This thesis presents an unsupervised method for discovering and analyzing the different kinds of activities in an active environment. Drawing from natural language processing, a novel representation of activities as bags of event n-grams is introduced, where the global structural information of activities using their local event statistics is analyzed. It is demonstrated how maximal cliques in an undirected edge-weighted graph of activities, can be used in an unsupervised manner, to discover the different activity-classes. Taking on some work done in computer networks and bio-informatics, it is shown how to characterize these discovered activity-classes from a wholestic as well as a by-parts view-point. A definition of anomalous activities is formulated along with a way to detect them based on the difference of an activity instance from each of the discovered activity-classes. Finally, an information theoretic method to explain the detected anomalies in a human-interpretable form is presented. Results over extensive data-sets, collected from multiple active environments are presented, to show the competence and generalizability of the proposed framework.

<p>Of the many waveforms the bowed string can assume, theso-called "Helmholtz motion" (Helmholtz 1862) gives the fullestsound in terms of power and overtone richness. The developmentof this steady-state oscillation pattern can take manydifferent paths, most of which would include noise caused bystick-slip irregularities of the bow-string contact. Of thefive papers included in the thesis, the first one shows, notsurprisingly, that tone onsets are considered superior when theattack noise has a very limited duration. It was found,however, that in this judgment the<i>character</i>of the noise plays an important part, as thelistener’s tolerance of noise in terms of duration isalmost twice as great for "slipping noise" as for "creaks" or"raucousness" during the tone onsets. The three followingpapers contain analyses focusing on how irregular slip-sticktriggering may be avoided, as is quite often the case inpractical playing by professionals. The fifth paper describesthe triggering mechanism of a peculiar tone production referredto as "Anomalous Low Frequencies" (ALF). If properly skilled, aplayer can achieve pitches below the normal range of theinstrument. This phenomenon is related to triggering wavestaking "an extra turn" on the string before causing thestring’s release from the bow-hair grip. Since transverseand torsional propagation speeds are both involved, twodifferent sets of "sub-ranged" notes can be produced this way.In the four last papers wave patterns are analysed andexplained through the use of computer simulations.</p><p>Key words:</p><p>Key words:</p><p>Bowed string, violin, musicalacoustics, musical transient, anomalous low frequencies,Helmholtz motion</p>

The purpose of this research is to investigate properties of diffusion processes in porous media. Porous media are modelled by random Sierpinski carpets, each carpet is constructed by mixing two different generators with the same linear size. Diffusion on porous media is studied by performing random walks on random Sierpinski carpets and is characterized by the random walk dimension $d_w$. In the first part of this work we study $d_w$ as a function of the ratio of constituents in a mixture. The simulation results show that the resulting $d_w$ can be the same as, higher or lower than $d_w$ of carpets made by a single constituent generator. In the second part, we discuss the influence of static external fields on the behavior of diffusion. The biased random walk is used to model these phenomena and we report on many simulations with different field strengths and field directions. The results show that one structural feature of Sierpinski carpets called traps can have a strong influence on the observed diffusion properties. In the third part, we investigate the effect of diffusion under the influence of external fields which change direction back and forth after a certain duration. The results show a strong dependence on the period of oscillation, the field strength and structural properties of the carpet.

Die Diffusion durch Polyelektrolytschichten ist bei vielen biotechnologisch-pharmazeutischen Anwendungen im Nanometerbereich von Bedeutung. Bei Experimenten wurde gefunden, dass bei der Diffusion eines Quenchers in mit Fluoreszenzfarbstoff markierten Polyelektrolytmultischichten die Kinetik des Diffusionsprozesses Charakteristika einer anormalen Diffusion aufweist. In dieser Arbeit wird qualitativ und quantitativ gezeigt, dass die Diffusion des Quenchers mit Subdiffusion beschrieben werden kann. Der gemessene Diffusionsprozess kann durch eine Superposition von Markov‘schen Diffusionsprozessen dargestellt werden. Das wird mit einer Monte-Carlo-Simulation nachgewiesen, die auf der analytischen Lösung des vorliegenden Reaktions-Diffusionsgleichungssystems basiert. Die experimentellen Daten werden im Zusammenhang mit der strukturellen Basis der parallel ablaufenden Diffusionsprozesse diskutiert.

