Physics Students’ Conceptual Understanding of Electricity and Magnetism in Nine Years Basic Education in Rwanda

We investigate students’ misconceptions in electrostatics, direct current (DC) and magnetism which are important in electricity and magnetism. We developed and administered a multiple-choice questionnaire test to reveal students’ misconceptions related to charged bodies, lightning, electric fields, electric potential, forces, DC resistive electric circuits and magnets. This test aimed at obtaining quantitative information about misconceptions and was administered to 380 senior two students from Nine Year Basic Education (9YBE) Schools. The selected students have some experience with the new Rwandan secondary physics Competence Based Curriculum (CBC) that is currently under implementation. We find that senior two students have several common misconceptions related to these concepts. The data indicate that although students have some backgrounds on the subject matter, they still seem to believe that if the two charges are separated by a distance, a large-charged object exerts a greater force of attraction or repulsion on the small one. Considerable number of participated students held the misconception of considering current consumption in the resistor/bulb or the electrical devices in the circuits. They also believed that the battery was a continuous current source. The findings also revealed that students held a misconception that a bar magnet when broken into pieces, it is demagnetized. Moreover, a considerable number of participants hold the misconception that all metals are attracted by a magnet. Our study also revealed some of the statistically significant differences in terms of either gender or location of schools for some items.

Resting-state electroencephalographic correlates of cognitive reserve: Moderating the age-related decline in cognitive function

Measurement of cognitive reserve (CR) is a matter of constant reviews and developments due to the difficulty to assess it directly, being socio-behavioral indexes used as indirect proxies. An effort to unravel the neural correlates underlying CR seems mandatory, and strongly supported by the neuroscientific literature. Neurophysiological measures through electroencephalography (EEG) have proven to be a promising, almost inexpensive method to study the CR neural correlates. In line with the recommendations of Stern et al. (2020), the aim of the present study has been to demonstrate that resting-state EEG measures may moderate the relationship between age-related brain changes and cognitive status; thus, constituting an objective neural index of CR.Our results show that two resting-state EEG measures, delta current source density in the occipital region and beta 2 connectivity between limbic and occipital regions in the right hemisphere, moderate the relation between age and cognitive performance, indexing neuroprotective effects on cognition during the aging process. These results not only shed light on the neural mechanisms involved in CR but also allow us to propose features to be taken into account in order to enhance the results of interventions to delay the onset of cognitive deficits.

A Functional Electrical Stimulator to Enable Grasping Through Wrist Flexion

Functional electrical stimulation is an assistive technique that utilizes electrical discharges to produce functional movements in patients suffering from neurological impairments. In this work, a biphasic, programmable current- controlled functional electrical stimulator system is designed to enable hand grasping facilitated by wrist flexion. The developed system utilizes an operational amplifier based current source and is supported by a user interface to adjust stimulation parameters. The device is integrated with an accelerometer to measure the degree of stimulated movement. The system is validated, firstly, on two passive electrical loads and subsequently on four healthy volunteers. The device is designed to deliver currents between 0-30mA, and the error between the measured current and simulated current for two loads were -0.967±0.676mA and -0.995±0.97mA. The angular data from the accelerometer provided information regarding variations in movement between the subjects. The architecture of the proposed system is such that it can, in principle, automatically adjust the parameters of simulation to induce the desired movement optimally by measuring a stimulated movement artifact (e.g., angular position) in real time.

A PSF Approach to Far Field Discretization for Conformal Sources

In this paper we introduce a sampling scheme based on the application of an inverse source problem approach to the far field radiated by a conformal current source. The regularized solution of the problem requires the computation of the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the relevant linear operator, leading to introduce the Point Spread Function in the observation domain, which can be related to the capability of the source to radiate a focusing beam. Then, the application of the Kramer generalized sampling theorem allows introducing a non-uniform discretization of the angular observation domain, tailored to each source geometry. The nearly optimal property of the scheme is compared with the best approximation achievable under a regularized inversion of the pertinent SVD. Numerical results for different two-dimensional curve sources show the effectiveness of the approach with respect to standard sampling approaches with uniform spacing, since it allows to reduce the number of sampling points of the far field.

A PSF Approach to Far Field Discretization for Conformal Sources

In this paper we introduce a sampling scheme based on the application of an inverse source problem approach to the far field radiated by a conformal current source. The regularized solution of the problem requires the computation of the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) of the relevant linear operator, leading to introduce the Point Spread Function in the observation domain, which can be related to the capability of the source to radiate a focusing beam. Then, the application of the Kramer generalized sampling theorem allows introducing a non-uniform discretization of the angular observation domain, tailored to each source geometry. The nearly optimal property of the scheme is compared with the best approximation achievable under a regularized inversion of the pertinent SVD. Numerical results for different two-dimensional curve sources show the effectiveness of the approach with respect to standard sampling approaches with uniform spacing, since it allows to reduce the number of sampling points of the far field.

Cascaded H-Bridge Converter Based on Current-Source Inverter with DC Links Magnetically Coupled to Reduce the DC Inductors Value

The main drawback of the Cascaded-H Bridge converter based on three-phase/single-phase current-source inverters is the large DC inductors needed to limit the variation of the DC current caused by the single-phase inverter oscillating power. If the oscillating power is somehow compensated, then the DC inductor can be designed just as a function of the semiconductors’ switching frequency, reducing its value. This work explores the use of three-phase/single-phase cells magnetically coupled through their DC links to compensate for the oscillating power among them and, therefore, reduce the DC inductor value. At the same time, front ends controlled by a non-linear control strategy equalize the DC currents among coupled cells to avoid saturating the magnetic core. The effectiveness of the proposal is demonstrated using mathematical analysis and corroborated by computational simulation for a 110 kVA load per phase and experimental tests in a 2 kVA laboratory prototype. The outcomes show that for the tested cases, coupling the DC links by a 1:1 ratio transformer allows reducing the DC inductor value below 20% of the original DC inductor required. The above leads to reducing by 50% the amount of magnetic energy required in the DC link compared to the original topology without oscillating power compensation, keeping the quality of the cell input currents and the load voltage.