Effects of drop and film viscosity on drop impacts onto thin films

While drop-film impacts have been studied extensively in the past, little thought has been given towards separating the effects of the drop fluid properties from those of the film. Distinguishing between the behaviors resulting from characteristics of each independently could provide insight into the underlying physical phenomena with a clarity that is unavailable when the drop and the film consist of identical liquids. In this study, the viscosity is the central parameter varied in both drop and film liquid. Using water, aqueous glycerol mixtures, and Fluoroinert FC-72, a range of kinematic viscosity covering 3 orders of magnitude (4 × 10-7 - 6.5 × 10 -4 m2/s) is examined; a smaller range of surface tension (0.024-0.072 N/m) is covered, as well. Drop impacts occur over a range of Weber numbers from 20 to 3000 and Reynolds numbers from 20 to 14000. Impact outcomes categorized are both formation of a crown and splashing from the crown. Criteria for each impact outcome are presented in light of both film and drop properties; certain outcomes are found to depend more strongly on either the properties of the drop or the film individually. Crown formation appears to relate more strongly to the film's properties, whereas crown splashing has some dependence on the drop properties. Existing splashing correlations are examined in light of the separation of properties. © 2013 by Begell House, Inc

Dynamical properties of a dissipative discontinuous map: A scaling investigation

The effects of dissipation on the scaling properties of nonlinear discontinuous maps are investigated by analyzing the behavior of the average squared action \left as a function of the $n$-th iteration of the map as well as the parameters $K$ and $\gamma$, controlling nonlinearity and dissipation, respectively. We concentrate our efforts to study the case where the nonlinearity is large; i.e., $K\gg 1$. In this regime and for large initial action $I_0\gg K$, we prove that dissipation produces an exponential decay for the average action \left. Also, for $I_0\cong 0$, we describe the behavior of \left using a scaling function and analytically obtain critical exponents which are used to overlap different curves of \left onto an universal plot. We complete our study with the analysis of the scaling properties of the deviation around the average action $\omega$.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

Measurement driven quantum evolution

We study the problem of mapping an unknown mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without the use of unitary transformations. This is achieved with the help of sequential measurements of two non-commuting observables only. We show that the overall success probability is maximized in the case of measuring two observables whose eigenstates define mutually unbiased bases. We find that for this optimal case the success probability quickly converges to unity as the number of measurement processes increases and that it is almost independent of the initial state. In particular, we show that to guarantee a success probability close to one the number of consecutive measurements must be larger than the dimension of the Hilbert space. We connect these results to quantum copying, quantum deleting and entanglement generation.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur

Revan-degree indices on random graphs

Given a simple connected non-directed graph $G=(V(G),E(G))$, we consider two families of graph invariants: $RX_\Sigma(G) = \sum_{uv \in E(G)} F(r_u,r_v)$ (which has gained interest recently) and $RX_\Pi(G) = \prod_{uv \in E(G)} F(r_u,r_v)$ (that we introduce in this work); where $uv$ denotes the edge of $G$ connecting the vertices $u$ and $v$, $r_u$ is the Revan degree of the vertex $u$, and $F$ is a function of the Revan vertex degrees. Here, $r_u = \Delta + \delta - d_u$ with $\Delta$ and $\delta$ the maximum and minimum degrees among the vertices of $G$ and $d_u$ is the degree of the vertex $u$. Particularly, we apply both $RX_\Sigma(G)$ and R$X_\Pi(G)$ on two models of random graphs: Erd\"os-R\'enyi graphs and random geometric graphs. By a thorough computational study we show that \left and \left, normalized to the order of the graph, scale with the average Revan degree \left; here \left denotes the average over an ensemble of random graphs. Moreover, we provide analytical expressions for several graph invariants of both families in the dense graph limit.Comment: 16 pages, 10 figure

Sentiment analysis to support business decision-making. A bibliometric study

Customer feedback on online platforms is an unstructured database of growing importance for organizations, which, together with the rise of Natural Language Processing algorithms, is increasingly present when making decisions. In this paper, a bibliometric analysis is carried out with the intention of understanding the prevailing state of research about the adoption of sentiment analysis methods in organizations when making decisions. It is also a goal to comprehend which business sectors, and areas within the company, they are most applied, and to identify what future challenges that in this area may arise, as well as the main topics, authors, articles, countries, and universities most influential in the scientific literature. To this end, a total of 101 articles have been gathered from the Scopus and Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) databases, of which 85 were selected for analysis using the Bibliometrix tool. This study highlights the growing popularity of sentiment analysis methods combined with Multicriteria Decision Making and predictive algorithms. Twitter and Amazon are commonly used data sources, with applications across multiple sectors (supply chain, financial, etc.). Sentiment analysis enhances decision-making and promotes customer-centric approaches

