Testing conformal mapping with kitchen aluminum foil

We report an experimental verification of conformal mapping with kitchen aluminum foil. This experiment can be reproduced in any laboratory by undergraduate students and it is therefore an ideal experiment to introduce the concept of conformal mapping. The original problem was the distribution of the electric potential in a very long plate. The correct theoretical prediction was recently derived by A. Czarnecki (Can. J. Phys. 92, 1297 (2014))

Effetto del pre-stress sul comportamento a fatica di elementi intagliati in acciaio inossidabile

Il trattamento di pretensionamento, o pre-stress, consiste nel sovraccaricare gli elementi di macchina con valori delle forze applicate tali da eccedere localmente, nei punti critici, lo sforzo di snervamento del materiale. In questo modo è possibile generare tensioni residue superficiali di compressione che contribuiscono a migliorare la resistenza a fatica degli elementi trattati. In questo lavoro si analizza il comportamento di provini intagliati di acciaio inox, precedentemente pretensionati e poi sollecitati a fatica assiale. La geometria dei provini è stata disegnata in modo da riprodurre nella maniera più fedele l???andamento degli sforzi nelle zone critiche rispetto all???elemento di macchina considerato. La misura degli sforzi residui e della rugosità, oltre all???analisi delle superfici di frattura hanno permesso di completare la caratterizzazione del comportamento dei provini dopo il trattamento di pre-stress. I risultati sono discussi criticamente e permettono di trarre indicazioni utili in sede di progetto

Failure analysis of a shaft of a car lift system

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A new experiment to search for the invisible decay of the orthopositronium

We propose an experiment to search for invisible decays of orthopositronium (o-Ps) with a 90% confidence sensitivity in the branching ratio as low as $10^{-8}$. Evidence for this decay mode would unambigously signal new physics: either the existence of extra--dimensions or fractionally charged particles or new light gauge bosons. The experimental approach and the detector components of the proposed experiment are described.Comment: Based on a talk given at Workshop on Positronium Physics, Zurich, Switzerland, 30-31 May 200

A comprehensive analysis of the dark matter direct detection experiments in the mirror dark matter framework

Mirror dark matter offers a framework to explain the existing dark matter direct detection experiments. Here we confront this theory with the most recent experimental data, paying attention to the various known systematic uncertainties, in quenching factor, detector resolution, galactic rotational velocity and velocity dispersion. We perform a detailed analysis of the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments assuming a negligible channeling fraction and find that the data can be fully explained within the mirror dark matter framework. We also show that the mirror dark matter candidate can explain recent data from the CDMS/Ge, EdelweissII and CRESSTII experiments and we point out ways in which the theory can be further tested in the near future.Comment: about 30 page

Exploring the interaction between handedness and body parts ownership by means of the Implicit Association Test

The experience of owning a body is built upon the integration of exteroceptive, interoceptive, and proprioceptive signals. Recently, it has been suggested that motor signals could be particularly important in producing the feeling of body part ownership. One thus may hypothesize that the strength of this feeling may not be spatially uniform; rather, it could vary as a function of the degree by which different body parts are involved in motor behavior. Given that our dominant hand plays a leading role in our motor behavior, we hypothesized that it could be more strongly associated with one’s self compared to its non-dominant counterpart. To explore whether this possible asymmetry manifests as a stronger implicit association of the right hand (vs left hand) with the self, we administered the Implicit Association Test to a group of 70 healthy individuals. To control whether this asymmetric association is human-body specific, we further tested whether a similar asymmetry characterizes the association between a right (vs left) animal body part with the concept of self, in an independent sample of subjects (N = 70, 140 subjects total). Our results revealed a linear relationship between the magnitude of the implicit association between the right hand with the self and the subject’s handedness. In detail, the strength of this association increased as a function of hand preference. Critically, the handedness score did not predict the association of the right-animal body part with the self. These findings suggest that, in healthy individuals, the dominant and non-dominant hands are differently perceived at an implicit level as belonging to the self. We argue that such asymmetry may stem from the different roles that the two hands play in our adaptive motor behavior

In vivo estimation of the shoulder joint center of rotation using magneto-inertial sensors: MRI-based accuracy and repeatability assessment

Background: The human gleno-humeral joint is normally represented as a spherical hinge and its center of rotation is used to construct humerus anatomical axes and as reduction point for the computation of the internal joint moments. The position of the gleno-humeral joint center (GHJC) can be estimated by recording ad hoc shoulder joint movement following a functional approach. In the last years, extensive research has been conducted to improve GHJC estimate as obtained from positioning systems such as stereo-photogrammetry or electromagnetic tracking. Conversely, despite the growing interest for wearable technologies in the field of human movement analysis, no studies investigated the problem of GHJC estimation using miniaturized magneto-inertial measurement units (MIMUs). The aim of this study was to evaluate both accuracy and precision of the GHJC estimation as obtained using a MIMU-based methodology and a functional approach. Methods: Five different functional methods were implemented and comparatively assessed under different experimental conditions (two types of shoulder motions: cross and star type motion; two joint velocities: ωmax = 90°/s, 180°/s; two ranges of motion: Θ = 45°, 90°). Validation was conducted on five healthy subjects and true GHJC locations were obtained using magnetic resonance imaging. Results: The best performing methods (NAP and SAC) showed an accuracy in the estimate of the GHJC between 20.6 and 21.9 mm and repeatability values between 9.4 and 10.4 mm. Methods performance did not show significant differences for the type of arm motion analyzed or a reduction of the arm angular velocity (180°/s and 90°/s). In addition, a reduction of the joint range of motion (90° and 45°) did not seem to influence significantly the GHJC position estimate except in a few subject-method combinations. Conclusions: MIMU-based functional methods can be used to estimate the GHJC position in vivo with errors of the same order of magnitude than those obtained using traditionally stereo-photogrammetric techniques. The methodology proposed seemed to be robust under different experimental conditions. The present paper was awarded as "SIAMOC Best Methodological Paper 2016"