The shape of the urine stream — from biophysics to diagnostics

We develop a new computational model of capillary-waves in free-jet flows, and apply this to the problem of urological diagnosis in this first ever study of the biophysics behind the characteristic shape of the urine stream as it exits the urethral meatus. The computational fluid dynamics model is used to determine the shape of a liquid jet issuing from a non-axisymmetric orifice as it deforms under the action of surface tension. The computational results are verified with experimental modelling of the urine stream. We find that the shape of the stream can be used as an indicator of both the flow rate and orifice geometry. We performed volunteer trials which showed these fundamental correlations are also observed in vivo for male healthy volunteers and patients undergoing treatment for low flow rate. For healthy volunteers, self estimation of the flow shape provided an accurate estimation of peak flow rate (+-2%). However for the patients, the relationship between shape and flow rate suggested poor meatal opening during voiding. The results show that self measurement of the shape of the urine stream can be a useful diagnostic tool for medical practitioners since it provides a non-invasive method of measuring urine flow rate and urethral dilation

Stable quantum systems in anti-de Sitter space: Causality, independence and spectral properties

If a state is passive for uniformly accelerated observers in n-dimensional anti-de Sitter space-time (i.e. cannot be used by them to operate a perpetuum mobile), they will (a) register a universal value of the Unruh temperature, (b) discover a PCT symmetry, and (c) find that observables in complementary wedge-shaped regions necessarily commute with each other in this state. The stability properties of such a passive state induce a "geodesic causal structure" on AdS and concommitant locality relations. It is shown that observables in these complementary wedge-shaped regions fulfill strong additional independence conditions. In two-dimensional AdS these even suffice to enable the derivation of a nontrivial, local, covariant net indexed by bounded spacetime regions. All these results are model-independent and hold in any theory which is compatible with a weak notion of space-time localization. Examples are provided of models satisfying the hypotheses of these theorems.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure: dedicated to Jacques Bros on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Revised version: typos corrected; as to appear in J. Math. Phy

Block SOR for Kronecker structured representations

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The Kronecker structure of a hierarchical Markovian model (HMM) induces nested block partitionings in the transition matrix of its underlying Markov chain. This paper shows how sparse real Schur factors of certain diagonal blocks of a given partitioning induced by the Kronecker structure can be constructed from smaller component matrices and their real Schur factors. Furthermore, it shows how the column approximate minimum degree (COLAMD) ordering algorithm can be used to reduce fill-in of the remaining diagonal blocks that are sparse LU factorized. Combining these ideas, the paper proposes three-level block successive over-relaxation (BSOR) as a competitive steady state solver for HMMs. Finally, on a set of numerical experiments it demonstrates how these ideas reduce storage required by the factors of the diagonal blocks and improve solution time compared to an all LU factorization implementation of the BSOR solver. © 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Magnetoconductance switching in an array of oval quantum dots

Employing oval shaped quantum billiards connected by quantum wires as the building blocks of a linear quantum dot array, we calculate the ballistic magnetoconductance in the linear response regime. Optimizing the geometry of the billiards, we aim at a maximal finite- over zero-field ratio of the magnetoconductance. This switching effect arises from a relative phase change of scattering states in the oval quantum dot through the applied magnetic field, which lifts a suppression of the transmission characteristic for a certain range of geometry parameters. It is shown that a sustainable switching ratio is reached for a very low field strength, which is multiplied by connecting only a second dot to the single one. The impact of disorder is addressed in the form of remote impurity scattering, which poses a temperature dependent lower bound for the switching ratio, showing that this effect should be readily observable in experiments.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

The new radiation-hard optical links for the ATLAS pixel detector

The ATLAS detector is currently being upgraded with a new layer of pixel based charged particle tracking and a new arrangement of the services for the pixel detector. These upgrades require the replacement of the opto-boards previously used by the pixel detector. In this report we give details on the design and production of the new opto-boards.Comment: Presentation at the DPF 2013 Meeting of the American Physical Society Division of Particles and Fields, Santa Cruz, California, August 13-17, 201

Super-KMS functionals for graded-local conformal nets

Motivated by a few preceding papers and a question of R. Longo, we introduce super-KMS functionals for graded translation-covariant nets over R with superderivations, roughly speaking as a certain supersymmetric modification of classical KMS states on translation-covariant nets over R, fundamental objects in chiral algebraic quantum field theory. Although we are able to make a few statements concerning their general structure, most properties will be studied in the setting of specific graded-local (super-) conformal models. In particular, we provide a constructive existence and partial uniqueness proof of super-KMS functionals for the supersymmetric free field, for certain subnets, and for the super-Virasoro net with central charge c>= 3/2. Moreover, as a separate result, we classify bounded super-KMS functionals for graded-local conformal nets over S^1 with respect to rotations.Comment: 30 pages, revised version (to appear in Ann. H. Poincare

Comment on: Modular Theory and Geometry

In this note we comment on part of a recent article by B. Schroer and H.-W. Wiesbrock. Therein they calculate some new modular structure for the U(1)-current-algebra (Weyl-algebra). We point out that their findings are true in a more general setting. The split-property allows an extension to doubly-localized algebras.Comment: 13 pages, corrected versio

Self-verifying cellular automata

We study the computational capacity of self-verifying cellular automata with an emphasis on one-way information flow (SVOCA). A self-verifying device is a nondeterministic device whose nondeterminism is symmetric in the following sense. Each computation path can give one of the answers "yes", "no", or "do not know". For every input word, at least one computation path must give either the answer "yes" or "no", and the answers given must not be contradictory. We show that realtime SVOCA are strictly more powerful than realtime deterministic one-way cellular automata, since they can accept non-semilinear unary languages. It turns out that SVOCA can strongly be sped-up from lineartime to realtime. They are even capable to simulate any lineartime computation of deterministic two-way cellular automata. Closure properties and decidability problems are considered as well