Comparative study of wall shear stress at the ascending aorta for different mechanical heart valve prostheses

An experimental study is reported which investigates the wall shear stress (WSS) distribution in a transparent model of the human aorta comparing a bileaflet mechanical heart valve (BMHV) with a trileaflet mechanical heart valve (TMHV) in physiological pulsatile flow. Elastic micro-pillar WSS sensors, calibrated by micro-Particle-Image-Velocimetry measurement, are applied to the wall along the ascending aorta. Peak WSS values are observed almost twice in BMHV compared to TMHV. Flow field analyses illuminate that these peaks are linked to the jet-like flows generated in the valves interacting with the aortic wall. Not only the magnitude but also the impact regions are specific for the different valve designs. The side-orifice jets generated by BMHV travel along the aortic wall in the ascending aorta and cause a whole range impact, while the jets generated by TMHV impact further downstream in the ascending aortic generating less severe WSS

Covariant gravity with Lagrange multiplier constraint

We review on the models of gravity with a constraint by the Lagrange multiplier field. The constraint breaks general covariance or Lorentz symmetry in the ultraviolet region. We report on the $F(R)$ gravity model with the constraint and the proposal of the covariant (power-counting) renormalized gravity model by using the constraint and scalar projectors. We will show that the model admits flat space solution, its gauge-fixing formulation is fully developed, and the only propagating mode is (higher derivative) graviton, while scalar and vector modes do not propagate. The preliminary study of FRW cosmology indicates to the possibility of inflationary universe solution is also given.Comment: 10 pages, to appear in the Proceedings of the QFEXT11 Benasque Conferenc

Adaptive learning particle swarm optimizer-II for global optimization

Copyright @ 2010 IEEE.This paper presents an updated version of the adaptive learning particle swarm optimizer (ALPSO), we call it ALPSO-II. In order to improve the performance of ALPSO on multi-modal problems, we introduce several new major features in ALPSO-II: (i) Adding particle's status monitoring mechanism, (ii) controlling the number of particles that learn from the global best position, and (iii) updating two of the four learning operators used in ALPSO. To test the performance of ALPSO-II, we choose a set of 27 test problems, including un-rotated, shifted, rotated, rotated shifted, and composition functions in comparison of the ALPSO algorithm as well as several state-of-the-art variant PSO algorithms. The experimental results show that ALPSO-II has a great improvement of the ALPSO algorithm, it also outperforms the other peer algorithms on most test problems in terms of both the convergence speed and solution accuracy.This work was sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences research Council (EPSRC) of UK under grant number EP/E060722/1

Darboux transformations for a twisted derivation and quasideterminant solutions to the super KdV equation

This paper is concerned with a generalized type of Darboux transformations defined in terms of a twisted derivation $D$ satisfying $D(AB)=D(A)+\sigma(A)B$ where $\sigma$ is a homomorphism. Such twisted derivations include regular derivations, difference and $q$-difference operators and superderivatives as special cases. Remarkably, the formulae for the iteration of Darboux transformations are identical with those in the standard case of a regular derivation and are expressed in terms of quasideterminants. As an example, we revisit the Darboux transformations for the Manin-Radul super KdV equation, studied in Q.P. Liu and M. Ma\~nas, Physics Letters B \textbf{396} 133--140, (1997). The new approach we take enables us to derive a unified expression for solution formulae in terms of quasideterminants, covering all cases at once, rather than using several subcases. Then, by using a known relationship between quasideterminants and superdeterminants, we obtain expressions for these solutions as ratios of superdeterminants. This coincides with the results of Liu and Ma\~nas in all the cases they considered but also deals with the one subcase in which they did not obtain such an expression. Finally, we obtain another type of quasideterminant solutions to the Main-Radul super KdV equation constructed from its binary Darboux transformations. These can also be expressed as ratios of superdeterminants and are a substantial generalization of the solutions constructed using binary Darboux transformations in earlier work on this topic

A general framework of multi-population methods with clustering in undetectable dynamic environments

Copyright @ 2011 IEEETo solve dynamic optimization problems, multiple population methods are used to enhance the population diversity for an algorithm with the aim of maintaining multiple populations in different sub-areas in the fitness landscape. Many experimental studies have shown that locating and tracking multiple relatively good optima rather than a single global optimum is an effective idea in dynamic environments. However, several challenges need to be addressed when multi-population methods are applied, e.g., how to create multiple populations, how to maintain them in different sub-areas, and how to deal with the situation where changes can not be detected or predicted. To address these issues, this paper investigates a hierarchical clustering method to locate and track multiple optima for dynamic optimization problems. To deal with undetectable dynamic environments, this paper applies the random immigrants method without change detection based on a mechanism that can automatically reduce redundant individuals in the search space throughout the run. These methods are implemented into several research areas, including particle swarm optimization, genetic algorithm, and differential evolution. An experimental study is conducted based on the moving peaks benchmark to test the performance with several other algorithms from the literature. The experimental results show the efficiency of the clustering method for locating and tracking multiple optima in comparison with other algorithms based on multi-population methods on the moving peaks benchmark

Production and rescattering of strange baryons at SPS energies in a transport model with hadron potentials

A mean-field potential version of the Ultra-relativistic Quantum Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) model is used to investigate the production of strange baryons, especially the $\Lambda$s and $\overline{\Lambda}$s, from heavy ion collisions at SPS energies. It is found that, with the consideration of both formed and pre-formed hadron potentials in UrQMD, the transverse mass and longitudinal rapidity distributions of experimental data of both $\Lambda$s and $\overline{\Lambda}$s can be quantitatively explained fairly well. Our investigation also shows that both the production mechanism and the rescattering process of hadrons play important roles in the final yield of strange baryons.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure