Fluctuation-Driven Vortex Fractionalization in Topologically Ordered Superfluids of Cold Atoms

We have studied spin structures of fluctuation-driven fractionalized vortices and topological spin order in 2D nematic superfluids of cold sodium atoms. Our Monte Carlo simulations suggest a softened pi-spin disclination structure in a half-quantum vortex when spin correlations are short ranged; in addition, calculations indicate that a unique non-local topological spin order emerges simultaneously as cold atoms become a superfluid below a critical temperature. We have also estimated fluctuation-dependent critical frequencies for half-quantum vortex nucleation in rotating optical traps and discussed probing these excitations in experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures; revised version accepted by Europhysics Letter

Partitioning technique for a discrete quantum system

We develop the partitioning technique for quantum discrete systems. The graph consists of several subgraphs: a central graph and several branch graphs, with each branch graph being rooted by an individual node on the central one. We show that the effective Hamiltonian on the central graph can be constructed by adding additional potentials on the branch-root nodes, which generates the same result as does the the original Hamiltonian on the entire graph. Exactly solvable models are presented to demonstrate the main points of this paper.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Altruistic Argument in the Demand-Withdraw Pattern in Interpersonal Disputes

The demand-withdraw pattern in interpersonal disputes is associated with negative outcomes. Yet altruistic argument, viewed as prosocial evidence and reasoning, may affect the demand-withdraw pattern. Using multiple goals communication theory, multiple goal perceptions are hypothesized to mediate the relationship between two pattern types (using/not using altruistic argument), and interaction outcomes. US young adults (N=322) evaluated an interaction that varied in pattern type and relationship type. Mediation analyses confirmed the three hypotheses

Developing a Low-Cost Force Treadmill via Dynamic Modeling

By incorporating force transducers into treadmills, force platform-instrumented treadmills (commonly called force treadmills) can collect large amounts of gait data and enable the ground reaction force (GRF) to be calculated. However, the high cost of force treadmills has limited their adoption. This paper proposes a low-cost force treadmill system with force sensors installed underneath a standard exercise treadmill. It identifies and compensates for the force transmission dynamics from the actual GRF applied on the treadmill track surface to the force transmitted to the force sensors underneath the treadmill body. This study also proposes a testing procedure to assess the GRF measurement accuracy of force treadmills. Using this procedure in estimating the GRF of “walk-on-the-spot motion,” it was found that the total harmonic distortion of the tested force treadmill system was about 1.69%, demonstrating the effectiveness of the approach

Assessing Postural Stability Via the Correlation Patterns of Vertical Ground Reaction Force Components

Background Many methods have been proposed to assess the stability of human postural balance by using a force plate. While most of these approaches characterize postural stability by extracting features from the trajectory of the center of pressure (COP), this work develops stability measures derived from components of the ground reaction force (GRF). Methods In comparison with previous GRF-based approaches that extract stability features from the GRF resultant force, this study proposes three feature sets derived from the correlation patterns among the vertical GRF (VGRF) components. The first and second feature sets quantitatively assess the strength and changing speed of the correlation patterns, respectively. The third feature set is used to quantify the stabilizing effect of the GRF coordination patterns on the COP. Results In addition to experimentally demonstrating the reliability of the proposed features, the efficacy of the proposed features has also been tested by using them to classify two age groups (18–24 and 65–73 years) in quiet standing. The experimental results show that the proposed features are considerably more sensitive to aging than one of the most effective conventional COP features and two recently proposed COM features. Conclusions By extracting information from the correlation patterns of the VGRF components, this study proposes three sets of features to assess human postural stability during quiet standing. As demonstrated by the experimental results, the proposed features are not only robust to inter-trial variability but also more accurate than the tested COP and COM features in classifying the older and younger age groups. An additional advantage of the proposed approach is that it reduces the force sensing requirement from 3D to 1D, substantially reducing the cost of the force plate measurement system

Adaptively Determination of Model Order of SVD-based Harmonics and Interharmonics Estimation

The singular value decomposition (SVD) is one of the most popular methods in harmonics and interharmonics estimation. However, its accuracy strongly depends on the correctness of the selected model order. To this purpose, this work aims at contributing to the correct estimation of the model order. This is achieved by exploiting the energy of the singular values (SVs). Firstly, the relationship between one frequency component and its corresponding SVs is theoretically investigated. Secondly, a new indicator is proposed for determining the model order, which denotes the energy of the k-th pair of consecutive SVs. Thirdly, an adaptive threshold is defined for separating signal components from noise. This way, the number of components can be obtained for unknown noise levels. Finally, the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed method has been validated by simulations. They have been run implementing typical signals designed according to the harmonics and interharmonics measurements standard, the IEC standard 61000-4-7

Accurate Damping Factor and Frequency Estimation for Damped Real-Valued Sinusoidal Signals

The interpolated discrete Fourier transform (IpDFT) is one of the most popular techniques to estimate the parameters of a damped real-valued sinusoidal signal (DRSS). However, its accuracy is affected by strong noise presence and short observation windows. To this end, this letter proposes a novel two-point IpDFT method, called I2pZDFT, for the parameter estimation of a DRSS. The proposed I2pZDFT uses the zero-padding technique to increase the sampling rate in the frequency domain. The conjugate symmetry and the parity of the zero-padded signal are utilized to eliminate the influence of the spectral leakage. Simulation results highlight that the proposed I2pZDFT outperforms the existing IpDFT-based methods in terms of noise immunity, especially in the case of observation windows as short as 0.5-1 cycles

Fast Iterative-Interpolated DFT Phasor Estimator Considering Out-of-band Interference

For interpolated discrete Fourier transform (IpDFT)-based phasor estimators, the out-of-band interference (OOBI) test is among the most challenging ones. The typical iterative-interpolated DFT (i-IpDFT) phasor estimator utilizes a two-step iterative framework to eliminate the effects of the negative frequency and OOBI. However, the speed of estimation is limited by the adopted frequency estimator and the redundant iterations. To this end, this article proposes a fast i-IpDFT (FiIpDFT) method for the phasor estimation of an OOBI contaminated signal, which utilizes the three-point IpDFT (I3pDFT) technique. The proposed method first applies a noniterative frequency, amplitude, and phase estimator to eliminate the negative frequency interference. Then, a straightforward formula and two-stop criterion are introduced to reduce the computational burden of the OOBI elimination process. The accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed FiIpDFT method are validated by simulations. These are designed, under steady and dynamic conditions, according to the requirements of the Standard IEC/IEEE 60255-118-1