17,430 research outputs found
Early to late Holocene vegetation and fire dynamics at the treeline in the Maritime Alps
No full textWe used pollen, plant macrofossil, and charcoal records to investigate local long-term timberline shifts and changes in vegetation composition in relation to fire activity at the modern upper forest limit (ca. 2,000 m a.s.l.) in the Mont Bégo area, Maritime Alps of France and Italy. The area is an important place for Alpine archaeology because it has thousands rock-art carvings whose age cannot be directly assessed. Our new record confirms the occurrence of distinct land use phases (7,450–7,150, 6,200–4,900, and 4,250–3,700 cal bp), as suggested by earlier studies of rock art typology. Moreover, the vegetation reconstruction from macrofossils, with co-dominance of Pinus and Betula, suggests that early Holocene conditions were moister than in drier inner Alpine valleys, where Larix decidua played a more important role, both in the past as well as in modern timberline forests. After 8,000 cal bp, the timberline shifted upwards and mixed Abies alba and Pinus cembra stands established around the study site. These fire sensitive trees were finally replaced during the Bronze Age (around 4,000 cal bp) by L. decidua, which still dominates the subalpine woodlands in the area today. Our study supports the notion that while the range of A. alba has been reduced at the colder end of its natural distribution, that of L. decidua has been widened by land use changes and fire disturbances to create high alpine wood pastures
q-Differential equations for q-classical polynomials and q-Jacobi-Stirling numbers
No full textWe introduce, characterise and provide a combinatorial interpretation for the so-called q-Jacobi–Stirling numbers.
This study is motivated by their key role in the (reciprocal) expansion of any power of a second order
q-differential operator having the q-classical polynomials as eigenfunctions in terms of other even order operators,
which we explicitly construct in this work. The results here obtained can be viewed as the q-version of
those given by Everitt et al. and by the first author, whilst the combinatorics of this new set of numbers is a
q-version of the Jacobi–Stirling numbers given by Gelineau and the second author
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Network Q
No full textA press release from Network Q announcing that they will begin featuring Brian McNaught, a gay columnist and author, for a monthly segment
Network Q
No full textA press release from Network Q announcing that they will begin featuring Brian McNaught, a gay columnist and author, for a monthly segment
Tobin's Q and Financial Policy
No full textRecent research in macroeconomics has emphasized the importance of linking the financial and real sectors and the need for working with optimizing models. Tobin’s Q model of investment would appear to provide a framework that can satisfy these two criteria. In contrast to the original presentation of the Q model, the formal development has not recognized that the firm actively participates in a number of financial markets; in this broader context, we show that Q is likely to be an uninformative and possibly misleading signal for investment expenditures . We then endeavor to turn this negative theoretical result to positive advantage in resolving a number of empirical problems with Q models, but the modifications dictated by the theory receive little support from the data.
A Q-learning based multi-strategy integrated artificial bee colony algorithm with application in unmanned vehicle path planning
No full textArtificial bee colony (ABC) is a prominent algorithm that offers great exploration capabilities among various meta-heuristic algorithms. However, its monotonous and one-dimensional search strategy limits its searching performance in the solving process. Thus, to address this issue, a Q-learning based multi-strategy integrated ABC algorithm (QMABC) is proposed. In the QMABC, multiple search strategies are proposed to utilize different individual experiences and search approaches for solution updates. Then, Q-learning is employed for strategy selection. In comparison to previous studies, this paper introduces more effective state and action configurations within the framework of Q-learning. To evaluate the performance of the QMABC, CEC 2017 benchmark functions are adopted to compare it to different meta-heuristic algorithms including ABC based and non-ABC based algorithms. Moreover, applications in path planning are implemented to further verify the effectiveness of the QMABC. Overall, it should be highlighted that the proposed QMABC demonstrates superiority in both numerical and practical experiments.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Discrete Mathematics and Optimizatio
Event-Based Communication in Distributed Q-Learning
No full textWe present an approach to reduce the communication of information needed on a Distributed Q-Learning system inspired by Event Triggered Control (ETC) techniques. We consider a baseline scenario of a Distributed Q-Learning problem on a Markov Decision Process (MDP). Following an event-based approach, N agents sharing a value function explore the MDP and compute a trajectory-dependent triggering signal which they use distributedly to decide when to communicate information to a central learner in charge of computing updates on the action-value function. These decision functions form an Event Based distributed Q learning system (EBd-Q), and we derive convergence guarantees resulting from the reduction of communication. We then apply the proposed algorithm to a cooperative path planning problem, and show how the agents are able to learn optimal trajectories communicating a fraction of the information. Additionally, we discuss what effects (desired and undesired) these event-based approaches have on the learning processes studied, and how they can be applied to more complex multi-agent systems.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Team Manuel Mazo J
Academic Writing Q&A Series 4
No full textThe presentation describes the processes that typically follow article submission. This presentation serves as the basis for a video from the Academic Writing Q&A series that was created as a supplement to the My First Scientific Article webinar. This presentation highlights the critical issues the author needs to take into account during the writing or peer review process that are essential to publishing. The content is useful for Early Career Researchers and for everyone who is interested in scholarly communication and publishing
Undecidability of Q(2)
No full textIt is shown that the compositum Q(2) of all degree 2 extensions of Q has undecidable theory.articl
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