation are already under discussions in international bodies, such as ITU, WW...... and R&D programmes worldwide. The incoming era is characterized by the convergence of networks and access technology and the divergence of applications. Future mobile communication systems should bring something more than only faster data or wireless internet access....

Convergence in energy consumption per capita among ASEAN countries

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mishra, Vinod; Smyth, Russell

2014-01-01

We test for convergence in energy consumption per capita among ASEAN countries over the period 1971 to 2011 using the panel KPSS stationarity test and panel Lagrange multiplier (LM) unit root test. The results for the panel stationarity and unit root tests with structural breaks find support for energy convergence in ASEAN. - Highlights: • We test for convergence in energy consumption per capita among the ASEAN nations. • Univariate conventional unit root tests provide mixed evidence of convergence. • Panel unit root tests with structural breaks support convergence hypothesis

Through-the-Wall Localization of a Moving Target by Two Independent Ultra Wideband (UWB Radar Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jana Rovňáková

2013-09-01

Full Text Available In the case of through-the-wall localization of moving targets by ultra wideband (UWB radars, there are applications in which handheld sensors equipped only with one transmitting and two receiving antennas are applied. Sometimes, the radar using such a small antenna array is not able to localize the target with the required accuracy. With a view to improve through-the-wall target localization, cooperative positioning based on a fusion of data retrieved from two independent radar systems can be used. In this paper, the novel method of the cooperative localization referred to as joining intersections of the ellipses is introduced. This method is based on a geometrical interpretation of target localization where the target position is estimated using a properly created cluster of the ellipse intersections representing potential positions of the target. The performance of the proposed method is compared with the direct calculation method and two alternative methods of cooperative localization using data obtained by measurements with the M-sequence UWB radars. The direct calculation method is applied for the target localization by particular radar systems. As alternative methods of cooperative localization, the arithmetic average of the target coordinates estimated by two single independent UWB radars and the Taylor series method is considered.

Accurately bearing measurement in non-cooperative passive location system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Zhiqiang; Ma Hongguang; Yang Lifeng

2007-01-01

The system of non-cooperative passive location based on array is proposed. In the system, target is detected by beamforming and Doppler matched filtering; and bearing is measured by a long-base-ling interferometer which is composed of long distance sub-arrays. For the interferometer with long-base-line, the bearing is measured accurately but ambiguously. To realize unambiguous accurately bearing measurement, beam width and multiple constraint adoptive beamforming technique is used to resolve azimuth ambiguous. Theory and simulation result shows this method is effective to realize accurately bearing measurement in no-cooperate passive location system. (authors)

Convergence testing for MCNP5 Monte Carlo eigenvalue calculations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brown, F.; Nease, B.; Cheatham, J.

2007-01-01

Determining convergence of Monte Carlo criticality problems is complicated by the statistical noise inherent in the random, walks of the neutrons in each generation. The latest version of MCNP5 incorporates an important new tool for assessing convergence: the Shannon entropy of the fission source distribution, H src . Shannon entropy is a well-known concept from information theory and provides a single number for each iteration to help characterize convergence trends for the fission source distribution. MCNP5 computes H src for each iteration, and these values may be plotted to examine convergence trends. Convergence testing should include both k eff and H src , since the fission distribution will converge more slowly than k eff , especially when the dominance ratio is close to 1.0. (authors)

The management of human resources in the Basic Units of Cooperative Production in Cuba: An essential challenge

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deysi Alfonso Porraspita

2018-02-01

Full Text Available The socioeconomic structure of Cuba has undergone a stage of profound transformation, with various factors that have intervened in this process, where different forms of business structures have converged, one of which has been represented by the cooperative sector, fundamentally developed in agriculture from the country. In this scenario the issue of the effectiveness of these entities has been subject to dissimilar analyzes and debates from different sides, where what is related to the human factor has played an essential role, this implies a detailed observation of the adequate management of human resources in the integral management of these organizations. In this line, the fundamental challenge will be to manage human resources in a way that contributes to the continuous improvement of the Cooperative Production Units as one of the representative structures of the agrarian cooperative sector in Cuba. Carrying out an analysis highlighting the importance of the management of human resources as a contribution to affectivity of the Basic Units of Cooperative production constituted the objective of the work. Through analysis, synthesis and use of the logical historical in the system analysis, the work addressed the theoretical pillars and methodological aspects that support the management of human resources in the cooperative entities analyzed as a tribute to the effectiveness of their results.

Cooperation in the prisoner's dilemma game on tunable community networks

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Penghui; Liu, Jing

2017-04-01

Community networks have attracted lots of attention as they widely exist in the real world and are essential to study properties of networks. As the game theory illustrates the competitive relationship among individuals, studying the iterated prisoner's dilemma games (PDG) on community networks is meaningful. In this paper, we focus on investigating the relationship between the cooperation level of community networks and that of their communities in the prisoner's dilemma games. With this purpose in mind, a type of tunable community networks whose communities inherit not only the scale-free property, but also the characteristic of adjustable cooperation level of Holme and Kim (HK) networks is designed. Both uniform and non-uniform community networks are investigated. We find out that cooperation enhancement of communities can improve the cooperation level of the whole networks. Moreover, simulation results indicate that a large community is a better choice than a small community to improve the cooperation level of the whole networks. Thus, improving the cooperation level of community networks can be divided into a number of sub-problems targeting at improving the cooperation level of individual communities, which can save the computation cost and deal with the problem of improving the cooperation level of huge community networks. Moreover, as the larger community is a better choice, it is reasonable to start with large communities, according to the greedy strategy when the number of nodes can participate in the enhancement is limited.

Consensus-based distributed cooperative learning from closed-loop neural control systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Weisheng; Hua, Shaoyong; Zhang, Huaguang

2015-02-01

In this paper, the neural tracking problem is addressed for a group of uncertain nonlinear systems where the system structures are identical but the reference signals are different. This paper focuses on studying the learning capability of neural networks (NNs) during the control process. First, we propose a novel control scheme called distributed cooperative learning (DCL) control scheme, by establishing the communication topology among adaptive laws of NN weights to share their learned knowledge online. It is further proved that if the communication topology is undirected and connected, all estimated weights of NNs can converge to small neighborhoods around their optimal values over a domain consisting of the union of all state orbits. Second, as a corollary it is shown that the conclusion on the deterministic learning still holds in the decentralized adaptive neural control scheme where, however, the estimated weights of NNs just converge to small neighborhoods of the optimal values along their own state orbits. Thus, the learned controllers obtained by DCL scheme have the better generalization capability than ones obtained by decentralized learning method. A simulation example is provided to verify the effectiveness and advantages of the control schemes proposed in this paper.

On cooperative and efficient overlay network evolution based on a group selection pattern.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakao, Akihiro; Wang, Yufeng

2010-04-01

In overlay networks, the interplay between network structure and dynamics remains largely unexplored. In this paper, we study dynamic coevolution between individual rational strategies (cooperative or defect) and the overlay network structure, that is, the interaction between peer's local rational behaviors and the emergence of the whole network structure. We propose an evolutionary game theory (EGT)-based overlay topology evolution scheme to drive a given overlay into the small-world structure (high global network efficiency and average clustering coefficient). Our contributions are the following threefold: From the viewpoint of peers' local interactions, we explicitly consider the peer's rational behavior and introduce a link-formation game to characterize the social dilemma of forming links in an overlay network. Furthermore, in the evolutionary link-formation phase, we adopt a simple economic process: Each peer keeps one link to a cooperative neighbor in its neighborhood, which can slightly speed up the convergence of cooperation and increase network efficiency; from the viewpoint of the whole network structure, our simulation results show that the EGT-based scheme can drive an arbitrary overlay network into a fully cooperative and efficient small-world structure. Moreover, we compare our scheme with a search-based economic model of network formation and illustrate that our scheme can achieve the experimental and analytical results in the latter model. In addition, we also graphically illustrate the final overlay network structure; finally, based on the group selection model and evolutionary set theory, we theoretically obtain the approximate threshold of cost and draw the conclusion that the small value of the average degree and the large number of the total peers in an overlay network facilitate the evolution of cooperation.

Non-cooperative game theory in biology and cooperative reasoning in humans.

Science.gov (United States)

Kabalak, Alihan; Smirnova, Elena; Jost, Jürgen

2015-06-01

The readiness for spontaneous cooperation together with the assumptions that others share this cooperativity has been identified as a fundamental feature that distinguishes humans from other animals, including the great apes. At the same time, cooperativity presents an evolutionary puzzle because non-cooperators do better in a group of cooperators. We develop here an analysis of the process leading to cooperation in terms of rationality concepts, game theory and epistemic logic. We are, however, not attempting to reconstruct the actual evolutionary process. We rather want to provide the logical structure underlying cooperation in order to understand why cooperation is possible and what kind of reasoning and beliefs would lead to cooperative decision-making. Game theory depends on an underlying common belief in non-cooperative rationality of the players, and cooperativity similarly can utilize a common belief in cooperative rationality as its basis. We suggest a weaker concept of rational decision-making in games that encompasses both types of decision-making. We build this up in stages, starting from simple optimization, then using anticipation of the reaction of others, to finally arrive at reflexive and cooperative reasoning. While each stage is more difficult than the preceding, importantly, we also identify a reduction of complexity achieved by the consistent application of higher stage reasoning.

Designing for cooperation - cooperating in design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kyng, Morten

1991-01-01

This article will discuss how to design computer applications that enhance the quality of work and products, and will relate the discussion to current themes in the field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). Cooperation is a key element of computer use and work practice, yet here...... a specific "CSCW approach is not taken." Instead the focus is cooperation as an important aspect of work that should be integrated into most computer support efforts in order to develop successful computer support, however, other aspects such as power, conflict and control must also be considered....

Digital Convergence and Content Regulation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael John Starks

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Broadcasting, Press and Internet journalism systems of distribution are converging: the same infrastructure can deliver all three historically separate services. Reception devices mirror this: the Connected TV, the tablet and the smart phone overlap in their functionality. Service overlaps are evident too, with broadcasters providing online and on-demand services and newspapers developing electronic versions. Does this mean that media regulation policies must converge too?My argument is that they should, though only where historically different communications are now fulfilling a similar function, e.g. broadcaster online services and electronic versions of newspapers. Convergence requires a degree of harmonisation and, to this end, I advocate a review of UK broadcasting's 'due impartiality' requirement and of the UK's application of the public service concept. I also argue for independent self-regulation (rather than state-based regulation of non-public-service broadcasting journalism.

Rates of convergence of Brezier net over triangles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Feng Yuyu.

1986-12-01

It is well known (Farin, 1979) that the sequence of Bezier nets f-circumflex n (x) associated with Bernstein-Bezier surface over a triangle converges to the surface uniformly as n goes to infinity. In this paper the precise rates of convergence are given. The pointwise convergence result and saturation theorem are presented. (author). 7 refs

Evolution and convergence in telecommunications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Radicella, S; Grilli, D [Abdus Salam ICTP, Trieste (Italy)

2002-12-15

These lectures throw a spotlight on different aspects of the evolution of telecommunications networks, namely on the various facets of service and network convergence. The last years progress in data and telecommunications technologies, such as P-based networks, and the enormous potential of mobile communication systems and users' demands for comprehensive and network-independent have led to a convergence of data and telecommunications infrastructures in many aspects. In order to help the reader to an easier understanding of the phenomenon convergence, in the first two parts of this volume the evolution of the basic technologies is described one by one. This is done briefly and is focused on the principle topics, just to build a basis for the third part devoted to problems of convergence in telecommunications. These notes are addressed to those readers, who in a quick overview want to be informed on the future service and network landscape. The notes are equally suited for professionals with the desire to extend their horizon as well as for students looking for an introduction into telecommunications under more general aspects. The authors clearly understand the difficulties in writing a book devoted to the evolution in telecommunications. Today, telecom landscape varies at very high speed. Every few months new network technologies, new products and new services are developed. Attempts to present them in time can be accessible only for magazine publications or contributions to conferences. Therefore, in a number of areas, such as Voice over IP and new switching technologies not much more than the starting point of new paradigms is described. However, the content is up-to-date to a degree, that the phenomenon convergence can be fully understood. Partially, these notes are based on a number of lecture courses that were delivered during recent ICTP winter schools devoted to multimedia and digital communications.

Evolution and convergence in telecommunications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Radicella, S.; Grilli, D.

2002-01-01

These lectures throw a spotlight on different aspects of the evolution of telecommunications networks, namely on the various facets of service and network convergence. The last years progress in data and telecommunications technologies, such as P-based networks, and the enormous potential of mobile communication systems and users' demands for comprehensive and network-independent have led to a convergence of data and telecommunications infrastructures in many aspects. In order to help the reader to an easier understanding of the phenomenon convergence, in the first two parts of this volume the evolution of the basic technologies is described one by one. This is done briefly and is focused on the principle topics, just to build a basis for the third part devoted to problems of convergence in telecommunications. These notes are addressed to those readers, who in a quick overview want to be informed on the future service and network landscape. The notes are equally suited for professionals with the desire to extend their horizon as well as for students looking for an introduction into telecommunications under more general aspects. The authors clearly understand the difficulties in writing a book devoted to the evolution in telecommunications. Today, telecom landscape varies at very high speed. Every few months new network technologies, new products and new services are developed. Attempts to present them in time can be accessible only for magazine publications or contributions to conferences. Therefore, in a number of areas, such as Voice over IP and new switching technologies not much more than the starting point of new paradigms is described. However, the content is up-to-date to a degree, that the phenomenon convergence can be fully understood. Partially, these notes are based on a number of lecture courses that were delivered during recent ICTP winter schools devoted to multimedia and digital communications

Specialisation and Convergence in European Regions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Enrico Marelli

2007-09-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this paper was to analyze specialization and convergence of European countries and regions, within the framework of integration in the EU. This is important not only for long-term real convergence processes, but also for a proper functioning of the monetary union (in the line of research on the OCA's criteria, asymmetry of shocks and synchronization of business cycles. The position of new member states is particularly delicate, also considering the forthcoming adoption of the euro by some of them. As indicated by the EU Treaty, economic growth should be balanced with economic and social cohesion that includes a careful consideration of regional disparities. Our empirical investigation focuses on the regions of EU25, further broken up into other relevant groupings (EU15, EMU, and the new members' EU10 group, over the period from 1980 (or 1990 for EU10 to 2005. This paper considers a rather fine regional disaggregation (NUTS-2 level, counting 250 regions. The analysis of different indices of specialisation point to a prevalent increase of homogeneity of sector structures across European regions, although in some cases (especially in the industrial sector and in some services specialisation has increased. For convergence, a sigma convergence's analysis confirms a reduction of disparities, both at a country and regional level. However, a trade-off between fast national growth and internal distribution has emerged in the early stages of development, as in the case of new members. Moreover, beta convergence has also been established - regarding per capita income, employment and productivity - for almost all territorial aggregates (excluding the new members since 1999. The addition of structural variables, following a beta-conditional approach, indicates a positive role for services and a negative impact of agriculture. Finally, some preliminary results have been obtained by the innovative inclusion of specialisation indices within

Quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education systems: convergence or different paths?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kalpazidou Schmidt, Evanthia

2017-01-01

Because there is close cooperation on quality assurance in the Scandinavian countries, one would expect there to be convergence of quality assurance policies and practices in Scandinavian higher education. Few studies have analysed these quality assurance policies and practices from a comparative...... quality assurance. The debate is compelling with regard to the Swedish case in particular, with its ‘one size fits all’ approach and exclusive focus on outcomes which has been heavily criticised by the higher education institutions and has turned out to be controversial from the European viewpoint....... viewpoint. Based on empirical evidence produced in connection with studies of recent quality reforms in Scandinavia and an approach based on linking diffusion and translation theories with institutionalist perspectives focusing on path dependency, the paper contributes to the current debate on Scandinavian...

Fractal aspects and convergence of Newton`s method

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Drexler, M. [Oxford Univ. Computing Lab. (United Kingdom)

1996-12-31

Newton`s Method is a widely established iterative algorithm for solving non-linear systems. Its appeal lies in its great simplicity, easy generalization to multiple dimensions and a quadratic local convergence rate. Despite these features, little is known about its global behavior. In this paper, we will explain a seemingly random global convergence pattern using fractal concepts and show that the behavior of the residual is entirely explicable. We will also establish quantitative results for the convergence rates. Knowing the mechanism of fractal generation, we present a stabilization to the orthodox Newton method that remedies the fractal behavior and improves convergence.

Energy Cooperation in Ultradense Network Powered by Renewable Energy Based on Cluster and Learning Strategy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chunhong Duo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A new method about renewable energy cooperation among small base stations (SBSs is proposed, which is for maximizing the energy efficiency in ultradense network (UDN. In UDN each SBS is equipped with energy harvesting (EH unit, and the energy arrival times are modeled as a Poisson counting process. Firstly, SBSs of large traffic demands are selected as the clustering centers, and then all SBSs are clustered using dynamic k-means algorithm. Secondly, SBSs coordinate their renewable energy within each formed cluster. The process of energy cooperation among SBSs is considered as Markov decision process. Q-learning algorithm is utilized to optimize energy cooperation. In the algorithm there are four different actions and their corresponding reward functions. Q-learning explores the action as much as possible and predicts better action by calculating reward. In addition, ε greedy policy is used to ensure the algorithm convergence. Finally, simulation results show that the new method reduces data dimension and improves calculation speed, which furthermore improves the utilization of renewable energy and promotes the performance of UDN. Through online optimization, the proposed method can significantly improve the energy utilization rate and data transmission rate.

Revisiting convergence: A research note.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Rob

2015-09-01

A number of recent studies show that income inequality is declining between countries. In this research note, I question the significance of this trend by examining the role of initial conditions in producing convergence. An important (but neglected) property of inequality dynamics is the tendency for extreme distributions to become more moderate. When income disparities are large, the subsequent trend is biased toward convergence. Conversely, when initial conditions approach parity, divergence becomes the more likely long-term outcome. I apply this principle to trends in GDP PC across 127 countries during the 1980-2010 period. Using counterfactual analysis, I manipulate the initial level of inequality in GDP PC while holding constant each country's observed growth rate during the sample period. I find that the growth dynamics of GDP PC produce either convergence or divergence based simply on the initial distribution of income. The point of transition occurs at a moderate level of inequality, whether using population weights (Gini=.365) or not (Gini=.377). I conclude that the recent convergence observed in GDP PC is primarily a function of large income gaps between countries and would not have materialized at more moderate levels of initial inequality. By contrast, an examination of the pre-1950 period reveals divergent growth patterns that are not sensitive to initial conditions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Older Adult Video Game Preferences in Practice: Investigating the Effects of Competing or Cooperating

Science.gov (United States)

Souders, Dustin J.; Boot, Walter R.; Charness, Neil; Moxley, Jerad H.

2017-01-01

Video game interventions with the aim to improve cognition have shown promise for both younger (e.g., Powers et al., 2013) and older adults (e.g., Toril, Reales, and Ballesteros, 2014). Most studies suggest that fast-paced action games produce the largest benefits, but a recent video game intervention with older adults found that an action game intervention can result in poor adherence (Boot et al., 2013). To increase intervention adherence, we investigated older adult video game preferences that might bolster adherence by having participants play a competitive game (Mario Kart DS) or a cooperative game (Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga) alone or with a partner. Although hypotheses regarding cooperative and multi-player gameplay were not supported, converging evidence suggests multi-player game play may lead to greater enjoyment, which was related to intervention adherence in a previous study (Boot et al., 2013). Insights for gaming intervention studies in older populations are also provided. PMID:29033698

Older Adult Video Game Preferences in Practice: Investigating the Effects of Competing or Cooperating.

Science.gov (United States)

Souders, Dustin J; Boot, Walter R; Charness, Neil; Moxley, Jerad H

2016-01-01

Video game interventions with the aim to improve cognition have shown promise for both younger (e.g., Powers et al., 2013) and older adults (e.g., Toril, Reales, and Ballesteros, 2014). Most studies suggest that fast-paced action games produce the largest benefits, but a recent video game intervention with older adults found that an action game intervention can result in poor adherence (Boot et al., 2013). To increase intervention adherence, we investigated older adult video game preferences that might bolster adherence by having participants play a competitive game (Mario Kart DS) or a cooperative game (Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga) alone or with a partner. Although hypotheses regarding cooperative and multi-player gameplay were not supported, converging evidence suggests multi-player game play may lead to greater enjoyment, which was related to intervention adherence in a previous study (Boot et al., 2013). Insights for gaming intervention studies in older populations are also provided.

Is the environmental performance of industrialized countries converging? A 'SURE' approach to testing for convergence

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Camarero, Mariam; Picazo-Tadeo, Andres J.; Tamarit, Cecilio

2008-01-01

In this paper, we test for convergence in the environmental performance of a sample of OECD countries, with data ranging from 1971 to 2002. First, we use Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to compute two environmental performance indicators (EPIs) in the production theory framework. Second, we propose the use of a sequential multivariate approach to test for convergence in environmental performance. These tests allow us to reconcile the time series literature with the cross-sectional dimension, which is basic when testing for convergence in regional blocs. The SURE technique is used, which allows for the existence of correlations across the series without imposing a common speed of mean reversion. The empirical results show that the group of countries as a whole, as well as the majority of countries considered on an individual basis (results for some countries vary between EPIs), are catching-up with Switzerland (the benchmark country). (author)

Real/binary co-operative and co-evolving swarms based multivariable PID controller design of ball mill pulverizing system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Menhas, Muhammad Ilyas; Fei Minrui; Wang Ling; Qian Lin

2012-01-01

Highlights: ► We extend the concept of co-operation and co-evolution in some PSO variants. ► We use developed co-operative PSOs in multivariable PID controller design/tuning. ► We find that co-operative PSOs converge faster and give high quality solutions. ► Dividing the search space among swarms improves search efficiency. ► The proposed methods allow the practitioner for heterogeneous problem formulation. - Abstract: In this paper, multivariable PID controller design based on cooperative and coevolving multiple swarms is demonstrated. A simplified multi-variable MIMO process model of a ball mill pulverizing system with steady state decoupler is considered. In order to formulate computational models of cooperative and coevolving multiple swarms three different algorithms like real coded PSO, discrete binary PSO (DBPSO) and probability based discrete binary PSO (PBPSO) are employed. Simulations are carried out on three composite functions simultaneously considering multiple objectives. The cooperative and coevolving multiple swarms based results are compared with the results obtained through single swarm based methods like real coded particle swarm optimization (PSO), discrete binary PSO (DBPSO), and probability based discrete binary PSO (PBPSO) algorithms. The cooperative and coevolving swarms based techniques outperform the real coded PSO, PBPSO, and the standard discrete binary PSO (DBPSO) algorithm in escaping from local optima. Furthermore, statistical analysis of the simulation results is performed to calculate the comparative reliability of various techniques. All of the techniques employed are suitable for controller tuning, however, the multiple cooperative and coevolving swarms based results are considerably better in terms of mean fitness, variance of fitness, and success rate in finding a feasible solution in comparison to those obtained using single swarm based methods.