In this dissertation, we present a study of WZ production in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV. The data analyzed was collected by the ATLAS detector and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of \(4.6 fb^{−1}\) provided by the Large Hadron Collider in 2011. We select WZ events in the fully leptonic decay mode with electrons, muons, and missing transverse energy in the final state. Events are required to have three isolated leptons with significant transverse momentum, a large missing transverse energy, a Z candidate reconstructed from two of the selected leptons, and a W candidate reconstructed from the missing transverse energy and third lepton. The major backgrounds to the WZ signal in the leptonic decay channel are Z+jets events, ZZ production, Z+photon events, and events with top quarks. We estimate the Z+jets and top quark background contributions from data and take the expected contribution for the other background processes from simulation. We observe 317 WZ candidates in data, with a background expectation of \(68\pm10\) events. The total production cross section is extracted from the selected sample using a maximum likelihood method and is determined to be \(19.0^{+1.4}_{-1.3} (stat) \pm0.9 (syst) \pm0.4 (lumi) pb\), which is consistent with the next-to-leading Standard Model prediction of \(17.6^{+1.1}_{-1.0} pb\). WZ production in the Standard Model includes a contribution from the WWZ triple gauge boson vertex. If new physics beyond the Standard Model exists and interacts with W and Z bosons, the coupling of the WWZ vertex could differ from the Standard Model prediction. We set limits on anomalous triple gauge boson couplings using the transverse momentum spectrum of Z bosons in the selected sample. We derive the 95% confidence interval for three model-independent anomalous triple gauge couplings using a frequentist approach and set the most stringent bounds to date on two of the three parameters. / Physics

X-ray absorption is not only element specific, but atom specific: two atoms of the same element in different states or in different neighbourhoods will have slightly different absorption characteristics. These energy dependent atomic form factors are carried over to the diffraction intensities. The atomic form factors are sensitive not only to the the energy of the X-ray but also the diffraction criteria; providing individual local physical data at different ratios in various diffractions. This process is referred to as site selectivity, it is unique to Diffraction Spectroscopy, and is achieved only when the sample is in crystal form. Through this work, a technique has been devised to site-separate two atoms of iron from within a protein, that builds on prior small unit cell Diffraction Anomalous Fine Structure experiments and harnesses the collection and processing software commonly used in large unit cell crystallography. A technique (dev + PCA) has been developed to retrieve the small signals from individual atom-labels out of the large and noisy background of real diffraction taken across a spectrum. The intensity of the diffractions are calculated by integrating over multiple images, profiling spots, merging datasets, and scaling across the whole spectrum. This thesis explores how Diffraction Spectroscopy can be used effectively on large unit cells, namely those of proteins. Site-selective absorption experiments were conducted on large unit cell crystals at a 3rd generation beamline, exclusively using existing equipment. The spectra generated were limited in scope but are an adequate proof of concept.

The purpose of this research is to investigate properties of diffusion processes in porous media. Porous media are modelled by random Sierpinski carpets, each carpet is constructed by mixing two different generators with the same linear size. Diffusion on porous media is studied by performing random walks on random Sierpinski carpets and is characterized by the random walk dimension $d_w$. In the first part of this work we study $d_w$ as a function of the ratio of constituents in a mixture. The simulation results show that the resulting $d_w$ can be the same as, higher or lower than $d_w$ of carpets made by a single constituent generator. In the second part, we discuss the influence of static external fields on the behavior of diffusion. The biased random walk is used to model these phenomena and we report on many simulations with different field strengths and field directions. The results show that one structural feature of Sierpinski carpets called traps can have a strong influence on the observed diffusion properties. In the third part, we investigate the effect of diffusion under the influence of external fields which change direction back and forth after a certain duration. The results show a strong dependence on the period of oscillation, the field strength and structural properties of the carpet.

This work explores two very different structural systems: n-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) and gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) suspended in a matrix of organic ligands. For a-Si:H, examination of the gas-phase concentration of dopant (1-6% PH3/SiH4) and argon diluent effects includes the temperature dependent conductivity, low-frequency electronic noise, and Raman spectroscopy to examine structure. It is found that a-Si:H samples grown with high dopant concentration or with argon dilution exhibit an anomalous hopping conduction mechanism with an exponent of p=0.75. An experimental approach is used to determine correlations between conduction parameters, such as the pre-exponential factor and the characteristic temperature, rather than an analysis of existing models to explain the anomalous conduction. From these results, the anomalous conduction is a result of a change in the shape of the density of states and not a shift of the Fermi level with dopant. Additionally, it is found that argon dilution increases the carrier mobility, reduces the doping efficiency, and causes a degradation of the short-range order. With AuNPs, a comparison of temperature dependent conductivity and low-frequency noise shows that the temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) is independent of the length of interparticle distance while the noise magnitude decreases.

