Expanding the spectrum of human ganglionic eminence region anomalies on fetal magnetic resonance imaging

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Righini, Andrea; Parazzini, Cecilia; Izzo, Giana [Children' s Hospital ' ' V. Buzzi' ' , Department of Radiology and Neuroradiology, Milan (Italy); Cesaretti, Claudia [Children' s Hospital ' ' V. Buzzi' ' , Department of Radiology and Neuroradiology, Milan (Italy); Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, Medical Genetics Unit, Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Ca' Granda, Milan (Italy); Conte, Giorgio [Children' s Hospital ' ' V. Buzzi' ' , Department of Radiology and Neuroradiology, Milan (Italy); University of Milan, Department of Health Sciences, Milan (Italy); Frassoni, Carolina; Inverardi, Francesca [Fondazione I.R.C.C.S. Istituto Neurologico ' ' C. Besta' ' , Clinical Epileptology and Experimental Neurophysiology Unit, Milan (Italy); Bulfamante, Gaetano; Avagliano, Laura [San Paolo Hospital, Division of Human Pathology, Milan (Italy); Rustico, Mariangela [Children' s Hospital ' ' V. Buzzi' ' , Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Prenatal Diagnosis, Milan (Italy)

2016-03-15

Ganglionic eminence (GE) is a transient fetal brain structure that harvests a significant amount of precursors of cortical GABA-ergic interneurons. Prenatal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging features of GE anomalies (i.e., cavitations) have already been reported associated with severe micro-lissencephaly. The purpose of this report was to illustrate the MR imaging features of GE anomalies in conditions other than severe micro-lissencephalies. Among all the fetuses submitted to prenatal MR imaging at our center from 2005 to 2014, we collected eight cases with GE anomalies and only limited associated brain anomalies. The median gestational age at the time of MR imaging was 21 weeks ranging from 19 to 29 weeks. Two senior pediatric neuroradiologists categorized the anomalies of the GE region in two groups: group one showing cavitation in the GE region and group two showing enlarged GE region. For each fetal case, associated cranial anomalies were also reported. Five out of the eight cases were included in group one and three in group two. Besides the GE region abnormality, all eight cases had additional intracranial anomalies, such as mild partial callosal agenesis, vermian hypoplasia and rotation, cerebellar hypoplasia, ventriculomegaly, enlarged subarachnoid spaces, molar tooth malformation. Ultrasound generally detected most of the associated intracranial anomalies, prompting the MR investigation; on the contrary in none of the cases, GE anomalies had been detected by ultrasound. Our observation expands the spectrum of human GE anomalies, demonstrating that these may take place also without associated severe micro-lissencephalies. (orig.)

Expanding the spectrum of human ganglionic eminence region anomalies on fetal magnetic resonance imaging

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Righini, Andrea; Parazzini, Cecilia; Izzo, Giana; Cesaretti, Claudia; Conte, Giorgio; Frassoni, Carolina; Inverardi, Francesca; Bulfamante, Gaetano; Avagliano, Laura; Rustico, Mariangela

2016-01-01

Ganglionic eminence (GE) is a transient fetal brain structure that harvests a significant amount of precursors of cortical GABA-ergic interneurons. Prenatal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging features of GE anomalies (i.e., cavitations) have already been reported associated with severe micro-lissencephaly. The purpose of this report was to illustrate the MR imaging features of GE anomalies in conditions other than severe micro-lissencephalies. Among all the fetuses submitted to prenatal MR imaging at our center from 2005 to 2014, we collected eight cases with GE anomalies and only limited associated brain anomalies. The median gestational age at the time of MR imaging was 21 weeks ranging from 19 to 29 weeks. Two senior pediatric neuroradiologists categorized the anomalies of the GE region in two groups: group one showing cavitation in the GE region and group two showing enlarged GE region. For each fetal case, associated cranial anomalies were also reported. Five out of the eight cases were included in group one and three in group two. Besides the GE region abnormality, all eight cases had additional intracranial anomalies, such as mild partial callosal agenesis, vermian hypoplasia and rotation, cerebellar hypoplasia, ventriculomegaly, enlarged subarachnoid spaces, molar tooth malformation. Ultrasound generally detected most of the associated intracranial anomalies, prompting the MR investigation; on the contrary in none of the cases, GE anomalies had been detected by ultrasound. Our observation expands the spectrum of human GE anomalies, demonstrating that these may take place also without associated severe micro-lissencephalies. (orig.)

Assessment of smoothed spectra using autocorrelation function

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Urbanski, P.; Kowalska, E.

2006-01-01

Recently, data and signal smoothing became almost standard procedures in the spectrometric and chromatographic methods. In radiometry, the main purpose to apply smoothing is minimisation of the statistical fluctuation and avoid distortion. The aim of the work was to find a qualitative parameter, which could be used, as a figure of merit for detecting distortion of the smoothed spectra, based on the linear model. It is assumed that as long as the part of the raw spectrum removed by the smoothing procedure (v s ) will be of random nature, the smoothed spectrum can be considered as undistorted. Thanks to this feature of the autocorrelation function, drifts of the mean value in the removed noise vs as well as its periodicity can be more easily detected from the autocorrelogram than from the original data

Smoothed Spectra, Ogives, and Error Estimates for Atmospheric Turbulence Data

Science.gov (United States)

Dias, Nelson Luís

2018-01-01

A systematic evaluation is conducted of the smoothed spectrum, which is a spectral estimate obtained by averaging over a window of contiguous frequencies. The technique is extended to the ogive, as well as to the cross-spectrum. It is shown that, combined with existing variance estimates for the periodogram, the variance—and therefore the random error—associated with these estimates can be calculated in a straightforward way. The smoothed spectra and ogives are biased estimates; with simple power-law analytical models, correction procedures are devised, as well as a global constraint that enforces Parseval's identity. Several new results are thus obtained: (1) The analytical variance estimates compare well with the sample variance calculated for the Bartlett spectrum and the variance of the inertial subrange of the cospectrum is shown to be relatively much larger than that of the spectrum. (2) Ogives and spectra estimates with reduced bias are calculated. (3) The bias of the smoothed spectrum and ogive is shown to be negligible at the higher frequencies. (4) The ogives and spectra thus calculated have better frequency resolution than the Bartlett spectrum, with (5) gradually increasing variance and relative error towards the low frequencies. (6) Power-law identification and extraction of the rate of dissipation of turbulence kinetic energy are possible directly from the ogive. (7) The smoothed cross-spectrum is a valid inner product and therefore an acceptable candidate for coherence and spectral correlation coefficient estimation by means of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. The quadrature, phase function, coherence function and spectral correlation function obtained from the smoothed spectral estimates compare well with the classical ones derived from the Bartlett spectrum.

