A critical problem in inversion of geophysical data is developing a stable inverse problem solution that can si­ multaneously resolve complicated geological structures. The traditional way to obtain a stable solution is based on maximum smoothness criteria. This approach, however, provides smoothed unfocused images of real geoelectri­ cal structures. Recently, a new approach to reconstruc­ tion...

A primary problem facing real-world robots is the question of which sensing actions should be performed at any given time. It is important that an agent be economical with its allocation of sensing when sensing is expensive or when there are many possible sensing operations available. Sensing is rational when the expected utility from the information obtained outweighs the execution cost of the...

Anisotropic multifunctional particles hold great promise for drug delivery, imaging, and construction of building blocks for dynamic mesostructures such as self-assembled tissues and 3-D electrical circuits. Of particular interest, multifunctional particles with unique barcodes have been suggested as diagnosis tools for rapid screening of biomolecules. For these applications, particle design is...

Focusing [1] is a proof-theoretic device to structure proof search in the sequent calculus: it provides a normal form to cut-free proofs in which the application of invertible and non-invertible inference rules is structured in two separate and disjoint phases. It is commonly believed that every “reasonable” sequent calculus has a natural focused version. Although stemming from proof-search con...

This paper deals with value ordering heuristics used in a complete tree search algorithm for solving binary constraint satisfaction problems. Their aim is to guide the search towards a solution. First, we show the limits of the traditional prospective approach, which uses the size of the domains of the still unassigned variables. In an advantageous context, where arc consistency is maintained a...

This paper refers to a diagnostic engine based on de Kleer’s GDE. It discusses two aspects of efficient focusing: First, an ATMS is presented that combines focusing techniques with the lazy label evaluation. Second, a candidate generator is presented that prunes the search space using a preference ordering and the knowledge about the last conflict that ruled out a diagnosis. The preferred candi...

Nanomaterials have unique physical and chemical properties that are useful for various consumer and industrial applications, but these very same properties may give rise to unique biological reactivity. This has led to mounting concerns over the safety of nanomaterials, and pressure to control the potential risks. The toxicological properties of metal, metal oxide nanoparticles, quantum dots, f...

The control of spatial propagation properties of narrow light beams such as divergence, focusing or imaging are main objectives in optics and photonics. In this letter, we propose and demonstrate experimentally a flat focusing mirror, based on an especially designed dielectric structure without any optical axis. More generally, it also enables imaging any light pattern in reflection. The flat f...

Focusing waves inside a medium has applications in various science and engineering fields, e.g., in medical imaging, ultrasound therapy, noninvasive surgery, nondestructive evaluation, and geophysics in areas such as imaging and focusing microseismic events. The goal in focusing is to concentrate the wave energy at a specific time and location inside a medium. Various techniques have been devis...

Model-based diagnosis is based on first-principles reasoning using the behavioral specifications of the primitive components of a device. Unless the computational architecture of the model-based reasoning engine is carefully designed, combinatorial explosion renders the approach useless for devices consisting of more than a handful of components. This paper analyzes the diverse origins of this ...