Emulating complex business cycles by using an electronic analogue

Long run growth of the US national economic system, for example, reveals a strong oscillatory behavior due to complex interactions of aggregates. However, modelizations of such dynamics often assume that instability is the outcome of linear and additive cycles determined by exogenous shocks. In this work, a modelization of endogenous nonlinear and inseparable cycles is retained to explain the highly complex business cycle phenomenon. Bouali’s system is built to this scope. Its numerical simulations exhibit a rich repertoire of nonlinear dynamical phenomena, but this paper introduces its electronic implementation. The robust plug and play chaotic circuit is designed to be easily realized using standard components in a rigorous, fast and inexpensive way. We find that experimental results display periodicity, bifurcations and chaos that match with high accuracy the corresponding theoretical values.     

Recurrence-based detection of the hyperchaos-chaos transition in an electronic circuit

Some complex measures based on recurrence plots give evidence about hyperchaos-chaos transitions in coupled nonlinear systems [E. G. Souza et al., "Using recurrences to characterize the hyperchaos-chaos transition," Phys. Rev. E 78, 066206 (2008)]. In this paper, these measures are combined with a significance test based on twin surrogates to identify such a transition in a fourth-order Lorenz-like system, which is able to pass from a hyperchaotic to a chaotic behavior for increasing values of a single parameter. A circuit analog of the mathematical model has been designed and implemented and the robustness of the recurrence-based method on experimental data has been tested. In both the numerical and experimental cases, the combination of the recurrence measures and the significance test allows to clearly identify the hyperchaos-chaos transition.     

Complexity in a population of Artemia

Artemia salina belongs to a genus of very primordial crustaceans, whose behavior is not widely investigated in literature. Their collective behavior is studied in this paper both experimentally and theoretically. Different experiments have been designed to control the direction of motion of an Artemia population by exploiting their sensitivity to light and to measure the response of the population to light at different wavelengths. Mathematical models have been also derived, explaining the mechanisms underlying Artemia flocking formation when a light spot is applied to the system. The results obtained allow to develop new strategies for distributed control of agents and to test them in a simple and low cost experimental setup.     

Nonlinear model identification for Artemia population motion

In this paper, two different nonlinear models for Artemia swarming are derived. In order to generate the data suitable for identification, a robot driving the Artemia population has been built. The obtained data have been then used to identify the parameters of a model based on Newton??s equations and a black-box NARX model implemented by neural networks. The performances obtained validate the physical hypotheses underlying the gray-box model.     

Dynamical network interactions in distributed control of robots

In this paper the dynamical network model of the interactions within a group of mobile robots is investigated and proposed as a possible strategy for controlling the robots without central coordination. Motivated by the results of the analysis of our simple model, we show that the system performance in the presence of noise can be improved by including long-range connections between the robots. Finally, a suitable strategy based on this model to control exploration and transport is introduced.     

Un problema al contorno per operatori parabolici con degenerazione di tipoA 2

In this paper we prove existence, uniqueness and regularization results for the Cauchy-Dirichlet problem associated with some degenerate parabolic operators.     

An experimental apparatus for studying the background of gravitational-wave antennas and its correlation with geophysical phenomena

Summary We describe an experimental apparatus, designed for studying the correlations between the background of gravitational-wave antennas and geophysical phenomena, that has been installed in the Department of Physics of the University of Rome ?La Sapienza?. The apparatus consists of a 2300 kg room temperature gravitational-wave antenna, of sensors of geophysical quantities (accelerometer, gravimeter and electrical antenna) and of a computer-based data acquisition system designed for continuous operation over long periods of time.

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Riassunto Si descrive un apparato sperimentale, progettato per lo studio delle correlazioni tra il fondo delle antenne gravitazionali e fenomeni geofisici, che è stato installato presso il Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Università di Roma ?La Sapienza?. L'apparato consiste di un'antenna gravitazionale a temperature ambiente con massa di 2300 kg, di alcuni sensori di grandezze fisiche (accelerometro, gravimetro e antenna elettrica) e di un sistema di acquisizione dati basato su calcolatore, previsto per funzionamento continuo su lunghi periodi di tempo.

     

Photochemical reaction of alcohols—II : Irradiation of aromatic alcohols

The UV irradiation of aromatic alcohols leads to the formation of several products: carbonyl compounds, ethers, α-glycols and tetra-aryl-1,4-dioxanes.The photoformation of α-glycols is qualitatively and quantitatively compared to the photoreduction of the carbonyl compounds. It is noteworthy that the glycols are formed with a stereochemistry very different depending upon whether the substrate is an alcohol or a carbonyl compound.The structure, configuration and conformation of the 1-4-dixoanes obtained are studies as well as their origin.Other aspects of the photochemistry of the alcohols are analyzed using hydroperoxides as model substrates.     

Photochemical reaction of alcohols-I: Irradiation of aliphatic alcohols

The UV irradiation of aliphatic alcohols gave α-glycols as the principal products. The values of the dl-α-glycol ratios obtained in each example were analyzed.The stereochemical course of the formation of α-glycols, their conformations and configurations were established on the basis of ¹H NMR data.