Disorders of migration and sulcation in infants and children: MR spectrum at 1.5 T

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boyer, R.S.; Nixon, G.W.; Smoker, W.R.K.; Harnsberger, H.R.; Osborn, A.G.

1987-01-01

In 750 consecutive high-field-strength (1.5-T) pediatric brain MR imaging studies the authors encountered a fascinating spectrum of developmental anomalies of migration, gyration, and sulcation in 11 patients. Lesions were characterized by disorder anatomy but normal gray-matter signal. MR imaging was excellent in revealing pachygyria, polymicrogyria, agyria (lissencephaly), heterotopia, and schizencephaly, and in displaying associated development anomalies, such as agenesis of the corpus callosum, encephalocele, Chiari II malformation, septo-optic dysplasia, lobar holoprosencephaly, and unilateral megalencephaly. The improved demonstration of gray-matter abnormalities that is possible with high-field-strength MR imaging facilitates recognition of these lesions and associated anomalies

Smooth germanium nanowires prepared by a hydrothermal deposition process

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pei, L.Z., E-mail: lzpei1977@163.com [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Molecular Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Materials Science and Processing of Anhui Province, Anhui University of Technology, Ma' anshan, Anhui 243002 (China); Zhao, H.S. [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Molecular Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Materials Science and Processing of Anhui Province, Anhui University of Technology, Ma' anshan, Anhui 243002 (China); Tan, W. [Henkel Huawei Electronics Co. Ltd., Lian' yungang, Jiangsu 222006 (China); Yu, H.Y. [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Molecular Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Materials Science and Processing of Anhui Province, Anhui University of Technology, Ma' anshan, Anhui 243002 (China); Chen, Y.W. [Department of Materials Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433 (China); Fan, C.G. [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Molecular Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Materials Science and Processing of Anhui Province, Anhui University of Technology, Ma' anshan, Anhui 243002 (China); Zhang, Qian-Feng, E-mail: zhangqf@ahut.edu.cn [School of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Molecular Engineering and Applied Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Materials Science and Processing of Anhui Province, Anhui University of Technology, Ma' anshan, Anhui 243002 (China)

2009-11-15

Smooth germanium nanowires were prepared using Ge and GeO{sub 2} as the starting materials and Cu sheet as the substrate by a simple hydrothermal deposition process. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterizations show that the germanium nanowires are smooth and straight with uniform diameter of about 150 nm in average and tens of micrometers in length. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectrum of the germanium nanowires display that the germanium nanowires are mainly composed of cubic diamond phase. PL spectrum shows a strong blue light emission at 441 nm. The growth mechanism is also discussed.

Smooth germanium nanowires prepared by a hydrothermal deposition process

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pei, L.Z.; Zhao, H.S.; Tan, W.; Yu, H.Y.; Chen, Y.W.; Fan, C.G.; Zhang, Qian-Feng

2009-01-01

Smooth germanium nanowires were prepared using Ge and GeO 2 as the starting materials and Cu sheet as the substrate by a simple hydrothermal deposition process. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) characterizations show that the germanium nanowires are smooth and straight with uniform diameter of about 150 nm in average and tens of micrometers in length. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectrum of the germanium nanowires display that the germanium nanowires are mainly composed of cubic diamond phase. PL spectrum shows a strong blue light emission at 441 nm. The growth mechanism is also discussed.

Analysis of a gamma-ray spectrum by using a standard spectrum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tasaka, Kanji

1975-06-01

The standard spectrum method has been extended to take into account the energy dependence of a standard spectrum. The method analyses the observed gamma-ray spectrum by the least-square method, using an interpolated standard spectrum for expressing the line shape and a linear function for the background continuum. The interpolated standard spectrum is defined for each fitting interval by interpolating several standard spectra, which are derived directly from the observed spectra of single photopeaks each corresponding to the incident monochromatic gamma-rays by subtracting the background and smoothing the data. (author)

The Spectrum of Wind Power Fluctuations

Science.gov (United States)

Bandi, Mahesh

2016-11-01

Wind is a variable energy source whose fluctuations threaten electrical grid stability and complicate dynamical load balancing. The power generated by a wind turbine fluctuates due to the variable wind speed that blows past the turbine. Indeed, the spectrum of wind power fluctuations is widely believed to reflect the Kolmogorov spectrum; both vary with frequency f as f - 5 / 3. This variability decreases when aggregate power fluctuations from geographically distributed wind farms are averaged at the grid via a mechanism known as geographic smoothing. Neither the f - 5 / 3 wind power fluctuation spectrum nor the mechanism of geographic smoothing are understood. In this work, we explain the wind power fluctuation spectrum from the turbine through grid scales. The f - 5 / 3 wind power fluctuation spectrum results from the largest length scales of atmospheric turbulence of order 200 km influencing the small scales where individual turbines operate. This long-range influence spatially couples geographically distributed wind farms and synchronizes farm outputs over a range of frequencies and decreases with increasing inter-farm distance. Consequently, aggregate grid-scale power fluctuations remain correlated, and are smoothed until they reach a limiting f - 7 / 3 spectrum. This work was funded by the Collective Interactions Unit, OIST Graduate University, Japan.

Comparison of optical beam smoothing techniques for inertial confinement fusion and improvement of smoothing by the use of zero-correlation masks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lehmberg, R. H.; Rothenberg, J. E.

2000-01-01

We present analytic theory and numerical simulations comparing the optical beam smoothing capabilities of the smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD) technique using random temporal phase modulation, with that of the induced spatial incoherence technique. The analytic theory provides a simple formula for the SSD mode spectrum in the usual case where the phase mask at the focusing lens is random, and its asymptotic limit quantitatively relates the long wavelength mode smoothing to the width of the angular dispersion. With parameters and phase aberration relevant to the National Ignition Facility beams, the SSD simulations show that the large long wavelength components, which are also found in earlier simulations, can be significantly reduced by replacing the independent random phase masks in each pair of adjacent beams by a conjugate pair of zero-correlation masks. These simulations suggest that one can combine zero-correlation masks with random temporal phase modulation and multiple color cycles to achieve SSD smoothing approaching the optical bandwidth limit at all spatial frequencies, without using large angular dispersions. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics

On minimally parametric primordial power spectrum reconstruction and the evidence for a red tilt

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verde, Licia; Peiris, Hiranya

