Experiences in Expert Systems

This paper describes some work carried out in the Scientific Research and Development Branch (SRDB) of the Home Office, intended to contribute to an overall aim of building up internal expertise in the field of expert systems. This was done by carrying out a number of pilot and demonstrator projects, two of which are described in some detail. The plan, which proved successful, was to build as far as possible on the relevant skills already possessed by an OR group in the branch. The lessons learned from these are summarized in the hope that they will be of use to other groups who wish to become involved in this important area.     

Program explanations and causal relevance

Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have defended a non-reductive account of causal relevance known as the ‘program explanation account’. Allegedly, irreducible mental properties can be causally relevant in virtue of figuring in non-redundant program explanations which convey information not conveyed by explanations in terms of the physical properties that actually do the ‘causal work’. I argue that none of the possible ways to spell out the intuitively plausible idea of a program explanation serves its purpose, viz., defends non-reductive physicalism against Jaegwon Kim’s Causal Exclusion Argument according to which non-reductive physicalism is committed to epiphenomenalism because irreducible mental properties are ‘screened off’ from causal relevance by their physical realizers. Jackson and Pettit’s most promising explication of a program explanation appeals to the idea of invariance of effect under variation of realization, but I show that invariance of effect under variation of realization is neither necessary nor sufficient for causal relevance.     

Ultraviolet Luminescence in Mg0.12Zn0.88O Alloy Films

We investigate the origin of ultraviolet （UV） emission from Mg0.12 Zn0.88 O alloy thin films with a wurtzite structure fabricated on c-plane Al2O3 substrates by plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy. At room temperature, the absorption edge and UV emission band of the Mg0.12Zn0.88O film shift to high-energy side compared with ZnO films. Temperature dependence of the photoluminescence spectra shows that the UV emission is composed of free exciton and neutral donor bound exciton emissions. Two-step dissociation processes of the UV emission are observed with the increasing temperature. The thermal quenching mechanism is attributed to the dissociation of the free exciton from the neutral donor bound exciton in the low temperature region and the dissociation of free electron and hole from the free exciton in the high temperature region.     

A Generalization of the Mean Size Formula of Wavelet Packets in Lp

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mean size formula of wavelet packets in Lp for 0 〈 p ≤ ∞. We generalize a mean size formula of wavelet packets given in terms of the p-norm joint spectral radius and we also give some asymptotic formulas for the Lp-norm or quasi-norm on the subdivision trees. All results will be given in the general setting,     

具P-Laplacian算子型周期边值问题解的存在性

本文利用拓扑度理论和一些分析技巧讨论了具p—Laplacian算子型周期边值问题(φp(χ’))’+d/dt gradF(χ)+gradG(χ)=e(t),χ(0)=χ(T),χ’(0)=χ’(T)解的存在性,在对阻尼项d/dtgradF(χ)没有任何限制的前提下,给出了解存在的充分条件.     

Order restricted randomized designs for control versus treatment comparison

We develop a method of randomizing units to treatments that relies on subjective judgement or on possible coarse modeling to produce restrictions on the randomization. The procedure thus fits within the general framework of ranked set sampling. However, instead of selecting a single unit from each set for full measurement, all units within a set are used. The units within a set are assigned to different treatments. Such an assignment translates the positive dependence among units within a set into a reduction in variation of contrasting features of the treatments. A test for treatment versus control comparison, with controlled familywise error rate, is developed along with the associated confidence intervals. The new procedure is shown to be superior to corresponding procedures based on completely randomized or ranked set sample designs. The superiority appears both in asymptotic relative efficiency and in power for finite sample sizes. Importantly, this test does not rely on perfect rankings; rather, the information in the data on the quality of rankings is exploited to maintain the level of the test when rankings are imperfect. The asymptotic relative efficiency of the test is not affected by estimation of the quality of rankings, and the finite sample performance is only mildly affected.     

When should you sack a football manager? Results from a simple model applied to the English Premiership

What strategy should a football (soccer, in American parlance) club adopt when deciding whether to sack its manager? This paper introduces a simple model assuming that a club's objective is to maximize the number of league points that it scores per season. The club's strategy consists of three choices: the length of the honeymoon period during which it will not consider sacking a new manager, the level of the performance trapdoor below which the manager get the sack, and the weight that it will give to more recent games compared to earlier ones. Some data from the last six seasons of the English Premiership are used to calibrate the model. At this early stage of the research, the best strategy appears to have only a short honeymoon period of eight games (much less than the actual shortest period of 12 games), to set the trapdoor at 0.74 points per game, and to put 47% of the weight on the last five games. A club adopting this strategy would obtain on average 56.8 points per season, compared to a Premiership average of 51.8 points.     

Effect of ion impinging on the microstructure and field emission of carbon nanotubes

Effects of ion impinging on the microstructure and field electron emission properties of screen-printed carbon nanotube films were investigated. We observed that the plasma treatment modified the microstructure of CNTs along with the remarkable increase of emission site density. With the prolongation of ion impinging time, the emission current falls down first, and then rises up to higher than that of the untreated films. It is proposed that the change of emission characteristics is due to the different emission mechanisms. After the treatment, electrons are emitted predominantly from the nano-nodes on the tube wall instead from the nanotube tips.