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Yan Ma

Publications and source records attributed to Yan Ma.

69 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

Influence of microstructure and atomic-scale chemistry on iron ore reduction with hydrogen at 700°C

With 1.85 billion tons produced per year, steel is the most important material class in terms of volume and environmental impact. While steel is a sustainability enabler, for instance through lightweight design, magnetic devices, and efficient turbines, its primary production is not. For 3000 years, iron has been reduced from ores using carbon. Today 2.1 tons CO2 are produced per ton of steel, causing 30% of the global CO2 emissions in the manufacturing sector, which translates to 6.5% of the global CO2 emissions. These numbers qualify iron- and steel-making as the largest single industrial greenhouse gas emission source. The envisaged future industrial route to mitigate these CO2 emissions targets green hydrogen as a reductant. Although this reaction has been studied for decades, its kinetics is not well understood, particularly during the wustite reduction step which is dramatically slower than the hematite reduction. Many rate-limiting factors of this reaction are set by the micro- and nanostructure as well as the local chemistry of the ores. Their quantification allows knowledge-driven ore preparation and process optimization to make the hydrogen-based reduction of iron ores commercially viable, enabling the required massive CO2 mitigation to ease global warming. Here, we report on a multi-scale structure and composition analysis of iron reduced from hematite with pure H2, reaching down to near-atomic scale.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

Binary Mean Field Stochastic Games: Stationary Equilibria and Comparative Statics

This paper considers mean field games in a multi-agent Markov decision process (MDP) framework. Each player has a continuum state and binary action, and benefits from the improvement of the condition of the overall population. Based on an infinite horizon discounted individual cost, we show existence of a stationary equilibrium, and prove its uniqueness under a positive externality condition. We further analyze comparative statics of the stationary equilibrium by quantitatively determining the impact of the effort cost.

math.OC↗

Security evaluation of quantum key distribution with weak basis-choice flaws

Quantum key distribution (QKD) can share an unconditional secure key between two remote parties, but the deviation between theory and practice will break the security of the generated key. In this paper, we evaluate the security of QKD with weak basis-choice flaws, in which the random bits used by Alice and Bob are weakly controlled by Eve. Based on the definition of Li \textit{et al.} [Sci. Rep. 5, 16200 (2015)] and GLLP's analysis, we obtain a tight and analytical bound to estimate the phase error and key rate for both the single photon source and the weak coherent source. Our approach largely increases the key rate from that of the original approach. Finally, we investigate and confirm the security of BB84-QKD with a practical commercial devices.

quant-ph↗

Detecting causality in multivariate time series via non-uniform embedding

Causal analysis based on non-uniform embedding schemes is an important way to detect the underlying interactions between dynamic systems. However, there are still some obstacles to estimate high-dimensional conditional mutual information and form optimal mixed embedding vector in traditional non-uniform embedding schemes. In this study, we present a new non-uniform embedding method framed in information theory to detect causality for multivariate time series, named LM-PMIME, which integrates the low-dimensional approximation of conditional mutual information and the mixed search strategy for the construction of the mixed embedding vector. We apply the proposed method to simulations of linear stochastic, nonlinear stochastic, and chaotic systems, demonstrating its superiority over partial conditional mutual information from mixed embedding (PMIME) method. Moreover, the proposed method works well for multivariate time series with weak coupling strengths, especially for chaotic systems. In the actual application, we show its applicability to epilepsy multichannel electrocorticographic recordings.

stat.ME↗

Linear quadratic mean field games with a major player: The multi-scale approach

This paper considers linear quadratic (LQ) mean field games with a major player and analyzes an asymptotic solvability problem. It starts with a large-scale system of coupled dynamic programming equations and applies a re-scaling technique introduced in Huang and Zhou (2018a, 2018b) to derive a set of Riccati equations in lower dimensions, the solvability of which determines the necessary and sufficient condition for asymptotic solvability. We next derive the mean field limit of the strategies and the value functions. Finally, we show that the two decentralized strategies can be interpreted as the best responses of a major player and a representative minor player embedded in an infinite population, which have the property of consistent mean field approximations.

math.OC↗

Edge-guided Non-local Fully Convolutional Network for Salient Object Detection

Fully Convolutional Neural Network (FCN) has been widely applied to salient object detection recently by virtue of high-level semantic feature extraction, but existing FCN based methods still suffer from continuous striding and pooling operations leading to loss of spatial structure and blurred edges. To maintain the clear edge structure of salient objects, we propose a novel Edge-guided Non-local FCN (ENFNet) to perform edge guided feature learning for accurate salient object detection. In a specific, we extract hierarchical global and local information in FCN to incorporate non-local features for effective feature representations. To preserve good boundaries of salient objects, we propose a guidance block to embed edge prior knowledge into hierarchical feature maps. The guidance block not only performs feature-wise manipulation but also spatial-wise transformation for effective edge embeddings. Our model is trained on the MSRA-B dataset and tested on five popular benchmark datasets. Comparing with the state-of-the-art methods, the proposed method achieves the best performance on all datasets.