Incremental inverse kinematics based vision servo for autonomous robotic capture of non-cooperative space debris

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Gangqi; Zhu, Z. H.

2016-04-01

This paper proposed a new incremental inverse kinematics based vision servo approach for robotic manipulators to capture a non-cooperative target autonomously. The target's pose and motion are estimated by a vision system using integrated photogrammetry and EKF algorithm. Based on the estimated pose and motion of the target, the instantaneous desired position of the end-effector is predicted by inverse kinematics and the robotic manipulator is moved incrementally from its current configuration subject to the joint speed limits. This approach effectively eliminates the multiple solutions in the inverse kinematics and increases the robustness of the control algorithm. The proposed approach is validated by a hardware-in-the-loop simulation, where the pose and motion of the non-cooperative target is estimated by a real vision system. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed estimation approach for the target and the incremental control strategy for the robotic manipulator.

Polar Cooperative Navigation Algorithm for Multi-Unmanned Underwater Vehicles Considering Communication Delays

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheping Yan

2018-03-01

Full Text Available To solve the navigation accuracy problems of multi-Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (multi-UUVs in the polar region, a polar cooperative navigation algorithm for multi-UUVs considering communication delays is proposed in this paper. UUVs are important pieces of equipment in ocean engineering for marine development. For UUVs to complete missions, precise navigation is necessary. It is difficult for UUVs to establish true headings because of the rapid convergence of Earth meridians and the severe polar environment. Based on the polar grid navigation algorithm, UUV navigation in the polar region can be accomplished with the Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS in the grid frame. To save costs, a leader-follower type of system is introduced in this paper. The leader UUV helps the follower UUVs to achieve high navigation accuracy. Follower UUVs correct their own states based on the information sent by the leader UUV and the relative position measured by ultra-short baseline (USBL acoustic positioning. The underwater acoustic communication delay is quantized by the model. In this paper, considering underwater acoustic communication delay, the conventional adaptive Kalman filter (AKF is modified to adapt to polar cooperative navigation. The results demonstrate that the polar cooperative navigation algorithm for multi-UUVs that considers communication delays can effectively navigate the sailing of multi-UUVs in the polar region.

Post-convergence automatic differentiation of iterative schemes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azmy, Y.Y.

1997-01-01

A new approach for performing automatic differentiation (AD) of computer codes that embody an iterative procedure, based on differentiating a single additional iteration upon achieving convergence, is described and implemented. This post-convergence automatic differentiation (PAD) technique results in better accuracy of the computed derivatives, as it eliminates part of the derivatives convergence error, and a large reduction in execution time, especially when many iterations are required to achieve convergence. In addition, it provides a way to compute derivatives of the converged solution without having to repeat the entire iterative process every time new parameters are considered. These advantages are demonstrated and the PAD technique is validated via a set of three linear and nonlinear codes used to solve neutron transport and fluid flow problems. The PAD technique reduces the execution time over direct AD by a factor of up to 30 and improves the accuracy of the derivatives by up to two orders of magnitude. The PAD technique's biggest disadvantage lies in the necessity to compute the iterative map's Jacobian, which for large problems can be prohibitive. Methods are discussed to alleviate this difficulty

Well-Tempered Metadynamics Converges Asymptotically

Science.gov (United States)

Dama, James F.; Parrinello, Michele; Voth, Gregory A.

2014-06-01

Metadynamics is a versatile and capable enhanced sampling method for the computational study of soft matter materials and biomolecular systems. However, over a decade of application and several attempts to give this adaptive umbrella sampling method a firm theoretical grounding prove that a rigorous convergence analysis is elusive. This Letter describes such an analysis, demonstrating that well-tempered metadynamics converges to the final state it was designed to reach and, therefore, that the simple formulas currently used to interpret the final converged state of tempered metadynamics are correct and exact. The results do not rely on any assumption that the collective variable dynamics are effectively Brownian or any idealizations of the hill deposition function; instead, they suggest new, more permissive criteria for the method to be well behaved. The results apply to tempered metadynamics with or without adaptive Gaussians or boundary corrections and whether the bias is stored approximately on a grid or exactly.

Semi-convergence properties of Kaczmarz’s method

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Elfving, Tommy; Hansen, Per Christian; Nikazad, Touraj

2014-01-01

Kaczmarz’s method—sometimes referred to as the algebraic reconstruction technique—is an iterative method that is widely used in tomographic imaging due to its favorable semi-convergence properties. Specifically, when applied to a problem with noisy data, during the early iterations it converges......-convergence of Kaczmarz’s method as well as its projected counterpart (and their block versions). To do this we study how the data errors propagate into the iteration vectors and we derive upper bounds for this noise propagation. Our bounds are compared with numerical results obtained from tomographic imaging....

DRIVERS OF LONG-TERM CONVERGENCE. FOCUS ON ROMANIA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MANUELA UNGURU

2014-11-01

Full Text Available With initial low levels of income per capita, a declining population and relatively modest economic growth rates, there are little prospects of diminishing the gap between Romania and the EU countries. Nevertheless, in the long term, convergence is expected. The question then arises, “What are the drivers and their likely potential to boost economic growth and the catching-up process?”. This paper presents shortly the theoretical background of economic convergence and then focuses on the assessment of possible paths of Romania’s convergence towards the EU. Based on the existing long-term macroeconomic projections and the assessment of the possible future developments of the drivers of economic growth, we have built three scenarios of economic convergence, highlighting the possible timespan of convergence. We have employed growth accounting methods to decompose output growth rate into production factors’ contributions (capital and labour and total factor productivity.

Convergence of the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1- and glycogen synthase kinase 3-β-signaling pathways regulates the innate inflammatory response.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Huizhi; Brown, Jonathan; Gu, Zhen; Garcia, Carlos A; Liang, Ruqiang; Alard, Pascale; Beurel, Eléonore; Jope, Richard S; Greenway, Terrance; Martin, Michael

2011-05-01

The PI3K pathway and its regulation of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) and glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) play pivotal roles in controlling inflammation. In this article, we show that mTORC1 and GSK3-β converge and that the capacity of mTORC1 to affect the inflammatory response is due to the inactivation of GSK3-β. Inhibition of mTORC1 attenuated GSK3 phosphorylation and increased its kinase activity. Immunoprecipitation and in vitro kinase assays demonstrated that GSK3-β associated with a downstream target of mTORC1, p85S6K, and phosphorylated GSK3-β. Inhibition of S6K1 abrogated the phosphorylation of GSK3-β while increasing and decreasing the levels of IL-12 and IL-10, respectively, in LPS-stimulated monocytes. In contrast, the direct inhibition of GSK3 attenuated the capacity of S6K1 inhibition to influence the levels of IL-10 and IL-12 produced by LPS-stimulated cells. At the transcriptional level, mTORC1 inhibition reduced the DNA binding of CREB and this effect was reversed by GSK3 inhibition. As a result, mTORC1 inhibition increased the levels of NF-κB p65 associated with CREB-binding protein. Inhibition of NF-κB p65 attenuated rapamycin's ability to influence the levels of pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokine production in monocytes stimulated with LPS. These studies identify the molecular mechanism by which mTORC1 affects GSK3 and show that mTORC1 inhibition regulates pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine production via its capacity to inactivate GSK3.

Frequency response functions for nonlinear convergent systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pavlov, A.V.; Wouw, van de N.; Nijmeijer, H.

2007-01-01

Convergent systems constitute a practically important class of nonlinear systems that extends the class of asymptotically stable linear time-invariant systems. In this note, we extend frequency response functions defined for linear systems to nonlinear convergent systems. Such nonlinear frequency

Converged Registries Solution (CRS)

Data.gov (United States)

Department of Veterans Affairs — The Converged Registries platform is a hardware and software architecture designed to host individual patient registries and eliminate duplicative development effort...

On convergence of nuclear and correlation operators in Hilbert space

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kubrusly, C.S.

1985-01-01

The convergence of sequences of nuclear operators on a separable Hilbert space is studied. Emphasis is given to trace-norm convergence, which is a basic property in stochastic systems theory. Obviously trace-norm convergence implies uniform convergence. The central theme of the paper focus the opposite way, by investigating when convergence in a weaker topology turns out to imply convergence in a stronger topology. The analysis carried out here is exhaustive in the following sense. All possible implications within a selected set of asymptotic properties for sequences of nuclear operators are established. The special case of correlation operators is also considered in detail. (Author) [pt

A mathematical analysis of multiple-target SELEX.

Science.gov (United States)

Seo, Yeon-Jung; Chen, Shiliang; Nilsen-Hamilton, Marit; Levine, Howard A

2010-10-01

SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) is a procedure by which a mixture of nucleic acids can be fractionated with the goal of identifying those with specific biochemical activities. One combines the mixture with a specific target molecule and then separates the target-NA complex from the resulting reactions. The target-NA complex is separated from the unbound NA by mechanical means (such as by filtration), the NA is eluted from the complex, amplified by PCR (polymerase chain reaction), and the process repeated. After several rounds, one should be left with the nucleic acids that best bind to the target. The problem was first formulated mathematically in Irvine et al. (J. Mol. Biol. 222:739-761, 1991). In Levine and Nilsen-Hamilton (Comput. Biol. Chem. 31:11-25, 2007), a mathematical analysis of the process was given. In Vant-Hull et al. (J. Mol. Biol. 278:579-597, 1998), multiple target SELEX was considered. It was assumed that each target has a single nucleic acid binding site that permits occupation by no more than one nucleic acid. Here, we revisit Vant-Hull et al. (J. Mol. Biol. 278:579-597, 1998) using the same assumptions. The iteration scheme is shown to be convergent and a simplified algorithm is given. Our interest here is in the behavior of the multiple target SELEX process as a discrete "time" dynamical system. Our goal is to characterize the limiting states and their dependence on the initial distribution of nucleic acid and target fraction components. (In multiple target SELEX, we vary the target component fractions, but not their concentrations, as fixed and the initial pool of nucleic acids as a variable starting condition). Given N nucleic acids and a target consisting of M subtarget component species, there is an M × N matrix of affinities, the (i,j) entry corresponding to the affinity of the jth nucleic acid for the ith subtarget. We give a structure condition on this matrix that is equivalent to the following

Non-Cooperative Target Imaging and Parameter Estimation with Narrowband Radar Echoes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chun-mao Yeh

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study focuses on the rotating target imaging and parameter estimation with narrowband radar echoes, which is essential for radar target recognition. First, a two-dimensional (2D imaging model with narrowband echoes is established in this paper, and two images of the target are formed on the velocity-acceleration plane at two neighboring coherent processing intervals (CPIs. Then, the rotating velocity (RV is proposed to be estimated by utilizing the relationship between the positions of the scattering centers among two images. Finally, the target image is rescaled to the range-cross-range plane with the estimated rotational parameter. The validity of the proposed approach is confirmed using numerical simulations.

Segment-Specific Adhesion as a Driver of Convergent Extension

Science.gov (United States)

Vroomans, Renske M. A.; Hogeweg, Paulien; ten Tusscher, Kirsten H. W. J.

2015-01-01

Convergent extension, the simultaneous extension and narrowing of tissues, is a crucial event in the formation of the main body axis during embryonic development. It involves processes on multiple scales: the sub-cellular, cellular and tissue level, which interact via explicit or intrinsic feedback mechanisms. Computational modelling studies play an important role in unravelling the multiscale feedbacks underlying convergent extension. Convergent extension usually operates in tissue which has been patterned or is currently being patterned into distinct domains of gene expression. How such tissue patterns are maintained during the large scale tissue movements of convergent extension has thus far not been investigated. Intriguingly, experimental data indicate that in certain cases these tissue patterns may drive convergent extension rather than requiring safeguarding against convergent extension. Here we use a 2D Cellular Potts Model (CPM) of a tissue prepatterned into segments, to show that convergent extension tends to disrupt this pre-existing segmental pattern. However, when cells preferentially adhere to cells of the same segment type, segment integrity is maintained without any reduction in tissue extension. Strikingly, we demonstrate that this segment-specific adhesion is by itself sufficient to drive convergent extension. Convergent extension is enhanced when we endow our in silico cells with persistence of motion, which in vivo would naturally follow from cytoskeletal dynamics. Finally, we extend our model to confirm the generality of our results. We demonstrate a similar effect of differential adhesion on convergent extension in tissues that can only extend in a single direction (as often occurs due to the inertia of the head region of the embryo), and in tissues prepatterned into a sequence of domains resulting in two opposing adhesive gradients, rather than alternating segments. PMID:25706823

A strategic conflict avoidance approach based on cooperative coevolutionary with the dynamic grouping strategy

Science.gov (United States)

Guan, Xiangmin; Zhang, Xuejun; Wei, Jian; Hwang, Inseok; Zhu, Yanbo; Cai, Kaiquan

2016-07-01

Conflict avoidance plays a crucial role in guaranteeing the safety and efficiency of the air traffic management system. Recently, the strategic conflict avoidance (SCA) problem has attracted more and more attention. Taking into consideration the large-scale flight planning in a global view, SCA can be formulated as a large-scale combinatorial optimisation problem with complex constraints and tight couplings between variables, which is difficult to solve. In this paper, an SCA approach based on the cooperative coevolution algorithm combined with a new decomposition strategy is proposed to prevent the premature convergence and improve the search capability. The flights are divided into several groups using the new grouping strategy, referred to as the dynamic grouping strategy, which takes full advantage of the prior knowledge of the problem to better deal with the tight couplings among flights through maximising the chance of putting flights with conflicts in the same group, compared with existing grouping strategies. Then, a tuned genetic algorithm (GA) is applied to different groups simultaneously to resolve conflicts. Finally, the high-quality solutions are obtained through cooperation between different groups based on cooperative coevolution. Simulation results using real flight data from the China air route network and daily flight plans demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can reduce the number of conflicts and the average delay effectively, outperforming existing approaches including GAs, the memetic algorithm, and the cooperative coevolution algorithms with different well-known grouping strategies.

Language Convergence Infrastructure

NARCIS (Netherlands)

V. Zaytsev (Vadim); J.M. Fernandes; R. Lämmel (Ralf); J.M.W. Visser (Joost); J. Saraiva

2011-01-01

htmlabstractThe process of grammar convergence involves grammar extraction and transformation for structural equivalence and contains a range of technical challenges. These need to be addressed in order for the method to deliver useful results. The paper describes a DSL and the infrastructure behind

Convergent Filter Bases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Coghetto Roland

2015-09-01

Full Text Available We are inspired by the work of Henri Cartan [16], Bourbaki [10] (TG. I Filtres and Claude Wagschal [34]. We define the base of filter, image filter, convergent filter bases, limit filter and the filter base of tails (fr: filtre des sections.

Convergent microRNA actions coordinate neocortical development.

Science.gov (United States)

Barca-Mayo, Olga; De Pietri Tonelli, Davide

2014-08-01

Neocortical development is a complex process that, at the cellular level, involves tight control of self-renewal, cell fate commitment, survival, differentiation and delamination/migration. These processes require, at the molecular level, the precise regulation of intrinsic signaling pathways and extrinsic factors with coordinated action in a spatially and temporally specific manner. Transcriptional regulation plays an important role during corticogenesis; however, microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as important post-transcriptional regulators of various aspects of central nervous system development. miRNAs are a class of small, single-stranded noncoding RNA molecules that control the expression of the majority of protein coding genes (i.e., targets). How do different miRNAs achieve precise control of gene networks during neocortical development? Here, we critically review all the miRNA-target interactions validated in vivo, with relevance to the generation and migration of pyramidal-projection glutamatergic neurons, and for the initial formation of cortical layers in the embryonic development of rodent neocortex. In particular, we focus on convergent miRNA actions, which are still a poorly understood layer of complexity in miRNA signaling, but potentially one of the keys to disclosing how miRNAs achieve the precise coordination of complex biological processes such as neocortical development.

Brazil’s Soft-Power Strategy: The Political Aspirations of South–South Development Cooperation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bry, Sandra

2017-01-01

By trading upon the principles of South-South cooperation, Brazil is widely viewed as having gained a positive image worldwide. Brazil’s South-South development cooperation was one of the foreign policy instruments it used to raise this profile. However, studies of the generation of soft power...... are still lacking in the international relations literature,and where empirical research exists it focuses more on the results of soft power strategies than on how soft power is created. Therefore,this article explores how Brazil’s soft power strategy is conceptualized in Brazil’s development cooperation...... of its cooperation agency and guided it towards sectors and targets that contribute to the creation of positive outcomes. This article contributes to the debate on the state’s behavior in soft power, that is, the ‘behavior’ of the Brazilian government in the design of its cooperation agency’s activities...

Convergence Science in a Nano World

Science.gov (United States)

Cady, Nathaniel

2013-01-01

Convergence is a new paradigm that brings together critical advances in the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. Going beyond traditional “interdisciplinary” studies, “convergence” describes the culmination of truly integrated research and development, yielding revolutionary advances in both scientific research and new technologies. At its core, nanotechnology embodies these elements of convergence science by bringing together multiple disciplines with the goal of creating innovative and groundbreaking technologies. In the biological and biomedical sciences, nanotechnology research has resulted in dramatic improvements in sensors, diagnostics, imaging, and even therapeutics. In particular, there is a current push to examine the interface between the biological world and micro/nano-scale systems. For example, my laboratory is developing novel strategies for spatial patterning of biomolecules, electrical and optical biosensing, nanomaterial delivery systems, cellular patterning techniques, and the study of cellular interactions with nano-structured surfaces. In this seminar, I will give examples of how convergent research is being applied to three major areas of biological research &endash; cancer diagnostics, microbiology, and DNA-based biosensing. These topics will be presented as case studies, showing the benefits (and challenges) of multi-disciplinary, convergent research and development.

Multi-sectorial convergence in greenhouse gas emissions.

Science.gov (United States)

Oliveira, Guilherme de; Bourscheidt, Deise Maria

2017-07-01

This paper uses the World Input-Output Database (WIOD) to test the hypothesis of per capita convergence in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for a multi-sectorial panel of countries. The empirical strategy applies conventional estimators of random and fixed effects and Arellano and Bond's (1991) GMM to the main pollutants related to the greenhouse effect. For reasonable empirical specifications, the model revealed robust evidence of per capita convergence in CH 4 emissions in the agriculture, food, and services sectors. The evidence of convergence in CO 2 emissions was moderate in the following sectors: agriculture, food, non-durable goods manufacturing, and services. In all cases, the time for convergence was less than 15 years. Regarding emissions by energy use, the largest source of global warming, there was only moderate evidence in the extractive industry sector-all other pollutants presented little or no evidence. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Testing the Conditional Convergence Hypothesis for Pakistan

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sajjad Ahmad Jan (Corresponding Author

2011-09-01

Full Text Available This study investigates for the existence or non-existence of conditional convergence across the provinces of Pakistan. The annual output data from 1973 to 2000 is pooled for the four Pakistani provinces. The cross-sectional specific effects, the time specific effects, the manufacturing output, and the structural variable for aggregate supply or production shocks are used to control the different steady state levels of per capita incomes of thedifferent provinces. The equation for conditional convergence is estimated through generalized least squares (GLS method, after controlling for the different steady states of the provinces. The result shows that the provinces of Pakistan converge to their own respective steady states with a convergence speed of 11% per annum. At the same time manufacturing output is also statistically significant and positively affects the economic growth in the provinces. However the structural variable is not statistically significant.

Report on converging insert moulding with µ-IM

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Islam, Aminul

moulding with µ-IM  Task 5.2.1 and COTECH demonstrator: guide line for 5PRC production based on the concept of Task 5.2.1 Information and results provided by this deliverable will be directly used for one of the COTECH demonstrators production which will call for convergent insert moulding with µ......Task 5.2.1 deals with the technical feasibility of converging the state-of-the-art µ IM process with insert moulding to offer a wide range of multi-material µ components. The main objective of this deliverable is to summarize state-of-the-art information and to make the guideline needed...... for the convergence. In particular the following aspects are summed up in the deliverable:  Need for converging insert moulding with µ-IM  Objectives and expected outcome from task 5.2.1  State-of-the-art micro insert moulding and different scenario of micro insert moulding  Challenges ahead of converging insert...

A Study on Diffusion Pattern of Technology Convergence: Patent Analysis for Korea

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jae Young Choi

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Technology convergence indicates that technologies of different application areas are converted into a new and common unity of technology. Its range spans from inter-field, whereby technologies are converged between heterogeneous fields in homogeneous sector, to a wider inter-sector, whereby technologies belong to heterogeneous technology sector are converged. This paper determined the definition of technology convergence from previous literature and classified patents into technology category depending on patent information. Furthermore, we empirically measure technology convergence degree based on co-classification analysis and estimate its diffusion trend at the entire technology domain level by using overall 1,476,967 of patents filed to the KIPO (Korean Intellectual Property Office from 1998 to 2010. As a result, potential size and growth rate of technology convergence are varied by both technology and type of technology convergence, i.e., inter-field and inter-sector technology convergence. Diffusion pattern of inter-sector technology convergence appears as the more various form than that of inter-field technology convergence. In a relationship between potential size and growth rate of technology convergence, growth rate of technology convergence is in inverse proportion to potential size of technology convergence in general. That is, the faster the growth rate of technology convergence, the smaller the potential size of technology convergence. In addition, this paper found that technology convergence of the instrument and chemistry sector is actively progressing in both inter-field and inter-sector convergence, while the technologies related to Information and Communication Technology (ICT in electrical engineering sector have relatively mature progress of technology convergence, especially in inter-sector technology convergence.

Improved MPSP Method-based Cooperative Re-entry Guidance for Hypersonic Gliding Vehicles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chu Haiyan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A computationally sufficient technique is used to solve the 3-D cooperative re-entry guidance problem for hypersonic gliding vehicles. Due to the poor surrounding adaptive ability of the traditional cooperative guidance methods, a novel methodology, named as model predictive static programming (MPSP, is used to solve a class of finite-horizon optimal control problems with hard terminal constraints. The main feature of this guidance law is that it is capable of hitting the target with high accuracy for each one of the cooperative vehicles at the same time. In addition, it accurately satisfies variable constraints. Performance of the proposed MPSP-based guidance is demonstrated in 3-D nonlinear dynamics scenario. The numerical simulation results show that the proposed cooperative re-entry guidance methodology has the advantage of computational efficiency and better robustness against the perturbations.

Disparity and convergence: Chinese provincial government health expenditures.

Science.gov (United States)

Pan, Jay; Wang, Peng; Qin, Xuezheng; Zhang, Shufang

2013-01-01

The huge regional disparity in government health expenditures (GHE) is a major policy concern in China. This paper addresses whether provincial GHE converges in China from 1997 to 2009 using the economic convergence framework based on neoclassical economic growth theory. Our empirical investigation provides compelling evidence of long-term convergence in provincial GHE within China, but not in short-term. Policy implications of these empirical results are discussed.

Disparity and convergence: Chinese provincial government health expenditures.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jay Pan

Full Text Available The huge regional disparity in government health expenditures (GHE is a major policy concern in China. This paper addresses whether provincial GHE converges in China from 1997 to 2009 using the economic convergence framework based on neoclassical economic growth theory. Our empirical investigation provides compelling evidence of long-term convergence in provincial GHE within China, but not in short-term. Policy implications of these empirical results are discussed.

Convergence of Transition Probability Matrix in CLVMarkov Models

Science.gov (United States)

Permana, D.; Pasaribu, U. S.; Indratno, S. W.; Suprayogi, S.

2018-04-01

A transition probability matrix is an arrangement of transition probability from one states to another in a Markov chain model (MCM). One of interesting study on the MCM is its behavior for a long time in the future. The behavior is derived from one property of transition probabilty matrix for n steps. This term is called the convergence of the n-step transition matrix for n move to infinity. Mathematically, the convergence of the transition probability matrix is finding the limit of the transition matrix which is powered by n where n moves to infinity. The convergence form of the transition probability matrix is very interesting as it will bring the matrix to its stationary form. This form is useful for predicting the probability of transitions between states in the future. The method usually used to find the convergence of transition probability matrix is through the process of limiting the distribution. In this paper, the convergence of the transition probability matrix is searched using a simple concept of linear algebra that is by diagonalizing the matrix.This method has a higher level of complexity because it has to perform the process of diagonalization in its matrix. But this way has the advantage of obtaining a common form of power n of the transition probability matrix. This form is useful to see transition matrix before stationary. For example cases are taken from CLV model using MCM called Model of CLV-Markov. There are several models taken by its transition probability matrix to find its convergence form. The result is that the convergence of the matrix of transition probability through diagonalization has similarity with convergence with commonly used distribution of probability limiting method.

Aminomethylation of enals through carbene and acid cooperative catalysis: concise access to β(2)-amino acids.

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jianfeng; Chen, Xingkuan; Wang, Ming; Zheng, Pengcheng; Song, Bao-An; Chi, Yonggui Robin

2015-04-20

A convergent, organocatalytic asymmetric aminomethylation of α,β-unsaturated aldehydes by N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) and (in situ generated) Brønsted acid cooperative catalysis is disclosed. The catalytically generated conjugated acid from the base plays dual roles in promoting the formation of azolium enolate intermediate, formaldehyde-derived iminium ion (as an electrophilic reactant), and methanol (as a nucleophilic reactant). This redox-neutral strategy is suitable for the scalable synthesis of enantiomerically enriched β(2) -amino acids bearing various substituents. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

The convergence of lattice solutions of linearised Regge calculus

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Barrett, J.W.; Williams, R.M.

1988-01-01

Sequences of configurations of linearised Regge calculus converging to plane wave solutions are constructed to illustrate an earlier result on convergence. It is shown that, for these examples, the convergence criterion filters out the solutions which do not satisfy Einstein's equations from those which do. (author)

Fourier convergence analysis applied to neutron diffusion Eigenvalue problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Hyun Chul; Noh, Jae Man; Joo, Hyung Kook

2004-01-01

Fourier error analysis has been a standard technique for the stability and convergence analysis of linear and nonlinear iterative methods. Though the methods can be applied to Eigenvalue problems too, all the Fourier convergence analyses have been performed only for fixed source problems and a Fourier convergence analysis for Eigenvalue problem has never been reported. Lee et al proposed new 2-D/1-D coupling methods and they showed that the new ones are unconditionally stable while one of the two existing ones is unstable at a small mesh size and that the new ones are better than the existing ones in terms of the convergence rate. In this paper the convergence of method A in reference 4 for the diffusion Eigenvalue problem was analyzed by the Fourier analysis. The Fourier convergence analysis presented in this paper is the first one applied to a neutronics eigenvalue problem to the best of our knowledge

Convergence of Corporate and Information Security

OpenAIRE

Syed; Rahman, M.; Donahue, Shannon E.

2010-01-01

As physical and information security boundaries have become increasingly blurry many organizations are experiencing challenges with how to effectively and efficiently manage security within the corporate. There is no current standard or best practice offered by the security community regarding convergence; however many organizations such as the Alliance for Enterprise Security Risk Management (AESRM) offer some excellent suggestions for integrating a converged security program. This paper rep...

Convergence Science in a Nano World

OpenAIRE

Cady, Nathaniel

2013-01-01

Convergence is a new paradigm that brings together critical advances in the life sciences, physical sciences and engineering. Going beyond traditional “interdisciplinary” studies, “convergence” describes the culmination of truly integrated research and development, yielding revolutionary advances in both scientific research and new technologies. At its core, nanotechnology embodies these elements of convergence science by bringing together multiple disciplines with the goal of creating innova...

International cooperation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1996-01-01

In 1995, Nuclear Regulatory Authority of the Slovak Republic (NRA SR) ensured foreign cooperation particularly in the frame of the Slovak Republic is membership in the IAEA, as well as cooperation with the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD NEA), cooperation with European Union in the frame of PHARE programmes, and intergovernmental cooperation and cooperation among nuclear regulatory authorities. With respect to an international importance, prestige and a wide-scope possibilities of a technical assistance , either a direct one (expert assessments, technology supplies, work placement, scientific trips, training courses) or indirect one (participation at various conferences, seminars, technical committees, etc), the most important cooperation with the IAEA in Vienna. In 1994, the Slovak Republic, was elected to the Board Governors, the represent the group of Eastern European countries. The Slovak Government entrusted the NRA SR's Chairman with representing the Slovak Republic in the Board of Governors. Owing to a good name of Slovakia was elected to the one of two Vice-Chairmen of the Board of Governors at the 882-nd session on the Board. IAEA approved and developed 8 national projects for Slovakia in 1995. Generally, IAEA is contracting scientific contracts with research institutes, nuclear power plants and other organizations. Slovak organizations used these contracts as complementary funding of their tasks. In 1995, there were 12 scientific contracts in progress, or approved respectively. Other international activities of the NRA SR, international co-operations as well as foreign affairs are reported

Implementing Cooperative Behavior & Control Using Open Source Technology Across Heterogeneous Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

2015-03-26

cooperative control algorithms used for multiple SUAS to perform surveillance using equal angular spacing from the ground target [16]. The algorithm...allows each SUAS in the surveillance mission to loiter around a target at an equal angular spacing from one another on the same loiter path. This...Planner has included. For instance, Mission Planner has the ability to run Python scripts. Python is a programming language like Java . With the

The IASB and FASB Convergence Process: Current Developments

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saher Aqel

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The importance of harmonization of accounting atandards is now widely accepted all over the world. The increased international movement of investments has strongly forces the harmonization of the various national accounting standards in a uniform financial reporting system accepted worldwide. Recently the Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to remove the requirement international firms reporting under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS and listed in the U.S to provide reconciliation to U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP. This recent move of the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that U.S. financial reporting is likely to converge with IFRS in the near future. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB are currently working together so as to converge their existing accounting standards into a common set of international accounting standards. The objective of this paper is to discuss the FASB and IASB convergence process by addressing current developments regarding significant topics that were deemed critical to this convergence. The convergence of GAAP and IFRS seems inevitable. Mixed opinions have been voiced about this convergence process. Many have begun to consider obstacles that is possible to lay ahead as well as the possible costs and benefits of such a move to the IFRS .

Energy Efficient Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks Using Distributed Dynamic Load Balanced Clustering Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muthukkumar R.

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Cognitive Radio (CR is a promising and potential technique to enable secondary users (SUs or unlicenced users to exploit the unused spectrum resources effectively possessed by primary users (PUs or licenced users. The proven clustering approach is used to organize nodes in the network into the logical groups to attain energy efficiency, network scalability, and stability for improving the sensing accuracy in CR through cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS. In this paper, a distributed dynamic load balanced clustering (DDLBC algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, each member in the cluster is to calculate the cooperative gain, residual energy, distance, and sensing cost from the neighboring clusters to perform the optimal decision. Each member in a cluster participates in selecting a cluster head (CH through cooperative gain, and residual energy that minimises network energy consumption and enhances the channel sensing. First, we form the number of clusters using the Markov decision process (MDP model to reduce the energy consumption in a network. In this algorithm, CR users effectively utilize the PUs reporting time slots of unavailability. The simulation results reveal that the clusters convergence, energy efficiency, and accuracy of channel sensing increased considerably by using the proposed algorithm.

Energy Efficient Cooperative Spectrum Sensing in Cognitive Radio Networks Using Distributed Dynamic Load Balanced Clustering Scheme

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muthukkumar R.

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Cognitive Radio (CR is a promising and potential technique to enable secondary users (SUs or unlicenced users to exploit the unused spectrum resources effectively possessed by primary users (PUs or licenced users. The proven clustering approach is used to organize nodes in the network into the logical groups to attain energy efficiency, network scalability, and stability for improving the sensing accuracy in CR through cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS. In this paper, a distributed dynamic load balanced clustering (DDLBC algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, each member in the cluster is to calculate the cooperative gain, residual energy, distance, and sensing cost from the neighboring clusters to perform the optimal decision. Each member in a cluster participates in selecting a cluster head (CH through cooperative gain, and residual energy that minimises network energy consumption and enhances the channel sensing. First, we form the number of clusters using the Markov decision process (MDP model to reduce the energy consumption in a network. In this algorithm, CR users effectively utilize the PUs reporting time slots of unavailability. The simulation results reveal that the clusters convergence, energy efficiency, and accuracy of channel sensing increased considerably by using the proposed algorithm.

Modelling Convergence of Finite Element Analysis of Cantilever Beam

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Convergence studies are carried out by investigating the convergence of numerical results as the number of elements is increased. If convergence is not obtained, the engineer using the finite element method has absolutely no indication whether the results are indicative of a meaningful approximation to the correct solution ...

Convergence of the European law on public notaries

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Salma Jožef

2012-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper the author analyzes the functions of public notaries, the evolution of the institution in Europe and its legal features in contemporary European law. The basic normative solutions of the German, Austrian, French, Italian, Hungarian, Slovakian, Slovenian and Croatian law are outlined. The importance of the European law on notaries public is also stressed, which aims to further the cooperation between national chambers on notaries public on European scale, in order to facilitate the cross-border transactions within the territory of the European Union. The gist of the converging common European rules pertaining to notaries public are the principle of independence of notaries and the principle of legality, which means that the notaries are in the performance of their duties bound only by the norms of civil substantive and procedure law. Notaries public perform also a function of public service, since they provide assistance to citizens in drafting their public instruments and private deeds (juridical acts and statements, that produce the required evidentiary strength. Depending on whether a given requirement of form of juridical act can be met only by the assistance of notaries public or by other public bodies, one may distinguish exclusively notarial acts from competing forms of juridical acts.

Cooperative Airborne Inertial-SLAM for Improved Platform and Feature/Target Localisation

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Sukkarieh, Salah; Bryson, Mitch

2008-01-01

.... The benefit of using the SLAM algorithm is that it can determine the accuracy of both platform and target locations, both of which improve as a function of feature/target revisitation or sharing...

Real Economic Convergence in Western Europe from 1995 to 2013

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dzenita Siljak

2016-05-01

Full Text Available The aim of the paper is to analyze the economic convergence of real per capita GDP in the Western European countries with two types of measurement methodology. The first is sigma convergence, based on the coefficient of variation of real per capita GDP. The second is beta convergence, absolute/unconditional and conditional, including economic and socio-political variables, based on the neoclassical growth theory. The hypothesis of the paper is that there has been real economic convergence in Western Europe in at least one analyzed sub-period. The relationships between selected macroeconomic variables and the rate of economic growth are econometrically tested. Both sigma and beta convergence are estimated for the period 1995-2013 and four sub-periods: 1995-2003, 2004-2013, pre-crisis sub-period 2004-2008 and the crisis sub-period 2009-2013. The empirical findings support the hypothesis of economic convergence, i.e. that the poorer countries tend to grow faster than the rich ones in per capita terms, for some periods. However, the countries had a tendency to diverge, confiriming the negative effects of the crisis on per capita GDP growth. Sigma convergence is consistent with beta convergence. According to the results, the half-life of real convergence may take from 12 to 1078 years. Significant dissimilarities between the growth patterns among individual countries show the considerable heterogeneity of growth, i.e. the convergence clubs.

Centralized cooperative spectrum sensing for ad-hoc disaster relief network clusters

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pratas, Nuno; Marchetti, Nicola; Prasad, Neeli R.

2010-01-01

Disaster relief networks have to be highly adaptable and resilient. Cognitive radio enhanced ad-hoc architecture have been put forward as a candidate to enable such networks. Spectrum sensing is the cornerstone of the cognitive radio paradigm, and it has been the target of intensive research....... The main common conclusion was that the achievable spectrum sensing accuracy can be greatly enhanced through the use of cooperative sensing schemes. When considering applying Cognitive Radio to ad-hoc disaster relief networks, spectrum sensing cooperative schemes are paramount. A centralized cluster...

Convergence criteria for systems of nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sharma, R.K.

1986-01-01

This thesis deals with convergence criteria for a special system of nonlinear elliptic partial differential equations. A fixed-point algorithm is used, which iteratively solves one linearized elliptic partial differential equation at a time. Conditions are established that help foresee the convergence of the algorithm. Under reasonable hypotheses it is proved that the algorithm converges for such nonlinear elliptic systems. Extensive experimental results are reported and they show the algorithm converges in a wide variety of cases and the convergence is well correlated with the theoretical conditions introduced in this thesis

Convergent Innovation in Food through Big Data and Artificial Intelligence for Societal-Scale Inclusive Growth

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laurette Dubé

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Inclusive innovation has not yet reached societal scale due to a well-entrenched divide between wealth creation and social equity. Taking food as the initial test bed, we have proposed the convergent innovation model to address such challenges still facing 21st century society by bridging sectors and disciplines around an integrated goal on both sides of the social-economic divide for innovations that target wealth creation with an upfront consideration of its externalities. The convergent innovation model is empowered by two key enablers that integrate an advanced digital infrastructure with leading scientific knowledge on the drivers of human behaviour in varying contexts. This article discusses the structure, methods, and development of an artificial intelligence platform to support convergent innovation. Insights are gathered on consumer sentiment and behavioural drivers through the analysis of user-generated content on social media platforms. Empirical results show that user discussions related to marketing, consequences, and occasions are positive. Further regression modelling finds that economic consequences are a strong predictor of consumer global sentiment, but are also sensitive to both the actual price and economic awareness. This finding has important implications for inclusive growth and further emphasizes the need for affordable and accessible foods, as well as for consumer education. Challenges and opportunities inspired by the research results are discussed to inform the design, marketing, and delivery of convergent innovation products and services, while also contributing to dimensions of inclusion and economic performance for equitable health and wealth.

A measurement fusion method for nonlinear system identification using a cooperative learning algorithm.

Science.gov (United States)

Xia, Youshen; Kamel, Mohamed S

2007-06-01

Identification of a general nonlinear noisy system viewed as an estimation of a predictor function is studied in this article. A measurement fusion method for the predictor function estimate is proposed. In the proposed scheme, observed data are first fused by using an optimal fusion technique, and then the optimal fused data are incorporated in a nonlinear function estimator based on a robust least squares support vector machine (LS-SVM). A cooperative learning algorithm is proposed to implement the proposed measurement fusion method. Compared with related identification methods, the proposed method can minimize both the approximation error and the noise error. The performance analysis shows that the proposed optimal measurement fusion function estimate has a smaller mean square error than the LS-SVM function estimate. Moreover, the proposed cooperative learning algorithm can converge globally to the optimal measurement fusion function estimate. Finally, the proposed measurement fusion method is applied to ARMA signal and spatial temporal signal modeling. Experimental results show that the proposed measurement fusion method can provide a more accurate model.

Possibilities for global governance of converging technologies

Science.gov (United States)

Roco, Mihail C.

2008-01-01

The convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable opportunities to meet and enhance human potential and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This paper focuses on the progress made in governance of such converging, emerging technologies and suggests possibilities for a global approach. Specifically, this paper suggests creating a multidisciplinary forum or a consultative coordinating group with members from various countries to address globally governance of converging, emerging technologies. The proposed framework for governance of converging technologies calls for four key functions: supporting the transformative impact of the new technologies; advancing responsible development that includes health, safety and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and establishing commitments to long-term planning and investments centered on human development. Principles of good governance guiding these functions include participation of all those who are forging or affected by the new technologies, transparency of governance strategies, responsibility of each participating stakeholder, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must be done with respect for immediate concerns, such as privacy, access to medical advancements, and potential human health effects. At the same time, introduction and management should also be done with respect for longer-term concerns, such as preserving human integrity, dignity and welfare. The suggested governance functions apply to four levels of governance: (a) adapting existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations and organizations specifically to handle converging technologies; (c) building capacity for addressing these issues into national policies and

Possibilities for global governance of converging technologies

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roco, Mihail C.

2008-01-01

The convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable opportunities to meet and enhance human potential and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This paper focuses on the progress made in governance of such converging, emerging technologies and suggests possibilities for a global approach. Specifically, this paper suggests creating a multidisciplinary forum or a consultative coordinating group with members from various countries to address globally governance of converging, emerging technologies. The proposed framework for governance of converging technologies calls for four key functions: supporting the transformative impact of the new technologies; advancing responsible development that includes health, safety and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and establishing commitments to long-term planning and investments centered on human development. Principles of good governance guiding these functions include participation of all those who are forging or affected by the new technologies, transparency of governance strategies, responsibility of each participating stakeholder, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must be done with respect for immediate concerns, such as privacy, access to medical advancements, and potential human health effects. At the same time, introduction and management should also be done with respect for longer-term concerns, such as preserving human integrity, dignity and welfare. The suggested governance functions apply to four levels of governance: (a) adapting existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations and organizations specifically to handle converging technologies; (c) building capacity for addressing these issues into national policies and

Possibilities for global governance of converging technologies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Roco, Mihail C. [National Science Foundation (NSF) (United States)], E-mail: mroco@nsf.gov

2008-01-15

The convergence of nanotechnology, modern biology, the digital revolution and cognitive sciences will bring about tremendous improvements in transformative tools, generate new products and services, enable opportunities to meet and enhance human potential and social achievements, and in time reshape societal relationships. This paper focuses on the progress made in governance of such converging, emerging technologies and suggests possibilities for a global approach. Specifically, this paper suggests creating a multidisciplinary forum or a consultative coordinating group with members from various countries to address globally governance of converging, emerging technologies. The proposed framework for governance of converging technologies calls for four key functions: supporting the transformative impact of the new technologies; advancing responsible development that includes health, safety and ethical concerns; encouraging national and global partnerships; and establishing commitments to long-term planning and investments centered on human development. Principles of good governance guiding these functions include participation of all those who are forging or affected by the new technologies, transparency of governance strategies, responsibility of each participating stakeholder, and effective strategic planning. Introduction and management of converging technologies must be done with respect for immediate concerns, such as privacy, access to medical advancements, and potential human health effects. At the same time, introduction and management should also be done with respect for longer-term concerns, such as preserving human integrity, dignity and welfare. The suggested governance functions apply to four levels of governance: (a) adapting existing regulations and organizations; (b) establishing new programs, regulations and organizations specifically to handle converging technologies; (c) building capacity for addressing these issues into national policies and

Statistical convergence of double sequences in intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mursaleen, M.; Mohiuddine, S.A.

2009-01-01

Recently, the concept of intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces was introduced by Saadati and Park [Saadati R, Park JH. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 2006;27:331-44]. Karakus et al. [Karakus S, Demirci K, Duman O. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 2008;35:763-69] have quite recently studied the notion of statistical convergence for single sequences in intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces. In this paper, we study the concept of statistically convergent and statistically Cauchy double sequences in intuitionistic fuzzy normed spaces. Furthermore, we construct an example of a double sequence to show that in IFNS statistical convergence does not imply convergence and our method of convergence even for double sequences is stronger than the usual convergence in intuitionistic fuzzy normed space.

Text experiments of disk chopper with supermirror converging system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aizawa, K.; Soyama, K.; Matsubayashi, M.; Suzuki, J.; Watanabe, N.

2001-01-01

We measured transportation property of neutron pulsed by disk chopper with three kinds of setting of supermirror guide at JRR-3M, JAERI. We confirmed a gain of supermirror converging system to narrow straight supermirror system. The gain is approximately same as the ratio of entrance width of converging guide to width of narrow straight guide. On the other hand, we did not get a gain of supermirror converging system to wide straight supermirror system which has a same width to entrance width of converging guide and we will plan more precisely experiment. (author)

Institutional and Socio-Economic Convergence in the European Union

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jordi López-Tamayo

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The objective of this paper is to analyze convergence in institutional, social, and macroeconomic conditions between EU member states. Our analysis covers the period 1995-2013 and considers the potential impact of the Great Recession. With this aim, we use a composite indicator that combines information from 51 hard and soft indicators, and we estimate convergence equations for the composite indicator and its seven dimensions considering different country groups. The obtained results show evidence of conditional convergence among EU member states but limited evidence of unconditional convergence over the considered period.

