28,926 research outputs found
Technical quality assessment of an optoelectronic system for movement analysis
The Optoelectronic Systems (OS) are largely used in gait analysis to evaluate the motor performances of healthy subjects and patients. The accuracy of marker trajectories reconstruction depends on several aspects: the number of cameras, the dimension and position
of the calibration volume, and the chosen calibration procedure. In this paper we propose a methodology to evaluate the eects of the mentioned sources of error on the reconstruction of marker trajectories. The novel contribution of the present work consists in the dimension of the tested calibration volumes, which is comparable with the ones normally used in gait analysis; in addition, to simulate trajectories during clinical gait analysis, we provide non-default
paths for markers as inputs. Several calibration procedures are implemented and the same trial is processed with each calibration le, also considering dierent cameras congurations.
The RMSEs between the measured trajectories and the optimal ones are calculated for each comparison. To investigate the signicant dierences between the computed indices, an ANOVA analysis is implemented. The RMSE is sensible to the variations of the considered calibration volume and the camera congurations and it is always inferior to 43 mm
Physics-based large-signal sensitivity analysis of microwave circuits using technological parametric sensitivity from multidimensional semiconductor device models
The authors present an efficient approach to evaluate the large-signal (LS) parametric sensitivity of active semiconductor devices under quasi-periodic operation through accurate, multidimensional physics-based models. The proposed technique exploits efficient intermediate mathematical models to perform the link between physics-based analysis and circuit-oriented simulations, and only requires the evaluation of dc and ac small-signal (dc charge) sensitivities under general quasi-static conditions. To illustrate the technique, the authors discuss examples of sensitivity evaluation, statistical analysis, and doping profile optimization of an implanted MESFET to minimize intermodulation which makes use of LS parametric sensitivities under two-tone excitatio
Flow curvature effects on dynamic behaviour of a novel vertical axis tidal current turbine: numerical and experimental analysis
The paper deals with performances analysis of vertical axis turbine to exploit tidal marine currents. Flow curvature effects on performences of a novel vertical axis turbine have been investuigated. It has been shown that the flow curvature effect allows to design properly an accurate airfoil shape to increase turbine performances
Direct CP Violation in B->phi K_s and New Physics
In the presence of large New Physics contributions to loop-induced b->s
transitions, sizable direct CP violation in B-> phi K decays is expected on
general grounds. We compute explicitly CP-violating effects using QCD
factorization and find that, even in the restricted case in which New Physics
has the same penguin structure as the Standard Model, the rate asymmetry can be
of order one. We briefly discuss a more general scenario and comment on the
inclusion of power-suppressed corrections to factorization.Comment: 3 page
Quenched dynamics of classical isolated systems: the spherical spin model with two-body random interactions or the Neumann integrable model
We study the Hamiltonian dynamics of the spherical spin model with
fully-connected two-body interactions drawn from a Gaussian probability
distribution. In the statistical physics framework, the potential energy is of
the so-called spherical disordered kind. Most importantly for our
setting, the energy conserving dynamics are equivalent to the ones of the
Neumann integrable system. We take initial conditions in thermal equilibrium
and we subsequently evolve the configurations with Newton dynamics dictated by
a different Hamiltonian. We identify three dynamical phases depending on the
parameters that characterise the initial state and the final Hamiltonian. We
obtain the {\it global} dynamical observables with numerical and analytic
methods and we show that, in most cases, they are out of thermal equilibrium.
We note, however, that for shallow quenches from the condensed phase the
dynamics are close to (though not at) thermal equilibrium. Surprisingly enough,
for a particular relation between parameters the global observables comply
Gibbs-Boltzmann equilibrium. We next set the analysis of the system with finite
number of degrees of freedom in terms of non-linearly coupled modes. We
evaluate the mode temperatures and we relate them to the frequency-dependent
effective temperature measured with the fluctuation-dissipation relation in the
frequency domain, similarly to what was recently proposed for quantum
integrable cases. Finally, we analyse the integrals of motion and we use
them to show that the system is out of equilibrium in all phases, even for
parameters that show an apparent Gibbs-Boltzmann behaviour of global
observables. We elaborate on the role played by these constants of motion in
the post-quench dynamics and we briefly discuss the possible description of the
asymptotic dynamics in terms of a Generalised Gibbs Ensemble
Complex-network analysis of combinatorial spaces: The NK landscape case
We propose a network characterization of combinatorial fitness landscapes by
adapting the notion of inherent networks proposed for energy surfaces. We use
the well-known family of NK landscapes as an example. In our case the inherent
network is the graph whose vertices represent the local maxima in the
landscape, and the edges account for the transition probabilities between their
corresponding basins of attraction. We exhaustively extracted such networks on
representative NK landscape instances, and performed a statistical
characterization of their properties. We found that most of these network
properties are related to the search difficulty on the underlying NK landscapes
with varying values of K.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:0810.3492,
arXiv:0810.348
On compressive radial tidal forces
Radial tidal forces can be compressive instead of disruptive, a possibility
that is frequently overlooked in high level physics courses. For example,
radial tidal compression can emerge in extended stellar systems containing a
smaller stellar cluster. For particular conditions the tidal field produced by
this extended mass distribution can exert on the cluster it contains
compressive effects instead of the common disruptive forces. This interesting
aspect of gravity can be derived from standard relations given in many
textbooks and introductory courses in astronomy and can serve as an opportunity
to look closer at some aspects of gravitational physics, stellar dynamics, and
differential geometry. The existence of compressive tides at the center of huge
stellar systems might suggest new evolutionary scenarios for the formation of
stars and primordial galactic formation processes.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure
Stellar populations in the dwarf spheroidal galaxy Leo I
We present a detailed study of the color magnitude diagram (CMD) of the dwarf
spheroidal galaxy Leo I, based on archival Hubble Space Telescope data. Our
photometric analysis, confirming previous results on the brighter portion of
the CMD, allow us to obtain an accurate sampling of the stellar populations
also at the faint magnitudes corresponding to the Main Sequence. By adopting a
homogeneous and consistent theoretical scenario for both hydrogen and central
helium-burning evolutionary phases, the various features observed in the CMD
are interpreted and reliable estimations for both the distance modulus and the
age(s) for the main stellar components of Leo I are derived. More in details,
from the upper luminosity of the Red Giant Branch and the lower luminosity of
the Subgiant Branch we simultaneously constrain the galaxy distance and the age
of the oldest stellar population in Leo I. In this way we obtain a distance
modulus (m-M)_V=22.000.15 mag and an age of 10--15 Gyr or 9--13 Gyr,
adopting a metallicity Z=0.0001 and 0.0004, respectively. The reliability of
this distance modulus has been tested by comparing the observed distribution of
the Leo I anomalous Cepheids in the period-magnitude diagram with the predicted
boundaries of the instability strip, as given by convective pulsating models.Comment: 19 pages, 3 tables, 14 figures To be published in A
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