EVALUATION OF THE ACCURACY OF GAIT EVENTS DETECTED USING THREE DIFFERENT METHODS DURING RUNNING

Different methods have been proposed for determining initial contact and toe off with inertial measurement unit (IMU) attached to different anatomical positions. However, the accuracy has not yet been compared. This study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of three commonly used methods (S-, M-, and L-method) in detecting gait events at two running speed conditions (slow and fast). Obvious differences of detected initial contact and toe off and estimated stance duration among the three detection methods using IMU were found at the two running speed conditions. It was shown that initial contact detected using the S-method and toe off detected by the M-method were the best estimates of the gait events. Combined use of both methods is recommended for determining stance duration during overground running

Application of methyl jasmonate and salicylic acid lead to contrasting effects on the plant's metabolome and herbivory

Plant science

China’s emerging global role: dissatisfied responsible great power

China has (re)emerged as a great power in a world not of its own making. The distribution of power in major organisations and the dominant norms of international interactions are deemed to unfairly favour the existing Western powers, and at times obstruct China’s ability to meet national development goals. Nevertheless, engaging the global economy has been a key source of economic growth (thus helping to maintain regime stability), and establishing China’s credentials as a responsible global actor is seen as a means of ensuring continued access to what China needs. As an emerging great power that is also still in many respects a developing country, China’s challenge is to change the global order in ways that do not cause global instability or generate crises that would damage China’s own ability to generate economic growth and ensure political stability

A Simulation Study on the Effect of Cavity Shapes on the Penetration of Linear Shaped Charges with Curved Liners

The finite element models of curved-liner shaped charges penetrating aluminum-alloy thin plates were constructed with the ANSYS/LS-DYNA software to analyze the effect of cavity shapes on the charge penetration with curved liners. The cavity height, radius, and spatial dimensions were numerically simulated. Simulation results indicate that these properties are important factors in determining the penetration of curved-liner charges. The penetration depth exhibits an initial increase followed by a decrease with the fixed cavity radius. When the cavity height is fixed, the penetration depth decreases with the cavity radius. When the cavity is semicircular, the penetration depth first increases and then decreases with the cavity radius and height.Построены конечноэлементные модели кумулятивных зарядов со сложнопрофильной облицовкой, проникающих через тонкие пластины из алюминиевого сплава. Использовано программное обеспечение ANSYS/LS-DYNA для анализа влияния формы выемки на их проницаемость. Выполнены численные расчеты высоты, радиуса и пространственных размеров выемки. Показано, что эти характеристики являются важными факторами при определении проницаемости зарядов. Глубина проникновения увеличивается, а затем уменьшается с увеличением высоты выемки при постоянном радиусе. При фиксированной высоте глубина проникновения уменьшается с увеличением радиуса. При полуокружной выемке глубина проникновения увеличивается, затем уменьшается с увеличением ее радиуса и высоты

Research on Rapidly Shaped Charge Cutting Technology of Aircraft Damaged Thin-Wall Structure

Shaped charge cutting technology has been introduced into the field of aircraft structure repair to rapidly reshape irregular holes in thin-walled structures. In the present research, numerical calculation of the dynamic cutting process by ANSYS and experiments of shaped charge cutting on a 2A12 aluminum alloy plate with 2 mm thickness have been carried out. It was found that fast kerf is smooth, producing a neat edge and good linearity. The incision fracture section is arranged in neat rows on a corrugated strip, and the lines are clear. Otherwise, the lower part is slightly messy without obvious distribution rules. The target plate separation method of cumulative cutting is a kind of “pre-penetration” and “late tear” method. The application of shaped charge cutting technology can aid in repair of aircrafts’ thin-walled structural damage

Brane-bulk energy exchange : a model with the present universe as a global attractor

The role of brane-bulk energy exchange and of an induced gravity term on a single braneworld of negative tension and vanishing effective cosmological constant is studied. It is shown that for the physically interesting cases of dust and radiation a unique global attractor which can realize our present universe (accelerating and 0<Omega_{m0}<1) exists for a wide range of the parameters of the model. For Omega_{m0}=0.3, independently of the other parameters, the model predicts that the equation of state for the dark energy today is w_{DE,0}=-1.4, while Omega_{m0}=0.03 leads to w_{DE,0}=-1.03. In addition, during its evolution, w_{DE} crosses the w_{DE}=-1 line to smaller values.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, RevTex; references added, to appear in JHE

