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Are kinematic and ligament strain restoration interchangeable targets in total knee arthroplasty?
No full textReference Architecture of Cybersecurity Digital Twin
Get PDFThe transformation of previously isolated Critical Infrastructures (CIs) into intricate Systems-of-Systems has rendered them vulnerable to various threats. CIs are characterized by long life cycles and high availability requirements, which pose significant challenges in maintaining cybersecurity throughout their operational life cycle. Existing testing methodologies prove inadequate and may compromise the CI’s operational continuity. This paper proposes to shift testing activities to a Digital Twin (DT) connected to the CI. The DT provides a digital counterpart of the real system, enabling cost-effective testing without compromising operational integrity. For this approach, we present an enterprise architecture called the cybersecurity DT reference architecture. Through a camera surveillance system use case, we demonstrate the feasibility of this reference architecture, focusing on what-if testing using DT-enabled attack simulations. We show how to enhance decision-making when evaluating system configurations and how to deploy optimized configurations to the real system.</p
Finite Element Analysis of Stress Distribution in a Tibial Bone-Anchored Prosthesis During Running
Get PDFKeep Up With the Joneses:Founders and Family Business Philanthropy
Get PDFThis study examines how the social climate of comparison in which a founder grew up impacts family business (FB) philanthropy, emphasizing the founder's role in FB decisions. With a dataset of 758 Chinese FBs, we find that the stronger the social climate of comparison in the founder's region of upbringing, the more charitable donations the FB tends to make. This effect is more pronounced in areas with a high concentration of FBs. The unspoken rules of Chinese society, related to ‘face (Mianzi)’ and ‘favours’ significantly influence business decisions.</p
Subject-Specific Calibration of Neuromuscular Models for Predictive Control of Achilles Tendon Force during Locomotion
No full textDeveloping wearable robots with predictive closed-loop control of musculotendon loads can enhance bio-protection and reduce injury risks. Model-based Predictive Control (MPC) of these devices demands computationally efficient models. Once a suitable model is developed [1], personalizing it through calibration for users is essential. This paper outlines the procedure for calibrating a personalized model of plantarflexors (PFs) suitable for hopping and walking tasks
Quantum Transport in SnTe Nanowire Devices
Get PDFA variety of quantum transport experiments are reported in SnTe nanowire devices. Research on these particular nanowire devices is relevant because of their topological properties and their potential to distinguish surface states owing to their high surface-to-volume ratio that suppresses the bulk contribution to the conductance. A low-resistance and a high-resistance regime are observed. The highly resistive devices display semiconducting and quantum dot behavior caused by microscopic differences in the fabrication, while devices with low resistance show partial superconductivity when in a hybrid superconductor-nanowire configuration or Fabry-Pérot oscillations. The latter suggests quantum interference in a ballistic transport channel, attributed to the 2D surface states in SnTe. The wide variety of quantum transport phenomena demonstrate SnTe nanowires as a promising platform for diverse follow-up experiments and novel device architectures, including the exploration of topological superconductivity and the development of low-energy spintronic devices.</p
Three-Dimensional Reconstruction Techniques and the Impact of Lighting Conditions on Reconstruction Quality:A Comprehensive Review
Get PDFThree-dimensional (3D) reconstruction has become a fundamental technology in applications ranging from cultural heritage preservation and robotics to forensics and virtual reality. As these applications grow in complexity and realism, the quality of the reconstructed models becomes increasingly critical. Among the many factors that influence reconstruction accuracy, the lighting conditions at capture time remain one of the most influential, yet widely neglected, variables. This review provides a comprehensive survey of classical and modern 3D reconstruction techniques, including Structure from Motion (SfM), Multi-View Stereo (MVS), Photometric Stereo, and recent neural rendering approaches such as Neural Radiance Fields (NeRFs) and 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS), while critically evaluating their performance under varying illumination conditions. We describe how lighting-induced artifacts such as shadows, reflections, and exposure imbalances compromise the reconstruction quality and how different approaches attempt to mitigate these effects. Furthermore, we uncover fundamental gaps in current research, including the lack of standardized lighting-aware benchmarks and the limited robustness of state-of-the-art algorithms in uncontrolled environments. By synthesizing knowledge across fields, this review aims to gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between lighting and reconstruction and provides research directions for the future that emphasize the need for adaptive, lighting-robust solutions in 3D vision systems
Most Africans place primary responsibility for climate action on their own government
Get PDFGlobal increase in the pace of climate action is urgent. Yet, it is less clear who citizens expect to take the lead on climate action across different regions of the world: historical emitters, their own governments, or themselves? Our analysis of Africa’s largest public opinion survey, the Afrobarometer, across 39 countries finds that Africans place primary responsibility for addressing climate change on their own government, a further third see ordinary citizens as most responsible, while very few place responsibility on historical emitters. Multinomial logistic regression analysis shows that education, decreased poverty, and access to new media sources are associated with increased attribution of responsibility to historical emitters. Our results suggest that poverty alleviation and increased access to education, combined with professional frontline government bureaucracies can re-apportion citizen expectations of responsibility for climate action onto historical emitters and actors with more resources for scalable climate action. (Figure presented.)</p
Neutron Resilience of Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells Using PTAA-Derived Hole Transport Layers
Get PDFFlexible perovskite solar cells hold promise of being an enabling technology for space missions: by reducing the encumbrance and weight of the payload's power system, launch costs can be minimized. The increased interest, however, must be accompanied by thorough testing under a broad range of space-related sources of degradation and investigation of their effects on the layer stack. In this work, the resilience against atmospheric neutron radiation (<800 MeV) of flexible devices is studied, using two different hole transporting materials: a commercial PTAA and a PTAA-based in-house synthesized polymer. After 5 109 particles/cm2 irradiation, 380 times higher than the yearly fast neutron fluence in low Earth orbit, the devices show good stability, with efficiency losses below 20%. Further investigation by light intensity-dependent JV scans, hyperspectral photoluminescence microscopy, X-ray diffraction, X-ray reflectivity, and atomic force microscopy reveals that the neutron radiation mainly affects the perovskite/hole transport layer interface, to a different extent depending on the material. This work confirms that accelerated stress testing is an important tool to determine the feasibility of this technology for space applications and provides insights on the damages caused by atmospheric neutrons which will help inform future decisions for the fabrication of space-resilient flexible perovskite solar cells.</p