Improved convergence theorems for bubble clusters. I. The planar case

We describe a quantitative construction of almost-normal diffeomorphisms between embedded orientable manifolds with boundary to be used in the study of geometric variational problems with stratified singular sets. We then apply this construction to isoperimetric problems for planar bubble clusters. In this setting we develop an improved convergence theorem, showing that a sequence of almost-minimizing planar clusters converging in $L^1$ to a limit cluster has actually to converge in a strong $C^{1,\alpha}$-sense. Applications of this improved convergence result to the classification of isoperimetric clusters and the qualitative description of perturbed isoperimetric clusters are also discussed. Analogous results for three-dimensional clusters are presented in part two, while further applications are discussed in some companion papers.Comment: 50 pages, 1 figures. Expanded overview sectio

Reproducibility and speed of landmarking process in cephalometric analysis using two input devices: mouse-driven cursor versus pen

To define if the new portable appliances, like smartphone, iPad, small laptop and tablet can be used in cephalometric tracing without dropping out the validity of any measurement. METHODS:We investigated and compared the reproducibility and the speed of landmarks identification process on lateral X-rays in two input devices: a mouse-driven cursor and a pen used as input means in mobile devices. One expert located 22 landmarks on 15 lateral X-rays in a repeated measure design two times, at time T1 and T2, after at least one month. The Intraclass Correlation coefficient was used to evaluate the reproducibility for each landmark tracing and the agreement between the value derived from both input devices. Also, the mean errors in measurements, the standard deviation and the Friedman Test significans (P < 0.05) between both input were statistically evaluated. RESULTS:All landmarks had a high agreement and the Friedman Test indicated statistically significant differences (P<0.05) for the identification of Na, Po, Pt, PNS, Ba, Pg, Gn, UIE, UIA, APOcc and PPOcc landmarks. CONCLUSIONS:Even if the mouse input give higher agreement for landmark tracing the differences are really minimal and they can be ignored in private practice. We suggest the adequacy of pen input in clinical setting

Phenomenology at the LHC of composite particles from strongly interacting Standard Model fermions via four-fermion operators of NJL type

A new physics scenario shows that four-fermion operators of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) type have a strong-coupling UV fixed point, where composite fermions $F$ (bosons $\Pi$) form as bound states of three (two) SM elementary fermions and they couple to their constituents via effective contact interactions at the composite scale $\Lambda \approx {\cal O}$(TeV). We present a phenomenological study to investigate such composite particles at the LHC by computing the production cross sections and decay widths of composite fermions in the context of the relevant experiments at the LHC with $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}={\rm 13}$ TeV and $\sqrt{s}={\rm 14}$ TeV. Systematically examining all the different composite particles $F$ and the signatures with which they can manifest, we found a vast spectrum of composite particles $F$ that has not yet been explored at the LHC. Recasting the recent CMS results of the resonant channel $pp\rightarrow e^+F \rightarrow e^+e^- q\bar{q}'$, we find that the composite fermion mass $m_F$ below 4.25 TeV is excluded for $\Lambda$/$m_F$ = 1. We further highlight the region of parameter space where this specific composite particle $F$ can appear using 3 ab$^{-1}$, expected by the High-Luminosity LHC, computing 3 and 5 $\sigma$ contour plots of its statistical significance.Comment: To appear in EPJC. This revised version expands the search for composite fermion F considering all its possible flavors and topologies and highlighting the signatures not yet investigated at LH

An Evaluation of Cellular Neural Networks for the Automatic Identification of Cephalometric Landmarks on Digital Images