2008-01-01

The latest cosmological data seem to indicate a significant deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum when parameterized either by a power law or by a spectral index with non-zero 'running'. This deviation, by itself, serves as a powerful tool for discriminating among theories for the origin of cosmological structures such as inflationary models. Here, we use a minimally parametric smoothing spline technique to reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum. This technique is well suited to searching for smooth features in the primordial power spectrum such as deviations from scale invariance or a running spectral index, although it would recover sharp features of high statistical significance. We use the WMAP three-year results in combination with data from a suite of higher resolution cosmic microwave background experiments (including the latest ACBAR 2008 release), as well as large-scale structure data from SDSS and 2dFGRS. We employ cross-validation to assess, using the data themselves, the optimal amount of smoothness in the primordial power spectrum consistent with the data. This minimally parametric reconstruction supports the evidence for a power law primordial power spectrum with a red tilt, but not for deviations from a power law power spectrum. Smooth variations in the primordial power spectrum are not significantly degenerate with the other cosmological parameters

Lensing smoothing of BAO wiggles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dio, Enea Di, E-mail: enea.didio@oats.inaf.it [INAF—Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G.B. Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste (Italy)

2017-03-01

We study non-perturbatively the effect of the deflection angle on the BAO wiggles of the matter power spectrum in real space. We show that from redshift z ∼2 this introduces a dispersion of roughly 1 Mpc at BAO scale, which corresponds approximately to a 1% effect. The lensing effect induced by the deflection angle, which is completely geometrical and survey independent, smears out the BAO wiggles. The effect on the power spectrum amplitude at BAO scale is about 0.1 % for z ∼2 and 0.2 % for z ∼4. We compare the smoothing effects induced by the lensing potential and non-linear structure formation, showing that the two effects become comparable at z ∼ 4, while the lensing effect dominates for sources at higher redshifts. We note that this effect is not accounted through BAO reconstruction techniques.

Polarization beam smoothing for inertial confinement fusion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rothenberg, Joshua E.

2000-01-01

For both direct and indirect drive approaches to inertial confinement fusion (ICF) it is imperative to obtain the best possible drive beam uniformity. The approach chosen for the National Ignition Facility uses a random-phase plate to generate a speckle pattern with a precisely controlled envelope on target. A number of temporal smoothing techniques can then be employed to utilize bandwidth to rapidly change the speckle pattern, and thus average out the small-scale speckle structure. One technique which generally can supplement other smoothing methods is polarization smoothing (PS): the illumination of the target with two distinct and orthogonally polarized speckle patterns. Since these two polarizations do not interfere, the intensity patterns add incoherently, and the rms nonuniformity can be reduced by a factor of (√2). A number of PS schemes are described and compared on the basis of the aggregate rms and the spatial spectrum of the focused illumination distribution. The (√2) rms nonuniformity reduction of PS is present on an instantaneous basis and is, therefore, of particular interest for the suppression of laser plasma instabilities, which have a very rapid response time. When combining PS and temporal methods, such as smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD), PS can reduce the rms of the temporally smoothed illumination by an additional factor of (√2). However, it has generally been thought that in order to achieve this reduction of (√2), the increased divergence of the beam from PS must exceed the divergence of SSD. It is also shown here that, over the time scales of interest to direct or indirect drive ICF, under some conditions PS can reduce the smoothed illumination rms by nearly (√2) even when the PS divergence is much smaller than that of SSD. (c) 2000 American Institute of Physics

High-frequency asymptotics of the emission spectrum of moving charged particles in classical electrodynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abbasov, I.I.; Bolotovskij, B.M.; Davydov, V.A.

1986-01-01

Electromagnetic radiation appears as a result of a charged particle movement in free space and also in heterogeneous and non-stationary medium. The radiation spectrum depends on the charged particle motion law, as well as on the law of the medium property chage in space and time. The asymptotics of radiation spectrum, i.e. behaviour of spectral intensity at high frequencies, is studied. It is shown that if a charged particle moves along smooth trajectory or if the change in the medium properties takes place accordng to the law described by a smooth function, the radiation spectrum at high frequencies decreases according to exponential law. Thus, radiation spectrum of a charged particle moving along a smooth trajectory in the medium with gradual heterogeneity and (or) instability is rapidly cut, starting from a certain frequency value. The smooth trajectory means that the charge moves according to the law r = r(t), where vector-function r(t) is continuous with all its derivatives. In much the same way the medium with gradual heterogeneities (or with gradual instability) is described by the functions which are continuous with all their derivatives of any order. The method permitting to determine the upper boundary of radiation spectra is presented

A Smoothing Technique for the Multifractal Analysis of a Medium Voltage Feeders Electric Current

Science.gov (United States)

de Santis, Enrico; Sadeghian, Alireza; Rizzi, Antonello

2017-12-01

The current paper presents a data-driven detrending technique allowing to smooth complex sinusoidal trends from a real-world electric load time series before applying the Detrended Multifractal Fluctuation Analysis (MFDFA). The algorithm we call Smoothed Sort and Cut Fourier Detrending (SSC-FD) is based on a suitable smoothing of high power periodicities operating directly in the Fourier spectrum through a polynomial fitting technique of the DFT. The main aim consists of disambiguating the characteristic slow varying periodicities, that can impair the MFDFA analysis, from the residual signal in order to study its correlation properties. The algorithm performances are evaluated on a simple benchmark test consisting of a persistent series where the Hurst exponent is known, with superimposed ten sinusoidal harmonics. Moreover, the behavior of the algorithm parameters is assessed computing the MFDFA on the well-known sunspot data, whose correlation characteristics are reported in literature. In both cases, the SSC-FD method eliminates the apparent crossover induced by the synthetic and natural periodicities. Results are compared with some existing detrending methods within the MFDFA paradigm. Finally, a study of the multifractal characteristics of the electric load time series detrendended by the SSC-FD algorithm is provided, showing a strong persistent behavior and an appreciable amplitude of the multifractal spectrum that allows to conclude that the series at hand has multifractal characteristics.

Smooth manifolds

CERN Document Server

Sinha, Rajnikant

2014-01-01

This book offers an introduction to the theory of smooth manifolds, helping students to familiarize themselves with the tools they will need for mathematical research on smooth manifolds and differential geometry. The book primarily focuses on topics concerning differential manifolds, tangent spaces, multivariable differential calculus, topological properties of smooth manifolds, embedded submanifolds, Sard’s theorem and Whitney embedding theorem. It is clearly structured, amply illustrated and includes solved examples for all concepts discussed. Several difficult theorems have been broken into many lemmas and notes (equivalent to sub-lemmas) to enhance the readability of the book. Further, once a concept has been introduced, it reoccurs throughout the book to ensure comprehension. Rank theorem, a vital aspect of smooth manifolds theory, occurs in many manifestations, including rank theorem for Euclidean space and global rank theorem. Though primarily intended for graduate students of mathematics, the book ...

