Werner J. Schmidt (1950-2007). Pushing the boundary of neuroscience: a true academician and a complete gentleman

Calculating areas within irregular boundaries, such as along rivers or curved roads, is crucial in various fields, including surveying, engineering, and environmental management. Surveyors often begin by creating a traverse, a connected series of straight lines approximating the area's boundary. The coordinates of each traverse point are essential for calculating the enclosed area. The double meridian distance formula is a widely used technique for this purpose. This method utilizes the...

When a fluid encounters a solid surface, a boundary layer forms due to the interaction between the fluid's motion and the stationary surface. This phenomenon is characterized by a thin region adjacent to the surface where viscous forces dominate, influencing the fluid's velocity profile. The development of the boundary layer begins at the leading edge of the surface and evolves as the fluid moves downstream.As the fluid flows over the surface, friction between the fluid and the wall slows down...

Engineering stress is calculated as the load divided by the original, undeformed cross-sectional area. It approximates a material under load. This approximation is especially relevant post-yield in ductile materials. Though engineering stress-strain diagrams are often used for their convenience and accessibility, they can sometimes fall short in accuracy, particularly when dealing with large strain values.
In contrast, true stress offers a more precise portrayal. It is computed by dividing the...

Clark Hull's drive-reduction theory, introduced in the 1940s and 1950s and often termed the "push theory" of motivation, provides a framework for understanding how biological and learned drives influence behavior. Hull suggested that motivation originates from the need to alleviate physiological tension caused by unmet biological necessities. The theory proposes that when a basic need, such as hunger or sleep, goes unfulfilled, it creates an internal imbalance. This imbalance, or...

Consider an external electric field propagating through a homogeneous medium. When the electric field crosses the surface boundary of the medium, it undergoes a discontinuity. The electric field can be resolved into normal and tangential components. The amount by which the field changes at any boundary is given by the difference between the field components above and below the surface boundary.
The surface integral of an electric field is given by Gauss's law in integral form and is related to...

An electric field suffers a discontinuity at a surface charge. Similarly, a magnetic field is discontinuous at a surface current. The perpendicular component of a magnetic field is continuous across the interface of two magnetic mediums. In contrast, its parallel component, perpendicular to the current, is discontinuous by the amount equal to the product of the vacuum permeability and the surface current. Like the scalar potential in electrostatics, the vector potential is also continuous...