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Within the likes of any highly contagious and unpredictable disease, lies a predictable and attainable growth rate that researchers can find in order to make logistical conclusions about that particular disease and its affected regions' counterparts. The foundation that researchers pull from when studying a particular disease and looking for its growth rate is the Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model, presented by a series of differential equations. The issue with the SIR model lies not in its complexity, but actually its simplicity and lack of a potentially high-finite amount of factors; the limit being bounded by the amount of data available for that particular factor. Our research involves the application of multiple regressions to pinpoint and identify our Covid lockdown periods, followed by the modification of the SIR model. This involved creating new model approximations such as the time-delayed SIR model and the reinfected SIR model in order to take into account factors such as incubation and reinfection, and get the lowest error discrepancy as possible for our infection rate. We were able to conclude that the more factors that we took into account, our error rate became lower and our results became more accurate. We could also identify outlier Metros and draw certain conclusions on performance level and the reasons behind them. We then moved on to find correlations, if any, between the infection rates and outside factors. We looked at demographic and weather data to demonstrate whether correlations appeared. We found that there are a few factors with high correlations, including graduate education and low temperatures.

In social systems, the evolution of interpersonal appraisals and individual opinions are not independent processes but intertwine with each other. Despite extensive studies on both opinion dynamics and appraisal dynamics separately, no previous work has ever combined these two processes together. In this paper, we propose a novel and intuitive model on the interplay between homophily-based appraisal dynamics and influence-based opinion dynamics. We assume that individuals' opinions are updated via the influence network constructed from their interpersonal appraisals, which are in turn updated based on the individual opinions via the homophily mechanism. By theoretical analysis, we characterize the set of equilibria and some transient behavior of our model. Moreover, we establish the equivalence among the convergence of the appraisal network to social balance, the modulus consensus of individual opinions, and the non-vanishing appraisals. Monte Carlo validations further show that the non-vanishing appraisals condition holds for generic initial conditions. Compared with previous works that explain the emergence of social balance via person-to-person homophily mechanism, our model provides an alternative explanation in terms of the person-to-entity homophily mechanism. In addition, our model also describes how individuals' opinions on multiple irrelevant issues become correlated and converge to modulus consensus over time-varying influence networks.

Time-delay systems are an important class of dynamical systems which provide a solid mathematical framework to deal with many application domains of interest ranging from biology, chemical, electrical, and mechanical engineering, to economics. However, the inherent complexity of such systems poses serious difficulties to control design, when control objectives depart from the standard ones investigated in the current literature, e.g. stabilization, regulation, and etc. In this paper we propose one approach to control design, which is based on the construction of symbolic models, where each symbolic state and each symbolic label correspond to an aggregate of continuous states and to an aggregate of input signals in the original system. The use of symbolic models offers a systematic methodology for control design in which constraints coming from software and hardware, interacting with the physical world, can be integrated. The main contribution of this paper is in showing that incrementally input-to-state stable time-delay systems do admit symbolic models that are approximately bisimilar to the original system, with a precision that can be rendered as small as desired. An algorithm is also presented which computes the proposed symbolic models. When the state and input spaces of time-delay systems are bounded, which is the case in many realistic situations, the proposed algorithm is shown to terminate in a finite number of steps., Comment: 12 pages

Switched systems constitute an important modeling paradigm faithfully describing many engineering systems in which software interacts with the physical world. Despite considerable progress on stability and stabilization of switched systems, the constant evolution of technology demands that we make similar progress with respect to different, and perhaps more complex, objectives. This paper describes one particular approach to address these different objectives based on the construction of approximately equivalent (bisimilar) symbolic models for switched systems. The main contribution of this paper consists in showing that under standard assumptions ensuring incremental stability of a switched system (i.e. existence of a common Lyapunov function, or multiple Lyapunov functions with dwell time), it is possible to construct a finite symbolic model that is approximately bisimilar to the original switched system with a precision that can be chosen a priori. To support the computational merits of the proposed approach, we use symbolic models to synthesize controllers for two examples of switched systems, including the boost DC-DC converter., Comment: 17 pages

Some twenty years ago we introduced a nonstandard matrix Riccati equation to solve the partial stochastic realization problem. In this paper we provide a new derivation of this equation in the context of system identification. This allows us to show that the nonstandard matrix Riccati equation is universal in the sense that it can be used to solve more general analytic interpolation problems by only changing certain parameters. Such interpolation problems are ubiquitous in systems and control. In this context we also discuss a question posed by R.E. Kalman in beginning of the 1970s.