The smooth cyclotron line in Her X-1 as seen with NuSTAR

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fuerst, Felix; Grefenstette, Brian W.; Staubert, Ruediger

2013-01-01

, and a CRSF. We find that the CRSF has a very smooth and symmetric shape, in all observations and at all pulse-phases. We compare the residuals of a line with a Gaussian optical depth profile to a Lorentzian optical depth profile and find no significant differences, strongly constraining the very smooth shape....... We observed Her X-1 three times, coordinated with Suzaku, during one of the high flux intervals of its 35d super-orbital period. This paper focuses on the shape and evolution of the hard X-ray spectrum. The broad-band spectra can be fitted with a powerlaw with a high-energy cutoff, an iron line...... of the line. Even though the line energy changes dramatically with pulse phase, we find that its smooth shape does not. Additionally, our data show that the continuum is only changing marginally between the three observations. These changes can be explained with varying amounts of Thomson scattering...

Smooth polyhedral surfaces

KAUST Repository

Gü nther, Felix; Jiang, Caigui; Pottmann, Helmut

2017-01-01

Polyhedral surfaces are fundamental objects in architectural geometry and industrial design. Whereas closeness of a given mesh to a smooth reference surface and its suitability for numerical simulations were already studied extensively, the aim of our work is to find and to discuss suitable assessments of smoothness of polyhedral surfaces that only take the geometry of the polyhedral surface itself into account. Motivated by analogies to classical differential geometry, we propose a theory of smoothness of polyhedral surfaces including suitable notions of normal vectors, tangent planes, asymptotic directions, and parabolic curves that are invariant under projective transformations. It is remarkable that seemingly mild conditions significantly limit the shapes of faces of a smooth polyhedral surface. Besides being of theoretical interest, we believe that smoothness of polyhedral surfaces is of interest in the architectural context, where vertices and edges of polyhedral surfaces are highly visible.

Smooth polyhedral surfaces

KAUST Repository

Günther, Felix

2017-03-15

Polyhedral surfaces are fundamental objects in architectural geometry and industrial design. Whereas closeness of a given mesh to a smooth reference surface and its suitability for numerical simulations were already studied extensively, the aim of our work is to find and to discuss suitable assessments of smoothness of polyhedral surfaces that only take the geometry of the polyhedral surface itself into account. Motivated by analogies to classical differential geometry, we propose a theory of smoothness of polyhedral surfaces including suitable notions of normal vectors, tangent planes, asymptotic directions, and parabolic curves that are invariant under projective transformations. It is remarkable that seemingly mild conditions significantly limit the shapes of faces of a smooth polyhedral surface. Besides being of theoretical interest, we believe that smoothness of polyhedral surfaces is of interest in the architectural context, where vertices and edges of polyhedral surfaces are highly visible.

SmoothMoves : Smooth pursuits head movements for augmented reality

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Esteves, Augusto; Verweij, David; Suraiya, Liza; Islam, Rasel; Lee, Youryang; Oakley, Ian

2017-01-01

SmoothMoves is an interaction technique for augmented reality (AR) based on smooth pursuits head movements. It works by computing correlations between the movements of on-screen targets and the user's head while tracking those targets. The paper presents three studies. The first suggests that head

Spectrum-effect relationships between high performance liquid ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

promoting effect on contractility of intestinal smooth was carried out to ... addition, the equation of spectrum-effect relationships {Y = 3.818 - 1.126X1 + ..... Peng W, Liu YJ, Wu N, Sun T, He XY, Gao YX, Wu CJ. ... Zheng QF, Zhao YL, Wang JB, Liu TT, Zhang B, Gong ... Zhao HY, Han X. Research thoughts and application.

Smoothing a Piecewise-Smooth: An Example from Plankton Population Dynamics

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Piltz, Sofia Helena

2016-01-01

In this work we discuss a piecewise-smooth dynamical system inspired by plankton observations and constructed for one predator switching its diet between two different types of prey. We then discuss two smooth formulations of the piecewise-smooth model obtained by using a hyperbolic tangent funct...... function and adding a dimension to the system. We compare model behaviour of the three systems and show an example case where the steepness of the switch is determined from a comparison with data on freshwater plankton....

Automated quantitative analysis of in-situ NaI measured spectra in the marine environment using a wavelet-based smoothing technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsabaris, Christos; Prospathopoulos, Aristides

2011-01-01

An algorithm for automated analysis of in-situ NaI γ-ray spectra in the marine environment is presented. A standard wavelet denoising technique is implemented for obtaining a smoothed spectrum, while the stability of the energy spectrum is achieved by taking advantage of the permanent presence of two energy lines in the marine environment. The automated analysis provides peak detection, net area calculation, energy autocalibration, radionuclide identification and activity calculation. The results of the algorithm performance, presented for two different cases, show that analysis of short-term spectra with poor statistical information is considerably improved and that incorporation of further advancements could allow the use of the algorithm in early-warning marine radioactivity systems. - Highlights: → Algorithm for automated analysis of in-situ NaI γ-ray marine spectra. → Wavelet denoising technique provides smoothed spectra even at parts of the energy spectrum that exhibits strong statistical fluctuations. → Automated analysis provides peak detection, net area calculation, energy autocalibration, radionuclide identification and activity calculation. → Analysis of short-term spectra with poor statistical information is considerably improved.

Opportunities to Target Specific Contractile Abnormalities with Smooth Muscle Protein Kinase Inhibitors

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Annegret Ulke-Lemée

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Smooth muscle is a major component of most hollow organ systems (e.g., airways, vasculature, bladder and gut/gastrointestine; therefore, the coordinated regulation of contraction is a key property of smooth muscle. When smooth muscle functions normally, it contributes to general health and wellness, but its dysfunction is associated with morbidity and mortality. Rho-associated protein kinase (ROCK is central to calcium-independent, actomyosin-mediated contractile force generation in the vasculature, thereby playing a role in smooth muscle contraction, cell motility and adhesion. Recent evidence supports an important role for ROCK in the increased vasoconstriction and remodeling observed in various models of hypertension. This review will provide a commentary on the development of specific ROCK inhibitors and their clinical application. Fasudil will be discussed as an example of bench-to-bedside development of a clinical therapeutic that is used to treat conditions of vascular hypercontractility. Due to the wide spectrum of biological processes regulated by ROCK, many additional clinical indications might also benefit from ROCK inhibition. Apart from the importance of ROCK in smooth muscle contraction, a variety of other protein kinases are known to play similar roles in regulating contractile force. The zipper-interacting protein kinase (ZIPK and integrin-linked kinase (ILK are two well-described regulators of contraction. The relative contribution of each kinase to contraction depends on the muscle bed as well as hormonal and neuronal stimulation. Unfortunately, specific inhibitors for ZIPK and ILK are still in the development phase, but the success of fasudil suggests that inhibitors for these other kinases may also have valuable clinical applications. Notably, the directed inhibition of ZIPK with a pseudosubstrate molecule shows unexpected effects on the contractility of gastrointestinal smooth muscle.