Laser plasma focus produced in a ring target

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Saint-Hilaire, G.; Szili, Z.

1976-01-01

A new geometry for generating a laser-produced plasma is presented. A toroidal mirror is used to focus a CO 2 laser beam on the inside wall of a copper ring target. The plasma produced converges at the center of the ring where an axial plasma focus is formed. High-speed photography shows details of a plasma generated at a distance from the target surface. This new geometry could have important applications in the field of x-ray lasers

Convergence of the Distorted Wave Born series

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MacMillan, D.S.

1981-01-01

The aim of this thesis is to begin to understand the idea of reaction mechanisms in nonrelativistic scattering systems. If we have a complete reaction theory of a particular scattering system, then we claim that the theory itself must contain information about important reaction mechanisms in the system. This information can be used to decide what reaction mechanisms should be included in an approximate calculation. To investigate this claim, we studied several solvable models. The primary concept employed in studying our models is the convergence of the multistep series generated by iterating the corresponding scattering integral equation. We known that the eigenvalues of the kernel of the Lippmann-Schwinger equation for potential scattering determine the rate of convergence of the Born series. The Born series will converge only if these eigenvalues all life within the unit circle. We extend these results to a study of the distorted wave Born series for inelastic scattering. The convergence criterion tells us when approximations are valid. We learn how the convergence of the distorted wave series depends upon energy, coupling constants, angular momentum, and angular momentum transfer. In one of our models, we look at several possible distorting potentials to see which one gives the best convergence. We have also applied our results to several actual DWBA or coupled channel calculations in the literature. In addition to the study of models of two-body scattering systems, we have considered the case of rearrangement scattering. We have discussed the formulation of (N greater than or equal to 3)-body distorted wave equations in which the interior dynamics have been redistributed by introducing compact N-body distortion potentials

Geometric convergence of some two-point Pade approximations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nemeth, G.

1983-01-01

The geometric convergences of some two-point Pade approximations are investigated on the real positive axis and on certain infinite sets of the complex plane. Some theorems concerning the geometric convergence of Pade approximations are proved, and bounds on geometric convergence rates are given. The results may be interesting considering the applications both in numerical computations and in approximation theory. As a specific case, the numerical calculations connected with the plasma dispersion function may be performed. (D.Gy.)

Growth Convergence and Spending Efficiency among Filipino Households

OpenAIRE

Erniel B. Barrios

2007-01-01

A growth model is used in the context of Sala-i-Martin’s definition of conditional convergence to assess the household income dynamics in segmented groups at the provincial level in the Philippines. There is a direct relationship between spending efficiency and income growth convergence across income groups. The lower income convergence rate among low income households can be attributed to their relatively less efficient access to the factors of production. The study provides tools in identif...

On the convergence and accuracy of the FDTD method for nanoplasmonics.

Science.gov (United States)

Lesina, Antonino Calà; Vaccari, Alessandro; Berini, Pierre; Ramunno, Lora

2015-04-20

Use of the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method to model nanoplasmonic structures continues to rise - more than 2700 papers have been published in 2014 on FDTD simulations of surface plasmons. However, a comprehensive study on the convergence and accuracy of the method for nanoplasmonic structures has yet to be reported. Although the method may be well-established in other areas of electromagnetics, the peculiarities of nanoplasmonic problems are such that a targeted study on convergence and accuracy is required. The availability of a high-performance computing system (a massively parallel IBM Blue Gene/Q) allows us to do this for the first time. We consider gold and silver at optical wavelengths along with three "standard" nanoplasmonic structures: a metal sphere, a metal dipole antenna and a metal bowtie antenna - for the first structure comparisons with the analytical extinction, scattering, and absorption coefficients based on Mie theory are possible. We consider different ways to set-up the simulation domain, we vary the mesh size to very small dimensions, we compare the simple Drude model with the Drude model augmented with two critical points correction, we compare single-precision to double-precision arithmetic, and we compare two staircase meshing techniques, per-component and uniform. We find that the Drude model with two critical points correction (at least) must be used in general. Double-precision arithmetic is needed to avoid round-off errors if highly converged results are sought. Per-component meshing increases the accuracy when complex geometries are modeled, but the uniform mesh works better for structures completely fillable by the Yee cell (e.g., rectangular structures). Generally, a mesh size of 0.25 nm is required to achieve convergence of results to ∼ 1%. We determine how to optimally setup the simulation domain, and in so doing we find that performing scattering calculations within the near-field does not necessarily produces large

Low fuel convergence path to ignition on the NIF

Science.gov (United States)

Schmitt, M. J.; Molvig, Kim; Gianakon, T. A.; Woods, C. N.; Krasheninnikova, N. S.; Hsu, S. C.; Schmidt, D. W.; Dodd, E. S.; Zylstra, Alex; Scheiner, B.; McKenty, P.; Campbell, E. M.; Froula, D.; Betti, R.; Michel, T.

2017-10-01

A novel concept for achieving ignition on the NIF is proposed that obviates current issues plaguing single-shell high-convergence capsules. A large directly-driven Be shell is designed to robustly implode two nested internal shells by efficiently converting 1.7MJ of laser energy from a 6 ns, low intensity laser pulse, into a 1 ns dynamic pressure pulse to ignite and burn a central liquid DT core after a fuel convergence of only 9. The short, low intensity laser pulse mitigates LPI allowing more uniform laser drive of the target and eliminates hot e-, preheat and laser zooming issues. Preliminary rad-hydro simulations predict ignition initiation with 90% maximum inner shell velocity, before deceleration Rayleigh-Taylor growth can cause significant pusher shell mix into the compressed DT fuel. The gold inner pusher shell reduces pre-ignition radiation losses from the fuel allowing ignition to occur at 2.5keV. Further 2D simulations show that the short pulse design results in a spatially uniform kinetic drive that is tolerant to variations in laser cone power. A multi-pronged effort, in collaboration with LLE, is progressing to optimize this design for NIF's PDD laser configuration. Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Energy by the Los Alamos National Security, LLC, Los Alamos National Laboratory under contract DE-FG02-051ER54810.

International cooperation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prieto, F.E.

1984-01-01

It looks doubtless that the need for an international cooperation to solve the worldwide energy problems is already a concern of individuals, institutions, and governments. This is an improvement. But there is something lacking. The author refers to the Atoms for Peace speech, the origin of the IAEA and of the subsequent spreading of the nuclear option. He also refers back to the call made by the Mexican government for a worldwide energy cooperation. He stresses the need for governments to cooperate, so that this international cooperation on energy can be put into operation for the benefit of mankind

Cooperation for a competitive position: The impact of hospital cooperation behavior on organizational performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Büchner, Vera Antonia; Hinz, Vera; Schreyögg, Jonas

2015-01-01

Several public policy initiatives, particularly those involving managed care, aim to enhance cooperation between partners in the health care sector because it is expected that such cooperation will reduce costs and generate additional revenue. However, empirical evidence regarding the effects of cooperation on hospital performance is scarce, particularly with respect to creating a comprehensive measure of cooperation behavior. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of hospital cooperation behavior on organizational performance. We differentiate between horizontal and vertical cooperation using two alternative measures-cooperation depth and cooperation breadth-and include the interaction effects between both cooperation directions. Data are derived from a survey of German hospitals and combined with objective performance information from annual financial statements. Generalized linear regression models are used. The study findings provide insight into the nature of hospitals' cooperation behavior. In particular, we show that there are negative synergies between horizontal administrative cooperation behavior and vertical cooperation behavior. Whereas the depth and breadth of horizontal administrative cooperation positively affect financial performance (when there is no vertical cooperation), vertical cooperation positively affects financial performance (when there is no horizontal administrative cooperation) only when cooperation is broad (rather than deep). Horizontal cooperation is generally more effective than vertical cooperation at improving financial performance. Hospital managers should consider the negative interaction effect when making decisions about whether to recommend a cooperative relationship in a horizontal or vertical direction. In addition, managers should be aware of the limited financial benefit of cooperation behavior.

On the convergence of multigroup discrete-ordinates approximations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Victory, H.D. Jr.; Allen, E.J.; Ganguly, K.

1987-01-01

Our analysis is divided into two distinct parts which we label for convenience as Part A and Part B. In Part A, we demonstrate that the multigroup discrete-ordinates approximations are well-defined and converge to the exact transport solution in any subcritical setting. For the most part, we focus on transport in two-dimensional Cartesian geometry. A Nystroem technique is used to extend the discrete ordinates multigroup approximates to all values of the angular and energy variables. Such an extension enables us to employ collectively compact operator theory to deduce stability and convergence of the approximates. In Part B, we perform a thorough convergence analysis for the multigroup discrete-ordinates method for an anisotropically-scattering subcritical medium in slab geometry. The diamond-difference and step-characteristic spatial approximation methods are each studied. The multigroup neutron fluxes are shown to converge in a Banach space setting under realistic smoothness conditions on the solution. This is the first thorough convergence analysis for the fully-discretized multigroup neutron transport equations

Development of an augmented reality based simulation system for cooperative plant dismantling work

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ishii, Hirotake; Man, Zhiyuan; Yan, Weida; Shimoda, Hiroshi; Izumi, Masanori

2015-01-01

An augmented reality-based simulation system for cooperative plant dismantling work has been developed and evaluated. In the system, behaviors of virtual objects such as the dismantling target, chain blocks, and trolleys are physically simulated. Their appearance is superimposed on camera images captured with cameras on users' tablet devices. The users can manipulate virtual objects cooperatively via touch operation. They can cut the dismantling targets, lift them on the trolleys using chain blocks, and convey them through narrow passages to ascertain whether the dismantling targets can be conducted without colliding with the passages. During the simulation, collisions between the virtual objects and real work environment are detected based on their three-dimensional shape data measured in advance. The collided parts are visualized using augmented reality superimposition. Four evaluators assessed the simulation system. Results show that the simulation system can be useful for prior examination of dismantling works, but some points were also found to need improvement. (author)

Choosing the cooperative option

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

English, G. (National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (United States))

1999-06-01

Cooperatives do not ask to be exempted from the law. They do ask that laws and regulations be designed to allow them to meet the needs of their consumer-owners in accordance with cooperative principles, at a time that the marginal consumers being abandoned by for-profit utilities may be ready to gravitate toward cooperatives. The cooperative principles are worth reviewing because they explain the focus on the consumer and the cooperative concept of service: cooperatives are voluntary organizations, open to all persons able to use their services and willing to accept the responsibilities of membership; cooperatives are democratic organizations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting policies and making decisions, the elected representatives are accountable to the membership; members contribute equitably to, and democratically control, the capital of their cooperative; cooperatives are autonomous, self-help organizations controlled by their members, if they enter into agreements with other organizations, including governments, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their cooperative autonomy; cooperatives provide education and training for their members, elected representatives, managers, and employees so they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperatives, they inform the general public, particularly young people and opinion leaders, about the nature and benefits of cooperation; cooperatives serve their members most effectively and strength the cooperative movement by working together through local, national, regional, and international structures; and while focusing on member needs, cooperatives work for the sustainable development of their communities through policies accepted by their members.

The Convergence Years

Science.gov (United States)

Kolodzy, Janet; Grant, August E.; DeMars, Tony R.; Wilkinson, Jeffrey S.

2014-01-01

The emergence of the Internet, social media, and digital technologies in the twenty-first century accelerated an evolution in journalism and communication that fit under the broad term of convergence. That evolution changed the relationship between news producers and consumers. It broke down the geographical boundaries in defining our communities,…

Cooperative Testing of Uncontrollable Timed Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

David, Alexandre; Larsen, Kim Guldstrand; Li, Shuhao

2008-01-01

the SUT against the test purpose as long as the SUT reacts to our moves in a cooperative style. We present an operational framework of cooperative winning strategy generation, test case derivation and execution. The test method is proved to be sound and complete. Preliminary experimental results indicate......Abstract. This paper deals with targeted testing of timed systems with uncontrollable behavior. The testing activity is viewed as a game between the tester and the system under test (SUT) towards a given test purpose. The SUT is modeled as Timed Game Automaton and the test purpose is specified...... in Timed CTL formula. We can employ a timed game solver UPPAAL-TIGA to check if the test purpose is ture w.r.t. the model, and if yes, to generate a winning strategy and use it for black-box conformance testing. Specifically, we show that in case the checking yields a negative result, we can still test...

International co-operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1998-01-01

In this part the are reviewed: Co-operation with IAEA; Participation of the Slovakia on the 41 st session of the General Conference; The comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization; Co-operation with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development; co-operation with the European Commission; Fulfillment of obligations resulting from the international contracting documents

Towards automated composition of convergent services: A survey

OpenAIRE

Ordónez, Armando; Alcazar, Vidal; Rendon, Oscar Mauricio Caicedo; Falcarin, Paolo; Corrales, Juan C.; Granville, Lisandro Zambenedetti

2015-01-01

A convergent service is defined as a service that exploits the convergence of\\ud communication networks and at the same time takes advantage of features of\\ud the Web. Nowadays, building up a convergent service is not trivial, because\\ud although there are significant approaches that aim to automate the service\\ud composition at different levels in the Web and Telecom domains, selecting\\ud the most appropriate approach for specific case studies is complex due to\\ud the big amount of involved ...

Convergence Analysis for the Multiplicative Schwarz Preconditioned Inexact Newton Algorithm

KAUST Repository

Liu, Lulu

2016-10-26

The multiplicative Schwarz preconditioned inexact Newton (MSPIN) algorithm, based on decomposition by field type rather than by subdomain, was recently introduced to improve the convergence of systems with unbalanced nonlinearities. This paper provides a convergence analysis of the MSPIN algorithm. Under reasonable assumptions, it is shown that MSPIN is locally convergent, and desired superlinear or even quadratic convergence can be obtained when the forcing terms are picked suitably.

Convergence Analysis for the Multiplicative Schwarz Preconditioned Inexact Newton Algorithm

KAUST Repository

Liu, Lulu; Keyes, David E.

2016-01-01

The multiplicative Schwarz preconditioned inexact Newton (MSPIN) algorithm, based on decomposition by field type rather than by subdomain, was recently introduced to improve the convergence of systems with unbalanced nonlinearities. This paper provides a convergence analysis of the MSPIN algorithm. Under reasonable assumptions, it is shown that MSPIN is locally convergent, and desired superlinear or even quadratic convergence can be obtained when the forcing terms are picked suitably.

Third-party punishment increases cooperation in children through (misaligned) expectations and conditional cooperation.

Science.gov (United States)

Lergetporer, Philipp; Angerer, Silvia; Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela; Sutter, Matthias

2014-05-13

The human ability to establish cooperation, even in large groups of genetically unrelated strangers, depends upon the enforcement of cooperation norms. Third-party punishment is one important factor to explain high levels of cooperation among humans, although it is still somewhat disputed whether other animal species also use this mechanism for promoting cooperation. We study the effectiveness of third-party punishment to increase children's cooperative behavior in a large-scale cooperation game. Based on an experiment with 1,120 children, aged 7 to 11 y, we find that the threat of third-party punishment more than doubles cooperation rates, despite the fact that children are rarely willing to execute costly punishment. We can show that the higher cooperation levels with third-party punishment are driven by two components. First, cooperation is a rational (expected payoff-maximizing) response to incorrect beliefs about the punishment behavior of third parties. Second, cooperation is a conditionally cooperative reaction to correct beliefs that third party punishment will increase a partner's level of cooperation.

Convergent engineering techniques for management of nuclear processes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carabulea, A.; Popa, I.

1995-01-01

The paper briefly presents the concept of convergent arhemo-systematical engineering, its advantages in comparison with classical methods of research, design, manufacture. The convergent engineering application supposes the usage of the advanced methods, techniques and equipment corresponding to the domain and specific for the corresponding branch of computer science. Starting from the convergent engineering principles and concept, the paper proposes two models applicable for new products and also for improving and optimizing the existing ones. The models are based on two levels of feedback corresponding to two levels of control and they assume the utilization of expert and robot-expert systems. The economical efficiency of the application of the convergent engineering method is evaluated for the case of a nuclear power plant by calculation the main technical and economical indicators. (Author) 2 Figs., 5 Refs

DNA-mediated cooperativity facilitates the co-selection of cryptic enhancer sequences by SOX2 and PAX6 transcription factors.

Science.gov (United States)

Narasimhan, Kamesh; Pillay, Shubhadra; Huang, Yong-Heng; Jayabal, Sriram; Udayasuryan, Barath; Veerapandian, Veeramohan; Kolatkar, Prasanna; Cojocaru, Vlad; Pervushin, Konstantin; Jauch, Ralf

2015-02-18

Sox2 and Pax6 are transcription factors that direct cell fate decision during neurogenesis, yet the mechanism behind how they cooperate on enhancer DNA elements and regulate gene expression is unclear. By systematically interrogating Sox2 and Pax6 interaction on minimal enhancer elements, we found that cooperative DNA recognition relies on combinatorial nucleotide switches and precisely spaced, but cryptic composite DNA motifs. Surprisingly, all tested Sox and Pax paralogs have the capacity to cooperate on such enhancer elements. NMR and molecular modeling reveal very few direct protein-protein interactions between Sox2 and Pax6, suggesting that cooperative binding is mediated by allosteric interactions propagating through DNA structure. Furthermore, we detected and validated several novel sites in the human genome targeted cooperatively by Sox2 and Pax6. Collectively, we demonstrate that Sox-Pax partnerships have the potential to substantially alter DNA target specificities and likely enable the pleiotropic and context-specific action of these cell-lineage specifiers. © The Author(s) 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

Crowd Computing as a Cooperation Problem: An Evolutionary Approach

Science.gov (United States)

Christoforou, Evgenia; Fernández Anta, Antonio; Georgiou, Chryssis; Mosteiro, Miguel A.; Sánchez, Angel

2013-05-01

Cooperation is one of the socio-economic issues that has received more attention from the physics community. The problem has been mostly considered by studying games such as the Prisoner's Dilemma or the Public Goods Game. Here, we take a step forward by studying cooperation in the context of crowd computing. We introduce a model loosely based on Principal-agent theory in which people (workers) contribute to the solution of a distributed problem by computing answers and reporting to the problem proposer (master). To go beyond classical approaches involving the concept of Nash equilibrium, we work on an evolutionary framework in which both the master and the workers update their behavior through reinforcement learning. Using a Markov chain approach, we show theoretically that under certain----not very restrictive—conditions, the master can ensure the reliability of the answer resulting of the process. Then, we study the model by numerical simulations, finding that convergence, meaning that the system reaches a point in which it always produces reliable answers, may in general be much faster than the upper bounds given by the theoretical calculation. We also discuss the effects of the master's level of tolerance to defectors, about which the theory does not provide information. The discussion shows that the system works even with very large tolerances. We conclude with a discussion of our results and possible directions to carry this research further.

The Convergent Learning Space

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjeldsen, Lars Peter; Kjærgaard, Hanne Wacher

networks are still more prominently expected by students. Against this backdrop, an action research project has worked with the definition and testing of the hypothesized constituents of the Convergent Learning Space and how it challenges our traditional conceptions of learning spaces. The article...... describes this pilot study involving teachers in conscious, documented reflection on methods, approaches, and procedures conducive to learning processes in this new learning space. As a perspective, the article briefly outlines an intervention study aimed at investigating how students benefit from......The concept of the Convergent Learning Space has been hypothesized and explored in an ongoing action research project carried out at undergraduate level in select bachelor programs at a Danish University College, where classrooms are technology rich and students bring their own devices. The changes...

Convergent evolution as natural experiment: the tape of life reconsidered.

Science.gov (United States)

Powell, Russell; Mariscal, Carlos

2015-12-06

Stephen Jay Gould argued that replaying the 'tape of life' would result in radically different evolutionary outcomes. Recently, biologists and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the theoretical importance of convergent evolution-the independent origination of similar biological forms and functions-which many interpret as evidence against Gould's thesis. In this paper, we examine the evidentiary relevance of convergent evolution for the radical contingency debate. We show that under the right conditions, episodes of convergent evolution can constitute valid natural experiments that support inferences regarding the deep counterfactual stability of macroevolutionary outcomes. However, we argue that proponents of convergence have problematically lumped causally heterogeneous phenomena into a single evidentiary basket, in effect treating all convergent events as if they are of equivalent theoretical import. As a result, the 'critique from convergent evolution' fails to engage with key claims of the radical contingency thesis. To remedy this, we develop ways to break down the heterogeneous set of convergent events based on the nature of the generalizations they support. Adopting this more nuanced approach to convergent evolution allows us to differentiate iterated evolutionary outcomes that are probably common among alternative evolutionary histories and subject to law-like generalizations, from those that do little to undermine and may even support, the Gouldian view of life.

Reliability enhancement of Navier-Stokes codes through convergence acceleration

Science.gov (United States)

Merkle, Charles L.; Dulikravich, George S.

1995-01-01

Methods for enhancing the reliability of Navier-Stokes computer codes through improving convergence characteristics are presented. The improving of these characteristics decreases the likelihood of code unreliability and user interventions in a design environment. The problem referred to as a 'stiffness' in the governing equations for propulsion-related flowfields is investigated, particularly in regard to common sources of equation stiffness that lead to convergence degradation of CFD algorithms. Von Neumann stability theory is employed as a tool to study the convergence difficulties involved. Based on the stability results, improved algorithms are devised to ensure efficient convergence in different situations. A number of test cases are considered to confirm a correlation between stability theory and numerical convergence. The examples of turbulent and reacting flow are presented, and a generalized form of the preconditioning matrix is derived to handle these problems, i.e., the problems involving additional differential equations for describing the transport of turbulent kinetic energy, dissipation rate and chemical species. Algorithms for unsteady computations are considered. The extension of the preconditioning techniques and algorithms derived for Navier-Stokes computations to three-dimensional flow problems is discussed. New methods to accelerate the convergence of iterative schemes for the numerical integration of systems of partial differential equtions are developed, with a special emphasis on the acceleration of convergence on highly clustered grids.

