Search results for "FLIGHTS"
showing 10 items of 15 documents
Predicting hypoxia in cystic fibrosis patients during exposure to high altitudes
2006
Abstract Background For patients with cystic fibrosis (CF)-related partial respiratory insufficiency and reduced arterial oxygen tension at ground level, the mild hypobaric environment on commercial jet aircraft poses the risk of severe hypoxemia. Thus, physicians should be able to estimate the extent of in-flight hypoxia. Objectives To derive tools for estimating the expected drop in arterial oxygen partial pressure (paO 2 ) and oxygen saturation (saO 2 ) in young adult CF patients with mild to moderate airway obstruction during exposure to the hypobaric conditions aboard commercial aircraft and to test the predictive power of a hypobaric chamber simulation. Methods Blood gases of 12 CF pa…
Scattering lengths and universality in superdiffusive L\'evy materials
2012
We study the effects of scattering lengths on L\'evy walks in quenched one-dimensional random and fractal quasi-lattices, with scatterers spaced according to a long-tailed distribution. By analyzing the scaling properties of the random-walk probability distribution, we show that the effect of the varying scattering length can be reabsorbed in the multiplicative coefficient of the scaling length. This leads to a superscaling behavior, where the dynamical exponents and also the scaling functions do not depend on the value of the scattering length. Within the scaling framework, we obtain an exact expression for the multiplicative coefficient as a function of the scattering length both in the a…
Space Thermoacoustic Radioisotopic Power System, SpaceTRIPS: The Magnetohydrodynamic Generator
2021
Electricity production is a major problem for deep space exploration. The possibility of using radioisotope elements with a very long life as an energy source was investigated in the framework of an EU project “SpaceTRIPS”. For this, a two-stage system was tested, the first in which thermal energy is converted into mechanical energy by means of a thermoacoustic process, and the second where mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy by means of a magnetohydrodynamic generator (MHD). The aim of the present study is to develop an analytical model of the MHD generator. A one-dimensional model is developed and presented that allows us to evaluate the behavior of the device as regards…
Josephson-based Threshold Detector for Lévy-Distributed Current Fluctuations
2019
We propose a threshold detector for Lévy-distributed fluctuations based on a Josephson junction. The Lévy-noise current added to a linearly ramped bias current results in clear changes in the distribution of switching currents out of the zero-voltage state of the junction. We observe that the analysis of the cumulative distribution function of the switching currents supplies information on both the characteristics' shape parameter α of the Lévy statistics. Moreover, we discuss a theoretical model, which allows characteristic features of the Lévy fluctuations to be extracted from a measured distribution of switching currents. In view of these results, this system can effectively find an appl…
Langevin Approach to Levy Flights in Fixed Potentials: Exact Results for Stationary Probability Distributions
2008
The functional method to derive the fractional Fokker-Planck equation for probability distribution from the Langevin equation with Levy stable noise is proposed. For the Cauchy stable noise we obtain the exact stationary probability density function of Levy flights in different smooth potential profiles. We find confinement of the particle in the superdiffusion motion with a bimodal stationary distribution for all the anharmonic symmetric monostable potentials investigated. The stationary probability density functions show power-law tails, which ensure finiteness of the variance. By reviewing recent results on these statistical characteristics, the peculiarities of Levy flights in compariso…
Time characteristics of Lévy flights in a steep potential well
2013
Using the method previously developed for ordinary Brownian diffusion, we derive a new formula to calculate the correlation time of stationary Lévy flights in a steep potential well. For the symmetric quartic potential, we obtain the exact expression of the correlation time of steady-state Lévy flights with index α = 1. The correlation time of stationary Lévy flights decreases with an increasing noise intensity and steepness of potential well.
Lévy flights and Lévy-Schrödinger semigroups
2010
We analyze two different confining mechanisms for L\'{e}vy flights in the presence of external potentials. One of them is due to a conservative force in the corresponding Langevin equation. Another is implemented by Levy-Schroedinger semigroups which induce so-called topological Levy processes (Levy flights with locally modified jump rates in the master equation). Given a stationary probability function (pdf) associated with the Langevin-based fractional Fokker-Planck equation, we demonstrate that generically there exists a topological L\'{e}vy process with the very same invariant pdf and in the reverse.
Space medicine: use of ex vivo human respiratory mucosa in the survey of the effects of microgravity on the respiratory system
2019
In the near future, the length and scope of space travel is set to increase significantly. The number of individuals who will have access to extra-terrestrial travels is also increasing. In view of the growing international interest towards manned long-term space exploration, possible effects of exposure to microgravity conditions affecting the respiratory system are subject of interest by major space agencies (NASA and ESA primarily). Our team has developed an advanced 3d tissue model of the human bronchial mucosa within a wide research project involving several universities and space agencies at international level. The model will be used to study the structural/functional alterations of …
Lévy Flights for Ant Colony Optimization in Continuous Domains
2009
In this paper, the authors propose the use of the Levy probability distribution as leading mechanism for solutions differentiation in an efficient and bio-inspired optimization algorithm, ant colony optimization in continuous domains, ACOR. In the classical ACOR, new solutions are constructed starting from one solution, selected from an archive, where Gaussian distribution is used for parameter diversification. In the proposed approach, the Levy probability distributions are properly introduced in the solution construction step, in order to couple the ACOR algorithm with the exploration properties of the Levy distribution.
Anomalous diffusion and nonlinear relaxation phenomena in stochastic models of interdisciplinary physics
2020
The study of nonlinear dynamical systems in the presence of both Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise sources is the topic of this research work. In particular, after shortly present new theoretical results for statistical characteristics in the framework of Markovian theory, we analyse four different physical systems in the presence of Levy noise source. (a) The residence time problem of a particle subject to a non-Gaussian noise source in arbitrary potential profile was analyzed and the exact analytical results for the statistical characteristics of the residence time for anomalous diffusion in the form of Levy flights in fully unstable potential profile was obtained. Noise enhanced stability …