When calculating scattering processes in theories involving massless gauge bosons, such as gluons in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), one encounters infrared (IR), or soft, divergences. To obtain precise predictions, it is important to have exact expressions for these IR divergences, which are present in any on-shell scattering amplitude. Due to their long wavelength, soft gluons factorise with respect to short-distance, or hard, interactions and can be captured by correlators of semi-infinite Wilson lines. The latter obey a renormalisation group equation, which gives rise to exponentiation. The exponent can be represented diagrammatically in terms of weighted sums of Feynman diagrams, called webs. A web with L external legs, each with ni gluon attachments, is denoted (n1; n2; : : : ; nL). In this way all soft gluon interactions can be described by a soft anomalous dimension. It is currently known at three loops with lightlike kinematics, and at two loops with general kinematics. Our work is a step towards a three-loop result in general kinematics. In recent years, much progress has been made in understanding the general physical properties of scattering amplitudes and in exploiting these properties to calculate specific amplitudes. At the same time, we have discovered a lot of structure underpinning the space of multiple polylogarithms, the functions in terms of which most known amplitudes can be written. General properties include analyticity, implying that scattering amplitudes are analytic functions except on certain branch cuts, and unitarity, or conservation of probability. These two properties are both exploited by unitarity cuts. Unitarity cuts provide a diagrammatic way of calculating the discontinuities of a Feynman diagram across its branch cuts, which is often simpler than calculating the diagram itself. From this discontinuity, the original function can be reconstructed by performing a dispersive integral. In this work, we extend the formalism of unitarity cuts to incorporate diagrams involving Wilson-line propagators, where the inverse propagator is linear in the loop momenta, rather than the quadratic case which has been studied before. To exploit this for the calculation of the soft anomalous dimension, we first found a suitable momentum-space IR regulator and corresponding prescription, and then derived the appropriate largest time equation (LTE). We find that, as in the case of the scalar diagrams, most terms contributing to the LTE turn out to be zero, albeit for different reasons. This simplifies calculations considerably. This formalism is then applied to the calculation of webs with non-lightlike Wilson lines. As a test, we first looked at webs that have been previously studied using other methods. It emerges that, when using the correct variables, the dispersive integrals one encounters here are trivial, illustrating why unitarity cuts are a particularly useful tool for the calculation of webs. We observe that our technique is especially efficient when looking at diagrams involving three-gluon vertices, such as the (1; 1; 1) web and the Y diagram between two lines. We then focus on three-loop diagrams connecting three or four external non-lightlike lines and involving a three-gluon vertex. We calculate the previously unknown three-loop three-leg (1; 1; 3) web in general kinematics. We obtain a result which agrees with the recently calculated lightlike limit. We also develop a technique to test our results numerically using the computer program SecDec, and we find agreement with our analytical result. The result for the (1; 1; 3) web can then be exploited to gain insight into the more complicated three-loop four-leg (1; 1; 1; 2) web. Indeed, the (1; 1; 1; 2) web reduces to the (1; 1; 3) web in a certain collinear limit. We propose an ansatz for the (1; 1; 1; 2) web in general kinematics, based on a conjectured basis of multiple polylogarithms. The result for the (1; 1; 3) web, together with the known result for the lightlike limit of the (1; 1; 1; 2) web, imposes strong constraints on the ansatz. Using these constraints, we manage to fix all but four coefficients in the ansatz. We fit the remaining coefficients numerically, but find that the quality of the fit is not good. We find possible explanations for this poor quality. This calculation is still a work in progress. Our results provide a major step towards the full calculation of the three-loop soft anomalous dimension for non-lightlike Wilson lines. We calculated new results for three-loop webs, and also deepened the understanding of webs in general. We confirm a conjecture about the functional dependence of the soft anomalous dimension on the cusp angles. We also confirm earlier findings about the symbol alphabet of the relevant functions. This confirms the remarkable simplicity found earlier in the expressions for the soft anomalous dimension.

The Normativity of the Mental and the Role of the Second Person’s Standpoint. On Davidson’s Footsteps”. I offer in this paper an elucidation of the normativity of the mental in terms of the second person’s standpoint, with the hope of opening a conceptual horizon that will allow us to go beyond Donald Davidson. Aiming at this, the paper is structured as follows. In the first part I present Davidson’s original response to the mind/body problem and reconstruct his argument in favour of the irreducibility of mental concepts thesis. In the second part I deal with the feature that the peculiarity of the mental bears in his system, that is, normativity. In the third section I explore and assess the davidsonian treatment of the first, second and third person standpoints with the aim of finally narrowing down my proposal. / En este trabajo ofrezco una elucidación de la normatividad de lo mental en términos de la perspectiva de segunda persona, con la esperanza de abrir un horizonte conceptual que nos permita ir más allá de Donald Davidson. A tal efecto, el artículo tiene la siguiente estructura. En la primera parte presento su original respuesta al problema mente/cuerpo y reconstruyo su argumentación a favor de la tesis de la irreducibilidad de los conceptos mentales. En la segunda parte me ocupo del rasgo que, en su sistema, porta la peculiaridad de lo mental, a saber: la normatividad. En la tercera sección exploro y evalúo el tratamiento davidsoniano de las perspectivas de primera, segunda y tercera persona con vistas a precisar, finalmente, mi propuesta.