Red, Straight, no bends: primordial power spectrum reconstruction from CMB and large-scale structure

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ravenni, Andrea [Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia ' ' G. Galilei' ' , Università degli Studi di Padova, via Marzolo 8, I-35131, Padova (Italy); Verde, Licia; Cuesta, Antonio J., E-mail: andrea.ravenni@pd.infn.it, E-mail: liciaverde@icc.ub.edu, E-mail: ajcuesta@icc.ub.edu [Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICCUB), Universitat de Barcelona (IEEC-UB), Martí i Franquès 1, E08028 Barcelona (Spain)

2016-08-01

We present a minimally parametric, model independent reconstruction of the shape of the primordial power spectrum. Our smoothing spline technique is well-suited to search for smooth features such as deviations from scale invariance, and deviations from a power law such as running of the spectral index or small-scale power suppression. We use a comprehensive set of the state-of the art cosmological data: Planck observations of the temperature and polarisation anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background, WiggleZ and Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 galaxy power spectra and the Canada-France-Hawaii Lensing Survey correlation function. This reconstruction strongly supports the evidence for a power law primordial power spectrum with a red tilt and disfavours deviations from a power law power spectrum including small-scale power suppression such as that induced by significantly massive neutrinos. This offers a powerful confirmation of the inflationary paradigm, justifying the adoption of the inflationary prior in cosmological analyses.

The smooth cyclotron line in her x-1 as seen with nuclear spectroscopic telescope array

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fuerst, Felix; Grefenstette, Brian W.; Staubert, Ruediger

2013-01-01

, and a CRSF. We find that the CRSF has a very smooth and symmetric shape, in all observations and at all pulse-phases. We compare the residuals of a line with a Gaussian optical depth profile to a Lorentzian optical depth profile and find no significant differences, strongly constraining the very smooth shape....... We observed Her X-1 three times, coordinated with Suzaku, during one of the high flux intervals of its 35d super-orbital period. This paper focuses on the shape and evolution of the hard X-ray spectrum. The broad-band spectra can be fitted with a powerlaw with a high-energy cutoff, an iron line...... of the line. Even though the line energy changes dramatically with pulse phase, we find that its smooth shape does not. Additionally, our data show that the continuum is only changing marginally between the three observations. These changes can be explained with varying amounts of Thomson scattering...

Using near infrared spectrum analysis to predict water and chlorophyll content in tomato leaves

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Huanyu; Ying, Yibin; Liu, Yande

2004-11-01

In this study, we developed a nondestructive way to analyze water and chlorophyll content in tomato leaves. A total of 200 leaves were collected as experimental materials, 120 of them were used to form a calibration data set. Drying chest, SPAD meter and NIR spectrometer were used to get water content, chlorophyll content and spectrums of tomato leaves respectively. The Fourier Transform Infrared (FTNIR) method with a smart Near-IR Updrift was used to test spectrums, and partial least squares (PLS) technique was used to analyze the data we get by normal experimentation and near infrared spectrometer, set up a calibration model to predict the leaf water and chlorophyll content based on the characteristics of diffuse reflectance spectrums of tomato leaves. Three different mathematical treatments were used in spectrums processing: different wavelength range, different smoothing points, first and second derivative. We can get best prediction model when we select full range (800-2500nm), 3 points for spectrums smoothing and spectrums by baseline correction, the best model of chlorophyll content has a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 8.16 and a calibration correlation coefficient (R2) value of 0.89452 and the best model of water content has a root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) of 0.0214 and a calibration correlation coefficient (R2) value of 0.91043.

Classification of smooth Fano polytopes

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Øbro, Mikkel

A simplicial lattice polytope containing the origin in the interior is called a smooth Fano polytope, if the vertices of every facet is a basis of the lattice. The study of smooth Fano polytopes is motivated by their connection to toric varieties. The thesis concerns the classification of smooth...... Fano polytopes up to isomorphism. A smooth Fano -polytope can have at most vertices. In case of vertices an explicit classification is known. The thesis contains the classification in case of vertices. Classifications of smooth Fano -polytopes for fixed exist only for . In the thesis an algorithm...... for the classification of smooth Fano -polytopes for any given is presented. The algorithm has been implemented and used to obtain the complete classification for ....

Improved emission spectrum from quantum dot superluminescent light emitting diodes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li, L.H.; Rossetti, M.; Fiore, A. [Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne (Switzerland); Occhi, L.; Velez, C. [EXALOS AG, Technoparkstrasse 1, 8005 Zuerich (Switzerland)

2006-12-15

The size dispersion of InAs quantum dots (QD) was optimized to broaden the photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. A broad PL spectral width up to 96 nm is achieved from a single QD layer with InAs thickness smaller than 2.4 monolayers at a growth temperature of 510 C. QD Superluminescent light emitting diodes with an ultrawide (115 nm), smooth output spectrum are obtained by incorporating this QD layer into chirped stacked structures. (copyright 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim) (orig.)

Bayesian Exponential Smoothing.

OpenAIRE

Forbes, C.S.; Snyder, R.D.; Shami, R.S.

2000-01-01

In this paper, a Bayesian version of the exponential smoothing method of forecasting is proposed. The approach is based on a state space model containing only a single source of error for each time interval. This model allows us to improve current practices surrounding exponential smoothing by providing both point predictions and measures of the uncertainty surrounding them.

Anti-smooth muscle antibody

Science.gov (United States)

... gov/ency/article/003531.htm Anti-smooth muscle antibody To use the sharing features on this page, please enable JavaScript. Anti-smooth muscle antibody is a blood test that detects the presence ...

Smooth functors vs. differential forms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schreiber, U.; Waldorf, K.