Ideal Convergence of k-Positive Linear Operators

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Akif Gadjiev

2012-01-01

Full Text Available We study some ideal convergence results of k-positive linear operators defined on an appropriate subspace of the space of all analytic functions on a bounded simply connected domain in the complex plane. We also show that our approximation results with respect to ideal convergence are more general than the classical ones.

Bi-Spectral Method for Radar Target Recognition

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Yeo, Jiunn W

2006-01-01

.... Since World War II, the Identification of Friend or Foe (IFF) systems installed in radar systems have served as the primary cooperative target identification techniques based on the "question and answer" interrogation loop of unidentified aircraft...

Object recognition - Convergence of vision, audition, and touch

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kassuba, Tanja

of object information across audition and touch or across all thee senses. Further, even though object recognition within different senses is to some degree redundant, the different senses differ with respect to their intrinsic efficiency in extracting types of information (Lederman & Klatzky, 2009...... magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The following research questions were addressed: 1. Where in the human brain does object recognition converge across vision, audition, and touch? 2. How is audio-haptic object......-match-to-sample task was applied in which participants had to match a target object with a previously presented sample object within and across audition and touch in both directions (auditory─haptic and haptic─auditory). As a coherence in content is an important binding cue (Laurienti et al., 2004), semantic...

Nominal and real price convergence in Romania – Statistical evaluation -

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mihai Gheorghe

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The creation of both the Economic and Monetary Union and of the single common market have meant two very important steps in getting a more and more compact Union. The first step regarding EMU lead to the adoption of a single currency and to the elimination of the exchange rates fluctuations, while the second one lead to the elimination of physical, administrative and technical barriers in order to achieve a sustainable economic growth and a stimulation of competition. Romanian authorities set out a new target year for the Euro adoption. Technically, the euro adoption as of 1 January 2019 would imply participation in the ERM II starting 1 January 2016 for the minimum 2-year stay. During this period the EU authorities will assess whether Romania meet the determined criteria for entering the third stage of EMU. The purpose of the paper is to assess the nominal and real convergence of Romanian prices, before and after the admission to the European Union (EU. The paper provides a short presentation of technical consideration of the both indices used to measure the price convergence, namely Harmonized Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP and the price level estimated in the PEC framework. A retrospective analysis since the EU admission show that in Romania, the inflation measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices has been on a downward trend, but is still relatively high, at an average rate of 3,2% in 2013. In Romania the price level is significantly lower as compared to the EU 15 average (46%, most probably this is due to the low per capita income level. In addition, the poor marketing and the low reputation of the domestic goods and services can also be regarded as factors reducing the convergence of prices in Romania and the EU.

SPREADING SPEEDS AND TRAVELING WAVES FOR NON-COOPERATIVE INTEGRO-DIFFERENCE SYSTEMS

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Haiyan; Castillo-Chavez, Carlos

2014-01-01

The study of spatially explicit integro-difference systems when the local population dynamics are given in terms of discrete-time generations models has gained considerable attention over the past two decades. These nonlinear systems arise naturally in the study of the spatial dispersal of organisms. The brunt of the mathematical research on these systems, particularly, when dealing with cooperative systems, has focused on the study of the existence of traveling wave solutions and the characterization of their spreading speed. Here, we characterize the minimum propagation (spreading) speed, via the convergence of initial data to wave solutions, for a large class of non cooperative nonlinear systems of integro-difference equations. The spreading speed turns out to be the slowest speed from a family of non-constant traveling wave solutions. The applicability of these theoretical results is illustrated through the explicit study of an integro-difference system with local population dynamics governed by Hassell and Comins’ non-cooperative competition model (1976). The corresponding integro-difference nonlinear systems that results from the redistribution of individuals via a dispersal kernel is shown to satisfy conditions that guarantee the existence of minimum speeds and traveling waves. This paper is dedicated to Avner Friedman as we celebrate his immense contributions to the fields of partial differential equations, integral equations, mathematical biology, industrial mathematics and applied mathematics in general. His leadership in the mathematical sciences and his mentorship of students and friends over several decades has made a huge difference in the personal and professional lives of many, including both of us. PMID:24899868

Sorting and sustaining cooperation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vikander, Nick

2013-01-01

This paper looks at cooperation in teams where some people are selfish and others are conditional cooperators, and where lay-offs will occur at a fixed future date. I show that the best way to sustain cooperation prior to the lay-offs is often in a sorting equilibrium, where conditional cooperators...... can identify and then work with one another. Changes to parameters that would seem to make cooperation more attractive, such as an increase in the discount factor or the fraction of conditional cooperators, can reduce equilibrium cooperation if they decrease a selfish player's incentive to sort....

Gene Acquisition Convergence between Entomopoxviruses and Baculoviruses

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julien Thézé

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Organisms from diverse phylogenetic origins can thrive within the same ecological niches. They might be induced to evolve convergent adaptations in response to a similar landscape of selective pressures. Their genomes should bear the signature of this process. The study of unrelated virus lineages infecting the same host panels guarantees a clear identification of phyletically independent convergent adaptation. Here, we investigate the evolutionary history of genes in the accessory genome shared by unrelated insect large dsDNA viruses: the entomopoxviruses (EPVs, Poxviridae and the baculoviruses (BVs. EPVs and BVs have overlapping ecological niches and have independently evolved similar infection processes. They are, in theory, subjected to the same selective pressures from their host’s immune responses. Their accessory genomes might, therefore, bear analogous genomic signatures of convergent adaption and could point out key genomic mechanisms of adaptation hitherto undetected in viruses. We uncovered 32 homologous, yet independent acquisitions of genes originating from insect hosts, different eukaryotes, bacteria and viruses. We showed different evolutionary levels of gene acquisition convergence in these viruses, underlining a continuous evolutionary process. We found both recent and ancient gene acquisitions possibly involved to the adaptation to both specific and distantly related hosts. Multidirectional and multipartite gene exchange networks appear to constantly drive exogenous gene assimilations, bringing key adaptive innovations and shaping the life histories of large DNA viruses. This evolutionary process might lead to genome level adaptive convergence.

Noise can speed convergence in Markov chains.

Science.gov (United States)

Franzke, Brandon; Kosko, Bart

2011-10-01

A new theorem shows that noise can speed convergence to equilibrium in discrete finite-state Markov chains. The noise applies to the state density and helps the Markov chain explore improbable regions of the state space. The theorem ensures that a stochastic-resonance noise benefit exists for states that obey a vector-norm inequality. Such noise leads to faster convergence because the noise reduces the norm components. A corollary shows that a noise benefit still occurs if the system states obey an alternate norm inequality. This leads to a noise-benefit algorithm that requires knowledge of the steady state. An alternative blind algorithm uses only past state information to achieve a weaker noise benefit. Simulations illustrate the predicted noise benefits in three well-known Markov models. The first model is a two-parameter Ehrenfest diffusion model that shows how noise benefits can occur in the class of birth-death processes. The second model is a Wright-Fisher model of genotype drift in population genetics. The third model is a chemical reaction network of zeolite crystallization. A fourth simulation shows a convergence rate increase of 64% for states that satisfy the theorem and an increase of 53% for states that satisfy the corollary. A final simulation shows that even suboptimal noise can speed convergence if the noise applies over successive time cycles. Noise benefits tend to be sharpest in Markov models that do not converge quickly and that do not have strong absorbing states.

Laser targets: introduction

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rosen, M.D.

1985-01-01

The laser target design group was engaged in three main tasks in 1984: (1) analyzing Novette implosion and hohlraum-scaling data, (2) planning for the first experiments on Nova, and (3) designing laboratory x-ray laser targets and experiments. The Novette implosion and hohlraum scaling data are mostly classified and are therefore not discussed in detail here. The authors achieved average final/initial pusher pr ratios of about 50, some 3 times higher than the value achieved in the best Shiva shots. These pr values imply a fuel compression to 100 times liquid density, although this figure and other aspects of the experiments are subject to further interpretation because of detailed questions of target symmetry and stability. Their main long-term goal for Nova is to produce a so-called hydrodynamically equivalent target (HET) - that is, a target whose hydrodynamic behavior (implosion velocity, convergence ratio, symmetry and stability requirements, etc.) is very much like that of a high-gain target, but one that is scaled down in size to match the energy available from Nova and is too small to achieve enough hot-spot pr to ignite the cold, near-Fermi-degenerate fuel around it. Their goal for Nova's first year is to do experiments that will teach them how to achieve the symmetry and stability conditions required by an HET

BICM-based cooperative communication systems with relay selection: Constellation and multiplexer design

KAUST Repository

Malik, Muhammad Talha

2014-09-01

We propose a new bit-interleaved coded modulation (BICM)-based cooperative communication system where different BICM modules can be optimized jointly considering the average signal to noise ratios of the direct and the two-hop Rayleigh fading channels. As such, the full benefit of BICM can be exploited in the context of cooperative communication. Our design considers cooperative communication systems with so called max-min relay selection scheme that has no loss in performance in terms of diversity- multiplexing trade off in orthogonal cooperation. The presented numerical results for rate 1/2 convolutional code with 8-ary pulse amplitude modulation equivalently 64-ary quadrature amplitude modulation show that the proposed design can offer gains up to 1.4 dB over the traditional BICM design for a target bit error rate of 10-6. Moreover the results show that the amount of gain depends on the relays\\' positions and increases with the number of relays available for selection.

Sigma-convergence of stationary Navier-Stokes type equations

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gabriel Nguetseng

2009-06-01

Full Text Available In the framework of homogenization theory, the Sigma-convergence method is carried out on stationary Navier-Stokes type equations on a fixed domain. Our main tools are the two-scale convergence concept and the so-called homogenization algebras.

The Convergent Learning Space:

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærgaard, Hanne Wacher; Kjeldsen, Lars Peter; Asmussen, Jørgen Bering

is described as well as the theoretical construct and hypotheses surrounding the emergence of the concept in technology-rich classrooms, where students bring their own devices and involve their personal learning spaces and networks. The need for new ways of approaching concepts like choice, learning resources......This paper describes the concept of “The Convergent Learning Space” as it is being explored in an ongoing action research project carried out at undergraduate level in select bachelor programs at a Danish University College. The background nature, design, and beginning of this work in progress......, trajectories of participation etc. calls for new action and new pedagogies by teachers in order to secure alignment between students’ worlds and expectations and aims and plans of the teacher. Action research methods are being used to define and test the constituents and variables of the convergent learning...

Convergence accommodation to convergence (CA/C) ratio in patients with intermittent exotropia and decompensated exophoria.

Science.gov (United States)

Nonaka, Fumitaka; Hasebe, Satoshi; Ohtsuki, Hiroshi

2004-01-01

To evaluate the convergence accommodation to convergence (CA/C) ratio in strabismic patients and to clarify its clinical implications. Seventy-eight consecutive patients (mean age: 12.9 +/- 6.0 years) with intermittent exotropia and decompensated exophoria who showed binocular fusion at least at near viewing were recruited. The CA/C ratio was estimated by measuring accommodative responses induced by horizontal prisms with different magnitudes under accommodation feedback open-loop conditions. The CA/C ratios were compared with accommodative convergence to accommodation (AC/A) ratios and other clinical parameters. A linear regression analysis indicated that the mean (+/-SD) CA/C ratio was 0.080 +/- 0.043 D/prism diopter or 0.48 +/- 0.26 D/meter angle. There was no inverse or reciprocal relationship between CA/C and AC/A ratios. The patients with lower CA/C ratios tended to have smaller tonic accommodation under binocular viewing conditions and larger exodeviation at near viewing. The CA/C ratio, like the AC/A ratio, is an independent parameter that characterizes clinical features. A lower CA/C may be beneficial for the vergence control system to compensate for ocular misalignment with minimum degradation of accommodation accuracy.

Cooperatives as Entrants

OpenAIRE

Richard J. Sexton; Terri A. Sexton

1987-01-01

A potential shortcoming of game-theoretic models in industrial organization is their failure to consider consumers as players. We introduce a customer coalition --- a cooperative -- as a potential entrant and compare the cooperative entry threat with that posed by the usual for-profit entrant. We identify four fundamental distinctions between cooperative and for-profit entrants and demonstrate that the strategic interplay between a cooperative and an incumbent firm may differ markedly from th...

Convergence of trajectories in fractal interpolation of stochastic processes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MaIysz, Robert

2006-01-01

The notion of fractal interpolation functions (FIFs) can be applied to stochastic processes. Such construction is especially useful for the class of α-self-similar processes with stationary increments and for the class of α-fractional Brownian motions. For these classes, convergence of the Minkowski dimension of the graphs in fractal interpolation of the Hausdorff dimension of the graph of original process was studied in [Herburt I, MaIysz R. On convergence of box dimensions of fractal interpolation stochastic processes. Demonstratio Math 2000;4:873-88.], [MaIysz R. A generalization of fractal interpolation stochastic processes to higher dimension. Fractals 2001;9:415-28.], and [Herburt I. Box dimension of interpolations of self-similar processes with stationary increments. Probab Math Statist 2001;21:171-8.]. We prove that trajectories of fractal interpolation stochastic processes converge to the trajectory of the original process. We also show that convergence of the trajectories in fractal interpolation of stochastic processes is equivalent to the convergence of trajectories in linear interpolation

Convergence of Wachspress coordinates: from polygons to curved domains

KAUST Repository

Kosinka, Jiří

2014-08-08

Given a smooth, strictly convex planar domain, we investigate point-wise convergence of the sequence of Wachspress coordinates defined over finer and finer inscribed polygonal approximations of the domain. Based on a relation between the discrete Wachspress case and the limit smooth case given by the Wachspress kernel defined by Warren et al., we show that the corresponding sequences of Wachspress interpolants and mappings converge as 𝓞(h2) for a sampling step size h of the boundary curve of the domain as h → 0. Several examples are shown to numerically validate the results and to visualise the behaviour of discrete interpolants and mappings as they converge to their smooth counterparts. Empirically, the same convergence order is observed also for mean value coordinates. Moreover, our numerical tests suggest that the convergence of interpolants and mappings is uniform both in the Wachspress and mean value cases. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Convergence of Wachspress coordinates: from polygons to curved domains

KAUST Repository

Kosinka, Jiří ; Barton, Michael

2014-01-01

Given a smooth, strictly convex planar domain, we investigate point-wise convergence of the sequence of Wachspress coordinates defined over finer and finer inscribed polygonal approximations of the domain. Based on a relation between the discrete Wachspress case and the limit smooth case given by the Wachspress kernel defined by Warren et al., we show that the corresponding sequences of Wachspress interpolants and mappings converge as 𝓞(h2) for a sampling step size h of the boundary curve of the domain as h → 0. Several examples are shown to numerically validate the results and to visualise the behaviour of discrete interpolants and mappings as they converge to their smooth counterparts. Empirically, the same convergence order is observed also for mean value coordinates. Moreover, our numerical tests suggest that the convergence of interpolants and mappings is uniform both in the Wachspress and mean value cases. © 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Design of permanent block stopping to resist strata convergence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ray, R.E.

1985-11-01

Conventional concrete block plastered with a cementitious coating is the most common material used in the construction of permanent stoppings to direct airflow in underground mines in the US. All mines experience various degrees of strata convergence depending on depth of overburden, geological conditions, and type of roof support employed. Strata convergence will cause cracks and joint openings in masonry stoppings, resulting in significant air leakage losses. Where strata convergence is severe, complete structural failure of the stopping can ultimately occur. Reconstruction of damaged or destroyed stoppings adds expensive overheads to mining operations, and even greater expenses are incurred from the additional fan horsepower required to overcome leakage losses. Ideally, a stopping should maintain high resistance to airflow while yielding to strata convergence. By properly incorporating a polyisocyanurate rigid foam material within the masonry block structure, stopping service life can be increased in mines experiencing strata convergence problems such as floor heave, roof loading, and lateral rib movement.

[Comparison study on subjective and objective measurements of the accommodative convergence to accommodation ratio].

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Jing-jing; Xu, Dan; Huang, Tao; Jiang, Jian; Lü, Fan

2012-05-01

To detect the accommodative convergence to accommodation (AC/A) ratios measured respectively by objective and subjective methods. The differences and its relative factors were explored. Forty young volunteers were measured by eye tracker to get the amount of convergence when fixating at the target at 100 cm, 50 cm, 33 cm and 25 cm and were measured by infrared auto-refractor to get corresponding accommodative responses. AC/A ratio based on these two measurements were compared with the calculated and the gradient AC/A ratio from Von Graefe tests. Mean value of stimulated AC/A ratio measured by eye tracker was higher than the calculated and gradient AC/A ratio by Von Graefe method (P = 0.003, 0.001). There are statistic correlation (r = 0.871, P = 0.000) and difference (P = 0.000) between stimulated AC/A ratio and response AC/A ratios both measured by eye tracker, and the difference trends to be greater with the higher AC/A ratio. The objective AC/A ratio is usually higher than the clinical subjective measurement because of more proximal effect. The response AC/A ratio measured objectively may reveal realistically the mutual effect and relationship between accommodation and convergence and it seems to be more credible to be the monitor parameter on progression of myopia in clinics.

Convergence of p-series revisited with applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elom K. Abalo

2006-01-01

Full Text Available We construct two adjacent sequences that converge to the sum of a given convergent p-series. In case of a divergent p-series, lower and upper bounds of the (knth partial sum are constructed. In either case, we extend the results obtained by Hansheng and Lu (2005 to any integer k≥2. Some numerical examples are given.

New concurrent iterative methods with monotonic convergence

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Yao, Qingchuan [Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)

1996-12-31

This paper proposes the new concurrent iterative methods without using any derivatives for finding all zeros of polynomials simultaneously. The new methods are of monotonic convergence for both simple and multiple real-zeros of polynomials and are quadratically convergent. The corresponding accelerated concurrent iterative methods are obtained too. The new methods are good candidates for the application in solving symmetric eigenproblems.

International Accounting Convergences Related to EU Admitance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Niculae Feleaga

2006-05-01

Full Text Available Starting from January 1, 2005, member countries of the European Union began the obligatory or optional application of the international standards IAS/IFRS for consolidated accounts, what means a revolution in financial reporting of the enterprises. In regards to the individual accounts (generally based on the national book-keeping standards these will converge gradually to referential international book-keeper on short and medium term. At the world level the process which dominates the accounting systems is the convergence between american and international reference system, followed immediatly more or less by the convergence between national accounting systems and the international one. Where Romania and its specialists are situated confronting this process? A reflection subject which finalises this article.

Albania and the EU: A path to convergence?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Javier Lopez-Prol

2014-11-01

Full Text Available The aim of this paper is to assess the degree of relative convergence achieved by Albania in relation to the EU during the last decade through a descriptive empirical analysis. The paper is divided into three sections related to real and nominal convergence in the fields of economic performance; trade openness and balance; and monetary convergence, according to the Euro criteria established in the art. 140 (1 of the TFEU and the protocol Nº 13 (price stability, public finances, exchange rate, and long-term interest rates. In order to have a wide perspective about convergence-divergence trends inside and outside the EU, the tendencies followed by Germany and Greece are also mentioned, as paradigmatic cases of divergence within the EU. Finally, a summary table is presented reviewing each of the analysed variables regarding the last decade evolution and the current situation.

Learning by Investing, Embodiment, and Speed of Convergence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Groth, Christian; Wendner, Ronald

This paper sets up a dynamic general equilibrium model to study how the composition of technical progress affects the asymptotic speed of convergence. The following questions are addressed: Will endogenizing a fraction of the productivity increases as coming from learning by investing help...... to generate a low asymptotic speed of convergence in accordance with the empirical evidence? Does it matter whether learning originates in gross or net investment? The answers to both questions turn out to be: yes, a lot. The third question addressed is: Does the speed of convergence significantly depend...... on the degree to which learning by investing takes the embodied form rather than the disembodied form? The answer turns out to be: no. These results point to a speed of convergence on the small side of 2% per year and possibly tending to a lower level in the future due to the rising importance of investment...

Convergence diagnostics for Eigenvalue problems with linear regression model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shi, Bo; Petrovic, Bojan

2011-01-01

Although the Monte Carlo method has been extensively used for criticality/Eigenvalue problems, a reliable, robust, and efficient convergence diagnostics method is still desired. Most methods are based on integral parameters (multiplication factor, entropy) and either condense the local distribution information into a single value (e.g., entropy) or even disregard it. We propose to employ the detailed cycle-by-cycle local flux evolution obtained by using mesh tally mechanism to assess the source and flux convergence. By applying a linear regression model to each individual mesh in a mesh tally for convergence diagnostics, a global convergence criterion can be obtained. We exemplify this method on two problems and obtain promising diagnostics results. (author)

On convergence and convergence rates for Ivanov and Morozov regularization and application to some parameter identification problems in elliptic PDEs

Science.gov (United States)

Kaltenbacher, Barbara; Klassen, Andrej

2018-05-01

In this paper we provide a convergence analysis of some variational methods alternative to the classical Tikhonov regularization, namely Ivanov regularization (also called the method of quasi solutions) with some versions of the discrepancy principle for choosing the regularization parameter, and Morozov regularization (also called the method of the residuals). After motivating nonequivalence with Tikhonov regularization by means of an example, we prove well-definedness of the Ivanov and the Morozov method, convergence in the sense of regularization, as well as convergence rates under variational source conditions. Finally, we apply these results to some linear and nonlinear parameter identification problems in elliptic boundary value problems.

