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Structural systems in seismic-prone regions can experience sudden deterioration caused by earthquake-induced ground-motion sequences. In addition, given the prevailing environmental conditions at their site, these systems may undergo gradual deterioration resulting from environment-induced mechanisms. The combined impacts of such phenomena can result in significant structural/non-structural damage

The deterioration of engineering systems might reduce the system reliability and prompt maintenance operations that may disrupt the ability of the systems to provide regular service. Estimating the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of the system requires an understanding of the deterioration processes acting on it. Recent formulations have shifted the focus of deterioration modeling from the system as a

Phylogenomic approaches have recently helped elucidate various insect relationships, but large-scale comprehensive analyses on relationships within sawflies and woodwasps are still lacking. Here, we infer the relationships and long-term biogeographic history of these hymenopteran groups using a large dataset of 354 UCE loci collected from 385 species that represent all major lineages. Early Hymeno

Background: A single learning algorithm can produce deep learning-based image segmentation models that vary in performance purely due to random effects during training. This study assessed the effect of these random performance fluctuations on the reliability of standard methods of comparing segmentation models. Methods: The influence of random effects during training was assessed by running a sin

In this paper, I try to reconcile the vulgar (normative) definition of punishment with the positivistic (purely descriptive) definition that separates the ethics of punishment from its definition—punishment positivism. I will argue that although the vulgar definition has critical issues, this does not mean that we should stop using normative concepts in the definition of punishment. I will attempt

Ultra-lean combustion is a promising strategy for enhancing engine efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions. In the present study, laminar burning velocity, SL, of n-heptane, a key gasoline surrogate component, was measured at 298 K and 1 atm using the heat flux method. The experimental conditions cover ultra-lean conditions with an equivalence ratio as low as 0.5 that have never been reported

Making use of the APOGEE DR17 catalogue with high quality data for 143 509 red giant branch stars we explore the strength of different mechanisms that causes a star to radially migrate in the Milky Way stellar disc. At any position in the disc we find stars that are more metal-rich than the local interstellar medium. This is surprising and normally attributed to the migration of these stars after

The use of pheromones, while common, remains underexplored in mosquito research. Understanding Aedes aegypti's mating behaviour and pheromones is crucial for expanding knowledge and advancing vector control strategies. Unlike other species, Aedes mosquitoes have adaptable mating behaviour, complicating the study of their communication mechanisms. Current literature on Aedes communication is sparse

Statistical combinations of searches for charginos and neutralinos using various decay channels are performed using 139 fb^{-1} of pp collision data at sqrt[s]=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Searches targeting pure-wino chargino pair production, pure-wino chargino-neutralino production, or Higgsino production decaying via standard model W, Z, or h bosons are combined

In this paper, for any homogeneous system of agents with linear continuous time dynamics, we formulate an optimal control problem. In this problem a convex cost functional of the control signals of the agents shall be minimized, while the outputs of the agents shall coincide at some given finite time. This is an instance of the rendezvous or finite time consensus problem. We solve this problem wit

This paper addresses the consensus problem and the formation problem on SE(3) in multi-agent systems with directed and switching interconnection topologies. Several control laws are introduced for the consensus problem. By a simple transformation, it is shown that the proposed control laws can be used for the formation problem. The design is first conducted on the kinematic level, where the veloci

The alignment of a set of objects by means of transformations plays an important role in computer vision. Whilst the case for only two objects can be solved globally, when multiple objects are considered usually iterative methods are used. In practice the iterative methods perform well if the relative transformations between any pair of objects are free of noise. However, if only noisy relative tr

This paper addresses attitude synchronization problems for systems of multiple rigid-body agents with directed interconnection topologies. Two scenarios which differ in available information are considered. In the first scenario the agents can obtain their rotations and angular velocities relative to an inertial reference frame and transmit these information to their neighbors, while in the second

We consider the problem of attitude synchronization for systems of rigid body agents with directed topologies. Two different scenarios for the rotation matrices of the agents are considered. In the first scenario, the rotations are contained in a convex subset of SO(3), which is a ball of radius less than π/2, whereas in the second scenario the agents are contained in a subset of SO(3), which is a

This paper addresses the attitude synchronization problem in multi-agent systems with directed and switching interconnection topologies. Two cases for the synchronization problem are discussed under different assumptions about the measurable information. In the first case the agents can measure their rotations relative to a global reference coordinate frame, whilst in the second case they can only