2011-01-01

We establish a relation between smooth 2-functors defined on the path 2-groupoid of a smooth manifold and differential forms on this manifold. This relation can be understood as a part of a dictionary between fundamental notions from category theory and differential geometry. We show that smooth

Smoothness in Binomial Edge Ideals

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hamid Damadi

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper we study some geometric properties of the algebraic set associated to the binomial edge ideal of a graph. We study the singularity and smoothness of the algebraic set associated to the binomial edge ideal of a graph. Some of these algebraic sets are irreducible and some of them are reducible. If every irreducible component of the algebraic set is smooth we call the graph an edge smooth graph, otherwise it is called an edge singular graph. We show that complete graphs are edge smooth and introduce two conditions such that the graph G is edge singular if and only if it satisfies these conditions. Then, it is shown that cycles and most of trees are edge singular. In addition, it is proved that complete bipartite graphs are edge smooth.

Application of real time spectrum measurement to radiation monitors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Matsuno, K.; Watanabe, M.; Sakamaki, T.

1996-01-01

A multichannel analyzer (MCA) and two realtime spectrum monitoring methods have been developed for use in radiation monitors. The new MCA was designed to be installed at a local site as a component of a radiation monitor. The MCA repeats spectrum measurement at short intervals (Δt) and, after each measurement, transmits a spectrum datum to the operation console. The authors applied two methods to process Δt spectrum counts for each channel for longer time interval. One method of processing counts is the 'running average (RA) method'. The other method is the 'exponential smoothing (ES) method', which simulates RC rate meters by subtracting a fraction corresponding to the accumulated counts. Relative standard deviations for each channel can be made the same by selecting an appropriate value. The response with the 'ES' method is initially faster than that with the 'RA' method, but the 'RA' method allows a full response to be reached at a predictable time. (author)

Zic deficiency in the cortical marginal zone and meninges results in cortical lamination defects resembling those in type II lissencephaly.

Science.gov (United States)

Inoue, Takashi; Ogawa, Masaharu; Mikoshiba, Katsuhiko; Aruga, Jun

2008-04-30

The formation of the highly organized cortical structure depends on the production and correct placement of the appropriate number and types of neurons. The Zic family of zinc-finger transcription factors plays essential roles in regulating the proliferation and differentiation of neuronal progenitors in the medial forebrain and the cerebellum. Examination of the expression of Zic genes demonstrated that Zic1, Zic2, and Zic3 were expressed by the progenitor cells in the septum and cortical hem, the sites of generation of the Cajal-Retzius (CR) cells. Immunohistochemical studies have revealed that Zic proteins were abundantly expressed in the meningeal cells and that the majority of the CR cells distributed in the medial and dorsal cortex also expressed Zic proteins in the mid-late embryonic and postnatal cortical marginal zones. During embryonic cortical development, Zic1/Zic3 double-mutant and hypomorphic Zic2 mutant mice showed a reduction in the number of CR cells in the rostral cortex, whereas the cell number remained unaffected in the caudal cortex. These mutants also showed mislocalization of the CR cells and cortical lamination defects, resembling the changes noted in type II (cobblestone) lissencephaly, throughout the brain. In the Zic1/3 mutant, reduced proliferation of the meningeal cells was observed before the thinner and disrupted organization of the pial basement membrane (BM) with reduced expression of the BM components and the meningeal cell-derived secretory factor. These defects correlated with the changes in the end feet morphology of the radial glial cells. These findings indicate that the Zic genes play critical roles in cortical development through regulating the proliferation of meningeal cells and the pial BM assembly.

Smooth halos in the cosmic web

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gaite, José, E-mail: jose.gaite@upm.es [Physics Dept., ETSIAE, IDR, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Pza. Cardenal Cisneros 3, E-28040 Madrid (Spain)

2015-04-01

Dark matter halos can be defined as smooth distributions of dark matter placed in a non-smooth cosmic web structure. This definition of halos demands a precise definition of smoothness and a characterization of the manner in which the transition from smooth halos to the cosmic web takes place. We introduce entropic measures of smoothness, related to measures of inequality previously used in economy and with the advantage of being connected with standard methods of multifractal analysis already used for characterizing the cosmic web structure in cold dark matter N-body simulations. These entropic measures provide us with a quantitative description of the transition from the small scales portrayed as a distribution of halos to the larger scales portrayed as a cosmic web and, therefore, allow us to assign definite sizes to halos. However, these ''smoothness sizes'' have no direct relation to the virial radii. Finally, we discuss the influence of N-body discreteness parameters on smoothness.

Smooth halos in the cosmic web

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gaite, José

2015-01-01

Dark matter halos can be defined as smooth distributions of dark matter placed in a non-smooth cosmic web structure. This definition of halos demands a precise definition of smoothness and a characterization of the manner in which the transition from smooth halos to the cosmic web takes place. We introduce entropic measures of smoothness, related to measures of inequality previously used in economy and with the advantage of being connected with standard methods of multifractal analysis already used for characterizing the cosmic web structure in cold dark matter N-body simulations. These entropic measures provide us with a quantitative description of the transition from the small scales portrayed as a distribution of halos to the larger scales portrayed as a cosmic web and, therefore, allow us to assign definite sizes to halos. However, these ''smoothness sizes'' have no direct relation to the virial radii. Finally, we discuss the influence of N-body discreteness parameters on smoothness

Comparison of some nonlinear smoothing methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bell, P.R.; Dillon, R.S.

1977-01-01

Due to the poor quality of many nuclear medicine images, computer-driven smoothing procedures are frequently employed to enhance the diagnostic utility of these images. While linear methods were first tried, it was discovered that nonlinear techniques produced superior smoothing with little detail suppression. We have compared four methods: Gaussian smoothing (linear), two-dimensional least-squares smoothing (linear), two-dimensional least-squares bounding (nonlinear), and two-dimensional median smoothing (nonlinear). The two dimensional least-squares procedures have yielded the most satisfactorily enhanced images, with the median smoothers providing quite good images, even in the presence of widely aberrant points

Integration of auto analysis program of gamma spectrum and software and determination of element content in sample by k-zero method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trinh Quang Vinh; Truong Thi Hong Loan; Mai Van Nhon; Huynh Truc Phuong

2014-01-01

Integrating the gamma spectrum auto-analysis program with elemental analysis software by k-zero method is the objective for many researchers. This work is the first stepin building an auto analysis program of gamma spectrum, which includes modules of reading spectrum, displaying spectrum, calibrating energy of peak, smoothing spectrum, calculating peak area and determining content of elements in sample. Then, the results from the measurements of standard samples by a low level spectrometer using HPGe detector are compared to those of other gamma spectrum auto-analysis programs. (author)

Setting scene for TV white spaces and dynamic spectrum access in South Africa

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Masonta, MT

2012-05-01

Full Text Available -and-control static spectrum regulation regime. In order to keep up with a growing demand for wireless broadband access; new and dynamic spectrum regulation and management approaches are crucial. The ongoing global television (TV) broadcast digital switchover (DSO... ?white spaces? (TVWS). In the US, for example, TV DSO was completed in June 2009. However, this was not a smooth process. For instance, it was reported that digital TV viewers from many cities experienced several reception problems [2]. Due...

