Explore the vast range of titles available.

Purpose. The drop jump is a symmetrical exercise requiring reactivity and accurate motor control. It involves a rapid sequence of eccentric- and concentric contractions to generate kinetic energy, which is immediately used in the jumping phase. As a result, it is commonly used in both training programs and athlete evaluations. Although its execution has been extensively studied in the literature, further research is needed to confirm the differences in performance between professional athletes (PA) and amateur athletes (AA), particularly in terms of inter-joint coordination and, consequently, left-right symmetry. Methods.To this end, we applied elements of kinematic network analysis to evaluate the bilateral synchronization of movement in the shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles, comparing PA and AA. Borrowing from previous studies that used network theory to assess kinematic relationships between body parts during movement, we analyzed the coordination between left and right joints during the drop jump movement of each participant. Results. Using the permutation test we compared the PA group to the AA groups, to verify whether there were differences in coordination, and which joints were involved if it was the case. We found two out of five joints showed significant differences in left-right coordination. The results showed that PA exhibited greater coordination at the shoulders and hips, suggesting a higher level of control to better exploit the upward thrust of the legs and prevent injuries. Conclusions. This study demonstrates that professional athletes display superior left-right coordination in the shoulders and hips during the drop jump, suggesting that enhanced joint coordination in these regions may contribute to higher athletic performance.

Purpose. Taekwondo, the official Olympic sport since the Sydney 2000 Games, known for the emphasis placed by practitioners on football techniques, owes its diffusion to the continuous changes in the competition regulations characterized by the protection of the safety of competitors and the objective search for the assignment of scores. These variations and modifications of the regulations have changed over time the entire performance model and, consequently, the morphology of the typical athlete for combat. Methods. The research was conducted through the collection and statistics of the heights of athletes who took part in and reached the medal zone at the Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 Olympics. All 32 athletes who arrived on the Olympic podium were taken into consideration, all aged between 18 and 35, divided into 16 males and 16 females, in the eight 8 Olympic weight categories. The working hypothesis was to verify that the average height of the medal athletes has been increasing, comparing these data with the average heights of previous Olympic editions, favoring the biomechanical advantage dictated by longer lower levers (greater length). Results. The trends obtained from the comparison of average heights, both in the male and female fields, confirm with a good approximation that the average heights of athletes have increased, then stabilized in some cases. Conclusions. This study confirms the hypothesis that, in most weight categories, the average height of Olympic Taekwondo medalists has been increasing over time, aligning with the biomechanical advantages associated with longer lower limbs. However, in some categories, particularly the -58 kg and +80 kg men's divisions and the +67 kg women's category, height trends appear to have stabilized, suggesting the establishment of an optimal range for performance.

The series of upgrades to the Large Hadron Collider, culminating in the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider, will enable a significant expansion of the physics program of the CMS experiment. However, the accelerator upgrades will also make the experimental conditions more challenging, with implications for detector operations, triggering, and data analysis. The luminosity of the proton-proton collisions is expected to exceed \\(2-310^34\\)~cm\\(^-2\\)s\\(^-1\\) for Run 3 (starting in 2022), and it will be at least \\(510^34\\)~cm\\(^-2\\)s\\(^-1\\) when the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider is completed for Run 4. These conditions will affect muon triggering, identification, and measurement, which are critical capabilities of the experiment. To address these challenges, additional muon detectors are being installed in the CMS endcaps, based on Gas Electron Multiplier technology. For this purpose, 161 large triple-Gas Electron Multiplier detectors have been constructed and tested. Installation of these devices began in 2019 with the GE1/1 station and will be followed by two additional stations, GE2/1 and ME0, to be installed in 2023 and 2026, respectively. The assembly and quality control of the GE1/1 detectors were distributed across several production sites around the world. We motivate and discuss the quality control procedures that were developed to standardize the performance of the detectors, and we present the final results of the production. Out of 161 detectors produced, 156 detectors passed all tests, and 144 detectors are now installed in the CMS experiment. The various visual inspections, gas tightness tests, intrinsic noise rate characterizations, and effective gas gain and response uniformity tests allowed the project to achieve this high success rate.

