James Taylor

Bio: James Taylor is an academic researcher from Newcastle University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Laser & Fiber laser. The author has an hindex of 95, co-authored 1161 publications receiving 39945 citations. Previous affiliations of James Taylor include Institut national de la recherche agronomique & European Spallation Source.

Evaluating the drivers of banana flowering cycle duration using a stochastic model and on farm production data

Abstract: The use of data produced by farmers to generate knowledge and to inform production decisions is one of the objectives of precision agriculture (PA). Frameworks to analyse and represent those data are now widely available for many crops but are not relevant to banana cropping systems because of its asynchronicity. The average period between two flowering events on the same plant, called CD, is variable, as opposed to most crops whose phenology is synchronized by the seasons. Therefore, CD is a property of interest for understanding yields but it cannot be easily measured in plantations. In this study, a method was proposed to generate information on CD using the producer’s commercially collected production data on flowering from 724 fields over 15 years in a Cameroonian plantation. A new stochastic model based on the development of the banana plant and using CD as a parameter was formulated. This model was then adjusted using temporal flowering data to estimate CD at the field level. Results showed that CD was variable between fields (median of 209 days and standard deviation of 24 days) and spatially structured (autocorrelation ratio of 0.87). The effect of management (irrigation, cultivar) and environmental conditions (temperatures, elevation) on CD was studied. There was no positive effect of thermal time (degree days) vs. Julian days on model fitting and the CD estimation. In contrast, elevation, cultivar and irrigation had an effect on CD. For growers, this highlights the importance of taking into account CD when analysing yields, and not to rely only on the weight of the bunches at harvest. It also shows that production data can be effectively used and mapped to inform production decisions.

Spectral Filtering Effect of Fused Fibre Couplers in Femtosecond Fibre Soliton Lasers

Abstract: A fused fibre coupler has been used as a spectral filter in a femtosecond fibre soliton laser to eliminate the spectral sideband structure associated with periodic amplification of solitons in the regime where the characteristic soliton period of the generated pulses approaches that of the overall fibre laser loop length.

Optical time-domain reflectometry of discrete fiber Raman amplifiers

Abstract: Optical time-domain reflectometry is proposed and demonstrated as a means to characterize the signal power evolution in discrete fiber Raman amplifiers. Up to /spl sim/20-dB-gain amplifiers have been characterized comprising different fibers, under copropagating and counterpropagating signal-pump configurations, and under saturated and unsaturated conditions. The results demonstrate the flexibility of this simple and useful amplifier characterization technique. Simulations show good agreement with experimental results, and sustain the reliability of the technique.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Using Multivariate Statistics

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The Design and Analysis of Experiments

Abstract: THE DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF EXPERIMENTS. By Oscar Kempthorne. New York, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1952. 631 pp. $8.50. This book by a teacher of statistics (as well as a consultant for \"experimenters\") is a comprehensive study of the philosophical background for the statistical design of experiment. It is necessary to have some facility with algebraic notation and manipulation to be able to use the volume intelligently. The problems are presented from the theoretical point of view, without such practical examples as would be helpful for those not acquainted with mathematics. The mathematical justification for the techniques is given. As a somewhat advanced treatment of the design and analysis of experiments, this volume will be interesting and helpful for many who approach statistics theoretically as well as practically. With emphasis on the \"why,\" and with description given broadly, the author relates the subject matter to the general theory of statistics and to the general problem of experimental inference. MARGARET J. ROBERTSON

Machine learning

Abstract: Machine Learning is the study of methods for programming computers to learn. Computers are applied to a wide range of tasks, and for most of these it is relatively easy for programmers to design and implement the necessary software. However, there are many tasks for which this is difficult or impossible. These can be divided into four general categories. First, there are problems for which there exist no human experts. For example, in modern automated manufacturing facilities, there is a need to predict machine failures before they occur by analyzing sensor readings. Because the machines are new, there are no human experts who can be interviewed by a programmer to provide the knowledge necessary to build a computer system. A machine learning system can study recorded data and subsequent machine failures and learn prediction rules. Second, there are problems where human experts exist, but where they are unable to explain their expertise. This is the case in many perceptual tasks, such as speech recognition, hand-writing recognition, and natural language understanding. Virtually all humans exhibit expert-level abilities on these tasks, but none of them can describe the detailed steps that they follow as they perform them. Fortunately, humans can provide machines with examples of the inputs and correct outputs for these tasks, so machine learning algorithms can learn to map the inputs to the outputs. Third, there are problems where phenomena are changing rapidly. In finance, for example, people would like to predict the future behavior of the stock market, of consumer purchases, or of exchange rates. These behaviors change frequently, so that even if a programmer could construct a good predictive computer program, it would need to be rewritten frequently. A learning program can relieve the programmer of this burden by constantly modifying and tuning a set of learned prediction rules. Fourth, there are applications that need to be customized for each computer user separately. Consider, for example, a program to filter unwanted electronic mail messages. Different users will need different filters. It is unreasonable to expect each user to program his or her own rules, and it is infeasible to provide every user with a software engineer to keep the rules up-to-date. A machine learning system can learn which mail messages the user rejects and maintain the filtering rules automatically. Machine learning addresses many of the same research questions as the fields of statistics, data mining, and psychology, but with differences of emphasis. Statistics focuses on understanding the phenomena that have generated the data, often with the goal of testing different hypotheses about those phenomena. Data mining seeks to find patterns in the data that are understandable by people. Psychological studies of human learning aspire to understand the mechanisms underlying the various learning behaviors exhibited by people (concept learning, skill acquisition, strategy change, etc.).

Linear Matrix Inequalities in System and Control Theory

Abstract: Preface 1. Introduction Overview A Brief History of LMIs in Control Theory Notes on the Style of the Book Origin of the Book 2. Some Standard Problems Involving LMIs. Linear Matrix Inequalities Some Standard Problems Ellipsoid Algorithm Interior-Point Methods Strict and Nonstrict LMIs Miscellaneous Results on Matrix Inequalities Some LMI Problems with Analytic Solutions 3. Some Matrix Problems. Minimizing Condition Number by Scaling Minimizing Condition Number of a Positive-Definite Matrix Minimizing Norm by Scaling Rescaling a Matrix Positive-Definite Matrix Completion Problems Quadratic Approximation of a Polytopic Norm Ellipsoidal Approximation 4. Linear Differential Inclusions. Differential Inclusions Some Specific LDIs Nonlinear System Analysis via LDIs 5. Analysis of LDIs: State Properties. Quadratic Stability Invariant Ellipsoids 6. Analysis of LDIs: Input/Output Properties. Input-to-State Properties State-to-Output Properties Input-to-Output Properties 7. State-Feedback Synthesis for LDIs. Static State-Feedback Controllers State Properties Input-to-State Properties State-to-Output Properties Input-to-Output Properties Observer-Based Controllers for Nonlinear Systems 8. Lure and Multiplier Methods. Analysis of Lure Systems Integral Quadratic Constraints Multipliers for Systems with Unknown Parameters 9. Systems with Multiplicative Noise. Analysis of Systems with Multiplicative Noise State-Feedback Synthesis 10. Miscellaneous Problems. Optimization over an Affine Family of Linear Systems Analysis of Systems with LTI Perturbations Positive Orthant Stabilizability Linear Systems with Delays Interpolation Problems The Inverse Problem of Optimal Control System Realization Problems Multi-Criterion LQG Nonconvex Multi-Criterion Quadratic Problems Notation List of Acronyms Bibliography Index.