Smooth and non-smooth travelling waves in a nonlinearly dispersive Boussinesq equation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shen Jianwei; Xu Wei; Lei Youming

2005-01-01

The dynamical behavior and special exact solutions of nonlinear dispersive Boussinesq equation (B(m,n) equation), u tt -u xx -a(u n ) xx +b(u m ) xxxx =0, is studied by using bifurcation theory of dynamical system. As a result, all possible phase portraits in the parametric space for the travelling wave system, solitary wave, kink and anti-kink wave solutions and uncountably infinite many smooth and non-smooth periodic wave solutions are obtained. It can be shown that the existence of singular straight line in the travelling wave system is the reason why smooth waves converge to cusp waves, finally. When parameter are varied, under different parametric conditions, various sufficient conditions guarantee the existence of the above solutions are given

Mediators on human airway smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Armour, C; Johnson, P; Anticevich, S; Ammit, A; McKay, K; Hughes, M; Black, J

1997-01-01

1. Bronchial hyperresponsiveness in asthma may be due to several abnormalities, but must include alterations in the airway smooth muscle responsiveness and/or volume. 2. Increased responsiveness of airway smooth muscle in vitro can be induced by certain inflammatory cell products and by induction of sensitization (atopy). 3. Increased airway smooth muscle growth can also be induced by inflammatory cell products and atopic serum. 4. Mast cell numbers are increased in the airways of asthmatics and, in our studies, in airway smooth muscle that is sensitized and hyperresponsive. 5. We propose that there is a relationship between mast cells and airway smooth muscle cells which, once an allergic process has been initiated, results in the development of critical features in the lungs in asthma.

Nuclear fusion-independent smooth muscle differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells induced by a smooth muscle environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Rong; Jack, Gregory S; Rao, Nagesh; Zuk, Patricia; Ignarro, Louis J; Wu, Benjamin; Rodríguez, Larissa V

2012-03-01

Human adipose-derived stem cells hASC have been isolated and were shown to have multilineage differentiation capacity. Although both plasticity and cell fusion have been suggested as mechanisms for cell differentiation in vivo, the effect of the local in vivo environment on the differentiation of adipose-derived stem cells has not been evaluated. We previously reported the in vitro capacity of smooth muscle differentiation of these cells. In this study, we evaluate the effect of an in vivo smooth muscle environment in the differentiation of hASC. We studied this by two experimental designs: (a) in vivo evaluation of smooth muscle differentiation of hASC injected into a smooth muscle environment and (b) in vitro evaluation of smooth muscle differentiation capacity of hASC exposed to bladder smooth muscle cells. Our results indicate a time-dependent differentiation of hASC into mature smooth muscle cells when these cells are injected into the smooth musculature of the urinary bladder. Similar findings were seen when the cells were cocultured in vitro with primary bladder smooth muscle cells. Chromosomal analysis demonstrated that microenvironment cues rather than nuclear fusion are responsible for this differentiation. We conclude that cell plasticity is present in hASCs, and their differentiation is accomplished in the absence of nuclear fusion. Copyright © 2011 AlphaMed Press.

Disease: H01835 [KEGG MEDICUS

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available vances in molecular genetics and brain magnetic resonance imaging. NMD include lissencephaly (H00268), heterotopia...See also H00268 Lissencephaly, H00270 Periventricular nodular heterotopia, H00271 Polymicrogyria, H01160 Sch

multiscale smoothing in supervised statistical learning

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Optimum level of smoothing is chosen based on the entire training sample, while a good choice of smoothing parameter may also depend on the observation to be classified. One may like to assess the strength of evidence in favor of different competing class at different scale of smoothing. In allows only one single ...

Smoothness of limit functors

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Abstract. Let S be a scheme. Assume that we are given an action of the one dimen- sional split torus Gm,S on a smooth affine S-scheme X. We consider the limit (also called attractor) subfunctor Xλ consisting of points whose orbit under the given action. 'admits a limit at 0'. We show that Xλ is representable by a smooth ...

Calcium dynamics in vascular smooth muscle

OpenAIRE

Amberg, Gregory C.; Navedo, Manuel F.

2013-01-01

Smooth muscle cells are ultimately responsible for determining vascular luminal diameter and blood flow. Dynamic changes in intracellular calcium are a critical mechanism regulating vascular smooth muscle contractility. Processes influencing intracellular calcium are therefore important regulators of vascular function with physiological and pathophysiological consequences. In this review we discuss the major dynamic calcium signals identified and characterized in vascular smooth muscle cells....

Effect of smoothing on robust chaos.

Science.gov (United States)

Deshpande, Amogh; Chen, Qingfei; Wang, Yan; Lai, Ying-Cheng; Do, Younghae

2010-08-01

In piecewise-smooth dynamical systems, situations can arise where the asymptotic attractors of the system in an open parameter interval are all chaotic (e.g., no periodic windows). This is the phenomenon of robust chaos. Previous works have established that robust chaos can occur through the mechanism of border-collision bifurcation, where border is the phase-space region where discontinuities in the derivatives of the dynamical equations occur. We investigate the effect of smoothing on robust chaos and find that periodic windows can arise when a small amount of smoothness is present. We introduce a parameter of smoothing and find that the measure of the periodic windows in the parameter space scales linearly with the parameter, regardless of the details of the smoothing function. Numerical support and a heuristic theory are provided to establish the scaling relation. Experimental evidence of periodic windows in a supposedly piecewise linear dynamical system, which has been implemented as an electronic circuit, is also provided.

Smooth surfaces from rational bilinear patches

KAUST Repository

Shi, Ling

2014-01-01

Smooth freeform skins from simple panels constitute a challenging topic arising in contemporary architecture. We contribute to this problem area by showing how to approximate a negatively curved surface by smoothly joined rational bilinear patches. The approximation problem is solved with help of a new computational approach to the hyperbolic nets of Huhnen-Venedey and Rörig and optimization algorithms based on it. We also discuss its limits which lie in the topology of the input surface. Finally, freeform deformations based on Darboux transformations are used to generate smooth surfaces from smoothly joined Darboux cyclide patches; in this way we eliminate the restriction to surfaces with negative Gaussian curvature. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

A genetic algorithm based method for neutron spectrum unfolding

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Suman, Vitisha; Sarkar, P.K.

