Using the trajectory of the shuttlecock as a measure of performance accuracy in the badminton short serve

Accuracy of a projectile is typically quantified as the proportion of successful target hits, or the distance an object finishes from the target. Serving in sports such as badminton differs since the shuttlecock is usually intercepted by the opponent before landing on the target (i.e. court surface). Therefore, landing accuracy measures are inappropriate and a new method of determining accuracy of the serve is needed. During interviews, elite coaches and players described an accurate short serve as crossing the net with low clearance and having an apex before the net. Three-dimensional trajectory of the shuttlecock was therefore tracked from eight national-level players who performed 30 short serves in simulated match conditions (i.e. with an opponent); 27% of all serves were classified as ‘accurate’, 27% of serves as ‘inaccurate’, 21% with a ‘good apex’ position, and 25% with a ‘good clearance’ height. The proposed method of assessing shuttlecock trajectory as a measure of accuracy could be adopted by coaches and players to assess and improve short serve accuracy. Furthermore, this method is more representative of a match environment since the shuttlecock rarely lands because the opponent returns the serve

Teleportation-based number state manipulation with number sum measurement

We examine various manipulations of photon number states which can be implemented by teleportation technique with number sum measurement. The preparations of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen resources as well as the number sum measurement resulting in projection to certain Bell state may be done conditionally with linear optical elements, i.e., beam splitters, phase shifters and zero-one-photon detectors. Squeezed vacuum states are used as primary entanglement resource, while single-photon sources are not required.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, Misprints are corrected. 3 figures for number sum measurement are added. Discussion on manipulations are expanded. Calculations for success probabilities are added. Fig.4 is adde

Impact of Paired Central and Peripheral Blood Cultures in Children With Cancer

Children with cancer require central venous access which carries risk for line-related infections. The necessity of peripheral and central blood cultures is debated for those with fevers. We evaluated and described results for first episode of paired blood cultures from children with cancer who have a central venous line using retrospective database. Blood culture results, laboratory data, and medical outcomes were included. Descriptive analyses of blood culture results and clinical data were performed. There were 190 episodes of paired positive blood cultures with 167 true positive episodes. Of the true positive episodes, 104 (62.3%) were positive in both central and peripheral cultures, 42 (25.1%) were positive in central only cultures, and 21 (12.6%) were positive in peripheral cultures only. Intensive care unit admission within 48 hours after blood cultures (n=33) differed significantly: 28.7% for both central and peripheral, 10% for central only, and 0% for peripheral only (P=0.009). Central line removal (n=34) differed by type of positivity but was not significant: 22.1% for both central and peripheral, 23.8% for central only, and 4.8% for peripheral only (P=0.15). Peripheral blood cultures provided important medical information yet had differences in short-term clinical outcomes. Further evaluation of medical decision making is warranted

Atlas performance and imploding liner parameter space

Ultra-high magnetic fields have many applications in the confining and controlling plasmas and in exploring electron physics as manifested in the magnetic properties of materials. Another application of high fields is the acceleration of metal conductors to velocities higher than that achievable with conventional high explosive drive or gas guns. The Atlas pulse power system is the world's first pulse power system specifically designed to implode solid and near-solid density metal liners for use in pulse power hydrodynamic experiments. This paper describes the Atlas system during the first year of its operational life at Los Alamos, (comprising 10-15 implosion experiments); describes circuit models that adequately predicted the bulk kinematic behavior of liner implosions; and shows how those (now validated) models can be used to describe the range of parameters accessible through Atlas implosions

Coherent chaos interest-rate models

Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, 18, 3, 2015, pp. 1550016. doi:10.1142/S0219024915500168 © copyright World Scientific Publishing Company, https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219024915500168The Wiener chaos approach to interest-rate modeling arises from the observation that in the general context of an arbitrage-free model with a Brownian filtration, the pricing kernel admits a representation in terms of the conditional variance of a square-integrable generator, which in turn admits a chaos expansion. When the expansion coefficients of the random generator factorize into multiple copies of a single function, the resulting interest-rate model is called «coherent», whereas a generic interest-rate model is necessarily «incoherent». Coherent representations are of fundamental importance because an incoherent generator can always be expressed as a linear superposition of coherent elements. This property is exploited to derive general expressions for the pricing kernel and the associated bond price and short rate processes in the case of a generic nth order chaos model, for eachn N. Pricing formulae for bond options and swaptions are obtained in closed form for a number of examples. An explicit representation for the pricing kernel of a generic incoherent model is then obtained by use of the underlying coherent elements. Finally, finite-dimensional realizations of coherent chaos models are investigated and we show that a class of highly tractable models can be constructed having the characteristic feature that the discount bond price is given by a piecewise-flat (simple) process

Associations of built environment and proximity of food outlets with weight status:Analysis from 14 cities in 10 countries

The study aimed to examine associations of neighborhood built environments and proximity of food outlets (BE measures) with body weight status using pooled data from an international study (IPEN Adult). Objective BE measures were calculated using geographic information systems for 10,008 participants (4463 male, 45%) aged 16-66 years in 14 cities. Participants self-reported proximity to three types of food outlets. Outcomes were body mass index (BMI) and overweight/obesity status. Male and female weight status associations with BE measures were estimated by generalized additive mixed models. Proportion (95% CI) of overweight (BMI 25 to = 30) from 2.9% (1.3, 4.4) to 31.3% (27.7, 34.7), with Hong Kong being the lowest and Cuernavaca, Mexico highest for both proportions. Results differed by sex. Greater street intersection density, public transport density and perceived proximity to restaurants (males) were associated with lower odds of overweight/obesity (BMI >= 25). Proximity to public transport stops (females) was associated with higher odds of overweight/obesity. Composite BE measures were more strongly related to BMI and overweight/obesity status than single variables among men but not women. One standard deviation improvement in the composite measures of BE was associated with small reductions of 0.1-0.5% in BMI but meaningful reductions of 2.5-5.3% in the odds of overweight/obesity. Effects were linear and generalizable across cities. Neighborhoods designed to support public transport, with food outlets within walking distance, may contribute to global obesity control

Equity Premium Predictions with Adaptive Macro Indexes

Fundamental economic conditions are crucial determinants of equity premia. However, commonly used predictors do not adequately capture the changing nature of economic conditions and hence have limited power in forecasting equity returns. To address the inadequacy, this paper constructs macro indexes from large data sets and adaptively chooses optimal indexes to predict stock returns. I find that adaptive macro indexes explain a substantial fraction of the short-term variation in future stock returns and have more forecasting power than both the historical average of stock returns and commonly used predictors. The forecasting power exhibits a strong cyclical pattern, implying the ability of adaptive macro indexes to capture time-varying economic conditions. This finding highlights the importance of using dynamically measured economic conditions to investigate empirical linkages between the equity premium and macroeconomic fundamentals

Bostonia: The Boston University Alumni Magazine. Volume 9

Founded in 1900, Bostonia magazine is Boston University's main alumni publication, which covers alumni and student life, as well as university activities, events, and programs

The nomenclature, definition and classification of discordant atrioventricular connections

Congenitally corrected transposition is a complex cardiac lesion that is often associated with ventricular septal defect, obstruction of the outflow tract of the morphologically left ventricle, and abnormalities of the morphologically tricuspid valve.1,2Nomenclature for this lesion has been variable and confusing.1In this review, we define, and hopefully clarify this terminology. The lesion is a combination of discordant union of the atrial chambers with the ventricles, and the ventricles with the arterial trunks.1,2In rare circumstances, discordant atrioventricular connections can be associated with concordant ventriculo-arterial connections. This malformation has been called "isolated ventricular inversion". The term is less than precise, and the descriptive approach using the phrase "discordant atrioventricular connections with concordant ventriculo-arterial connections" is preferred, as discussed below

A Joint Search for Gravitational Wave Bursts with AURIGA and LIGO

The first simultaneous operation of the AURIGA detector and the LIGO observatory was an opportunity to explore real data, joint analysis methods between two very different types of gravitational wave detectors: resonant bars and interferometers. This paper describes a coincident gravitational wave burst search, where data from the LIGO interferometers are cross-correlated at the time of AURIGA candidate events to identify coherent transients. The analysis pipeline is tuned with two thresholds, on the signal-to-noise ratio of AURIGA candidate events and on the significance of the cross-correlation test in LIGO. The false alarm rate is estimated by introducing time shifts between data sets and the network detection efficiency is measured with simulated signals with power in the narrower AURIGA band. In the absence of a detection, we discuss how to set an upper limit on the rate of gravitational waves and to interpret it according to different source models. Due to the short amount of analyzed data and to the high rate of non-Gaussian transients in the detectors noise at the time, the relevance of this study is methodological: this was the first joint search for gravitational wave bursts among detectors with such different spectral sensitivity and the first opportunity for the resonant and interferometric communities to unify languages and techniques in the pursuit of their common goal.Comment: 18 pages, IOP, 12 EPS figure