Optimizer convergence and local minima errors and their clinical importance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jeraj, Robert; Wu, Chuan; Mackie, Thomas R

2003-01-01

Two of the errors common in the inverse treatment planning optimization have been investigated. The first error is the optimizer convergence error, which appears because of non-perfect convergence to the global or local solution, usually caused by a non-zero stopping criterion. The second error is the local minima error, which occurs when the objective function is not convex and/or the feasible solution space is not convex. The magnitude of the errors, their relative importance in comparison to other errors as well as their clinical significance in terms of tumour control probability (TCP) and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) were investigated. Two inherently different optimizers, a stochastic simulated annealing and deterministic gradient method were compared on a clinical example. It was found that for typical optimization the optimizer convergence errors are rather small, especially compared to other convergence errors, e.g., convergence errors due to inaccuracy of the current dose calculation algorithms. This indicates that stopping criteria could often be relaxed leading into optimization speed-ups. The local minima errors were also found to be relatively small and typically in the range of the dose calculation convergence errors. Even for the cases where significantly higher objective function scores were obtained the local minima errors were not significantly higher. Clinical evaluation of the optimizer convergence error showed good correlation between the convergence of the clinical TCP or NTCP measures and convergence of the physical dose distribution. On the other hand, the local minima errors resulted in significantly different TCP or NTCP values (up to a factor of 2) indicating clinical importance of the local minima produced by physical optimization

Functional asymmetry and interhemispheric cooperation in the perception of emotions from facial expressions.

Science.gov (United States)

Tamietto, Marco; Latini Corazzini, Luca; de Gelder, Beatrice; Geminiani, Giuliano

2006-05-01

The present study used the redundant target paradigm on healthy subjects to investigate functional hemispheric asymmetries and interhemispheric cooperation in the perception of emotions from faces. In Experiment 1 participants responded to checkerboards presented either unilaterally to the left (LVF) or right visual half field (RVF), or simultaneously to both hemifields (BVF), while performing a pointing task for the control of eye movements. As previously reported (Miniussi et al. in J Cogn Neurosci 10:216-230, 1998), redundant stimulation led to shorter latencies for stimulus detection (bilateral gain or redundant target effect, RTE) that exceeded the limit for a probabilistic interpretation, thereby validating the pointing procedure and supporting interhemispheric cooperation. In Experiment 2 the same pointing procedure was used in a go/no-go task requiring subjects to respond when seeing a target emotional expression (happy or fearful, counterbalanced between blocks). Faster reaction times to unilateral LVF than RVF emotions, regardless of valence, indicate that the perception of positive and negative emotional faces is lateralized toward the right hemisphere. Simultaneous presentation of two congruent emotional faces, either happy or fearful, produced an RTE that cannot be explained by probability summation and suggests interhemispheric cooperation and neural summation. No such effect was present with BVF incongruent facial expressions. In Experiment 3 we studied whether the RTE for emotional faces depends on the physical identity between BVF stimuli, and we set a second BVF congruent condition in which there was only emotional but not physical or gender identity between stimuli (i.e. two different faces expressing the same emotion). The RTE and interhemispheric cooperation were present also in this second BVF congruent condition. This shows that emotional congruency is the sufficient condition for the RTE to take place in the intact brain and that the

World health inequality: convergence, divergence, and development.

Science.gov (United States)

Clark, Rob

2011-02-01

Recent studies characterize the last half of the twentieth century as an era of cross-national health convergence, with some attributing welfare gains in the developing world to economic growth. In this study, I examine the extent to which welfare outcomes have actually converged and the extent to which economic development is responsible for the observed trends. Drawing from estimates covering 195 nations during the 1955-2005 period, I find that life expectancy averages converged during this time, but that infant mortality rates continuously diverged. I develop a narrative that implicates economic development in these contrasting trends, suggesting that health outcomes follow a "welfare Kuznets curve." Among poor countries, economic development improves life expectancy more than it reduces infant mortality, whereas the situation is reversed among wealthier nations. In this way, development has contributed to both convergence in life expectancy and divergence in infant mortality. Drawing from 674 observations across 163 countries during the 1980-2005 period, I find that the positive effect of GDP PC on life expectancy attenuates at higher levels of development, while the negative effect of GDP PC on infant mortality grows stronger. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Alternative vision or utopian fantasy? Cooperation, empowerment and women's cooperative development in India.

Science.gov (United States)

Mayoux, L

1995-01-01

The discussion addresses the costs and benefits of working in cooperatives in India, imposed participation, methods for increasing incomes, preconceived models, the importance of meeting the actual needs of women, and participatory options. This author evaluated 10 producer cooperatives in West Bengal, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu during 1984-92. It is argued that more discussion is needed on how ideals of cooperation and empowerment of women can occur simultaneous with the context in which cooperatives must operate. The ten study cooperatives were all officially registered cooperatives. Cooperatives varied in size, organizational structure, and forms of support. Four were determined to be successful in economic and participatory terms. Three were successful because of the efforts of the women themselves. All three cases were based on earning goals that were higher than the women could have achieved on their own. Six failed in terms of participatory decision making and cooperative operations. Lack of sufficient support and/or excessive bureaucratic red tape were involved in the six failures, but to varying degrees. Type of support and means of implementation were important in the six failures. All women used cooperatives as a means of increasing income. Participation rules were imposed by outside agencies. Women were given "cooperative" training. Disputes occurred because women selected to power positions were powerful leaders outside the cooperative. Consensus was difficult to reach. There were conflicts of interest between different departments. Quality control was made difficult by women's inability to provide discipline. Personal conflicts from outside were carried on within the cooperative. Incomes could be improved by training women in local marketing and networking, insuring adequate resources and capital, and providing savings schemes. Gender inequalities were a key factor limiting income for women, but cooperatives did not address this issue. Gains for women

Presentation of Topic 1: Economic Convergence and Poverty ...

International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

4 nov. 2010 ... Please find below in PDF format all submitted presentations during the first session on Tuesday 8 December : Economic Convergence and Poverty ReductionNote de cadrage (Scope of study):1 - Economic Convergence and Poverty Reduction – M. Diery SECK, Director of CREPOLScientific ...

Convergence of Crowdsourcing Ideas: A Cognitive Load perspective

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fu, Shixuan; de Vreede, Gert-Jan; Cheng, Xusen

2017-01-01

and satisfaction with the convergence process and outcomes. We propose an experimental study that adopts Cognitive Load Theory as its theoretical lens to investigate the effects of task complexity, idea presentation, and instructional guidance on convergence quality and satisfaction. This study has the potential...

Productivity convergence and spatial dependence among Spanish regions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Dall'erba, S.D.

2005-01-01

This paper estimates the evolution of labor productivity disparities among 48 Spanish regions over 1980-1996 according to the concepts of β- and σ-convergence. The results of β-convergence emphasize the importance of including the impact of neighboring locations' productivity and a disaggregate

Geophysical constraints on geodynamical processes at convergent margins

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Artemieva, Irina; Thybo, Hans; Shulgin, Alexey

2016-01-01

Convergent margins, being the boundaries between colliding lithospheric plates, form the most disastrous areas in the world due to intensive, strong seismicity and volcanism. We review global geophysical data in order to illustrate the effects of the plate tectonic processes at convergent margins......, at least, one of the plates is oceanic. However, the oldest oceanic plate in the Pacific ocean has the smallest convergence rate. (2) The presence of an oceanic plate is, in general, required for generation of high-magnitude (M>8.0) earthquakes and for generating intermediate and deep seismicity along...... to shallow mantle levels....

Character convergence under competition for nutritionally essential resources.

Science.gov (United States)

Fox, Jeremy W; Vasseur, David A

2008-11-01

Resource competition is thought to drive divergence in resource use traits (character displacement) by generating selection favoring individuals able to use resources unavailable to others. However, this picture assumes nutritionally substitutable resources (e.g., different prey species). When species compete for nutritionally essential resources (e.g., different nutrients), theory predicts that selection drives character convergence. We used models of two species competing for two essential resources to address several issues not considered by existing theory. The models incorporated either slow evolutionary change in resource use traits or fast physiological or behavioral change. We report four major results. First, competition always generates character convergence, but differences in resource requirements prevent competitors from evolving identical resource use traits. Second, character convergence promotes coexistence. Competing species always attain resource use traits that allow coexistence, and adaptive trait change stabilizes the ecological equilibrium. In contrast, adaptation in allopatry never preadapts species to coexist in sympatry. Third, feedbacks between ecological dynamics and trait dynamics lead to surprising dynamical trajectories such as transient divergence in resource use traits followed by subsequent convergence. Fourth, under sufficiently slow trait change, ecological dynamics often drive one of the competitors to near extinction, which would prevent realization of long-term character convergence in practice.

Research proposal: Industry convergence - Driving forces, factors and consequences

OpenAIRE

Weaver, Benjamin

2007-01-01

Industry convergence – the merger of hitherto separate industries – is a phenomenon that has had a profound effect on several industries and received considerable interest among practitioners and business press over the past decades. Despite this, industry con- vergence has only received limited attention from the academic management field, al- though an emergent discussion on convergence can be identified. Prior research is limited by a lack of coherent theoretical definitions of convergence...

Economic convergence and climate policy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ciscar, J.C.; Soria, A.

2000-01-01

This paper addresses the relevance of the economic convergence hypotheses between the developing and the developed world in international greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions negotiations. The results are based on a two-region (the OECD and the rest of the world, ROW) neo-classical growth model with exogenous technical progress, different technological diffusion patterns, and a set of geophysical relationships that consider an environmental externality linked to GHG emissions. A game framework is taken into account in the model to capture the strategic interactions between agents. The outcome of the negotiations seems indeed to depend on the economic convergence hypotheses. Faster economic growth of the ROW countries would encourage them to further mitigate carbon emissions. (Author)

Convergent and Divergent Thinking in the Context of Narrative Mysteries

Science.gov (United States)

Wenzel, William G.; Gerrig, Richard J.

2015-01-01

This project demonstrates how narrative mysteries provide a context in which readers engage in creative cognition. Drawing on the concepts of convergent and divergent thinking, we wrote stories that had either convergent or divergent outcomes. For example, one story had a character give his girlfriend a ring (a convergent outcome), whereas the…

Convergence of the Mammalian Target of Rapamycin Complex 1- and Glycogen Synthase Kinase 3-β–Signaling Pathways Regulates the Innate Inflammatory Response

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Huizhi; Brown, Jonathan; Gu, Zhen; Garcia, Carlos A.; Liang, Ruqiang; Alard, Pascale; Beurel, Eléonore; Jope, Richard S.; Greenway, Terrance; Martin, Michael

2011-01-01

The PI3K pathway and its regulation of mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) and glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) play pivotal roles in controlling inflammation. In this article, we show that mTORC1 and GSK3-β converge and that the capacity of mTORC1 to affect the inflammatory response is due to the inactivation of GSK3-β. Inhibition of mTORC1 attenuated GSK3 phosphorylation and increased its kinase activity. Immunoprecipitation and in vitro kinase assays demonstrated that GSK3-β associated with a downstream target of mTORC1, p85S6K, and phosphorylated GSK3-β. Inhibition of S6K1 abrogated the phosphorylation of GSK3-β while increasing and decreasing the levels of IL-12 and IL-10, respectively, in LPS-stimulated monocytes. In contrast, the direct inhibition of GSK3 attenuated the capacity of S6K1 inhibition to influence the levels of IL-10 and IL-12 produced by LPS-stimulated cells. At the transcriptional level, mTORC1 inhibition reduced the DNA binding of CREB and this effect was reversed by GSK3 inhibition. As a result, mTORC1 inhibition increased the levels of NF-κB p65 associated with CREB-binding protein. Inhibition of NF-κB p65 attenuated rapamycin’s ability to influence the levels of pro- or anti-inflammatory cytokine production in monocytes stimulated with LPS. These studies identify the molecular mechanism by which mTORC1 affects GSK3 and show that mTORC1 inhibition regulates pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine production via its capacity to inactivate GSK3. PMID:21422248

Thermal and mechanical modelling of convergent plate margins

NARCIS (Netherlands)

van den Beukel, P.J.

1990-01-01

In this thesis, the thermal and mechanical structure of convergent plate margins will be investigated by means of numerical modelling. In addition, we will discuss the implications of modelling results for geological processes such as metamorphism or the break-up of a plate at a convergent plate

On the premature convergence of particle swarm optimization

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Larsen, Rie B.; Jouffroy, Jerome; Lassen, Benny

2016-01-01

This paper discusses convergence issues of the basic particle swarm optimization algorithm for different pa- rameters. For the one-dimensional case, it is shown that, for a specific range of parameters, the particles will converge prematurely, i.e. away from the actual minimum of the objective...

Effect of initial fraction of cooperators on cooperative behavior in evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keizo Shigaki

Full Text Available We investigate the influence of initial fraction of cooperators on the evolution of cooperation in spatial prisoner's dilemma games. Compared with the results of heterogeneous networks, we find that there is a relatively low initial fraction of cooperators to guarantee higher equilibrium cooperative level. While this interesting phenomenon is contrary to the commonly shared knowledge that higher initial fraction of cooperators can provide better environment for the evolution of cooperation. To support our outcome, we explore the time courses of cooperation and find that the whole course can be divided into two sequent stages: enduring (END and expanding (EXP periods. At the end of END period, thought there is a limited number of cooperator clusters left for the case of low initial setup, these clusters can smoothly expand to hold the whole system in the EXP period. However, for high initial fraction of cooperators, superfluous cooperator clusters hinder their effective expansion, which induces many remaining defectors surrounding the cooperator clusters. Moreover, through intensive analysis, we also demonstrate that when the tendency of three cooperation cluster characteristics (cluster size, cluster number and cluster shape are consistent within END and EXP periods, the state that maximizes cooperation can be favored.

Heterotic quantum and classical computing on convergence spaces

Science.gov (United States)

Patten, D. R.; Jakel, D. W.; Irwin, R. J.; Blair, H. A.

2015-05-01

Category-theoretic characterizations of heterotic models of computation, introduced by Stepney et al., combine computational models such as classical/quantum, digital/analog, synchronous/asynchronous, etc. to obtain increased computational power. A highly informative classical/quantum heterotic model of computation is represented by Abramsky's simple sequential imperative quantum programming language which extends the classical simple imperative programming language to encompass quantum computation. The mathematical (denotational) semantics of this classical language serves as a basic foundation upon which formal verification methods can be developed. We present a more comprehensive heterotic classical/quantum model of computation based on heterotic dynamical systems on convergence spaces. Convergence spaces subsume topological spaces but admit finer structure from which, in prior work, we obtained differential calculi in the cartesian closed category of convergence spaces allowing us to define heterotic dynamical systems, given by coupled systems of first order differential equations whose variables are functions from the reals to convergence spaces.

What Role for Emotions in Cooperating Robots? - The Case of RH3-Y

Science.gov (United States)

Dessimoz, Jean-Daniel; Gauthey, Pierre-François

The paper reviews key aspects of emotions in the context of cooperating robots (mostly, robots cooperating with humans), and gives numerous concrete examples from RH-Y robots. Emotions have been first systematically studied in relation to human expressions, and then the shift has come towards a machine-based replication. Emotions appear to result from changes, from convergence or deviation between status and goals; they trigger appropriate activities, are commonly represented in 2D or 3D affect space, and can be made visible by facial expressions. While specific devices are sometimes created, emotive expressions seem to be conveniently rendered by a set of facial images or more simply by some icons; they can also possibly be parameterized in a few dimensions for continuous modulation. In fact however, internal forces for activities and changes may be expressed in many ways other than faces: screens, panels, and operational behaviors. Relying on emotions ensures useful aspects, such as experience reuse, legibility or communication. But it also includes limits such as due to the nature of robots, of interactive media, and even of the very domain of emotions. For our goal, the design of effective and efficient, cooperating robots, in domestic applications, communication and interaction play key roles; best practices become evident after experimental verification; and our experience gained so far, over 10 years and more, points at a variety of successful strategic attitudes and expression modes, much beyond classic human emotions and facial or iconic images.

The Study of Cooperative Obstacle Avoidance Method for MWSN Based on Flocking Control

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zuo Chen

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Compared with the space fixed feature of traditional wireless sensor network (WSN, mobile WSN has better robustness and adaptability in unknown environment, so that it is always applied in the research of target tracking. In order to reach the target, the nodes group should find a self-adaptive method to avoid the obstacles together in their moving directions. Previous methods, which were based on flocking control model, realized the strategy of obstacle avoidance by means of potential field. However, these may sometimes lead the nodes group to fall into a restricted area like a trap and never get out of it. Based on traditional flocking control model, this paper introduced a new cooperative obstacle avoidance model combined with improved SA obstacle avoidance algorithm. It defined the tangent line of the intersection of node’s velocity line and the edge of obstacle as the steering direction. Furthermore, the cooperative obstacle avoidance model was also improved in avoiding complex obstacles. When nodes group encounters mobile obstacles, nodes will predict movement path based on the spatial location and velocity of obstacle. And when nodes group enters concave obstacles, nodes will temporarily ignore the gravity of the target and search path along the edge of the concave obstacles. Simulation results showed that cooperative obstacle avoidance model has significant improvement on average speed and time efficiency in avoiding obstacle compared with the traditional flocking control model. It is more suitable for obstacle avoidance in complex environment.

The study of cooperative obstacle avoidance method for MWSN based on flocking control.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zuo; Ding, Lei; Chen, Kai; Li, Renfa

2014-01-01

Compared with the space fixed feature of traditional wireless sensor network (WSN), mobile WSN has better robustness and adaptability in unknown environment, so that it is always applied in the research of target tracking. In order to reach the target, the nodes group should find a self-adaptive method to avoid the obstacles together in their moving directions. Previous methods, which were based on flocking control model, realized the strategy of obstacle avoidance by means of potential field. However, these may sometimes lead the nodes group to fall into a restricted area like a trap and never get out of it. Based on traditional flocking control model, this paper introduced a new cooperative obstacle avoidance model combined with improved SA obstacle avoidance algorithm. It defined the tangent line of the intersection of node's velocity line and the edge of obstacle as the steering direction. Furthermore, the cooperative obstacle avoidance model was also improved in avoiding complex obstacles. When nodes group encounters mobile obstacles, nodes will predict movement path based on the spatial location and velocity of obstacle. And when nodes group enters concave obstacles, nodes will temporarily ignore the gravity of the target and search path along the edge of the concave obstacles. Simulation results showed that cooperative obstacle avoidance model has significant improvement on average speed and time efficiency in avoiding obstacle compared with the traditional flocking control model. It is more suitable for obstacle avoidance in complex environment.

Surface meshing with curvature convergence

KAUST Repository

Li, Huibin; Zeng, Wei; Morvan, Jean-Marie; Chen, Liming; Gu, Xianfengdavid

2014-01-01

Surface meshing plays a fundamental role in graphics and visualization. Many geometric processing tasks involve solving geometric PDEs on meshes. The numerical stability, convergence rates and approximation errors are largely determined by the mesh qualities. In practice, Delaunay refinement algorithms offer satisfactory solutions to high quality mesh generations. The theoretical proofs for volume based and surface based Delaunay refinement algorithms have been established, but those for conformal parameterization based ones remain wide open. This work focuses on the curvature measure convergence for the conformal parameterization based Delaunay refinement algorithms. Given a metric surface, the proposed approach triangulates its conformal uniformization domain by the planar Delaunay refinement algorithms, and produces a high quality mesh. We give explicit estimates for the Hausdorff distance, the normal deviation, and the differences in curvature measures between the surface and the mesh. In contrast to the conventional results based on volumetric Delaunay refinement, our stronger estimates are independent of the mesh structure and directly guarantee the convergence of curvature measures. Meanwhile, our result on Gaussian curvature measure is intrinsic to the Riemannian metric and independent of the embedding. In practice, our meshing algorithm is much easier to implement and much more efficient. The experimental results verified our theoretical results and demonstrated the efficiency of the meshing algorithm. © 2014 IEEE.

Surface meshing with curvature convergence

KAUST Repository

Li, Huibin

2014-06-01

Surface meshing plays a fundamental role in graphics and visualization. Many geometric processing tasks involve solving geometric PDEs on meshes. The numerical stability, convergence rates and approximation errors are largely determined by the mesh qualities. In practice, Delaunay refinement algorithms offer satisfactory solutions to high quality mesh generations. The theoretical proofs for volume based and surface based Delaunay refinement algorithms have been established, but those for conformal parameterization based ones remain wide open. This work focuses on the curvature measure convergence for the conformal parameterization based Delaunay refinement algorithms. Given a metric surface, the proposed approach triangulates its conformal uniformization domain by the planar Delaunay refinement algorithms, and produces a high quality mesh. We give explicit estimates for the Hausdorff distance, the normal deviation, and the differences in curvature measures between the surface and the mesh. In contrast to the conventional results based on volumetric Delaunay refinement, our stronger estimates are independent of the mesh structure and directly guarantee the convergence of curvature measures. Meanwhile, our result on Gaussian curvature measure is intrinsic to the Riemannian metric and independent of the embedding. In practice, our meshing algorithm is much easier to implement and much more efficient. The experimental results verified our theoretical results and demonstrated the efficiency of the meshing algorithm. © 2014 IEEE.

Effects of radiation-counselling convergence education on radiation awareness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seoung, Youl Hun

2017-01-01

The purpose of study was to analysis on the effects of radiation-counselling convergence education on radiation awareness. The survey objects were students of radiation-counselling convergence education from 12th May to 22th June in 2016. The questionnaires were education satisfactions and radiation awareness (risk, benefit, control) by Likert-type 5 scales. The analysis results revealed that education satisfactions of men students showed a significant higher female students and correlation coefficient of education satisfactions were the best high in the benefit and control of radiation. Finally radiation-counselling convergence education had a significant effect on radiation benefit. This convergence education influenced positive recognition on radiation benefit and it was indicated that radiation-counselors could treat clients on the basis of radiation benefit

Effects of radiation-counselling convergence education on radiation awareness

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seoung, Youl Hun [Dept. of Radiological Science, College of Health Science, Cheongju University, Cheongju (Korea, Republic of)

2017-06-15

The purpose of study was to analysis on the effects of radiation-counselling convergence education on radiation awareness. The survey objects were students of radiation-counselling convergence education from 12th May to 22th June in 2016. The questionnaires were education satisfactions and radiation awareness (risk, benefit, control) by Likert-type 5 scales. The analysis results revealed that education satisfactions of men students showed a significant higher female students and correlation coefficient of education satisfactions were the best high in the benefit and control of radiation. Finally radiation-counselling convergence education had a significant effect on radiation benefit. This convergence education influenced positive recognition on radiation benefit and it was indicated that radiation-counselors could treat clients on the basis of radiation benefit.

[Strategy Development for International Cooperation in the Clinical Laboratory Field].

