Evidence for the health benefits of physical activity is overwhelming: physical activity is protective against type II diabetes, cardiovascular disease, breast and colon cancer, stroke, osteoporosis, depression, falls in older adults, and many other adverse health outcomes. Research also suggests that widespread physical inactivity exacts a heavy toll on the US economy, as well as on individual...

Private provision of public roads through build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts is increasing around the world. Under a BOT contract, a private firm would build a road, charge tolls to road users for a period, and then transfer the road to the government. By viewing a BOT contract as a combination of three variables of concession period, road capacity and toll charge, we study optimal BOT cont...

This work presents a two-level methodology for the optimal design and MINLP synthesis of flexible chemical processes with known probability distributions of uncertain parameters. This methodology comprises synthesis at 1) nominal level and 2) approximate stochastic level. Both levels rely on considerable reduction of discrete points. The first level provides good starting and flexible structure...

This paper describes an algorithm to calculate near-optimal minimum time trajectories for four wheeled omnidirectional vehicles, which can be used as part of a high-level path planner. The algorithm is based on a relaxed optimal control problem. It takes limited friction and vehicle dynamics into account, as encountered in high-performance omnidirectional vehicles. The low computational complex...

Lender losses on mortgage loans arise from a two-stage process. In the first stage, the borrower stops making payments if and when default is optimal. The second stage is a lengthy and costly period during which the lender employs legal remedies to obtain possession and execute a sale of the collateral. This research uses data on subprime mortgage losses to explore the role of borrower and coll...

A hierarchical control architecture for balancing comfort and energy consumption in buildings is presented. The control design is based on a simplified, yet accurate model of the temperature within each room of the building. The model is validated against real measurements. The control architecture comprises a first level that regulates low level quantities such as air flow, and a second level ...

Previous investigations into the optimal design of instructions for complex tasks have often failed to account for the possibility of individual differences in instruction efficacy. We examined how individuals with various cognitive styles differ in how they make use of and learn from instructions with differing levels of detail. Participants completed a realistic photo-manipulation task and a ...

This paper concerns the stability analysis of a new vision-based control which is invariant to camera intrinsic parameters. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the local asymptotic stability show that the control law is robust in the presence of large calibration errors. Local stability implies that the system can accurately track a path in the invariant space. Even if the camera is unc...