Quantitative Comparison of Locomotor Performance in Different Race Walkers

Biomechanics of track and field activities has been investigated by many authors. A literature overview on race walking points out various analyses on: supporting energy (Zarrough et al. 1974), mechanical energy variations (Marchetti et at. 1983), potential versus kinetic energy variations (Ralston and Lukin, 1969), muscular work efficiency (Marchetti et at. 1983), Payne (1979) reported the ground reaction components measured during race walking while some aspects of the related biomechanics were discussed by Boccardi et al. (1978) by displaying a vectorial representation of the ground reaction evolution. As the trainers know well, the primary needs of the race walkers involve something more than a general description of the basic executive mechanism. The athletes have to solve a very complex problem: walk under restrictive Jules for a time varying from 18 to more than 200 minutes at a speed that is usually more than two times higher the threshold at which a man begins running naturally (Cavagna et at., 1977). Such goal is obtained through a proper modification of the normal motor-patterns aimed to the best use of the endurance qualities. By the way, the critical importance of optimal motor efficiency to reduce any possible noisy factor is evident. The aim of this study is to quantify locomotor performances of two homogeneous groups of differently ranked walkers. The vectorial representation of the ground reaction force is used to identify and compare typical biomechanical features associating with the athletic level. A further data processing, including normalization and statistical estimation of the differences between the results from the two groups. leads to a practical and powerful tool for the investigation of motorcoordination and asymmetry in race walking

Using Speculative Computation and Parallelizing Techniques to Improve Scheduling of Control based Designs

partially_open5Recent research results have seen the application of parallelizing techniques to high-level synthesis. In particular, the effect of speculative code transformations on mixed control-data flow designs has demonstrated effective results on schedule lengths. In this paper we first analyze the use of the control and data dependence graph as an intermediate representation that provides the possibility of extracting the maximum parallelism. Then we analyze the scheduling problem by formulating an approach based on Integer Linear Programming (ILP) to minimize the number of control steps given the amount of resources. We improve the already proposed ILP scheduling approaches by introducing a new conditional resource sharing constraint which is then extended to the case of speculative computation. The ILP formulation has been solved by using a Branch and Cut framework which provides better results than standard branch and bound techniquesR. Cordone; F. Ferrandi; G. Palermo; M. Santambrogio; D. SciutoR., Cordone; Ferrandi, Fabrizio; Palermo, Gianluca; Santambrogio, MARCO DOMENICO; Sciuto, Donatell

BV Estimates in Optimal Transportation and Applications

In this paper we study the BV regularity for solutions of certain variational problems in Optimal Transportation. We prove that the Wasserstein projection of a measure with BV density on the set of measures with density bounded by a given BV function f is of bounded variation as well and we also provide a precise estimate of its BV norm. Of particular interest is the case f = 1, corresponding to a projection onto a set of densities with an L∞ bound, where we prove that the total variation decreases by projection. This estimate and, in particular, its iterations have a natural application to some evolutionary PDEs as, for example, the ones describing a crowd motion. In fact, as an application of our results, we obtain BV estimates for solutions of some non-linear parabolic PDE by means of optimal transportation techniques. We also establish some properties of the Wasserstein projection which are interesting in their own right, and allow, for instance, for the proof of the uniqueness of such a projection in a very general framework

Pancreatic islets communicate with lymphoid tissues via exocytosis of insulin peptides.

Tissue-specific autoimmunity occurs when selected antigens presented by susceptible alleles of the major histocompatibility complex are recognized by T cells. However, the reason why certain specific self-antigens dominate the response and are indispensable for triggering autoreactivity is unclear. Spontaneous presentation of insulin is essential for initiating autoimmune type 1 diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice1,2. A major set of pathogenic CD4 T cells specifically recognizes the 12-20 segment of the insulin B-chain (B:12-20), an epitope that is generated from direct presentation of insulin peptides by antigen-presenting cells3,4. These T cells do not respond to antigen-presenting cells that have taken up insulin that, after processing, leads to presentation of a different segment representing a one-residue shift, B:13-214. CD4 T cells that recognize B:12-20 escape negative selection in the thymus and cause diabetes, whereas those that recognize B:13-21 have only a minor role in autoimmunity3-5. Although presentation of B:12-20 is evident in the islets3,6, insulin-specific germinal centres can be formed in various lymphoid tissues, suggesting that insulin presentation is widespread7,8. Here we use live imaging to document the distribution of insulin recognition by CD4 T cells throughout various lymph nodes. Furthermore, we identify catabolized insulin peptide fragments containing defined pathogenic epitopes in β-cell granules from mice and humans. Upon glucose challenge, these fragments are released into the circulation and are recognized by CD4 T cells, leading to an activation state that results in transcriptional reprogramming and enhanced diabetogenicity. Therefore, a tissue such as pancreatic islets, by releasing catabolized products, imposes a constant threat to self-tolerance. These findings reveal a self-recognition pathway underlying a primary autoantigen and provide a foundation for assessing antigenic targets that precipitate pathogenic outcomes by systemically sensitizing lymphoid tissues