Science.gov (United States)

Kudo, Yoshiko; Osawa, Susumu

2015-10-01

The strategy of international cooperation in the clinical laboratory field was analyzed to improve the quality of intervention by reviewing documents from international organizations and the Japanese government. Based on the world development agenda, the target of action for health has shifted from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases (NCD). This emphasizes the importance of comprehensive clinical laboratories instead of disease-specific examinations in developing countries. To achieve this goal, the World Health Organization (WHO) has disseminated to the African and Asian regions the Laboratory Quality Management System (LQMS), which is based on the same principles of the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) 15189. To execute this strategy, international experts must have competence in project management, analyze information regarding the target country, and develop a strategy for management of the LQMS with an understanding of the technical aspects of laboratory work. However, there is no appropriate pre- and post-educational system of international health for Japanese international workers. Universities and academic organizations should cooperate with the government to establish a system of education for international workers. Objectives of this education system must include: (1) training for the organization and understanding of global health issues, (2) education of the principles regarding comprehensive management of clinical laboratories, and (3) understanding the LQMS which was employed based on WHO's initiative. Achievement of these objectives will help improve the quality of international cooperation in the clinical laboratory field.

Software Defined Networking for Next Generation Converged Metro-Access Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Ruffini, M.; Slyne, F.; Bluemm, C.; Kitsuwan, N.; McGettrick, S.

2015-12-01

While the concept of Software Defined Networking (SDN) has seen a rapid deployment within the data center community, its adoption in telecommunications network has progressed slowly, although the concept has been swiftly adopted by all major telecoms vendors. This paper presents a control plane architecture for SDN-driven converged metro-access networks, developed through the DISCUS European FP7 project. The SDN-based controller architecture was developed in a testbed implementation targeting two main scenarios: fast feeder fiber protection over dual-homed Passive Optical Networks (PONs) and dynamic service provisioning over a multi-wavelength PON. Implementation details and results of the experiment carried out over the second scenario are reported in the paper, showing the potential of SDN in providing assured on-demand services to end-users.

Lacunary ideal convergence of multiple sequences

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bipan Hazarika

2016-01-01

Full Text Available An ideal I is a family of subsets of N×N which is closed under taking finite unions and subsets of its elements. In this article, the concept of lacunary ideal convergence of double sequences has been introduced. Also the relation between lacunary ideal convergent and lacunary Cauchy double sequences has been established. Furthermore, the notions of lacunary ideal limit point and lacunary ideal cluster points have been introduced and find the relation between these two notions. Finally, we have studied the properties such as solidity, monotonic.

Food-pharma convergence in medical nutrition- best of both worlds?

Science.gov (United States)

Weenen, Tamar C; Ramezanpour, Bahar; Pronker, Esther S; Commandeur, Harry; Claassen, Eric

2013-01-01

At present, industries within the health and life science sector are moving towards one another resulting in new industries such as the medical nutrition industry. Medical nutrition products are specific nutritional compositions for intervention in disease progression and symptom alleviation. Industry convergence, described as the blurring of boundaries between industries, plays a crucial role in the shaping of new markets and industries. Assuming that the medical nutrition industry has emerged from the convergence between the food and pharma industries, it is crucial to research how and which distinct industry domains have contributed to establish this relatively new industry. The first two stages of industry convergence (knowledge diffusion and consolidation) are measured by means of patent analysis. First, the extent of knowledge diffusion within the medical nutrition industry is graphed in a patent citation interrelations network. Subsequently the consolidation based on technological convergence is determined by means of patent co-classification. Furthermore, the medical nutrition core domain and technology interrelations are measured by means of a cross impact analysis. This study proves that the medical nutrition industry is a result of food and pharma convergence. It is therefore crucial for medical nutrition companies to effectively monitor technological developments within as well as across industry boundaries. This study further reveals that although the medical nutrition industry's core technology domain is food, technological development is mainly driven by pharmaceutical/pharmacological technologies Additionally, the results indicate that the industry has surpassed the knowledge diffusion stage of convergence, and is currently in the consolidation phase of industry convergence. Nevertheless, while the medical nutrition can be classified as an industry in an advanced phase of convergence, one cannot predict that the pharma and food industry segments

An Ensemble Approach in Converging Contents of LMS and KMS

Science.gov (United States)

Sabitha, A. Sai; Mehrotra, Deepti; Bansal, Abhay

2017-01-01

Currently the challenges in e-Learning are converging the learning content from various sources and managing them within e-learning practices. Data mining learning algorithms can be used and the contents can be converged based on the Metadata of the objects. Ensemble methods use multiple learning algorithms and it can be used to converge the…

Effectiveness of vision therapy in school children with symptomatic convergence insufficiency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jung Un Jang

2017-01-01

Conclusion: Among convergence insufficiency symptoms, the following improved in particular: near point of convergence, exophoria, and near positive fusional vergence. These findings suggest that vision therapy is very effective to recover from symptomatic convergence insufficiency.

EPRI-USDOE COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT: COFIRING BIOMASS WITH COAL

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

David A. Tillman

2001-09-01

The entire Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) cofiring program has been in existence of some 9 years. This report presents a summary of the major elements of that program, focusing upon the following questions: (1) In pursuit of increased use of renewable energy in the US economy, why was electricity generation considered the most promising target, and why was cofiring pursued as the most effective near-term technology to use in broadening the use of biomass within the electricity generating arena? (2) What were the unique accomplishments of EPRI before the development of the Cooperative Agreement, which made developing the partnership with EPRI a highly cost-effective approach for USDOE? (3) What were the key accomplishments of the Cooperative Agreement in the development and execution of test and demonstration programs-accomplishments which significantly furthered the process of commercializing cofiring?

Autonomous Target Ranging Techniques

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Peter Siegbjørn; Jørgensen, John Leif; Denver, Troelz

2003-01-01

of this telescope, a fast determination of the range to and the motion of the detected targets are important. This is needed in order to prepare the future observation strategy for each target, i.e. when is the closest approach where imaging will be optimal. In order to quickly obtain such a determination two...... ranging strategies are presented. One is an improved laser ranger with an effective range with non-cooperative targets of at least 10,000 km, demonstrated in ground tests. The accuracy of the laser ranging will be approximately 1 m. The laser ranger may furthermore be used for trajectory determination...... of nano-gravity probes, which will perform direct mass measurements of selected targets. The other is triangulation from two spacecraft. For this method it is important to distinguish between detection and tracking range, which will be different for Bering since different instruments are used...

Inter-group conflict and cooperation: field experiments before, during and after sectarian riots in Northern Ireland

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio S Silva

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The idea that cooperative groups out-compete less cooperative groups has been proposed as a theoretical possibility for the evolution of cooperation through cultural group selection. Previous studies have found an association between increased cooperation and exposure to inter-group violence, but most have not been able to identify the specific target of cooperation and are based on correlational data making it difficult to establish causality. In this study we test the hypothesis that inter-group conflict promotes parochial altruism (i.e. in-group altruism and out-group hostility by using longitudinal data of a real-world measure of cooperation – charity and school donations – sampled before, during and after violent sectarian riots between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast, Northern Ireland. We find that conflict is associated with reductions in all types of cooperation, with reduced donations to a neutral charity, and both in-group and out-group primary schools. After the conflict, both in-group and out-group donations increased again. In this context we find no evidence that inter-group conflict promotes parochial altruism.

On the convergence of linear passive complementarity systems

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Camlibel, M. Kanat; Wouw, Nathan van de

2007-01-01

The notion of convergent systems is a powerful tool both in the analysis and synthesis of nonlinear systems. Sufficient conditions for convergence have been under investigation for smooth systems and for classes of non-smooth switching systems in the literature. In this paper, we look at a very

Convergence in carbon dioxide emissions among industrialised countries revisited

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Romero-Avila, Diego

2008-01-01

This paper examines the existence of stochastic and deterministic convergence of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in 23 countries over the period 1960-2002. For that purpose, we conduct unit root testing by employing the recently developed panel stationarity test of Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. [Carrion-i-Silvestre, J-L, del Barrio-Castro, T., Lopez-Bazo, E., 2005. Breaking the panels: An application to the GDP per capita. Econometrics Journal 8, 159-175] which assumes a highly flexible trend function by incorporating an unknown number of structural breaks. We accommodate general forms of cross-sectional dependence as well as control for finite-sample bias through bootstrap methods. Overall, our analysis provides strong evidence supporting both stochastic and deterministic convergence in CO 2 emissions, thus confirming Strazicich and List [Strazicich, M.C., List, J.A., 2003. Are CO 2 emission levels converging among industrial countries? Environmental and Resource Economics 24, 263-271] and Westerlund and Basher [Westerlund, J., Basher, S.A., 2007. Testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data. Environmental and Resource Economics, forthcoming] findings of convergence

Converged wireline and wireless signal transport over optical fibre access links

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tafur Monroy, Idelfonso; Prince, Kamau; Osadchiy, Alexey Vladimirovich

2009-01-01

This article reviews emerging trends in converged optical-wireless communication systems and outline the role that photonic technologies are playing in making the vision of a wireline-wireless converged signal transport network a reality.......This article reviews emerging trends in converged optical-wireless communication systems and outline the role that photonic technologies are playing in making the vision of a wireline-wireless converged signal transport network a reality....

Convergence of IFRS and US GAAP in the field of lease: the impact of new methodological approaches for operating lease reporting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrik Svoboda

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Since 2002 the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB has begun significantly cooperate in the creation of standards based on the same principals. This is a process of convergence. It is realized through a series of sub-projects aimed at short-term or long-term period. Revenue recognition and lease reporting projects represent priority areas of convergence. The issue of leases belongs to one of the areas in which there have been, after a relatively long time, criticized the very principles applied in international accounting standards. The result of the convergence activities should be the creation of such methodological approaches of reporting the lease contracts on the side of lessee and then lessor that would eliminate the main weaknesses of the current system of reporting based on the classification of lease contracts in connection with the execution or non execution of the transfer of risks and benefits associated with the lease to the lessee. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of implementation of the newly proposed methodological approach for lease reporting in the field of operating leases into the financial statements that will be affected by this change of methodology (balance sheet, income statement. Subsequently, it is evaluated also the impact into selected indicators of financial analysis with a focus on indicators, in whose construction are used items of statements that are significantly affected by the change of the methodological approach.

A convergent blind deconvolution method for post-adaptive-optics astronomical imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prato, M; Camera, A La; Bertero, M; Bonettini, S

2013-01-01

In this paper, we propose a blind deconvolution method which applies to data perturbed by Poisson noise. The objective function is a generalized Kullback–Leibler (KL) divergence, depending on both the unknown object and unknown point spread function (PSF), without the addition of regularization terms; constrained minimization, with suitable convex constraints on both unknowns, is considered. The problem is non-convex and we propose to solve it by means of an inexact alternating minimization method, whose global convergence to stationary points of the objective function has been recently proved in a general setting. The method is iterative and each iteration, also called outer iteration, consists of alternating an update of the object and the PSF by means of a fixed number of iterations, also called inner iterations, of the scaled gradient projection (SGP) method. Therefore, the method is similar to other proposed methods based on the Richardson–Lucy (RL) algorithm, with SGP replacing RL. The use of SGP has two advantages: first, it allows one to prove global convergence of the blind method; secondly, it allows the introduction of different constraints on the object and the PSF. The specific constraint on the PSF, besides non-negativity and normalization, is an upper bound derived from the so-called Strehl ratio (SR), which is the ratio between the peak value of an aberrated versus a perfect wavefront. Therefore, a typical application, but not a unique one, is to the imaging of modern telescopes equipped with adaptive optics systems for the partial correction of the aberrations due to atmospheric turbulence. In the paper, we describe in detail the algorithm and we recall the results leading to its convergence. Moreover, we illustrate its effectiveness by means of numerical experiments whose results indicate that the method, pushed to convergence, is very promising in the reconstruction of non-dense stellar clusters. The case of more complex astronomical targets

FINANCIAL STATEMENTS OF MULTILEVEL SYSTEM OF CONSUMER COOPERATION IN UKRAINE, ITS INFORMATIONAL COMPLIANCE WITH MODERN EUROPEAN REQUIREMENTS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stepan KOSHKAROV

2016-07-01

Full Text Available More than 120 countries use the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS and the International Accounting Standards (IAS. The Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU obliges Ukraine to European convergence of accounting. Since 2012, for some entities it has been introduced compulsory, but for others - is that self-application of IFRS and INBO. This trend coincides with the imperative necessity of the consumer cooperation of Ukraine to reform its information system as a key component of its effective management and successful implementation of the controlling. It is proposed to start reforming with the introduction of MSFS and IAS.

International co-operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klinda, J.; Lieskovska, Z.

1998-01-01

Within the Union Nations (UN) framework, the Slovak Republic participated in following activities on environment protection co-operation: UN European Economic Commission, UN Industrial Development Organization, UN Development Programme, UN Human Habitat Organization, UN Environment Programme, and UN Commission on Sustainable Development. Relevant activities of the Slovak Republic in these co-operations as well as in European Union and OECD activities are reviewed. International conventions and other forms of multilateral co-operation, bilateral co-operation, and international programmes and projects in which the Slovak Republic took participate are presented

Sigma and beta convergence in regional mortality: A case study of the Netherlands

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fanny Janssen

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Background: For allocation of health budgets it is important to know whether regional mortality differences tend to decline or to increase. Sigma convergence tests can measure whether the dispersion of the regional distribution of mortality has declined. Beta convergence tests can examine whether regions with a low level of life expectancy have experienced a stronger increase than regions with a high level. In demographic research, however, sigma and beta convergence have not been formally assessed simultaneously. Objective: We demonstrate the application of both sigma and beta convergence tests to the study of trends in regional mortality differences for the Netherlands. Methods: Using all-cause mortality and population data for 40 Dutch NUTS-3 regions, by year (1988‒2009, age group, and sex, we assess both sigma and beta convergence, and ist significance. Results: Beta convergence proved statistically significant. The regions with the lowest life expectancy in 1988 generally exhibited the highest increase from 1988 to 2009, and vice versa. However, dispersion measures displayed no statistically significant sigma convergence. Conclusions: Whereas the absence of sigma convergence shows that regional mortality differences have not declined, beta convergence indicates that the disadvantage of regions with low life expectancy is not persistent. Contribution: We demonstrated the added value of simultaneously studying sigma convergence, beta convergence, and trajectories of regions in the tails of the distribution. Where absence of sigma convergence does not imply that disadvantaged regions did not improve, beta convergence does not always indicate complete convergence due to structural differences across regions.

Convergence of logistics planning and execution in outsourcing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Angela A. D’amato

2015-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Logistics service providers (LSPs are becoming increasingly involved in their clients’ businesses. Beyond just providing vehicles and buildings, LSPs are now becoming involved with knowledge-related work that is connected to the traditional services provided. Objectives: To investigate the likelihood and potential value of LSPs extending their range of services to their clients by means of a convergence of planning and execution activities. Method: In the research through a literature review and empirical study presented here, attention is given to the practical impact that convergence planning and execution functions have on business success, as well as how selected clients of an LSP (referred to in this article as logistics company A or LCA perceive the impact of increased integration of LCA within its businesses. The results should assist LCA and other LSPs considering the same objective to ascertain the opportunities and key requirements associated with a strategy to converge planning and execution activities for their clients. Results: The study found that the vast majority of respondents see value in the convergence of planning and execution activities. Conclusion: Such convergence will be challenging, owing to the importance of the planning function for clients, as well as key collaborative and measurement requirements that will have to be put in place for successful business integration.

Monte Carlo source convergence and the Whitesides problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Blomquist, R. N.

2000-01-01

The issue of fission source convergence in Monte Carlo eigenvalue calculations is of interest because of the potential consequences of erroneous criticality safety calculations. In this work, the authors compare two different techniques to improve the source convergence behavior of standard Monte Carlo calculations applied to challenging source convergence problems. The first method, super-history powering, attempts to avoid discarding important fission sites between generations by delaying stochastic sampling of the fission site bank until after several generations of multiplication. The second method, stratified sampling of the fission site bank, explicitly keeps the important sites even if conventional sampling would have eliminated them. The test problems are variants of Whitesides' Criticality of the World problem in which the fission site phase space was intentionally undersampled in order to induce marginally intolerable variability in local fission site populations. Three variants of the problem were studied, each with a different degree of coupling between fissionable pieces. Both the superhistory powering method and the stratified sampling method were shown to improve convergence behavior, although stratified sampling is more robust for the extreme case of no coupling. Neither algorithm completely eliminates the loss of the most important fissionable piece, and if coupling is absent, the lost piece cannot be recovered unless its sites from earlier generations have been retained. Finally, criteria for measuring source convergence reliability are proposed and applied to the test problems

Cooperatives between truth and validity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guilherme Krueger

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The current declaration of the International Cooperative Alliance on cooperative identity since its 1995 Centennial Conference (which was held in Manchester makes no distinction between cooperation and cooperative. The lack of distinction between cooperation and cooperative has caused the Decennial Cooperative Action Plan to define cooperatives as a form, while their materiality is regarded as managerial: a business (activity under a cooperative form. An identity that is close to us cannot be reduced to form, without this being a problem. Therefore, the value underlying this identity —cooperation— must have a substantial basis, even if it is idealised, if it is to affect us.Received: 27.03.2014Accepted: 12.05.2014

Ecomorphological convergence in planktivorous surgeonfishes

KAUST Repository

Friedman, S. T.; Price, S. A.; Hoey, Andrew; Wainwright, P. C.

2016-01-01

two diet regimes: zooplanktivores and nonzooplanktivorous grazers. Accounting for phylogenetic relationships, the best-fitting model indicates that zooplanktivorous species are converging on a separate adaptive peak from their grazing relatives

Gas/electricity convergence : where is public opinion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Edwards, R.G. [Gallup Canada Inc., Toronto, ON (Canada)

1998-09-01

The current status of public opinion regarding gas and electricity convergence was discussed. Gallup Canada Inc. has been in the business of conducting public opinion polls on important issues facing society for over 50 years. Citizens from coast to coast responded with a great deal of confusion, uncertainty and wariness when asked a question on the convergence and privatization of gas and electric utilities. Many expressed the hope that convergence and privatization of the energy industry will have the same effect as deregulation of long distance telephone services has had on choices and costs. For some, the answer meant satisfaction with the notion of competition. Others wanted to know what constituted the local `frozen` rate portion of the delivery. Still others expressed the view that they ought to be rewarded for using less energy and thus help in meeting conservation goals. At the same time, a not insignificant minority thought that they should be rewarded with better prices for consuming more. Improvement in the quality of service was another change that Canadian consumers expect to result from convergence and privatization. In the utility industry `branding` and `value added` to the product, i.e. moving beyond the basic and expected quality, might well be the key to success in developing customer loyalty.

Converging technologies: shaping the future of medicine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Iraj nabipour

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The miniaturization and virtualization processes drive converging technologies from interactions between the NBIC (Nano, Bio, Info, and Cogno technologies. The converging technologies stimulate innovation, promote research and development in different fields and produce revolutionary progresses in medicine. These technologies enable us to create contacts between brains and machines, the growth in molecular nanotechnology, the construction of respirocytes, chromallocytes, clottocytes, nanorobotic phagocytes, and nanobots. Nanobots would enter the nucleus of a cell and extract all of the genetic material and replace it with a synthetically produced copy of the original that has been manufactured in a laboratory to contain only non-defective base-pairs. It is predicted that “the regenerative medicine”, as a megatrend, will have an enormous effect on medical technologies and clinical sciences. Regenerative medicine is an application field of converging technologies in translational medicine. It attempts to translate the results of tissue engineering to construct 3D tissues and organs. Regenerative medicine is also an exciting field for induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC and promises to bring about a paradigm shift to health care. Accumulating evidence indicates that converging technologies will offer great potentials for regenerative medicine to create innovative treatments for diseases that the traditional therapies have not been effective yet.

Benefits from increased cooperation and energy trade under CO2 commitments - the Nordic case

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unger, T.; Ekvall, T.

2003-01-01

In this paper, benefits from increasing cross-border cooperation under future CO 2 commitments in the Nordic countries are examined and evaluated. Four cooperative strategies are analyzed and valued separately: cross-border electricity trade, cross-border emission-permit trade, the introduction of a trans-Nordic natural gas transmission grid, and, finally, utilization of all these three strategies simultaneously. The valuation is done under varying CO 2 commitments and under three different scenarios for future energy demand and technological development. In conducting this analysis, the energy-systems model-generator MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) was used to model the Nordic energy system. It is shown that all cooperative strategies do lower the abatement costs considerably, especially if the strategy including full cooperation is utilized. In this case, additional costs from meeting CO 2 targets may be at least halved for commitments less than 10% reduction until 2050 based on emissions in 1995. No significant difference between low and high CO 2 commitments could be observed in the size of the benefits from cooperation, expressed in billions (10 9 ) of Swedish crowns. Benefits from cooperation are generally larger for scenarios including relatively higher future energy demand. (author)

Conflictual cooperation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Axel, Erik

2011-01-01

, cooperation appeared as the continuous reworking of contradictions in the local arrangement of societal con- ditions. Subjects were distributed and distributed themselves according to social privileges, resources, and dilemmas in cooperation. Here, the subjects’ activities and understandings took form from...

Targets development at Sandia National Laboratories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Smith, M.L.; Hebron, D.; Derzon, M.; Olson, R.; Alberts, T.

1997-01-01

For many years, Sandia National Laboratories under contract to the Department of Energy has produced targets designed to understand complex ion beam and z-pinch plasma physics. This poster focuses on the features of target designs that make them suitable for Z-pinch plasma physics applications. Precision diagnostic targets will prove critical in understanding the plasma physics model needed for future ion beam and z-pinch design. Targets are designed to meet specific physics needs; in this case the authors have fabricated targets to maximize information about the end-on versus side-on x-ray emission and z-pinch hohlraum development. In this poster, they describe the fabrication and characterization techniques. They include discussion of current targets under development as well as target fabrication capabilities. Advanced target designs are fabricated by Sandia National Laboratories in cooperation with General Atomics of San Diego, CA and W.J. Schafer Associates, Inc. of Livermore, CA

Semi-convergence properties of Kaczmarz’s method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Elfving, Tommy; Hansen, Per Christian; Nikazad, Touraj

2014-01-01

Kaczmarz’s method—sometimes referred to as the algebraic reconstruction technique—is an iterative method that is widely used in tomographic imaging due to its favorable semi-convergence properties. Specifically, when applied to a problem with noisy data, during the early iterations it converges very quickly toward a good approximation of the exact solution, and thus produces a regularized solution. While this property is generally accepted and utilized, there is surprisingly little theoretical justification for it. The purpose of this paper is to present insight into the semi-convergence of Kaczmarz’s method as well as its projected counterpart (and their block versions). To do this we study how the data errors propagate into the iteration vectors and we derive upper bounds for this noise propagation. Our bounds are compared with numerical results obtained from tomographic imaging. (paper)

Weighted A-statistical convergence for sequences of positive linear operators.

