The Evolution of Stop-motion Animation Technique Through 120 Years of Technological Innovations

Stop-motion animation history has been put on paper by several scholars and practitioners who tried to organize 120 years of technological innovations and material experiments dealing with a huge literature. Bruce Holman (1975), Neil Pettigrew (1999), Ken Priebe (2010), Stefano Bessoni (2014), and more recently Adrián Encinas Salamanca (2017), provided the most detailed even tough partial attempts of systematization, and designed historical reconstructions by considering specific periods of time, film lengths or the use of stop-motion as special effect rather than an animation technique. This article provides another partial historical reconstruction of the evolution of stop-motion and outlines the main events that occurred in the development of this technique, following criteria based on the innovations in the technology of materials and manufacturing processes that have influenced the fabrication of puppets until the present day. The systematization follows a chronological order and takes into account events that changed the technique of a puppets’ manufacturing process as a consequence of the use of either new fabrication processes or materials. Starting from the accident that made the French film-pioneer Georges Méliès discover the trick of the replacement technique at the end of the nineteenth century, the reconstruction goes through 120 years of experiments and films. “Build up” puppets fabricated by the Russian puppet animator Ladislaw Starevicz with insect exoskeletons, the use of clay puppets and the innovations introduced by LAIKA entertainment in the last decade such as Stereoscopic photography and the 3D computer printed replacement pieces, and then the increasing influence of digital technologies in the process of puppet fabrication are some of the main considered events. Technology transfers, new materials’ features, innovations in the way of animating puppets, are the main aspects through which this historical analysis approaches the previously mentioned events. This short analysis is supposed to remind and demonstrate that stop-motion animation is an interdisciplinary occasion of both artistic expression and technological experimentation, and that its evolution and aesthetic is related to cultural, geographical and technological issues. Lastly, if the technology of materials and processes is a constantly evolving field, what future can be expected for this cinematographic technique? The article ends with this open question and without providing an answer it implicitly states the role of stop-motion as a driving force for innovations that come from other fields and are incentivized by the needs of this specific sector

Love in Extrema Ratio

The tidal deformability of a self-gravitating object leaves an imprint on the gravitational-wave signal of an inspiral which is paramount to measure the internal structure of the binary components. We unveil here a surprisingly unnoticed effect: in the extreme-mass ratio limit the tidal Love number of the central object (i.e. the quadrupole moment induced by the tidal field of its companion) affects the gravitational waveform at the leading order in the mass ratio. This effect acts as a magnifying glass for the tidal deformability of supermassive objects but was so far neglected, probably because the tidal Love numbers of a black hole (the most natural candidate for a compact supermassive object) are identically zero. We argue that extreme-mass ratio inspirals detectable by the future LISA mission might place constraints on the tidal Love numbers of the central object which are roughly 8 orders of magnitude more stringent than current ones on neutron stars, potentially probing all models of black hole mimickers proposed so far.Comment: Essay selected for an Honorable Mention in the Gravity Research Foundation Essay Competition 2019. v2: two references added, version to appear in IJMP

Low latency search for Gravitational waves from BH-NS binaries in coincidence with Short Gamma Ray Bursts

We propose a procedure to be used in the search for gravitational waves from black hole-neutron star coalescing binaries, in coincidence with short gamma-ray bursts. It is based on two recently proposed semi-analytic fits, one reproducing the mass of the remnant disk surrounding the black hole which forms after the merging as a function of some binary parameters, the second relating the neutron star compactness, i.e. the ratio of mass and radius, with its tidal deformability. Using a Fisher matrix analysis and the two fits, we assign a probability that the emitted gravitational signal is associated to the formation of an accreting disk massive enough to supply the energy needed to power a short gamma ray burst. This information can be used in low-latency data analysis to restrict the parameter space searching for gravitational wave signals in coincidence with short gamma-ray bursts, and to gain information on the dynamics of the coalescing system and on the internal structure of the components. In addition, when the binary parameters will be measured with high accuracy, it will be possible to use this information to trigger the search for off-axis gamma-ray bursts afterglows.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, changes in the introduction and in the concluding remarks. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

SECY APP: self configuration and easy management for software defined smart homes

In this paper we address configuration and management issues of smart homes. Current platforms requires the user to deal with several management inconvenience problems, such as increasing devices, operating between devices, and using new devices. From a user perspective, system configuration and management are major issues: ordinary consumers want to use systems performing minimal configuration. To address this issue, we propose a platform, composed of a web application and Software Defined Network (SDN). While the user interacts with an easy-to-use interface on a smart device, the app automatically generates and installs SDN rules. Our platform, besides facilitating configuration and management, results more efficient --- up to 4 times faster --- and reliable --- able to operate even in case of no connection with the cloud --- than current solutions

