In canonical models of Micro-Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS), an event called touchdown whereby the electrical components of the device come into contact, is characterized by a blow up in the governing equations and a non-physical divergence of the electric field. In the present work, we propose novel regularized governing equations whose solutions remain finite at touchdown and exhibit addit...

A long landing is one type of flight incident that will multiply the risk of a runway excursion. It occurs frequently but receives little attention in research due to difficulty in obtaining the real flight data. The aim of this paper is to discover key flight parameter features of long landing incidents by analyzing Quick Access Recorder (QAR) data and put forward prevention measures from the ...

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of towing force magnitude on the kinematics of supramaximal sprinting. Ten high school and college-age track and field athletes (6 men, 4 women) ran 60-m maximal sprints under 5 different conditions: Nontowed, Tow A (2.0% body weight [BW]), Tow B (2.8% BW), Tow C (3.8% BW), and Tow D (4.7% BW). Three-dimensional kinematics of a 4-segment ...

Touchdown (TD) PCR represents a versatile one-step procedure for optimizing PCRs even if the degree of primer-template complementarity is not fully known. The protocol relies on incremental annealing temperature decreases in progressive cycles designed to bracket the melting temperature (Tm) of the reaction. Here we investigate the characteristics of TD PCR that serve to minimize the need to op...

Landing behavior is one of the most critical, yet least studied, aspects of insect flight. In order to land safely, an insect must recognize a visual feature, navigate towards it, decelerate, and extend its legs in preparation for touchdown. Although previous studies have focused on the visual stimuli that trigger these different components, the complete sequence has not been systematically stu...

Do team managers and coaches make rational decisions? In the era of big data one would expect coaching decisions to always be rational with respect to the maximization of the expected points scored. In order to examine this hypothesis we use data from the National Football League for the past 7 seasons to analyze two specific discrete decisions/choices that coaches face several times during a g...

This paper describes the implementation of a preliminary bounding gait in a small hexapod, RHex [1], with compliant legs. A four-legged bounding gait, which uses only the front and back leg pairs, achieves an average speed of 1.5m/s and a low specific resistance. Leg touchdown angles and desired stance trajectories are fixed a priori. The only feedback employed is leg angle sensing and touchdow...

The purpose of this study was to investigate muscle activation patterns during a landing task in boys and girls through the use of muscle synergies. Electromyographical data from six lower extremity muscles were collected from 11 boys and 16 girls while they performed single-leg drop-landings. Electromyographical data from six leg muscles were rectified, smoothed, and normalized to maximum dyna...