6,417 research outputs found
Stability-normalised walking speed: A new approach for human gait perturbation research
© 2019 In gait stability research, neither self-selected walking speeds, nor the same prescribed walking speed for all participants, guarantee equivalent gait stability among participants. Furthermore, these options may differentially affect the response to different gait perturbations, which is problematic when comparing groups with different capacities. We present a method for decreasing inter-individual differences in gait stability by adjusting walking speed to equivalent margins of stability (MoS). Eighteen healthy adults walked on a split-belt treadmill for two-minute bouts at 0.4 m/s up to 1.8 m/s in 0.2 m/s intervals. The stability-normalised walking speed (MoS = 0.05 m) was calculated using the mean MoS at touchdown of the final 10 steps of each speed. Participants then walked for three minutes at this speed and were subsequently exposed to a treadmill belt acceleration perturbation. A further 12 healthy adults were exposed to the same perturbation while walking at 1.3 m/s: the average of the previous group. Large ranges in MoS were observed during the prescribed speeds (6â10 cm across speeds) and walking speed significantly (P < 0.001) affected MoS. The stability-normalised walking speeds resulted in MoS equal or very close to the desired 0.05 m and reduced between-participant variability in MoS. The second group of participants walking at 1.3 m/s had greater inter-individual variation in MoS during both unperturbed and perturbed walking compared to 12 sex, height and leg length-matched participants from the stability-normalised walking speed group. The current method decreases inter-individual differences in gait stability which may benefit gait perturbation and stability research, in particular studies on populations with different locomotor capacities. [Preprint: https://doi.org/10.1101/314757
Atom lithography without laser cooling
Using direct-write atom lithography, Fe nanolines are deposited with a pitch
of 186 nm, a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 50 nm, and a height of up to
6 nm. These values are achieved by relying on geometrical collimation of the
atomic beam, thus without using laser collimation techniques. This opens the
way for applying direct-write atom lithography to a wide variety of elements.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure
Trading interactions for topology in scale-free networks
Scale-free networks with topology-dependent interactions are studied. It is
shown that the universality classes of critical behavior, which conventionally
depend only on topology, can also be explored by tuning the interactions. A
mapping, , describes how a shift of the
standard exponent of the degree distribution can absorb the
effect of degree-dependent pair interactions .
Replica technique, cavity method and Monte Carlo simulation support the
physical picture suggested by Landau theory for the critical exponents and by
the Bethe-Peierls approximation for the critical temperature. The equivalence
of topology and interaction holds for equilibrium and non-equilibrium systems,
and is illustrated with interdisciplinary applications.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Direct measurement of the radiative lifetime of vibrationally excited OH radicals
Neutral molecules, isolated in the gas-phase, can be prepared in a long-lived
excited state and stored in a trap. The long observation time afforded by the
trap can then be exploited to measure the radiative lifetime of this state by
monitoring the temporal decay of the population in the trap. This method is
demonstrated here and used to benchmark the Einstein -coefficients in the
Meinel system of OH. A pulsed beam of vibrationally excited OH radicals is
Stark decelerated and loaded into an electrostatic quadrupole trap. The
radiative lifetime of the upper -doublet component of the level is determined as ms, in good
agreement with the calculated value of ms.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Anharmonic magnetic deformation of self-assembled molecular nanocapsules
High magnetic fields were used to deform spherical nanocapsules,
self-assembled from bola-amphiphilic sexithiophene molecules. At low fields the
deformation -- measured through linear birefringence -- scales quadratically
with the capsule radius and with the magnetic field strength. These data
confirm a long standing theoretical prediction (W. Helfrich, Phys. Lett. {\bf
43A}, 409 (1973)), and permits the determination of the bending rigidity of the
capsules as (2.60.8) J. At high fields, an enhanced
rigidity is found which cannot be explained within the Helfrich model. We
propose a complete form of the free energy functional that accounts for this
behaviour, and allows discussion of the formation and stability of nanocapsules
in solution.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. Let
Remote participation during glycosylation reactions of galactose building blocks: Direct evidence from cryogenic vibrational spectroscopy
The stereoselective formation of 1,2âcisâglycosidic bonds is challenging. However, 1,2âcisâselectivity can be induced by remote participation of C4 or C6 ester groups. Reactions involving remote participation are believed to proceed via a key ionic intermediate, the glycosyl cation. Although mechanistic pathways were postulated many years ago, the structure of the reaction intermediates remained elusive owing to their shortâlived nature. Herein, we unravel the structure of glycosyl cations involved in remote participation reactions via cryogenic vibrational spectroscopy and first principles theory. Acetyl groups at C4 ensure αâselective galactosylations by forming a covalent bond to the anomeric carbon in dioxoleniumâtype ions. Unexpectedly, also benzyl ether protecting groups can engage in remote participation and promote the stereoselective formation of 1,2âcisâglycosidic bonds
Can Polymer Coils be modeled as "Soft Colloids"?
We map dilute or semi-dilute solutions of non-intersecting polymer chains
onto a fluid of ``soft'' particles interacting via a concentration dependent
effective pair potential, by inverting the pair distribution function of the
centers of mass of the initial polymer chains. A similar inversion is used to
derive an effective wall-polymer potential; these potentials are combined to
successfully reproduce the calculated exact depletion interaction induced by
non-intersecting polymers between two walls. The mapping opens up the
possibility of large-scale simulations of polymer solutions in complex
geometries.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures ReVTeX[epsfig,multicol,amssymb] references update
A note on the sign (unit root) ambiguities of Gauss sums in index 2 and 4 cases
Recently, the explicit evaluation of Gauss sums in the index 2 and 4 cases
have been given in several papers (see [2,3,7,8]). In the course of evaluation,
the sigh (or unit root) ambiguities are unavoidably occurred. This paper
presents another method, different from [7] and [8], to determine the sigh
(unit root) ambiguities of Gauss sums in the index 2 case, as well as the ones
with odd order in the non-cyclic index 4 case. And we note that the method in
this paper are more succinct and effective than [8] and [7]
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