CRASH: a Radiative Transfer Scheme

We present a largely improved version of CRASH, a 3-D radiative transfer code that treats the effects of ionizing radiation propagating through a given inhomogeneous H/He cosmological density field, on the physical conditions of the gas. The code, based on a Monte Carlo technique, self-consistently calculates the time evolution of gas temperature and ionization fractions due to an arbitrary number of point/extended sources and/or diffuse background radiation with given spectra. In addition, the effects of diffuse ionizing radiation following recombinations of ionized atoms have been included. After a complete description of the numerical scheme, to demonstrate the performances, accuracy, convergency and robustness of the code we present four different test cases designed to investigate specific aspects of radiative transfer: (i) pure hydrogen isothermal Stromgren sphere; (ii) realistic Stromgren spheres; (iii) multiple overlapping point sources, and (iv) shadowing of background radiation by an intervening optically thick layer. When possible, detailed quantitative comparison of the results against either analytical solutions or 1-D standard photoionization codes has been made showing a good level of agreement. For more complicated tests the code yields physically plausible results, which could be eventually checked only by comparison with other similar codes. Finally, we briefly discuss future possible developments and cosmological applications of the code.Comment: 17 pages, 14 figures, accepted for pubblication in MNRAS, high res figures available at http://www.arcetri.astro.it/science/cosmology/IGM/radtrans.htm

Solving the relativistic inverse stellar problem through gravitational waves observation of binary neutron stars

The LIGO/Virgo collaboration has recently announced the direct detection of gravitational waves emitted in the coalescence of a neutron star binary. This discovery allows, for the first time, to set new constraints on the behavior of matter at supranuclear density, complementary with those coming from astrophysical observations in the electromagnetic band. In this paper we demonstrate the feasibility of using gravitational signals to solve the relativistic inverse stellar problem, i.e. to reconstruct the parameters of the equation of state (EoS) from measurements of the stellar mass and tidal Love number. We perform Bayesian inference of mock data, based on different models of the star internal composition, modeled through piecewise polytropes. Our analysis shows that the detection of a small number of sources by a network of advanced interferometers would allow to put accurate bounds on the EoS parameters, and to perform a model selection among the realistic equations of state proposed in the literature.Comment: minor changes to match the version published on PR

A Spectrometer to Study Elastic and Diffractive Physics at LHC

The possibility to study elastic and diffractive physics in pp collisions at LHC is investigated. For this purpose we have considered detectors close to the beam in conjunction with the magnetic elements of the accelerator to provide a high precision spectrometer for very forward final state protons. The geometrical acceptance is given and momentum resolution is calculated for different spatial resolution detectors.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figures, Latex, submitted in International Journal of Modern Physics

Constraining the equation of state of nuclear matter with gravitational wave observations: Tidal deformability and tidal disruption

We study how to extract information on the neutron star equation of state from the gravitational wave signal emitted during the coalescence of a binary system composed of two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole. We use post-Newtonian templates which include the tidal deformability parameter and, when tidal disruption occurs before merger, a frequency cut-off. Assuming that this signal is detected by Advanced LIGO/Virgo or ET, we evaluate the uncertainties on these parameters using different data analysis strategies based on the Fisher matrix approach, and on recently obtained analytical fits of the relevant quantities. We find that the tidal deformability is more effective than the stellar compactness to discriminate among different possible equations of state.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 4 tables. Minor changes to match the version appearing on Phys. Rev.

CRASH3: cosmological radiative transfer through metals

Here we introduce CRASH3, the latest release of the 3D radiative transfer code CRASH. In its current implementation CRASH3 integrates into the reference algorithm the code Cloudy to evaluate the ionisation states of metals, self-consistently with the radiative transfer through H and He. The feedback of the heavy elements on the calculation of the gas temperature is also taken into account, making of CRASH3 the first 3D code for cosmological applications which treats self-consistently the radiative transfer through an inhomogeneous distribution of metal enriched gas with an arbitrary number of point sources and/or a background radiation. The code has been tested in idealized configurations, as well as in a more realistic case of multiple sources embedded in a polluted cosmic web. Through these validation tests the new method has been proven to be numerically stable and convergent. We have studied the dependence of the results on a number of physical quantities such as the source characteristics (spectral range and shape, intensity), the metal composition, the gas number density and metallicity.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRA