Estonia

	Mihkel KREE (19) City/Region: Tartumaa E-mail: mkree@hot.ee Hobbies: Orienteering, Reading Career: Physicist School: Hugo Treffner Gymnasium

	Aigar VAIGU (19) City/Region: Tartumaa E-mail: avaigu@hot.ee Hobbies: Dancing Career: Physicist School: Hugo Treffner Gymnasium

Lens as an optical parallel processor performing Fourier transform

The aim of current study is to compare two methods of performing Fourier transform. It can be performed either digitally by a computer or by making use of some wave optical processes which result in the Fourier' transform. The work shows that it is possible to carry out the two-dimensional Fourier transform in parallel by the optical Fourier processor. This processor might potentially have very many applications in signal analysis. There is no doubt that optical information processing will play an important role in the information technology in the future. To increase the security level in the airports new techniques are being used to identify people, which base on the optical analyse of the iris of eye. A way to identify people using Fourier transforms of their fingerprints, which will be carried out optically, might be invented in the nearest future. Nowadays fingerprints are being identified by algorithms that base on finding correlation and matching between different fingerprint patterns, therefore optical solution should me much faster and more precise.

Taavi TILLMANN (18)

City/Region: Tartu
E-mail: t_taavi@hotmail.com
Hobbies: Computing, Taekwondo, Music, Playing the guitar
Career: Medical career
School: St. Clare's College, Oxford

The relationship between diurnal variation in height and physical activity

By the evening people can be up to 2 cm shorter than in the morning. During the evening and night they regain this loss. Nobody has ever looked at the factors which determine the amount of height loss. The author thought physical activity could be the key factor, which could cause greater compression of the spine, and hence a greater height loss. Four people were measured every 3-hrs, from 0900hr to 2100hr, for ten days. The results show that the average height loss was 1,8cm. Simultaneously, they wore small portable activity monitors to estimate their physical activity levels. Each change in height was correlated to the respective activity level. The results show that height loss during the day occurred independent of physical activity. However, during the evening height gain, more height was gained during inactive evenings. Thus should anyone wish to be “taller”, they should ask to be measured in the early morning or as late in the evening as possible, but only after a good inactive nap!

>>