cs.CV↗

Study on the spectral reconstruction of typical surface types based on spectral library and principal component analysis

To meet the demanding of spectral reconstruction in the visible and near-infrared wavelength, the spectral reconstruction method for typical surface types is discussed based on the USGS /ASTER spectral library and principal component analysis (PCA). A new spectral reconstructed model is proposed by the information of several typical bands instead of all of the wavelength bands, and a linear combination spectral reconstruction model is also discussed. By selecting 4 typical spectral datasets including green vegetation, bare soil, rangeland and concrete in the spectral range of 400-900 nm, the PCA results show that 6 principal components could characterized the spectral dataset, and the relative reconstructed errors are smaller than 2%. If only 6-7 selected typical bands are employed to spectral reconstruction for all the surface reflectance in 400-900 nm, except that the reconstructed error of green vegetation is about 3.3%, the relative errors of other 3 datasets are all smaller than 1.6%. The correlation coefficients of those 4 datasets are all larger than 0.99, which can effectively satisfy the needs of spectral reconstruction. In addition, based on the spectral library and the linear combination model of 4 common used bands of satellite remote sensing such as 490, 555, 670 and 865 nm, the reconstructed errors are smaller than 8.5% in high reflectance region and smaller than 1.5% in low reflectance region respectively, which basically meet the needs of spectral reconstruction. This study can provide a reference value for the surface reflectance processing and spectral reconstruction in satellite remote sensing research.

eess.IV↗

RGB-T Image Saliency Detection via Collaborative Graph Learning

Image saliency detection is an active research topic in the community of computer vision and multimedia. Fusing complementary RGB and thermal infrared data has been proven to be effective for image saliency detection. In this paper, we propose an effective approach for RGB-T image saliency detection. Our approach relies on a novel collaborative graph learning algorithm. In particular, we take superpixels as graph nodes, and collaboratively use hierarchical deep features to jointly learn graph affinity and node saliency in a unified optimization framework. Moreover, we contribute a more challenging dataset for the purpose of RGB-T image saliency detection, which contains 1000 spatially aligned RGB-T image pairs and their ground truth annotations. Extensive experiments on the public dataset and the newly created dataset suggest that the proposed approach performs favorably against the state-of-the-art RGB-T saliency detection methods.

cs.CV↗

Form factors for semileptonic $B_{c}$ decays into $η^{(')}$ and Glueball

We calculated the form factors of $B_{c}$ transitions into $η^{(')}$ meson and pseudoscalar Glueball, where the $B_{c}$ meson is a bound state of two different heavy flavors and is treated as a nonrelativistic state, while the mesons $η^{(')}$ and Glueball are treated as light-cone objects since their masses are smaller enough compared to the transition momentum scale. The mechanism of two gluon scattering into $η^{(')}$ dominated the form factors of $B_{c}$ decays into $η^{(')}$. We considered the $η-η'-$Glueball mixing effect, and then obtained their influences on the form factors. The form factors of $B_{c}$ transitions into $η^{(')}$ and pseudoscalar Glueball in the maximum momentum recoil point were obtained as follows: $f^η_{0,+}(q^2=0)=1.38^{+0.00}_{-0.02}\times 10^{-3}$,$f^{η'}_{0,+}(q^2=0)=0.89^{+0.11}_{-0.10}\times 10^{-2}$ and $f^{G}_{0,+}(q^2=0)=0.44^{+0.13}_{-0.05}\times 10^{-2}$. Also phenomenological discussions for semileptonic $B_{c}\toη^{(')}+\ell+\barν_\ell$, $B_{c}\to G(0^{-+})+\ell+\barν_\ell$ and $D_{s}\to η+\ell+\barν_\ell$ decays are given.

hep-ph↗

A Fourier-Bessel method with a regularization strategy for the boundary value problems of the Helmholtz equation