The heart of a convex body

We investigate some basic properties of the {\it heart} $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ of a convex set $\mathcal{K}.$ It is a subset of $\mathcal{K},$ whose definition is based on mirror reflections of euclidean space, and is a non-local object. The main motivation of our interest for $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ is that this gives an estimate of the location of the hot spot in a convex heat conductor with boundary temperature grounded at zero. Here, we investigate on the relation between $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ and the mirror symmetries of $\mathcal{K};$ we show that $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K})$ contains many (geometrically and phisically) relevant points of $\mathcal{K};$ we prove a simple geometrical lower estimate for the diameter of $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K});$ we also prove an upper estimate for the area of $\heartsuit(\mathcal{K}),$ when $\mathcal{K}$ is a triangle.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. appears as "Geometric Properties for Parabolic and Elliptic PDE's", Springer INdAM Series Volume 2, 2013, pp 49-6

Monge's transport problem in the Heisenberg group

We prove the existence of solutions to Monge transport problem between two compactly supported Borel probability measures in the Heisenberg group equipped with its Carnot-Caratheodory distance assuming that the initial measure is absolutely continuous with respect to the Haar measure of the group

Toward Smart Building Design Automation: Extensible CAD Framework for Indoor Localization Systems Deployment

Over the last years, many smart buildings applications, such as indoor localization or safety systems, have been subject of intense research. Smart environments usually rely on several hardware nodes equipped with sensors, actuators, and communication functionalities. The high level of heterogeneity and the lack of standardization across technologies make design of such environments a very challenging task, as each installation has to be designed manually and performed ad-hoc for the specific building. On the other hand, many different systems show common characteristics, like the strict dependency with the building floor plan, also sharing similar requirements such as a nodes allocation that provides sensing coverage and nodes connectivity. This paper provides a computer-aided design application for the design of smart building systems based on the installation of hardware nodes across the indoor space. The tool provides a site-specific algorithm for cost-effective deployment of wireless localization systems, with the aim to maximize the localization accuracy. Experimental results from real-world environment show that the proposed site-specific model can improve the positioning accuracy of general models from the state-of-the-art. The tool, available open-source, is modular and extensible through plug-ins allowing to model building systems with different requirements

Depicting conformational ensembles of \u3b1-synuclein by single molecule force spectroscopy and native mass spectroscopy

Description of heterogeneous molecular ensembles, such as intrinsically disordered proteins, represents a challenge in structural biology and an urgent question posed by biochemistry to interpret many physiologically important, regulatory mechanisms. Single-molecule techniques can provide a unique contribution to this field. This work applies single molecule force spectroscopy to probe conformational properties of \u3b1-synuclein in solution and its conformational changes induced by ligand binding. The goal is to compare data from such an approach with those obtained by native mass spectrometry. These two orthogonal, biophysical methods are found to deliver a complex picture, in which monomeric \u3b1-synuclein in solution spontaneously populates compact and partially compacted states, which are differently stabilized by binding to aggregation inhibitors, such as dopamine and epigallocatechin-3-gallate. Analyses by circular dichroism and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy show that these transitions do not involve formation of secondary structure. This comparative analysis provides support to structural interpretation of charge-state distributions obtained by native mass spectrometry and helps, in turn, defining the conformational components detected by single molecule force spectroscopy

Predictions for PP-wave string amplitudes from perturbative SYM

The role of general two-impurity multi-trace operators in the BMN correspondence is explored. Surprisingly, the anomalous dimensions of all two-impurity multi-trace BMN operators to order g_2^2\lambda' are completely determined in terms of single-trace anomalous dimensions. This is due to suppression of connected field theory diagrams in the BMN limit and this fact has important implications for some string theory processes on the PP-wave background. We also make gauge theory predictions for the matrix elements of the light-cone string field theory Hamiltonian in the two string-two string and one string-three string sectors.Comment: 46 pages, 12 figures. V3:typos correcte

Single impurity operators at critical wrapping order in the beta-deformed N=4 SYM

We study the spectrum of one single magnon in the superconformal beta-deformed N=4 SYM theory in the planar limit. We compute the anomalous dimensions of one-impurity operators O_{1,L}= tr(phi Z^{L-1}), including wrapping contributions at their critical order L.Comment: LaTeX, feynmf, Metapost, 20 pages, 11 figures, v2: results up to 11 loops completed, appendix on integral calculation extende