Bell's inequality violation by dynamical Casimir photons in a superconducting microwave circuit

We study the Bell's inequality violation by dynamical Casimir radiation with pseudospin measurement. We consider a circuit quantum electrodynamical set-up where a relativistically moving mirror is simulated by variable external magnetic flux in a SQUID terminating a superconducting-microwave waveguide. We analytically obtain expectation values of the Bell operator optimized with respect to channel orientations, in terms of the system parameters. We consider the effects of local noise in the microwave field modes, asymmetry between the field modes resulting from nonzero detuning, and signal loss. Our analysis provides ranges of the above experimental parameters for which Bell violation can be observed. We show that Bell violation can be observed in this set-up up to 40 mK temperature as well as up to 65 % signal loss

Resonance interaction of two entangled atoms accelerating between two mirrors

We study the resonance interaction between two entangled identical atoms coupled to a quantized scalar field vacuum, and accelerating between two mirrors. We show how radiative processes of the two-atom entangled state can be manipulated by the atomic configuration undergoing noninertial motion. Incorporating the Heisenberg picture with symmetric operator ordering, the vacuum fluctuation and the self-reaction contributions are distinguished. We evaluate the resonance energy shift and the relaxation rate of energy of the two atom system from the self-reaction contribution in the Heisenberg equation of motion. We investigate the variation of these two quantities with relevant parameters such as atomic acceleration, interatomic distance and position with respect to the boundaries. We show that both the energy level shift and the relaxation rate can be controlled by tuning the above parameters

Rehabilitation Exercise Repetition Segmentation and Counting using Skeletal Body Joints

Physical exercise is an essential component of rehabilitation programs that improve quality of life and reduce mortality and re-hospitalization rates. In AI-driven virtual rehabilitation programs, patients complete their exercises independently at home, while AI algorithms analyze the exercise data to provide feedback to patients and report their progress to clinicians. To analyze exercise data, the first step is to segment it into consecutive repetitions. There has been a significant amount of research performed on segmenting and counting the repetitive activities of healthy individuals using raw video data, which raises concerns regarding privacy and is computationally intensive. Previous research on patients' rehabilitation exercise segmentation relied on data collected by multiple wearable sensors, which are difficult to use at home by rehabilitation patients. Compared to healthy individuals, segmenting and counting exercise repetitions in patients is more challenging because of the irregular repetition duration and the variation between repetitions. This paper presents a novel approach for segmenting and counting the repetitions of rehabilitation exercises performed by patients, based on their skeletal body joints. Skeletal body joints can be acquired through depth cameras or computer vision techniques applied to RGB videos of patients. Various sequential neural networks are designed to analyze the sequences of skeletal body joints and perform repetition segmentation and counting. Extensive experiments on three publicly available rehabilitation exercise datasets, KIMORE, UI-PRMD, and IntelliRehabDS, demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method compared to previous methods. The proposed method enables accurate exercise analysis while preserving privacy, facilitating the effective delivery of virtual rehabilitation programs.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 2 table

Strike-Slip Faulting in the Eastern Himalaya and Indo-Burman Plate Boundary Systems

EGU General Assembly in Vienna, Austria, 7–12 April 2019Northeast India is sandwiched between the seismically active plate boundaries of the Eastern Himalaya to the north and the Indo-Burman subduction zone to the east. This plate boundary system is different from the central Nepal Himalaya, due to oblique convergence across two orthogonal plate boundaries, resulting in a zone of distributed deformation both within and away from the plate boundary. Previous studies of spatial distribution and source mechanism of earthquakes have shown that the N20E convergence between India and Tibet is partitioned into N-S underthrusting and E-W subduction of the Indian plate beneath the Himalaya and Burma micro-plate, respectively. However, south-west of the plate boundaries, the middle-to-lower crust deforms by strike-slip faulting in the Kopilli Fault Zone (KFZ); upper-to-mid crustal strike-slip faulting along the western Brahmaputra Valley; and lower crustal strike-slip faulting beneath the Bengal Basin. Strike-slip faulting in the KFZ also extends northwards beneath the Eastern Himalaya and southeastward beneath the Naga fold-thrust belt. In order to understand the role of these strike-slip faults in accommodating the GPS derived convergence across northeast India, we study the source mechanism of recent earthquakes using teleseismic (for earthquakes with Mw>5) and local (4.0<Mw<5) waveform inversion. Our results of earthquake source parameters, directivity effects, and source mechanisms reveal dextral strike-slip faults in the KFZ and the western Brahmaputra Valley. We conjecture that the strike-slip faults in the Bengal Basin are reactivated passive continental margin rift faults with left-lateral motion. We will combine our results with previous studies of well-constrained source mechanisms and GPS velocity field to unravel the kinematics of active deformation across northeast India

Additive Manufacturing: Reproducibility of Metallic Parts

The present study deals with the properties of five different metals/alloys (Al-12Si, Cu-10Sn and 316L—face centered cubic structure, CoCrMo and commercially pure Ti (CP-Ti)—hexagonal closed packed structure) fabricated by selective laser melting. The room temperature tensile properties of Al-12Si samples show good consistency in results within the experimental errors. Similar reproducible results were observed for sliding wear and corrosion experiments. The other metal/alloy systems also show repeatable tensile properties, with the tensile curves overlapping until the yield point. The curves may then follow the same path or show a marginal deviation (~10 MPa) until they reach the ultimate tensile strength and a negligible difference in ductility levels (of ~0.3%) is observed between the samples. The results show that selective laser melting is a reliable fabrication method to produce metallic materials with consistent and reproducible properties

Physio-climatic controls on vulnerability of watersheds to climate and land use change across the United States

Understanding how a watershed's physio-climatic characteristics affect its vulnerability to environmental (climatic and land use) change is crucial for managing these complex systems. In this study, we combine the strengths of recently developed exploratory modelling frameworks and comparative hydrology to quantify the relationship between watershed's vulnerability and its physio-climatic characteristics. We propose a definition of vulnerability that can be used by a diverse range of water system managers and is useful in the presence of large uncertainties in drivers of environmental change. This definition is related to adverse climate change and land use thresholds that are quantified using a recently developed exploratory modelling approach. In this way, we estimate the vulnerability of 69 watersheds in the United States to climate and land use change. We explore definitions of vulnerability that describe average or extreme flow conditions, as well as others that are relevant from the point of view of instream organisms. In order to understand the dominant controls on vulnerability, we correlate these indices with watershed's characteristics describing its topography, geology, drainage, climate, and land use. We find that mean annual flow is more vulnerable to reductions in precipitation in watersheds with lower average soil permeability, lower baseflow index, lower forest cover, higher topographical wetness index, and vice-versa. Our results also indicate a potential mediation of climate change impacts by regional groundwater systems. By developing such relationships across a large range of watersheds, such information can potentially be used to assess the vulnerability of ungauged watersheds to uncertain environmental change