EVIDENT 3 Study: A randomized, controlled clinical trial to reduce inactivity and caloric intake in sedentary and overweight or obese people using a smartphone application: Study protocol

Introduction: Mobile technology, when included within multicomponent interventions, could contribute to more effective weight loss. The objective of this project is to assess the impact of adding the use of the EVIDENT 3 application, designed to promote healthy living habits, to traditional modification strategies employed for weight loss. Other targeted behaviors (walking, caloric-intake, sitting time) and outcomes (quality of life, inflammatory markers, measurements of arterial aging) will also be evaluated. Methods: Randomized, multicentre clinical trial with 2 parallel groups. The study will be conducted in the primary care setting and will include 700 subjects 20 to 65 years, with a body mass index (27.5-40kg/m2), who are clinically classified as sedentary. The primary outcome will be weight loss. Secondary outcomes will include change in walking (steps/d), sitting time (min/wk), caloric intake (kcal/d), quality of life, arterial aging (augmentation index), and pro-inflammatory marker levels. Outcomes will be measured at baseline, after 3 months, and after 1 year. Participants will be randomly assigned to either the intervention group (IG) or the control group (CG). Both groups will receive the traditional primary care lifestyle counseling prior to randomization. The subjects in the IG will be lent a smartphone and a smartband for a 3-month period, corresponding to the length of the intervention. The EVIDENT 3 application integrates the information collected by the smartband on physical activity and the self-reported information by participants on daily food intake. Using this information, the application generates recommendations and personalized goals for weight loss. Discussion: There is a great diversity in the applications used obtaining different results on lifestyle improvement and weight loss. The populations studied are not homogeneous and generate different results. The results of this study will help our understanding of the efficacy of new technologies, combined with traditional counseling, towards reducing obesity and enabling healthier lifestyles. Ethicsanddissemination: The study was approved by the Clinical Research Ethics Committee of the Health Area of Salamanca ("CREC of Health Area of Salamanca") on April 2016. A SPIRIT checklist is available for this protocol. The trial was registered in ClinicalTrials.gov provided by the US National Library of Medicine-number NCT03175614

Towards Pluralistic Value Alignment: Aggregating Value Systems through ℓp-Regression

Dealing with the challenges of an interconnected globalised world requires to handle plurality. This is no exception when considering value-aligned intelligent systems, since the values to align with should capture this plurality. So far, most literature on value-alignment has just considered a single value system. Thus, this paper advances the state of the art by proposing a method for the aggregation of value systems. By exploiting recent results in the social choice literature, we formalise our aggregation problem as an optimisation problem. We then cast such problem as an ℓp-regression problem. By doing so, we provide a general theoretical framework to model and solve the above-mentioned problem. Our aggregation method allows us to consider a range of ethical principles, from utilitarian (maximum utility) to egalitarian (maximum fairness). We illustrate the aggregation of value systems by considering real-world data from the European Values Study and we show how different consensus value systems can be obtained depending on the ethical principle of choice

Polyembryony in Maize: A Complex, Elusive, and Potentially Agronomical Useful Trait

Polyembryony (PE) is a rare phenomenon in cultivated plant species. Since nineteenth century, several reports have been published on PE in maize. Reports of multiple seedlings developing at embryonic level in laboratory and studies under greenhouse and field conditions have demonstrated the presence of PE in cultivated maize (Zea mays L.). Nevertheless, there is a lack of knowledge about this phenomenon; diverse genetic mechanisms controlling PE in maize have been proposed: Mendelian inheritance of a single gene, interaction between two genes and multiple genes are some of the proposed mechanisms. On the other hand, the presence of two or more embryos per seed confers higher nutrimental quality because these grains have more crude fat and lysine than normal maize kernels. As mentioned above, there is a necessity for more studies about PE maize in order to establish the genetic mechanism responsible for this phenomenon; on the other hand, previous studies showed that PE has potential to generate specialized maize varieties with yield potential and grain quality