Search results for "MATHEMATICS"
showing 10 items of 22031 documents
Comparison results for a linear elliptic equation with mixed boundary conditions
2003
In this paper we study a linear elliptic equation having mixed boundary conditions, defined in a connected open set $\Omega $ of $\mathbb{R}^{n}$. We prove a comparison result with a suitable ``symmetrized'' Dirichlet problem which cannot be uniformly elliptic depending on the regularity of $ \partial \Omega $. Regularity results for non-uniformly elliptic equations are also given.
Modelling and assessing public health policies to counteract Italian measles outbreaks
2021
This study aims to understand, through explanatory research, the key factors that led to the 2017 measles outbreak in Italy, the causes of the low level of immunisation and the causes of possible cyclical phenomena of measles epidemics. This topic's comprehension has required a holistic approach, merging epidemiological aspects, socioeconomic aspects (including the evolution of mistrust in vaccinations, infodemy and fake news) and health law constraints. A specific SIR System Dynamics (SD) model was built to reproduce the relevant cause-and-effect relationships between social interactions, the public institutions behaviour and the measles outbreaks. SD results permit the assessment of the h…
How many longitudinal covariate measurements are needed for risk prediction?
2014
Abstract Objective In epidemiologic follow-up studies, many key covariates, such as smoking, use of medication, blood pressure, and cholesterol, are time varying. Because of practical and financial limitations, time-varying covariates cannot be measured continuously, but only at certain prespecified time points. We study how the number of these longitudinal measurements can be chosen cost-efficiently by evaluating the usefulness of the measurements for risk prediction. Study Design and Setting The usefulness is addressed by measuring the improvement in model discrimination between models using different amounts of longitudinal information. We use simulated follow-up data and the data from t…
Model selection using limiting distributions of second-order blind source separation algorithms
2015
Signals, recorded over time, are often observed as mixtures of multiple source signals. To extract relevant information from such measurements one needs to determine the mixing coefficients. In case of weakly stationary time series with uncorrelated source signals, this separation can be achieved by jointly diagonalizing sample autocovariances at different lags, and several algorithms address this task. Often the mixing estimates contain close-to-zero entries and one wants to decide whether the corresponding source signals have a relevant impact on the observations or not. To address this question of model selection we consider the recently published second-order blind identification proced…
A new approach for estimating a nonlinear growth component in multilevel modeling
2011
This study presents a new approach to estimation of a nonlinear growth curve component with fixed and random effects in multilevel modeling. This approach can be used to estimate change in longitudinal data, such as day-of-the-week fluctuation. The motivation of the new approach is to avoid spurious estimates in a random coefficient regression model due to the synchronized periodical effect (e.g., day-of-the-week fluctuation) appearing both in independent and dependent variables. First, the new approach is introduced. Second, a Monte Carlo simulation study is carried out to examine the functioning of the proposed new approach in the case of small sample sizes. Third, the use of the approac…
Surrogate-assisted evolutionary multiobjective shape optimization of an air intake ventilation system
2017
We tackle three different challenges in solving a real-world industrial problem: formulating the optimization problem, connecting different simulation tools and dealing with computationally expensive objective functions. The problem to be optimized is an air intake ventilation system of a tractor and consists of three computationally expensive objective functions. We describe the modeling of the system and its numerical evaluation with a commercial software. To obtain solutions in few function evaluations, a recently proposed surrogate-assisted evolutionary algorithm K-RVEA is applied. The diameters of four different outlets of the ventilation system are considered as decision variables. Fr…
Simultaneous optimization of harvest schedule and measurement strategy
2013
In many recent studies, the value of forest inventory information in the harvest scheduling has been examined. Usually only the profitability of measuring simultaneously all the stands in the area is examined. Yet, it may be more profitable to concentrate the measurement efforts to some subset of them. In this paper, the authors demonstrate that stochastic optimization can be used for defining the optimal measurement strategy simultaneously with the harvest decisions. The results show that without end-inventory constraints, it was most profitable to measure the stands that were just below the medium age. Measuring the oldest stands was not profitable at all. It turned out to be profitable t…
Acoustic detection and classification of river boats
2011
We present a robust algorithm to detect the arrival of a boat of a certain type when other background noises are present. It is done via the analysis of its acoustic signature against an existing database of recorded and processed acoustic signals. We characterize the signals by the distribution of their energies among blocks of wavelet packet coefficients. To derive the acoustic signature of the boat of interest, we use the Best Discriminant Basis method. The decision is made by combining the answers from the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifier and from the Classification and Regression Trees (CART) that is also accompanied with an additional unit, called Aisles, that reduces fal…
Numerical Recovery of Source Singularities via the Radiative Transfer Equation with Partial Data
2013
The inverse source problem for the radiative transfer equation is considered, with partial data. Here we demonstrate numerical computation of the normal operator $X_{V}^{*}X_{V}$ where $X_{V}$ is the partial data solution operator to the radiative transfer equation. The numerical scheme is based in part on a forward solver designed by F. Monard and G. Bal. We will see that one can detect quite well the visible singularities of an internal optical source $f$ for generic anisotropic $k$ and $\sigma$, with or without noise added to the accessible data $X_{V}f$. In particular, we use a truncated Neumann series to estimate $X_{V}$ and $X_{V}^{*}$, which provides a good approximation of $X_{V}^{*…
Using a mobile application to support children's writing motivation
2013
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the use of the prototype of a mobile application for the enhancement of children's motivation for writing. The results are explored from students' and experts' perspectives.Design/methodology/approachThis study is based on a field trial and expert evaluations of a prototype of a mobile application. The field trial data consists of questionnaire data collected from elementary school students (n=25) who used the mobile prototype. The expert evaluations (n=8) of the prototype were conducted based on usability and pedagogical heuristics. The main research question is how the mobile application motivates children to learn creative writing.FindingsTh…