The decision by the United Kingdom (UK) government in 2007 that the country should build a 33GW wind fleet, capable of generating 25 percent of the UK electricity requirement, was controversial. Proponents argued that it was the most attractive means of lowering the UK greenhouse gas emissions, whereas opponents noted that it would result in an unnecessary and burdensome additional expense to industry and households. Subsequently there have been calls for the wind fleet target to be further increased to perhaps 50 percent of demand. Although the National Grid has had little difficulty in accommodating the current output of about 10 percent of the total demand on the grid, this will not be the case for a substantially larger wind fleet. When the wind blows strongly, turbines shed wind which is surplus to demand, leading to significant reductions in generating efficiency. The purpose of the research described in this paper has been to develop a method for investigating the likely performance of future large wind fleets. The method relies on the use of mathematical models based on National Grid records for 2013 to 2015, each year being separately analysed. It was found that the incremental load factor of the wind fleet will be reduced to 63 percent of its current level should the wind fleet increase from its current size of 14GW to 35GW, assuming a base load of 15GW, Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, 4 tables

Familiar laws of physics are applied to study human relations, modelled by their world lines (worldlines, WLs) combined with social networks. We focus upon the simplest, basic element of any society: a married couple, stable due to the dynamic balance between attraction and repulsion. By building worldlines/worldsheets, we arrive at a two-level coordinate systems: one describing the behaviour of a string-like binary system (here, a married couple), the other one, external, corresponding to the motion of this couple in the medium, in which the worldline is embedded, sweeping there a string-like sheet or brane. The approach is illustrated by simple examples (semi-quantitative toy models) of worldlines/sheets, open to further extension, perfections and generalization. World lines (WLs) are combined with social networks (SN). Our innovation is in the application of basic physical laws, attraction and repulsion to human behaviour. Simple illustrative examples with empirical inputs taken from intuition and/or observation are appended. This is an initial attempt, open to unlimited applications., Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures

It is anticipated that penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) in power systems will increase further in the next decades mainly due to environmental issues. In the long term of several decades, which we refer to in terms of the future grid (FG), balancing between supply and demand will become dependent on demand actions including demand response (DR) and energy storage. So far, FG feasibility studies have not considered these new demand-side developments for modelling future demand. In Australia, installed rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation has been increasing significantly in recent years, and this is increasingly influence the nett load profile for FG feasibility studies. This paper proposes an aggregate nett load or demand model to be used at higher voltage levels considering the effect of rooftop PV, energy storage and DR for FG scenarios, which is inspired by the smart home concept. The proposed model is formulated as an optimization problem aiming at minimizing the electricity cost. As a case study, the effect of the load model is studied on the load profile, balancing and loadability of the Australian National Electricity Market in 2020 with the increased penetration of wind and solar generation., Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, 3 Tables, submitted to IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution

There has been vigorous debate on how different countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. To secure public safety, South Korea actively used personal information at the risk of personal privacy whereas France encouraged voluntary cooperation at the risk of public safety. In this article, after a brief comparison of contextual differences with France, we focus on South Korea's approaches to epidemiological investigations. To evaluate the issues pertaining to personal privacy and public health, we examine the usage patterns of original data, de-identification data, and encrypted data. Our specific proposal discusses the COVID index, which considers collective infection, outbreak intensity, availability of medical infrastructure, and the death rate. Finally, we summarize the findings and lessons for future research and the policy implications., Comment: 11pages