An estimate of environmental background hit rate on triple-GEM chambers is performed using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation and compared to data taken by test chambers installed in the CMS experiment (GE1/1) during Run-2 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The hit rate is measured using data collected with proton-proton collisions at 13 TeV and a luminosity of 1.5\\(\\times10^{34}\\) cm\\(^{-2}\\) s\\(^{-1}\\). The simulation framework uses a combination of the FLUKA and Geant4 packages to obtain the hit rate. FLUKA provides the radiation environment around the GE1/1 chambers, which is comprised of the particle flux with momentum direction and energy spectra ranging from \\(10^{-11}\\) to \\(10^{4}\\) MeV for neutrons, \\(10^{-3}\\) to \\(10^{4}\\) MeV for \\(\\gamma\\)'s, \\(10^{-2}\\) to \\(10^{4}\\) MeV for \\(e^{\\pm}\\), and \\(10^{-1}\\) to \\(10^{4}\\) MeV for charged hadrons. Geant4 provides an estimate of detector response (sensitivity) based on an accurate description of detector geometry, material composition and interaction of particles with the various detector layers. The MC simulated hit rate is estimated as a function of the perpendicular distance from the beam line and agrees with data within the assigned uncertainties of 10-14.5%. This simulation framework can be used to obtain a reliable estimate of background rates expected at the High Luminosity LHC.

The multi-staged XENON program at INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso aims to detect dark matter with two-phase liquid xenon time projection chambers of increasing size and sensitivity. The XENONnT experiment is the latest detector in the program, planned to be an upgrade of its predecessor XENON1T. It features an active target of 5.9 tonnes of cryogenic liquid xenon (8.5 tonnes total mass in cryostat). The experiment is expected to extend the sensitivity to WIMP dark matter by more than an order of magnitude compared to XENON1T, thanks to the larger active mass and the significantly reduced background, improved by novel systems such as a radon removal plant and a neutron veto. This article describes the XENONnT experiment and its sub-systems in detail and reports on the detector performance during the first science run.

The F408 research vehicle has enabled Ferrari Engineering to evaluate new forms of transmission, suspension, bodywork and structure for future production vehicles. As part of this project, Alean worked with Ferrari Engineering to adapt its Aluminum Structured Vehicle Technology (ASVT) to develop a bonded version of a central section of the structure (center cell) which had previously been made from folded, stainless steel box sections, laser-welded together. This paper begins with an outline of the major F408 project objectives and indicates the performance and manufacturing advantages for the features of interest, particularly the center cell structure. The paper describes the development stages of the bonded aluminum center cell, focusing on the design for stiffness, strength, and manufacture, and it shows that the performance and manufacturing objectives were met with a substantial weight-saving and improvement in stiffness compared to laser-welded stainless steel. The paper concludes with a summary of the other technical innovations and developments in the F408 vehicle.

We present the LAUE project devoted to develop an advanced technology for building a high focal length Laue lens for soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). The final goal is to develop a focusing optics that can improve the current sensitivity in the above energy band by 2 orders of magnitude.

This paper summarizes the development of a successful project, LAUE, supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and devoted to the development of long focal length (up to 100 m) Laue lenses for hard X--/soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). The apparatus is ready and the assembling of a prototype lens petal is ongoing. The great achievement of this project is the use of bent crystals. From measurements obtained on single crystals and from simulations, we have estimated the expected Point Spread Function and thus the sensitivity of a lens made of petals. The expected sensitivity is a few \\(\\times10^{-8}\\) photons cm\\(^{-2}\\) s\\(^{-1}\\) keV\\(^{-1}\\). We discuss a number of open astrophysical questions that can settled with such an instrument aboard a free-flying satellite.

We present the status of LAUE, a project supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and devoted to develop Laue lenses with long focal length (up to 100 meters), for hard X--/soft gamma--ray astronomy (80-600 keV). Thanks to their focusing capability, the design goal is to improve the sensitivity of the current instrumention in the above energy band by 2 orders of magnitude, down to a few times \\(10^{-8}\\) photons/(cm\\(^2\\) s keV).

We will describe the LAUE project, supported by the Italian Space Agency, whose aim is to demonstrate the capability to build a focusing optics in the hard X-/soft gamma-ray domain (80--600 keV). To show the lens feasibility, the assembling of a Laue lens petal prototype with 20 m focal length is ongoing. Indeed, a feasibility study, within the LAUE project, has demonstrated that a Laue lens made of petals is feasible. Our goal is a lens in the 80-600 keV energy band. In addition to a detailed description of the new LARIX facility, in which the lens is being assembled, we will report the results of the project obtained so far.