Individual differences in athletes' perception of expressive body movements

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd.Objectives: Understanding others' actions depends on the observer's individual characteristics and sensorimotor experience. Motor performance domains, such as sports and the performing arts, provide optimal situations to investigate the determinants of action perception. We investigated athletes' perceptual identification of expression intensity in body movements. Design: A within-subjects design was used. Method: Participants watched point-light displays (1000 ms long) depicting expressive and inexpressive dance movements. The task was to identify the dancer's intended expression intensity. Results: The results indicate that expressive body movements can be reliably identified, with judgement accuracy correlating with self-report empathy indices, intuitive/deliberate decision-making preferences, and indices of sports training. Only years of sports training could predict perceptual identification accuracy. Conclusions: We discuss the findings in relation to motor and cognitive-emotional contributions to action simulation. The potential of cross-domain transfer of motor expertise for boosting perceptual judgements and a hierarchical role of factors eliciting action simulation are also outlined

Promising methods of SPD to obtain nanostructured metallic materials

© 2016, Institute of Problems of Mechanical Engineering.The manuscript provides the results of investigations and the analysis of advanced schemes of severe plastic deformation (SPD) creating conditions of non-monotonic exposure at drawing and rolling of long-length metallic materials. The manuscript shows the efficiency of schemes in terms of nanostructured states processing and the advance of further studies for possible commercial implementation

Improving Airline Bankruptcy Prediction

The airline industry plays an important role in the global economy but faces financial challenges. Numerous firms have filed for bankruptcy protection or have liquidated completely, each instance having a devastating effect on the company’s stakeholders. The objective of this study is to compare a traditional bankruptcy prediction model with a proposed alternative model, with the goal of identifying a means of predicting the combinations of characteristics that are present when an airline is likely to fail. The alternate model proved to be more accurate than the traditional model in predicting bankruptcy, providing improved forecasting up to four years prior to the bankruptcy filing date. Airlines can use this model to deploy corrective measures to alter the firm’s underlying problems, redefine strategies, and avoid bankruptcy, while investors can use this model to avoid or reduce investments in questionable firms that cannot be salvaged

Singular behaviour of the electromagnetic field

The singularities of the electromagnetic field are derived to include all the point-like multipoles representing an electric charge and current distribution. Firstly derived in the static case, the result is generalized to the dynamic one. We establish a simple procedure for passing from the first, to the second case.Comment: Latex, 21.pages, no figure

Magnetic dipole moments in single and coupled split-ring resonators

We examine the role of magnetic dipoles in single and coupled pairs of metallic split-ring resonators by numerically computing their magnitude and examining their relative contributions to the scattering cross section. We demonstrate that magnetic dipoles can strongly influence the scattering cross section along particular directions. It is also found that the magnetic dipole parallel to the incident magnetic field and/or high-order multipoles may play a significant role in the linear response of coupled split-ring resonators.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Analysis of shear deformation scheme efficiency in plastic structure formation processes

The paper is devoted to the analysis of such an important factor as deformation behavior in the simple shear conditions.It is shown that non-monotonous character of material plastic flow exerts significant influence on the intensity of initial structure refinement. Induced non-monotonous character that ensures formation of equiaxed structural states plays an important role in the process

Forces between a single atom and its distant mirror image

An excited-state atom whose emitted light is back-reflected by a distant mirror can experience trapping forces, because the presence of the mirror modifies both the electromagnetic vacuum field and the atom's own radiation reaction field. We demonstrate this mechanical action using a single trapped barium ion. We observe the trapping conditions to be notably altered when the distant mirror is shifted by an optical wavelength. The well-localised barium ion enables the spatial dependence of the forces to be measured explicitly. The experiment has implications for quantum information processing and may be regarded as the most elementary optical tweezers.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, published versio

Accuracy of a method based on atomic absorption spectrometry to determine inorganic arsenic in food : Outcome of the collaborative trial IMEP-41

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Memberships and CM Diagrams of the Open Cluster NGC 7243

The results of astrometric and photometric investigations of the open cluster NGC 7243 are presented. Proper motions of 2165 stars with root-mean-square error of 1.1 mas/yr were obtained by means of PDS scanning of astrometric plates covering the time interval of 97 years. A total of 211 cluster members down to V=15.5 mag have been identified. V and B magnitudes have been determined for 2118 and 2110 stars respectively. Estimations of mass (348Mo < M < 522Mo), age (t=2.5x10^8 yr), distance (r=698 pc) and reddening (E(B-V)=0.24) of the cluster NGC 7243 have been made.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures. Submitted to Astronomy and Astrophysic