Abiotic and biotic factors determining the upper (shallow or nearshore) limit of giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera Agardh, were examined along a wave exposure gradient on the Monterey Peninsula, central California, USA. Wave modeling, analysis of aerial photographs from 1986 to 1989 and SCUBA surveys from 1993 to 1995 indicated a significant positive relationship between wave intensity and depth...

A small number of M-theory branes as giant gravitons in the M-theory sector of LLM geometry is studied as a probe. The abelian way shows that the low energy effective action for M-theory brane is exactly the 2d electron subject to a vertical magnetic field. We also briefly discuss the microscopic description of M2-brane giant graviton in this geometry, in the language of a combination of D0-bra...

Identifying users frequent behaviors is considered as a key step to achieve real intelligent environments that support people in their daily lives. These patterns can be used in many different applications. An algorithm that compares current behaviors of the users with previously discovered frequent behaviors and detects shifts has been developed. In addition, it identifies the differences betw...

High order splitting schemes with complex timesteps are applied to Kolmogorov backward equations stemming from stochastic differential equations in Stratonovich form. In the setting of weighted spaces, the necessary analyticity of the split semigroups can be easily proved. A numerical example from interest rate theory, the CIR2 model, is considered. The numerical results are robust for drift-do...

The International Standard STEP (ISO 10303) is intended to facilitate the exchange of data between CAD systems. The first release of the standard, which occurred in 1994, allows the transfer of geometric product models in terms of geometry and topology alone. Since most CAD systems now allow the creation of parametric, constraint-based and feature based models, it is necessary to extend STEP to...

Recent research work concerning cooperative and concurrent engineering, increasingly interest industrial firms. Companies can no longer ignore this approach due to industrial needs such as improvement of quality and reduction of cost and delay. The objective of this paper is to propose an approach allowing the different experts or firms, to cooperate via Internet. To facilitate the communicatio...

A b s t r a c t Hysteresis is usually characterized as a memorydependent relationship between inputs and outputs. While various operator models have been proposed, it is often convenient for engineering applications to approximate hysteretic behavior by means of finite-dimensional differential models. In the present paper we show that step-convergent semistable systems (that is, semistable syst...

Magnification variations due to changes in focus setting pose problems for vision techniques, such as, depth from focus and defocus. The magnification of a conventional lens can be made invariant to defocus by simply adding an aperture at an analytically derived location. The resulting optical configuration is called “telecentric.” It is shown that most commercially available lenses can be turn...

Computer-Aided Inspection Planning (CAIP) has been a research topic for the past 25 years. Most of the CAIP systems were developed for Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs). The authors reviewed these CAIP systems and categorized them into two groups: tolerance-driven and geometry-based CAIP systems. Compared with CMMs, On-Machine Inspection (OMI) systems provide direct inspection in manufacturi...

Distribution-free (nonparametric) control charts provide a robust alternative to a data analyst when there is lack of knowledge about the underlying distribution. A two-sided nonparametric Phase II exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart, based on the exceedance statistics (EWMA-EX), is proposed for detecting a shift in the location parameter of a continuous distribution. The...