Dynamics of Tachyon and Phantom Field beyond the Inverse Square Potentials

We investigate the cosmological evolution of the tachyon and phantom-tachyon scalar field by considering the potential parameter $\Gamma$($=\frac{V V"}{V'^2}$) as a function of another potential parameter $\lambda$($=\frac{V'}{\kappa V^{3/2}}$), which correspondingly extends the analysis of the evolution of our universe from two-dimensional autonomous dynamical system to the three-dimension. It allows us to investigate the more general situation where the potential is not restricted to inverse square potential and .One result is that, apart from the inverse square potential, there are a large number of potentials which can give the scaling and dominant solution when the function $\Gamma(\lambda)$ equals $3/2$ for one or some values of $\lambda_{*}$ as well as the parameter $\lambda_{*}$ satisfies condition Eq.(18) or Eq.(19). We also find that for a class of different potentials the dynamics evolution of the universe are actually the same and therefore undistinguishable.Comment: 8 pages, no figure, accepted by The European Physical Journal C(2010), online first, http://www.springerlink.com/content/323417h708gun5g8/?p=dd373adf23b84743b523a3fa249d51c7&pi=

Structure and Dynamics of Liquid Iron under Earth's Core Conditions

First-principles molecular dynamics simulations based on density-functional theory and the projector augmented wave (PAW) technique have been used to study the structural and dynamical properties of liquid iron under Earth's core conditions. As evidence for the accuracy of the techniques, we present PAW results for a range of solid-state properties of low- and high-pressure iron, and compare them with experimental values and the results of other first-principles calculations. In the liquid-state simulations, we address particular effort to the study of finite-size effects, Brillouin-zone sampling and other sources of technical error. Results for the radial distribution function, the diffusion coefficient and the shear viscosity are presented for a wide range of thermodynamic states relevant to the Earth's core. Throughout this range, liquid iron is a close-packed simple liquid with a diffusion coefficient and viscosity similar to those of typical simple liquids under ambient conditions.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure

Comparison of Recent SnIa datasets

We rank the six latest Type Ia supernova (SnIa) datasets (Constitution (C), Union (U), ESSENCE (Davis) (E), Gold06 (G), SNLS 1yr (S) and SDSS-II (D)) in the context of the Chevalier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parametrization $w(a)=w_0+w_1 (1-a)$, according to their Figure of Merit (FoM), their consistency with the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$CDM), their consistency with standard rulers (Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAO)) and their mutual consistency. We find a significant improvement of the FoM (defined as the inverse area of the 95.4% parameter contour) with the number of SnIa of these datasets ((C) highest FoM, (U), (G), (D), (E), (S) lowest FoM). Standard rulers (CMB+BAO) have a better FoM by about a factor of 3, compared to the highest FoM SnIa dataset (C). We also find that the ranking sequence based on consistency with $\Lambda$CDM is identical with the corresponding ranking based on consistency with standard rulers ((S) most consistent, (D), (C), (E), (U), (G) least consistent). The ranking sequence of the datasets however changes when we consider the consistency with an expansion history corresponding to evolving dark energy $(w_0,w_1)=(-1.4,2)$ crossing the phantom divide line $w=-1$ (it is practically reversed to (G), (U), (E), (S), (D), (C)). The SALT2 and MLCS2k2 fitters are also compared and some peculiar features of the SDSS-II dataset when standardized with the MLCS2k2 fitter are pointed out. Finally, we construct a statistic to estimate the internal consistency of a collection of SnIa datasets. We find that even though there is good consistency among most samples taken from the above datasets, this consistency decreases significantly when the Gold06 (G) dataset is included in the sample.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figures. Included recently released SDSS-II dataset. Improved presentation. Main results unchanged. The mathematica files and datasets used for the production of the figures may be downloaded from http://leandros.physics.uoi.gr/datacomp

Velocity-force characteristics of an interface driven through a periodic potential

We study the creep dynamics of a two-dimensional interface driven through a periodic potential using dynamical renormalization group methods. We find that the nature of weak-drive transport depends qualitatively on whether the temperature $T$ is above or below the equilibrium roughening transition temperature $T_c$. Above $T_c$, the velocity-force characteristics is Ohmic, with linear mobility exhibiting a jump discontinuity across the transition. For $T \le T_c$, the transport is highly nonlinear, exhibiting an interesting crossover in temperature and weak external force $F$. For intermediate drive, $F>F_*$, we find near $T_c^{-}$ a power-law velocity-force characteristics $v(F)\sim F^\sigma$, with $\sigma-1\propto \tilde{t}$, and well-below $T_c$, $v(F)\sim e^{-(F_*/F)^{2\tilde{t}}}$, with $\tilde{t}=(1-T/T_c)$. In the limit of vanishing drive ($F\ll F_*$) the velocity-force characteristics crosses over to $v(F)\sim e^{-(F_0/F)}$, and is controlled by soliton nucleation.Comment: 18 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev.