353 research outputs found
Statistical stability and limit laws for Rovella maps
We consider the family of one-dimensional maps arising from the contracting
Lorenz attractors studied by Rovella. Benedicks-Carleson techniques were used
by Rovella to prove that there is a one-parameter family of maps whose
derivatives along their critical orbits increase exponentially fast and the
critical orbits have slow recurrent to the critical point. Metzger proved that
these maps have a unique absolutely continuous ergodic invariant probability
measure (SRB measure).
Here we use the technique developed by Freitas and show that the tail set
(the set of points which at a given time have not achieved either the
exponential growth of derivative or the slow recurrence) decays exponentially
fast as time passes. As a consequence, we obtain the continuous variation of
the densities of the SRB measures and associated metric entropies with the
parameter. Our main result also implies some statistical properties for these
maps.Comment: 1 figur
Statistical stability of equilibrium states for interval maps
We consider families of multimodal interval maps with polynomial growth of
the derivative along the critical orbits. For these maps Bruin and Todd have
shown the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states for the potential
, for close to 1. We show that these
equilibrium states vary continuously in the weak topology within such
families. Moreover, in the case , when the equilibrium states are
absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue, we show that the densities vary
continuously within these families.Comment: More details given and the appendices now incorporated into the rest
of the pape
Renormalisation-induced phase transitions for unimodal maps
The thermodynamical formalism is studied for renormalisable maps of the
interval and the natural potential . Multiple and indeed
infinitely many phase transitions at positive can occur for some quadratic
maps. All unimodal quadratic maps with positive topological entropy exhibit a
phase transition in the negative spectrum.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Revised following comments of referees. First
page is blan
Finite-Time Attitude Synchronization with Distributed Discontinuous Protocols
The finite-time attitude synchronization problem is considered in this paper, where the rotation of each rigid body is expressed using the axis-angle representation. Two discontinuous and distributed controllers using the vectorized signum function are proposed, which guarantee almost global and local convergence, respectively. Filippov solutions and non-smooth analysis techniques are adopted to handle the discontinuities. Sufficient conditions are provided to guarantee finite-time convergence and boundedness of the solutions. Simulation examples are provided to verify the performances of the control protocols designed in this paper
Alpha/Beta T-Cell Depleted Grafts as an Immunological Booster to Treat Graft Failure after Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation with HLA-Matched Related and Unrelated Donors
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is associated with several complications and risk factors, for example, graft versus host disease (GVHD), viral infections, relapse, and graft rejection. While high levels of CD3+ cells in grafts can contribute to GVHD, they also promote the graft versus leukemia (GVL) effect. Infusions of extra lymphocytes from the original stem cell donor can be used as a treatment after transplantation for relapse or poor immune reconstitution but also they increase the risk for GVHD. In peripheral blood, 95% of T-cells express the αβ T-cell receptor and the remaining T-cells express the γδ T-cell receptor. As αβ T-cells are the primary mediators of GVHD, depleting them from the graft should reduce this risk. In this pilot study, five patients transplanted with HLA-matched related and unrelated donors were treated with αβ T-cell depleted stem cell boosts. The majority of γδ T-cells in the grafts expressed Vδ2 and/or Vγ9. Most patients receiving αβ-depleted stem cell boosts increased their levels of white blood cells, platelets, and/or granulocytes 30 days after infusion. No signs of GVHD or other side effects were detected. A larger pool of patients with longer follow-up time is needed to confirm the data in this study
Shape-aware surface reconstruction from sparse 3D point-clouds.
The reconstruction of an object's shape or surface from a set of 3D points plays an important role in medical image analysis, e.g. in anatomy reconstruction from tomographic measurements or in the process of aligning intra-operative navigation and preoperative planning data. In such scenarios, one usually has to deal with sparse data, which significantly aggravates the problem of reconstruction. However, medical applications often provide contextual information about the 3D point data that allow to incorporate prior knowledge about the shape that is to be reconstructed. To this end, we propose the use of a statistical shape model (SSM) as a prior for surface reconstruction. The SSM is represented by a point distribution model (PDM), which is associated with a surface mesh. Using the shape distribution that is modelled by the PDM, we formulate the problem of surface reconstruction from a probabilistic perspective based on a Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM). In order to do so, the given points are interpreted as samples of the GMM. By using mixture components with anisotropic covariances that are "oriented" according to the surface normals at the PDM points, a surface-based fitting is accomplished. Estimating the parameters of the GMM in a maximum a posteriori manner yields the reconstruction of the surface from the given data points. We compare our method to the extensively used Iterative Closest Points method on several different anatomical datasets/SSMs (brain, femur, tibia, hip, liver) and demonstrate superior accuracy and robustness on sparse data
Altered postural sway in patients suffering from non-specific neck pain and whiplash associated disorder - A systematic review of the literature
To assess differences in center of pressure (COP) measures in patients suffering from non-specific neck pain (NSNP) or whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) compared to healthy controls and any relationship between changes in postural sway and the presence of pain, its intensity, previous pain duration and the perceived level of disability. Summary of Background data: Over the past 20 years, the center of pressure (COP) has been commonly used as an index of postural stability in standing. While several studies investigated COP excursions in neck pain and WAD patients and compared these to healthy individuals, no comprehensive analysis of the reported differences in postural sway pattern exists. Search methods: Six online databases were systematically searched followed by a manual search of the retrieved papers. Selection Criteria: Papers comparing COP measures derived from bipedal static task conditions on a force plate of non-specific neck pain and WAD sufferers to those of healthy controls. Data collection and analysis: Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts for relevance. Screening for final inclusion, data extraction and quality assessment were carried out with a third reviewer to reconcile differences
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