This paper is concerned with the Fourier-Bessel method for the boundary value problems of the Helmholtz equation in a smooth simply connected domain. Based on the denseness of Fourier-Bessel functions, the problem can be approximated by determining the unknown coefficients in the linear combination. By the boundary conditions, an operator equation can be obtained. We derive a lower bound for the smallest singular value of the operator, and obtain a stability and convergence result for the regularized solution with a suitable choice of the regularization parameter. Numerical experiments are also presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

math.NA↗

Weak decays of $B_c$ into two hadrons under flavor SU(3) symmetry

A large number of $B_c$ meson events have been recorded at the LHCb detector, especially some two-body hadronic decay modes. We analyzed the weak decays of the $B_c$ meson into two hadron states under the flavor SU(3) symmetry. The relations among amplitudes of $B_c$ into $ D+P(V)$, $B+P(V)$, $P(V)+P(V)$, $T_8+\bar T_8$ and $T_{10}+\bar T_{10}$ were investigated systematically, where $P$ ( $V$) denotes a light pseudoscalar (vector) meson and $T_{8,10}$ denotes a light baryon. The $η-η'$ mixing and $ω-ϕ$ mixing effects are also considered for the phenomenological discussions. We obtained the relations among decay widths of different $B_c$ decay channels. These results are helpful to study the two-body decay properties of the $B_c$ meson and test the flavor SU(3) symmetry.

hep-ph↗

Relativistic corrections to the form factors of $B_c$ into $S$-wave Charmonium

We investigate the form factors of $B_c$ meson into $S$-wave charmonium within the nonrelativistic QCD effective theory and obtain the next-to-leading order relativistic corrections to the form factors, where both the $B_c$ meson and the charmonium are treated as the nonrelativistic bound states. Treating the charm quark as a light quark in the limit \ $m_c/m_b\to 0$, some form factors are identical at the maximum recoil point, which are consistent with the predictions in the heavy-quark effective theory and the large-energy effective theory. Considering that the branching ratios of $B^+_c \to J/ψD_s^+$ and $B^+_c \to J/ψD_s^{*+}$ have been measured by the LHCb and ATLAS Collaborations recently, we employ the form factors of $B_c$ meson into $S$-wave charmonium at the next-to-leading order accuracy to these two decay channels and obtain more precise predictions of their decay rates. Numerical results indicate that the factorizable diagrams dominate the contribution in these two channels, while the colour-suppressed and the annihilation diagrams contribute less than 10 percent. Our results are consistent with the LHCb and ATLAS data.

hep-ph↗

Mean Field Stochastic Games with Binary Action Spaces and Monotone Costs

This paper considers mean field games in a multi-agent Markov decision process (MDP) framework. Each player has a continuum state and binary action. By active control, a player can bring its state to a resetting point. All players are coupled through their cost functions. The structural property of the individual strategies is characterized in terms of threshold policies when the mean field game admits a solution. We further introduce a stationary equation system of the mean field game and analyze uniqueness of its solution under positive externalities.

math.OC↗

Dynamic Deferral of Workload for Capacity Provisioning in Data Centers

Recent increase in energy prices has led researchers to find better ways for capacity provisioning in data centers to reduce energy wastage due to the variation in workload. This paper explores the opportunity for cost saving utilizing the flexibility from the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and proposes a novel approach for capacity provisioning under bounded latency requirements of the workload. We investigate how many servers to be kept active and how much workload to be delayed for energy saving while meeting every deadline. We present an offline LP formulation for capacity provisioning by dynamic deferral and give two online algorithms to determine the capacity of the data center and the assignment of workload to servers dynamically. We prove the feasibility of the online algorithms and show that their worst case performance are bounded by a constant factor with respect to the offline formulation. We validate our algorithms on a MapReduce workload by provisioning capacity on a Hadoop cluster and show that the algorithms actually perform much better in practice compared to the naive `follow the workload' provisioning, resulting in 20-40% cost-savings.

cs.NI↗

Load Balancing Strategies to Solve Flowshop Scheduling on Parallel Computing

This paper first presents a parallel solution for the Flowshop Scheduling Problem in parallel environment, and then proposes a novel load balancing strategy. The proposed Proportional Fairness Strategy (PFS) takes computational performance of computing process sets into account, and assigns additional load to computing nodes proportionally to their evaluated performance. In order to efficiently utilize the power of parallel resource, we also discuss the data structure used in communications among computational nodes and design an optimized data transfer strategy. This data transfer strategy combined with the proposed load balancing strategy have been implemented and tested on a super computer consisted of 86 CPUs using MPI as the middleware. The results show that the proposed PFS achieves better performance in terms of computing time than the existing Adaptive Contracting Within Neighborhood Strategy. We also show that the combination of both the Proportional Fairness Strategy and the proposed data transferring strategy achieves additional 13~15% improvement in efficiency of parallelism.

cs.NI↗