Search results for "CONSTRAINT"
showing 10 items of 361 documents
Performance of Understanding: Pragmatics and Fast and Frugal Heuristics
2019
What determines the meaning of an utterance is a logical matter and as such must be treated independently of the bio-cognitive constraints that operate in our bodies. This thesis, whose great supporter was Frege, implies a clear notion of rationality that seems not to bear comparison with what we know on the limits of our rationality. Various theories (Kahneman and Tversky 1983; Gigerenzer et al., 1999), thematizing the need to consider our rationality beginning from the bio- cognitive constraints that our body imposes on a mass of information, can be of great utility for facing the problem of what type of rationality operates in phenomena of linguistic understanding (Ferreira and Patson 20…
Exploitation of native Labiatae in Sicily
2006
The family Labiatae is extremely rich in genera and species, and many of them are native to Mediterranean environments. In Sicily, a great interest is devoted since ancient times to their cultivation and use, and they are traditionally used for a great deal of purposes, from cookery to phytotherapy. When their cultivation is addressed to their traditional purposes (as spices, savory herbs or herbal medicines), the major aspects of their cropping technique are well established. However, there are two many reason why their traditional cropping technique should be deeply reviewed. First, many of their productive steps (from sowing to harvest) require a great deal of manpower, and the enhanceme…
2021
Fluctuation–dissipation relations or “theorems” (FDTs) are fundamental for statistical physics and can be rigorously derived for equilibrium systems. Their applicability to non-equilibrium systems is, however, debated. Here, we simulate an active microrheology experiment, in which a spherical colloid is pulled with a constant external force through a fluid, creating near-equilibrium and far-from-equilibrium systems. We characterize the structural and dynamical properties of these systems, and reconstruct an effective generalized Langevin equation (GLE) for the colloid dynamics. Specifically, we test the validity of two FDTs: The first FDT relates the non-equilibrium response of a system to …
On equilibrium in non-hydrostatic metamorphic systems
2018
Metamorphic geology has accumulated a huge body of observation on mineral assemblages that reveal strong patterns in occurrence, summarised for example in the idea of metamorphic facies. On the realisation that such patterns needed a simple explanation, there has been considerable a posteriori success from adopting the idea that equilibrium thermodynamics can be used on mineral assemblages to make sense of the patterns in terms of, for example, the pressure and temperature of formation of mineral assemblages. In doing so, a particularly simple implicit assumption is made, that mineral assemblages operate essentially hydrostatically. Structural geologists have studied the same rocks for diff…
Cycling for Home-to-School Travel in Palermo: A Method for Assessing the Optimal Allocation of New Cycling Infrastructure
2019
In order to reduce the number of cars on the road, one of the most incisive actions is to encourage cycling, e.g. through the introduction of bike-sharing systems. In particular, the activation of special bike-sharing programs for school students could lead students to choose this mode of transport to make their own home-school travel. The success of such initiatives is primarily linked to the presence of a continuous and functional cycle network, which can create safe routes to school. It is, therefore, necessary a cycle network design model that allows determining the optimal allocation of new cycle paths, maximizing the number of users and considering technical and economic constraints. …
Mixed integer optimal compensation: Decompositions and mean-field approximations
2012
Mixed integer optimal compensation deals with optimizing integer- and real-valued control variables to compensate disturbances in dynamic systems. The mixed integer nature of controls might be a cause of intractability for instances of larger dimensions. To tackle this issue, we propose a decomposition method which turns the original n-dimensional problem into n independent scalar problems of lot sizing form. Each scalar problem is then reformulated as a shortest path one and solved through linear programming over a receding horizon. This last reformulation step mirrors a standard procedure in mixed integer programming. We apply the decomposition method to a mean-field coupled multi-agent s…
Measurement of branching fractions and charge asymmetries for exclusive B decays to charmonium
2005
We report measurements of branching fractions and charge asymmetries of exclusive decays of neutral and charged B mesons into two-body final states containing a charmonium state and a light strange meson. The charmonium mesons considered are J/Psi, Psi(2S) and Chi_c1, and the light meson is either K or K*. We use a sample of about 124 million BBbar events collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
IceCube search for dark matter annihilation in nearby galaxies and galaxy clusters
2013
Physical review / D 88(12), 122001 (2013). doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.88.122001
Critical point Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation
2021
We study Higgs inflation in the Palatini formulation with the renormalisation group improved potential in the case when loop corrections generate a feature similar to an inflection point. Assuming that there is a threshold correction for the Higgs quartic coupling $\lambda$ and the top Yukawa coupling $y_t$, we scan the three-dimensional parameter space formed by the two jumps and the non-minimal coupling $\xi$. The spectral index $n_s$ can take any value in the observationally allowed range. The lower limit for the running is $\alpha_s>-3.5\times10^{-3}$, and $\alpha_s$ can be as large as the observational upper limit. Running of the running is small. The tensor-to-scalar ratio is $2.2\tim…
Measurement and Interpretation of Fermion-Pair Production at LEP Energies of 183 and 189 GeV
2000
An analysis of the data collected in 1997 and 1998 with the DELPHI detector at e+e- collision energies close to 183 and 189 GeV was performed in order to extract the hadronic and leptonic fermion-pair cross-sections, as well as the leptonic forward-backward asymmetries and angular distributions. The data are used to put limit on contact interactions between fermions, the exchange of R-parity violating SUSY sneutrinos, Z' bosons and the existence of gravity in extra dimensions.