Several efforts have been made to completely automate cephalometric analysis by automatic landmark search. However, accuracy obtained was worse than manual identification in every study. The analogue-to-digital conversion of X-ray has been claimed to be the main problem. Therefore the aim of this investigation was to evaluate the accuracy of the Cellular Neural Networks approach for automatic location of cephalometric landmarks on softcopy of direct digital cephalometric X-rays. Forty-one, direct-digital lateral cephalometric radiographs were obtained by a Siemens Orthophos DS Ceph and were used in this study and 10 landmarks (N, A Point, Ba, Po, Pt, B Point, Pg, PM, UIE, LIE) were the object of automatic landmark identification. The mean errors and standard deviations from the best estimate of cephalometric points were calculated for each landmark. Differences in the mean errors of automatic and manual landmarking were compared with a 1-way analysis of variance. The analyses indicated that the differences were very small, and they were found at most within 0.59 mm. Furthermore, only few of these differences were statistically significant, but differences were so small to be in most instances clinically meaningless. Therefore the use of X-ray files with respect to scanned X-ray improved landmark accuracy of automatic detection. Investigations on softcopy of digital cephalometric X-rays, to search more landmarks in order to enable a complete automatic cephalometric analysis, are strongly encouraged

Improved convergence theorems for bubble clusters. I. The planar case

We develop an "improved convergence theorem" for a case study variational problem with singularities, namely, the isoperimetric problem on planar bubble clusters. We exploit this theorem in the description of isoperimetric clusters, possibly perturbed by a potential. Our methods are not specific to bubble clusters, and should provide a starting point to address similar issues in other variational problems where minimizers are known to possibly develop singularities. Further applications and extensions are discussed in companion papers

Sharp stability inequalities for planar double bubbles

In this paper we address the global stability problem for double-bubbles in the plane. This is accomplished by combining the improved convergence theorem for planar clusters developed in [8] with an ad hoc analysis of the problem, which addresses the delicate interaction between the (possible) dislocation of singularities and the multiple-volumes constraint.Sharp stability inequalities for planar double bubbles are prove

A multiscale feature extraction approach for 3D range images

This paper presents a multiscale feature extraction technique for 3D range images. Optimized and improved 3D Gaussian filtering and saliency map computation have been conceived jointly to the exploitation of connectivity relationships naturally induced by the 2D acquisition grid. The proposed algorithmic and implementation solutions guarantee good repeatability of detected features on different views and demonstrated superior computational performance compared to other known approaches

A Novel Human Machine Interface for Advanced Building Controls and Diagnostics

A new generation of Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) for building automation systems is needed to allow facility managers to leverage the potential of advanced controls and diagnostics. In this paper we will describe a design process and the end product, a novel HMI prototype. This novel system is an integration of advanced algorithms, an underlying software architecture, building equipment, and the human operators that use it. Recent developments in building controls and diagnostics techniques promise to improve occupants comfort while minimizing energy consumption. Advanced diagnostics algorithms can not only detect equipment failures and anomalous behaviors but also estimate the energy and comfort impact of faults. New sophisticated control schemes regulate a building based on past and future conditions rather than a static model. They can also automatically adapt to equipment failures to maintain the highest comfort given the available resources. There are several hurdles that must be overcome to effectively deploy these techniques. The perceived algorithmic difficulty of these approaches and the absence of proper tools to leverage them create a gap between what we know is computationally possible and operators in the field. One of the biggest problems is that current Building Management Systems (BMS) are not designed to natively support these advanced capabilities. As a part of the Department of Energy (DoE) sponsored Energy Efficient Building Hub (EEBHub), a team led by UTRC prototyped a new HMI that natively supports a variety of advance features. Within the EEBHub, several academic and industrial teams are experimenting with new technologies to reduce the energy footprint of buildings. In collaboration with these teams, UTRC integrated novel diagnostic and control techniques with building automation infrastructure to better understand the possibilities of a new HMI for building applications

Butterfly support for o diagonal coeficients and boundedness of solutions to quasilinear elliptic systems

We consider quasilinear elliptic systems in divergence form. In general,we cannot expect thatweak solutions are locally bounded because of De Giorgi’s counterexample. Here we assume that off-diagonal coeficients have a "butterfly support": this allows us to prove local boundedness of weak solutions.publishe