Science.gov (United States)

Mohiuddine, S A; Alotaibi, Abdullah; Hazarika, Bipan

2014-01-01

We introduce the notion of weighted A-statistical convergence of a sequence, where A represents the nonnegative regular matrix. We also prove the Korovkin approximation theorem by using the notion of weighted A-statistical convergence. Further, we give a rate of weighted A-statistical convergence and apply the classical Bernstein polynomial to construct an illustrative example in support of our result.

Geophysical constraints on geodynamic processes at convergent margins: A global perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Artemieva, Irina; Thybo, Hans; Shulgin, Alexey

2016-04-01

Convergent margins, being the boundaries between colliding lithospheric plates, form the most disastrous areas in the world due to intensive, strong seismicity and volcanism. We review global geophysical data in order to illustrate the effects of the plate tectonic processes at convergent margins on the crustal and upper mantle structure, seismicity, and geometry of subducting slab. We present global maps of free-air and Bouguer gravity anomalies, heat flow, seismicity, seismic Vs anomalies in the upper mantle, and plate convergence rate, as well as 20 profiles across different convergent margins. A global analysis of these data for three types of convergent margins, formed by ocean-ocean, ocean-continent, and continent-continent collisions, allows us to recognize the following patterns. (1) Plate convergence rate depends on the type of convergent margins and it is significantly larger when, at least, one of the plates is oceanic. However, the oldest oceanic plate in the Pacific ocean has the smallest convergence rate. (2) The presence of an oceanic plate is, in general, required for generation of high-magnitude (M N 8.0) earthquakes and for generating intermediate and deep seismicity along the convergent margins. When oceanic slabs subduct beneath a continent, a gap in the seismogenic zone exists at depths between ca. 250 km and 500 km. Given that the seismogenic zone terminates at ca. 200 km depth in case of continent-continent collision, we propose oceanic origin of subducting slabs beneath the Zagros, the Pamir, and the Vrancea zone. (3) Dip angle of the subducting slab in continent-ocean collision does not correlate neither with the age of subducting oceanic slab, nor with the convergence rate. For ocean-ocean subduction, clear trends are recognized: steeply dipping slabs are characteristic of young subducting plates and of oceanic plates with high convergence rate, with slab rotation towards a near-vertical dip angle at depths below ca. 500 km at very high

New method to extract radial acceleration of target from short-duration signal at low SNR

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

2008-01-01

In order to extract target radial acceleration from radar echo signal at low SNR (signal-to-noise), this paper employed FRFT (fractional Fourier transformation) to analyze short-duration radar echo and studied the relations between signal convergence peaks in matched transformation domain and signal duration and modu- lated frequency of signal. When signal duration is specified, the method of multi- plying sampled signal by the known frequency modulated signal to alter modulated frequency was presented, which generated the new signal with larger convergence peaks than the initial signal in matched transformation domain. Thus, it could successfully estimate the radial acceleration of radar target at low SNR. Simulations were conducted to show the feasibility and effectiveness of the method.

Magnetized Target Fusion Driven by Plasma Liners

Science.gov (United States)

Thio, Y. C. Francis; Cassibry, Jason; Eskridge, Richard; Kirkpatrick, Ronald C.; Knapp, Charles E.; Lee, Michael; Martin, Adam; Smith, James; Wu, S. T.; Rodgers, Stephen L. (Technical Monitor)

2001-01-01

For practical applications of magnetized target fusion, standoff drivers to deliver the imploding momentum flux to the target plasma remotely are required. Quasi-spherically converging plasma jets have been proposed as standoff drivers for this purpose. The concept involves the dynamic formation of a quasi-spherical plasma liner by the merging of plasma jets, and the use of the liner so formed to compress a spheromak or a field reversed configuration (FRC). Theoretical analysis and computer modeling of the concept are presented. It is shown that, with the appropriate choice of the flow parameters in the liner and the target, the impact between the liner and the target plasma can be made to be shockless in the liner or to generate at most a very weak shock in the liner. Additional information is contained in the original extended abstract.

Evolutionary Fuzzy Control and Navigation for Two Wheeled Robots Cooperatively Carrying an Object in Unknown Environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Juang, Chia-Feng; Lai, Min-Ge; Zeng, Wan-Ting

2015-09-01

This paper presents a method that allows two wheeled, mobile robots to navigate unknown environments while cooperatively carrying an object. In the navigation method, a leader robot and a follower robot cooperatively perform either obstacle boundary following (OBF) or target seeking (TS) to reach a destination. The two robots are controlled by fuzzy controllers (FC) whose rules are learned through an adaptive fusion of continuous ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization (AF-CACPSO), which avoids the time-consuming task of manually designing the controllers. The AF-CACPSO-based evolutionary fuzzy control approach is first applied to the control of a single robot to perform OBF. The learning approach is then applied to achieve cooperative OBF with two robots, where an auxiliary FC designed with the AF-CACPSO is used to control the follower robot. For cooperative TS, a rule for coordination of the two robots is developed. To navigate cooperatively, a cooperative behavior supervisor is introduced to select between cooperative OBF and cooperative TS. The performance of the AF-CACPSO is verified through comparisons with various population-based optimization algorithms for the OBF learning problem. Simulations and experiments verify the effectiveness of the approach for cooperative navigation of two robots.

Convolutional Dictionary Learning: Acceleration and Convergence

Science.gov (United States)

Chun, Il Yong; Fessler, Jeffrey A.

2018-04-01

Convolutional dictionary learning (CDL or sparsifying CDL) has many applications in image processing and computer vision. There has been growing interest in developing efficient algorithms for CDL, mostly relying on the augmented Lagrangian (AL) method or the variant alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). When their parameters are properly tuned, AL methods have shown fast convergence in CDL. However, the parameter tuning process is not trivial due to its data dependence and, in practice, the convergence of AL methods depends on the AL parameters for nonconvex CDL problems. To moderate these problems, this paper proposes a new practically feasible and convergent Block Proximal Gradient method using a Majorizer (BPG-M) for CDL. The BPG-M-based CDL is investigated with different block updating schemes and majorization matrix designs, and further accelerated by incorporating some momentum coefficient formulas and restarting techniques. All of the methods investigated incorporate a boundary artifacts removal (or, more generally, sampling) operator in the learning model. Numerical experiments show that, without needing any parameter tuning process, the proposed BPG-M approach converges more stably to desirable solutions of lower objective values than the existing state-of-the-art ADMM algorithm and its memory-efficient variant do. Compared to the ADMM approaches, the BPG-M method using a multi-block updating scheme is particularly useful in single-threaded CDL algorithm handling large datasets, due to its lower memory requirement and no polynomial computational complexity. Image denoising experiments show that, for relatively strong additive white Gaussian noise, the filters learned by BPG-M-based CDL outperform those trained by the ADMM approach.

Convergence in Global Food Demand and Delivery

OpenAIRE

Regmi, Anita; Takeshima, Hiroyuki; Unnevehr, Laurian J.

2008-01-01

Using food expenditures and food sales data over 1990-2004, this report examines whether food consumption and delivery trends are converging across 47 high- and middle-income countries. Middle-income countries, such as China and Mexico, appear to be following trends in high-income countries, measured across several dimensions of food system growth and change. Convergence is apparent in most important food expenditure categories and in indicators of food system modernization such as supermarke...

Global Convergence of a Modified LS Method

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Liu JinKui

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The LS method is one of the effective conjugate gradient methods in solving the unconstrained optimization problems. The paper presents a modified LS method on the basis of the famous LS method and proves the strong global convergence for the uniformly convex functions and the global convergence for general functions under the strong Wolfe line search. The numerical experiments show that the modified LS method is very effective in practice.

An Authentication Protocol for Mobile IPTV Users Based on an RFID-USB Convergence Technique

Science.gov (United States)

Jeong, Yoon-Su; Kim, Yong-Tae

With the growing trend towards convergence in broadcast and communications media, Internet Protocol television (IPTV) that delivers real-time multimedia content over diverse types of communications networks (e.g., broadband Internet, cable TV, and satellite TV) has become a mainstream technology. Authenticating mobile IPTV subscribers who are continuously on the move is a challenge. A complex authentication process often impairs conditional access security or service quality as increasing illegal users and delaying service. This paper proposes an RFID-USB authentication protocol, for mobile IPTV users, combined with USIM-based personalized authentication and lightweight authentication that utilizes the RFID-USB technology with an implanted agent module (called an "agent tag") which temporarily enhanced user status information. The proposed authentication protocol adopts a plug-and-play security agent module that is placed in both an RFID tag and an RFID-USB. The implanted security agents cooperate in such a way that multiple RFID tags are connected seamlessly to an RFID-USB.

Evaluating β-convergence of the Socio-Economic Development of Ukraine’s Regions

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Kyzym Mykola O.

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to evaluating β-convergence of the socio-economic development of Ukraine’s regions. The essence and theoretical basis of evaluation of σ- and β-convergence is studied. The neoclassical theory of growth of R. Solow that serves as a basis for models of β-convergence is considered. The essence and features of evaluation of the absolute (unconditional and conditional β-convergence is examined. The existing empirical researches of the economic development of countries and their regions with the use of convergence models are analyzed and it is found that: the theory of convergent-divergent development of countries and their regions is sufficiently developed; there are certain studies aimed at evaluation and analysis of the convergence of regional development in Ukraine, but there is no comprehensive study that comprises the building of all the above types of β-convergence models for the period covering the years before and after the crisis of 2008–2009. A scheme of the investigation of the convergence process in regions of Ukraine is proposed, and on this basis the evaluation of β-convergence for Ukraine’s regions is conducted with the use of four types of models: the Barro and Sala-i-Martin model, the Baumol model, the Solow-Swan model, the Cuadrado-Roura model. On the basis of the study it has been found that for the peripheral regions the presence of convergence of their social and economic development is determined by the share of services in the gross regional product to a greater extent and availability of mineral resources to a less extent, but the given result is obtained only with the use of the Barro Sala-i-Martin model, for the other models the condition of β-convergence is not met.

Convergence of Hybrid Space Mapping Algorithms

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Kaj; Søndergaard, Jacob

2004-01-01

may be poor, or the method may even fail to converge to a stationary point. We consider a convex combination of the space mapping technique with a classical optimization technique. The function to be optimized has the form \\$H \\$\\backslash\\$circ f\\$ where \\$H: \\$\\backslash\\$dR\\^m \\$\\backslash......\\$mapsto \\$\\backslash\\$dR\\$ is convex and \\$f: \\$\\backslash\\$dR\\^n \\$\\backslash\\$mapsto \\$\\backslash\\$dR\\^m\\$ is smooth. Experience indicates that the combined method maintains the initial efficiency of the space mapping technique. We prove that the global convergence property of the classical technique is also...

When cooperation begets cooperation: the role of key individuals in galvanizing support.

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McAuliffe, Katherine; Wrangham, Richard; Glowacki, Luke; Russell, Andrew F

2015-12-05

Life abounds with examples of conspecifics actively cooperating to a common end, despite conflicts of interest being expected concerning how much each individual should contribute. Mathematical models typically find that such conflict can be resolved by partial-response strategies, leading investors to contribute relatively equitably. Using a case study approach, we show that such model expectations can be contradicted in at least four disparate contexts: (i) bi-parental care; (ii) cooperative breeding; (iii) cooperative hunting; and (iv) human cooperation. We highlight that: (a) marked variation in contributions is commonplace; and (b) individuals can often respond positively rather than negatively to the contributions of others. Existing models have surprisingly limited power in explaining these phenomena. Here, we propose that, although among-individual variation in cooperative contributions will be influenced by differential costs and benefits, there is likely to be a strong genetic or epigenetic component. We then suggest that selection can maintain high investors (key individuals) when their contributions promote support by increasing the benefits and/or reducing the costs for others. Our intentions are to raise awareness in--and provide testable hypotheses of--two of the most poorly understood, yet integral, questions regarding cooperative ventures: why do individuals vary in their contributions and when does cooperation beget cooperation? © 2015 The Author(s).

Tritium target manufacturing for use in accelerators

Science.gov (United States)

Bach, P.; Monnin, C.; Van Rompay, M.; Ballanger, A.

2001-07-01

As a neutron tube manufacturer, SODERN is now in charge of manufacturing tritium targets for accelerators, in cooperation with CEA/DAM/DTMN in Valduc. Specific deuterium and tritium targets are manufactured on request, according to the requirements of the users, starting from titanium target on copper substrate, and going to more sophisticated devices. A wide range of possible uses is covered, including thin targets for neutron calibration, thick targets with controlled loading of deuterium and tritium, rotating targets for higher lifetimes, or large size rotating targets for accelerators used in boron neutron therapy. Activity of targets lies in the 1 to 1000 Curie, diameter of targets being up to 30 cm. Special targets are also considered, including surface layer targets for lowering tritium desorption under irradiation, or those made from different kinds of occluders such as titanium, zirconium, erbium, scandium, with different substrates. It is then possible to optimize either neutron output, or lifetime and stability, or thermal behavior.

The Assessment of Accommodation and Convergence System in the Bank Employees

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Monireh Mahjoob

2013-02-01

Full Text Available Background: Regarding the high outbreak rate of the eye disorders and problems particularly accommodation disorders and convergence insufficiency in computer users, the study tries to determine the convergence, accommodation system, condition, fusion reserves and vision dimension in bank employees (who work with computers and the control group (who are not computer users and then to compare the mentioned parameters in the two groups. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional and observational study a total of 44 bank employees and 44 people as the control group members were selected randomly. Initially, refractive problems were reformed, and then accommodation, convergence and vision dimension evaluative tests were conducted. The test included measuring the near point of convergence, jump convergence, phoria, accommodation range (one eye, both eyes, ease of accommodation (one eye, both eyes, positive and negative related accommodation, near fusion versions and TNO.Results: Our results showed that there was a not significant difference among the near point of convergence, jump convergence, near phoria, accommodation range (one eye and both eyes, ease of accommodation (one eye, both eyes, positive and negative related accommodation in bank employees and control group.Conclusion: Regarding the studies, the outbreak rate of accommodation and convergence disorders is higher in bank employees than the control group which would be due to over working with computer within a fixed interval.

Strong convergence and convergence rates of approximating solutions for algebraic Riccati equations in Hilbert spaces

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Ito, Kazufumi

1987-01-01

The linear quadratic optimal control problem on infinite time interval for linear time-invariant systems defined on Hilbert spaces is considered. The optimal control is given by a feedback form in terms of solution pi to the associated algebraic Riccati equation (ARE). A Ritz type approximation is used to obtain a sequence pi sup N of finite dimensional approximations of the solution to ARE. A sufficient condition that shows pi sup N converges strongly to pi is obtained. Under this condition, a formula is derived which can be used to obtain a rate of convergence of pi sup N to pi. The results of the Galerkin approximation is demonstrated and applied for parabolic systems and the averaging approximation for hereditary differential systems.

Convergence semigroup categories

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Gary Richardson

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Properties of the category consisting of all objects of the form (X, S, λ are investigated, where X is a convergence space, S is a commutative semigroup, and λ: X × S → X is a continuous action. A “generalized quotient” of each object is defined without making the usual assumption that for each fixed g ∈ S, λ(., g : X  → X is an injection.

Weighted A-Statistical Convergence for Sequences of Positive Linear Operators

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S. A. Mohiuddine

2014-01-01

Full Text Available We introduce the notion of weighted A-statistical convergence of a sequence, where A represents the nonnegative regular matrix. We also prove the Korovkin approximation theorem by using the notion of weighted A-statistical convergence. Further, we give a rate of weighted A-statistical convergence and apply the classical Bernstein polynomial to construct an illustrative example in support of our result.

Statistical convergence of a non-positive approximation process

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Agratini, Octavian

2011-01-01

Highlights: → A general class of approximation processes is introduced. → The A-statistical convergence is studied. → Applications in quantum calculus are delivered. - Abstract: Starting from a general sequence of linear and positive operators of discrete type, we associate its r-th order generalization. This construction involves high order derivatives of a signal and it looses the positivity property. Considering that the initial approximation process is A-statistically uniform convergent, we prove that the property is inherited by the new sequence. Also, our result includes information about the uniform convergence. Two applications in q-Calculus are presented. We study q-analogues both of Meyer-Koenig and Zeller operators and Stancu operators.

Mediator complex cooperatively regulates transcription of retinoic acid target genes with Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 during neuronal differentiation.

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Fukasawa, Rikiya; Iida, Satoshi; Tsutsui, Taiki; Hirose, Yutaka; Ohkuma, Yoshiaki

2015-11-01

The Mediator complex (Mediator) plays key roles in transcription and functions as the nexus for integration of various transcriptional signals. Previously, we screened for Mediator cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)-interacting factors and identified three proteins related to chromatin regulation. One of them, SUZ12 is required for both stability and activity of Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). PRC2 primarily suppresses gene expression through histone H3 lysine 27 trimethylation, resulting in stem cell maintenance and differentiation; perturbation of this process leads to oncogenesis. Recent work showed that Mediator contributes to the embryonic stem cell state through DNA loop formation, which is strongly associated with chromatin architecture; however, it remains unclear how Mediator regulates gene expression in cooperation with chromatin regulators (i.e. writers, readers and remodelers). We found that Mediator CDKs interact directly with the PRC2 subunit EZH2, as well as SUZ12. Known PRC2 target genes were deregulated by Mediator CDK knockdown during neuronal differentiation, and both Mediator and PRC2 complexes co-occupied the promoters of developmental genes regulated by retinoic acid. Our results provide a mechanistic link between Mediator and PRC2 during neuronal differentiation. © The Authors 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Japanese Biochemical Society. All rights reserved.

Convergence in carbon dioxide emissions among industrialised countries revisited

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Romero-Avila, Diego [Pablo de Olavide University, Department of Economics, Carretera de Utrera, Km. 1, 41089, Seville (Spain)

2008-09-15

This paper examines the existence of stochastic and deterministic convergence of carbon dioxide (CO{sub 2}) emissions in 23 countries over the period 1960-2002. For that purpose, we conduct unit root testing by employing the recently developed panel stationarity test of Carrion-i-Silvestre et al. [Carrion-i-Silvestre, J-L, del Barrio-Castro, T., Lopez-Bazo, E., 2005. Breaking the panels: An application to the GDP per capita. Econometrics Journal 8, 159-175] which assumes a highly flexible trend function by incorporating an unknown number of structural breaks. We accommodate general forms of cross-sectional dependence as well as control for finite-sample bias through bootstrap methods. Overall, our analysis provides strong evidence supporting both stochastic and deterministic convergence in CO{sub 2} emissions, thus confirming Strazicich and List [Strazicich, M.C., List, J.A., 2003. Are CO{sub 2} emission levels converging among industrial countries? Environmental and Resource Economics 24, 263-271] and Westerlund and Basher [Westerlund, J., Basher, S.A., 2007. Testing for convergence in carbon dioxide emissions using a century of panel data. Environmental and Resource Economics, forthcoming] findings of convergence. (author)

General practice cooperatives: long waiting times for home visits due to long distances?

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Giesen, Paul; van Lin, Nieke; Mokkink, Henk; van den Bosch, Wil; Grol, Richard

2007-02-12

The introduction of large-scale out-of-hours GP cooperatives has led to questions about increased distances between the GP cooperatives and the homes of patients and the increasing waiting times for home visits in urgent cases. We studied the relationship between the patient's waiting time for a home visit and the distance to the GP cooperative. Further, we investigated if other factors (traffic intensity, home visit intensity, time of day, and degree of urgency) influenced waiting times. Cross-sectional study at four GP cooperatives. We used variance analysis to calculate waiting times for various categories of traffic intensity, home visit intensity, time of day, and degree of urgency. We used multiple logistic regression analysis to calculate to what degree these factors affected the ability to meet targets in urgent cases. The average waiting time for 5827 consultations was 30.5 min. Traffic intensity, home visit intensity, time of day and urgency of the complaint all seemed to affect waiting times significantly. A total of 88.7% of all patients were seen within 1 hour. In the case of life-threatening complaints (U1), 68.8% of the patients were seen within 15 min, and 95.6% of those with acute complaints (U2) were seen within 1 hour. For patients with life-threatening complaints (U1) the percentage of visits that met the time target of 15 minutes decreased from 86.5% (less than 2.5 km) to 16.7% (equals or more than 20 km). Although home visits waiting times increase with increasing distance from the GP cooperative, it appears that traffic intensity, home visit intensity, and urgency also influence waiting times. For patients with life-threatening complaints waiting times increase sharply with the distance.

Density by moduli and Wijsman lacunary statistical convergence of sequences of sets

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Vinod K Bhardwaj

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Abstract The main object of this paper is to introduce and study a new concept of f-Wijsman lacunary statistical convergence of sequences of sets, where f is an unbounded modulus. The definition of Wijsman lacunary strong convergence of sequences of sets is extended to a definition of Wijsman lacunary strong convergence with respect to a modulus for sequences of sets and it is shown that, under certain conditions on a modulus f, the concepts of Wijsman lacunary strong convergence with respect to a modulus f and f-Wijsman lacunary statistical convergence are equivalent on bounded sequences. We further characterize those θ for which WS θ f = WS f $\\mathit{WS}_{\\theta}^{f} = \\mathit{WS}^{f}$ , where WS θ f $\\mathit{WS}_{\\theta}^{f}$ and WS f $\\mathit{WS}^{f}$ denote the sets of all f-Wijsman lacunary statistically convergent sequences and f-Wijsman statistically convergent sequences, respectively.