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 …

I and i

다중혈관 관상동맥 환자에서 y-문합을 이용하여 양쪽 내흉동맥만을 사용한 우회술의 조기 성적

抗原变异可使得多种致病微生物易于逃避宿主免疫应答。表达在感染红细胞表面的恶性疟原虫红细胞表面蛋白1（PfPMP1）与感染红细胞、内皮细胞、树突状细胞以及胎盘的单个或多个受体作用，在黏附及免疫逃避中起关键的作用。每个单倍体基因组var基因家族编码约60种成员，通过启动转录不同的var基因变异体为抗原变异提供了分子基础。

疟原虫var基因转换速率变化导致抗原变异[英]／Paul H, Robert P, Christodoulou Z, et al//Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

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.).

Machine learning

In this paper, we discuss consensus problems for networks of dynamic agents with fixed and switching topologies. We analyze three cases: 1) directed networks with fixed topology; 2) directed networks with switching topology; and 3) undirected networks with communication time-delays and fixed topology. We introduce two consensus protocols for networks with and without time-delays and provide a convergence analysis in all three cases. We establish a direct connection between the algebraic connectivity (or Fiedler eigenvalue) of the network and the performance (or negotiation speed) of a linear consensus protocol. This required the generalization of the notion of algebraic connectivity of undirected graphs to digraphs. It turns out that balanced digraphs play a key role in addressing average-consensus problems. We introduce disagreement functions for convergence analysis of consensus protocols. A disagreement function is a Lyapunov function for the disagreement network dynamics. We proposed a simple disagreement function that is a common Lyapunov function for the disagreement dynamics of a directed network with switching topology. A distinctive feature of this work is to address consensus problems for networks with directed information flow. We provide analytical tools that rely on algebraic graph theory, matrix theory, and control theory. Simulations are provided that demonstrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results.

/pdf/consensus-problems-in-networks-of-agents-with-switching-25c3hqvtd8.pdf

Consensus problems in networks of agents with switching topology and time-delays

We develop a method for the control of discrete-time nonlinear systems subject to temporal logic specifications. Our approach uses a coarse abstraction of the system and an automaton representing the temporal logic specification to guide the search for a feasible trajectory. This decomposes the search for a feasible trajectory into a series of constrained reachability problems. Thus, one can create controllers for any system for which techniques exist to compute (approximate) solutions to constrained reachability problems. Representative techniques include sampling-based methods for motion planning, reachable set computations for linear systems, and graph search for finite discrete systems. Our approach avoids the expensive computation of a discrete abstraction, and its implementation is amenable to parallel computing. We demonstrate our approach with numerical experiments on temporal logic motion planning problems with high-dimensional (10+ states) continuous systems.

https://www.seas.upenn.edu/~utopcu/pubs/WTM-iros13.pdf

Automaton-guided controller synthesis for nonlinear systems with temporal logic

We study the dynamic stability of low Reynolds number swimming near a plane wall from a control-theoretic viewpoint. We consider a special class of swimmers having a constant shape, focus on steady motion parallel to the wall, and derive conditions under which it is passively stable without sensing or feedback. We study the geometric structure of the swimming equation and highlight the relation between stability and reversing symmetry of the dynamical system. Finally, our numerical simulations reveal the existence of stable periodic motion. The results have implications for design of miniature robotic swimmers, as well as for explaining the attraction of micro-organisms to surfaces.

/pdf/dynamics-and-stability-of-a-class-of-low-reynolds-number-33jekgz1oy.pdf

Dynamics and stability of a class of low Reynolds number swimmers near a wall

Dynamic models of nanometer-scale phenomena often require an explicit consideration of interactions among a large number of atoms or molecules. The corresponding mathematical representation may thus be high dimensional, nonlinear, and stochastic, incompatible with tools in nonlinear control theory that are designed for low-dimensional deterministic equations. We consider here a general class of probabilistic systems that are linear in the state, but whose input enters as a function multiplying the state vector. Model reduction is accomplished by grouping probabilities that evolve together, and truncating states that are unlikely to be accessed. An error bound for this reduction is also derived. A system identification approach that exploits the inherent linearity is then developed, which generates all coefficients in either a full or reduced model. These concepts are then extended to extremely high-dimensional systems, in which kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations provide the input–output data. This work was motivated by our interest in thin film deposition. We demonstrate the approaches developed in the paper on a KMC simulation of surface evolution during film growth, and use the reduced model to compute optimal temperature profiles that minimize surface roughness. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Reduction and identification methods for Markovian control systems, with application to thin film deposition

This paper investigates the convergence rates of several controllers for low dimenional nonholonomic systems in power form. The method of multiple scales is found to be effective in determining the asymptotic form of the solutions. The general form of the perturbation solutions indicates how parameters in the control laws may be chosen to achieve a desired convergence rate. A detailed analysis of controllers exhibiting exponential convergence is included.

/pdf/convergence-rates-for-nonholonomic-systems-in-power-form-3ndxxr8cq4.pdf

Convergence Rates for Nonholonomic Systems in Power Form

This paper provides an introduction to the RoboFlag competition and its use as a testbed for distributed control of multi-vehicle systems. The game consists of two teams of 6-10 robots and 2 people, each attempting to capture the other teams flag while defending their own. Limited sensing capability, distributed processing, and limited bandwidth communications are integral parts of the system. The features of RoboFlag provide a number of research challenges in distributed control, sensor fusion, team-based control, and human-centered control.

/pdf/the-roboflag-competition-3n7nbe7g5g.pdf

Richard M. Murray

Papers

Automaton-guided controller synthesis for nonlinear systems with temporal logic

Dynamics and stability of a class of low Reynolds number swimmers near a wall

Reduction and identification methods for Markovian control systems, with application to thin film deposition

Convergence Rates for Nonholonomic Systems in Power Form

The RoboFlag competition