Self-similarity has been the paradigmatic picture for the pinch-off of a drop. Here we will show through high-speed imaging and boundary integral simulations that the inverse problem, the pinch-off of an air bubble in water, is not self-similar in a strict sense: A disk is quickly pulled through a water surface, leading to a giant, cylindrical void which after collapse creates an upward and a d...

The paper by Movileanu et al. (2001) in this issue of The Journal describes a test of the applicability of the substituted-cysteine-accessibility method (SCAM; Akabas et al., 1992; Akabas et al., 1994) to the problem of locating the narrowest region of a channel lumen. Movileanu et al. (2001) use unusually large sulfhydryldirected reagents to probe the wide bore channel formed by Staphylococcal...

We describe a heuristic search algorithm for generating optimal plans in a new class of decision problem, characterised by the incorporation of hidden state. The approach exploits the nature of the hidden state to reduce the state space by orders of magnitude. It then interleaves AO*-type heuristic expansion of the reduced space with forwards and backwards propagation phases to produce a soluti...

BACKGROUND Objective assessment of motor function is frequently used to evaluate outcome after surgical treatment of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). However a range of outcome measures are used and there appears to be no consensus on which measure of motor function effectively captures change. The purpose of this systematic review was to identify the methods used to assess motor function in rando...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the correlation between perceived performance in prioritized activities and physical conditions related to grip reconstruction. DESIGN Retrospective clinical outcome study. PATIENTS Forty-seven individuals with tetraplegia were included in the study. Each participant underwent tendon transfer surgery in the hand between November 2002 and April 2009 and had a complet...

Large-voltage and high-temperature plasma columns produced by pinch discharge can generate γ-ray flashes with energy spectra and spectral evolution consistent with that observed in γ-ray bursts (GRBs). The inverse Compton scattering (ICS) during the discharge process can produce high linear polarization. The calculation indicates that the observed polarization depends on the angle between the o...

The first phase of experiments on beat wave acceleration have been completed at UCLA. Here we examined the suitability of a theta pinch as a plasma source. The beatwave was excited to amplitudes providing GeV/m-scale accelerating fields. However, trapped magnetic fields within the theta-pinch plasma hindered the injection of test particles. Optical diagnostics were developed to measure the acce...

The generalization of the pinch technique to all orders in perturbation theory is presented. The effective Green’s functions constructed with this procedure are singled out in a unique way through the full exploitation of the underlying Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin symmetry. A simple all-order correspondence between the pinch technique and the background field method in the Feynman gauge is establ...