The problem of optimal stopping in a partially observable Markov chain

The optimal-stopping problem in a partially observable Markov chain is considered, and this is formulated as a Markov decision process. We treat a multiple stopping problem in this paper. Unlike the classical stopping problem, the current state of the chain is not known directly. Information about the current state is always available from an information process. Several properties about the value and the optimal policy are given. For example, if we add another stop action to thek-stop problem, the increment of the value is decreasing ink.The author wishes to thank Professor M. Sakaguchi of Osaka University for his encouragement and guidance. He also thanks the referees for their careful readings and helpful comments.     

Positive muon behavior in KCl with and without F centers

Positive muon behavior in KCl containing F centers has been studied. The muon spin depolarization rate showed a maximum near 120 K, which was not found in pure KCl. This is probably due to the fact that free positive muons are trapped by F centers in KCl. However, the binding energy between a positive muon and an F center is not large, so that muons detrap again above 150 K.     

Feed-out of rear surface perturbation due to rarefaction wave in laser-irradiated targets

We report experimental results on hydrodynamic perturbation transfer from the rear to the front of laser-irradiated targets. Flat polystyrene foils with rear-surface perturbations were irradiated by partially coherent light. We observed phase inversion of the rear surface after the shock breakout at the rear surface. Perturbations on the laser-irradiated surface arose due to the rippled rarefaction wave. Experimental results were well reproduced by a simple model with unperturbed hydrodynamic quantities calculated from the one-dimensional simulation.     

Hierarchical parallelization of divide-and-conquer density functional tight-binding molecular dynamics and metadynamics simulations

Massively parallel divide-and-conquer density functional tight-binding (DC-DFTB) molecular dynamics and metadynamics simulations are efficient approaches for describing various chemical reactions and dynamic processes of large complex systems via quantum mechanics. In this study, DC-DFTB simulations were combined with multi-replica techniques. Specifically, multiple walkers metadynamics, replica exchange molecular dynamics, and parallel tempering metadynamics methods were implemented hierarchically into the in-house Dcdftbmd program. Test simulations in an aqueous phase of the internal rotation of formamide and conformational changes of dialanine showed that the newly developed extensions increase the sampling efficiency and the exploration capabilities in DC-DFTB configuration space.     

Colloidal unilamellar layers of tantalum oxide with open channels

Layered tantalum oxide, RbTaO3, was delaminated into colloidal TaO3 unilamellar crystallites, which are characterized by an open-channel structure as well as a very small thickness of approximately 1.0 nm.     

Unusual crystallization behaviors of anatase nanocrystallites from a molecularly thin titania nanosheet and its stacked forms: increase in nucleation temperature and oriented growth

Crystallization behaviors of anatase nanocrystallites from an ultrathin two-dimensional reactant composed of exfoliated titania nanosheets have been studied by monitoring the heating process of their well-organized films, with which the film thickness can be controlled from a molecularly thin monolayer to a stacked multilayer structure with a stepwise increment of approximately 1 nm. The heated products were identified by means of total reflection fluorescence X-ray absorption near-edge structure analysis and in-plane X-ray diffraction measurements using a synchrotron radiation source. The films composed of five or more layers of stacked nanosheets were transformed into anatase at 400-500 degrees C, which is a normal crystallization temperature of anatase from bulk reactants. As the film became thinner by decreasing the number of nanosheet layers to five or less, the crystallization temperature was found to increase and finally reached 800 degrees C for the monolayer film. Interestingly, preferential growth of anatase along the c-axis was strongly promoted for these ultrathin films. These unusual behaviors may be understood in terms of crystallization from the two-dimensional system of scarcely distributed reactants. The titania nanosheet crystallite is much thinner than the unit cell dimensions of anatase, and therefore, extensive atomic diffusion is required for the transformation particularly for the ultrathin films with a critical number (2-3) of stacked nanosheet layers. There is some structural similarity between anatase and titania nanosheet, which may account for the oriented growth of anatase nanocrystallites.     

Orlicz-Hardy spaces and their duals

We establish the theory of Orlicz-Hardy spaces generated by a wide class of functions.The class will be wider than the class of all the N-functions.In particular,we consider the non-smooth atomic decomposition.The relation between Orlicz-Hardy spaces and their duals is also studied.As an application,duality of Hardy spaces with variable exponents is revisited.This work is different from earlier works about Orlicz-Hardy spaces H(Rn)in that the class of admissible functions is largely widened.We can deal with,for example,(r)≡(rp1(log(e+1/r))q1,0r 6 1,rp2(log(e+r))q2,r1,with p1,p2∈(0,∞)and q1,q2∈(.∞,∞),where we shall establish the boundedness of the Riesz transforms on H(Rn).In particular,is neither convex nor concave when 0p11p2∞,0p21p1∞or p1=p2=1 and q1,q20.If(r)≡r(log(e+r))q,then H(Rn)=H(logH)q(Rn).We shall also establish the boundedness of the fractional integral operators I of order∈(0,∞).For example,I is shown to be bounded from H(logH)1./n(Rn)to Ln/(n.)(log L)(Rn)for 0n.     

Separability of prosodic phrase boundary and phonemic information

It was hypothesized that the retrieval of prosodic and phonemic information from the acoustic signal is facilitated when prosodic information is encoded by co-occurring suprasegmental cues. To test the hypothesis, two-choice speeded classification experiments were conducted, which examined processing interaction between prosodic phrase-boundary vs stop-place information in speakers of Southern British English. Results confirmed that the degree of interaction between boundary and stop-place information diminished when the pre-boundary vowel was signaled by duration and F(0), compared to when it was signaled by either duration or F(0) alone. It is argued that the relative ease of retrieval of prosodic and phonemic information arose from advantages of prosodic cue integration.