2013-03-01

An approach to neutron spectrum unfolding based on a stochastic evolutionary search mechanism - Genetic Algorithm (GA) is presented. It is tested to unfold a set of simulated spectra, the unfolded spectra is compared to the output of a standard code FERDOR. The method was then applied to a set of measured pulse height spectrum of neutrons from the AmBe source as well as of emitted neutrons from Li(p,n) and Ag(C,n) nuclear reactions carried out in the accelerator environment. The unfolded spectra compared to the output of FERDOR show good agreement in the case of AmBe spectra and Li(p,n) spectra. In the case of Ag(C,n) spectra GA method results in some fluctuations. Necessity of carrying out smoothening of the obtained solution is also studied, which leads to approximation of the solution yielding an appropriate solution finally. Few smoothing techniques like second difference smoothing, Monte Carlo averaging, combination of both and gaussian based smoothing methods are also studied. Unfolded results obtained after inclusion of the smoothening criteria are in close agreement with the output obtained from the FERDOR code. The present method is also tested on a set of underdetermined problems, the outputs of which is compared to the unfolded spectra obtained from the FERDOR applied to a completely determined problem, shows a good match. The distribution of the unfolded spectra is also studied. Uncertainty propagation in the unfolded spectra due to the errors present in the measurement as well as the response function is also carried out. The method appears to be promising for unfolding the completely determined as well as underdetermined problems. It also has provisions to carry out the uncertainty analysis. (author)

Bifurcations of non-smooth systems

Science.gov (United States)

Angulo, Fabiola; Olivar, Gerard; Osorio, Gustavo A.; Escobar, Carlos M.; Ferreira, Jocirei D.; Redondo, Johan M.

2012-12-01

Non-smooth systems (namely piecewise-smooth systems) have received much attention in the last decade. Many contributions in this area show that theory and applications (to electronic circuits, mechanical systems, …) are relevant to problems in science and engineering. Specially, new bifurcations have been reported in the literature, and this was the topic of this minisymposium. Thus both bifurcation theory and its applications were included. Several contributions from different fields show that non-smooth bifurcations are a hot topic in research. Thus in this paper the reader can find contributions from electronics, energy markets and population dynamics. Also, a carefully-written specific algebraic software tool is presented.

A SAS IML Macro for Loglinear Smoothing

Science.gov (United States)

Moses, Tim; von Davier, Alina

2011-01-01

Polynomial loglinear models for one-, two-, and higher-way contingency tables have important applications to measurement and assessment. They are essentially regarded as a smoothing technique, which is commonly referred to as loglinear smoothing. A SAS IML (SAS Institute, 2002a) macro was created to implement loglinear smoothing according to…

Income and Consumption Smoothing among US States

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Bent; Yosha, Oved

within regions but not between regions. This suggests that capital markets transcend regional barriers while credit markets are regional in their nature. Smoothing within the club of rich states is accomplished mainly via capital markets whereas consumption smoothing is dominant within the club of poor...... states. The fraction of a shock to gross state products smoothed by the federal tax-transfer system is the same for various regions and other clubs of states. We calculate the scope for consumption smoothing within various regions and clubs, finding that most gains from risk sharing can be achieved...

Smooth surfaces from rational bilinear patches

KAUST Repository

Shi, Ling; Wang, Jun; Pottmann, Helmut

2014-01-01

Smooth freeform skins from simple panels constitute a challenging topic arising in contemporary architecture. We contribute to this problem area by showing how to approximate a negatively curved surface by smoothly joined rational bilinear patches

Method of T2 spectrum inversion with conjugate gradient algorithm from NMR data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Pengju; Shi Shangming; Song Yanjie

2010-01-01

Based on the optimization techniques, the T 2 spectrum inversion method of conjugate gradient that is easy to realize non-negativity constraint of T2 spectrum is proposed. The method transforms the linear mixed-determined problem of T2 spectrum inversion into the typical optimization problem of searching the minimum of objective function by building up the objective function according to the basic idea of geophysics modeling. The optimization problem above is solved with the conjugate gradient algorithm that has quick convergence rate and quadratic termination. The method has been applied to the inversion of noise free echo train generated from artificial spectrum, artificial echo train with signal-to-noise ratio (SNR)=25 and NMR experimental data of drilling core. The comparison between the inversion results of this paper and artificial spectrum or the result of software imported in NMR laboratory shows that the method can correctly invert T 2 spectrum from artificial NMR relaxation data even though SNR=25 and that inversion T 2 spectrum with good continuity and smoothness from core NMR experimental data accords perfectly with that of laboratory software imported, and moreover,the absolute error between the NMR porosity computed from T 2 spectrum and helium (He) porosity in laboratory is 0.65%. (authors)

TAX SMOOTHING: TESTS ON INDONESIAN DATA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rudi Kurniawan

2011-01-01

Full Text Available This paper contributes to the literature of public debt management by testing for tax smoothing behaviour in Indonesia. Tax smoothing means that the government smooths the tax rate across all future time periods to minimize the distortionary costs of taxation over time for a given path of government spending. In a stochastic economy with an incomplete bond market, tax smoothing implies that the tax rate approximates a random walk and changes in the tax rate are nearly unpredictable. For that purpose, two tests were performed. First, random walk behaviour of the tax rate was examined by undertaking unit root tests. The null hypothesis of unit root cannot be rejected, indicating that the tax rate is nonstationary and, hence, it follows a random walk. Second, the predictability of the tax rate was examined by regressing changes in the tax rate on its own lagged values and also on lagged values of changes in the goverment expenditure ratio, and growth of real output. They are found to be not significant in predicting changes in the tax rate. Taken together, the present evidence seems to be consistent with the tax smoothing, therefore provides support to this theory.

Nodular smooth muscle metaplasia in multiple peritoneal endometriosis

OpenAIRE

Kim, Hyun-Soo; Yoon, Gun; Ha, Sang Yun; Song, Sang Yong

2015-01-01

We report here an unusual presentation of peritoneal endometriosis with smooth muscle metaplasia as multiple protruding masses on the lateral pelvic wall. Smooth muscle metaplasia is a common finding in rectovaginal endometriosis, whereas in peritoneal endometriosis, smooth muscle metaplasia is uncommon and its nodular presentation on the pelvic wall is even rarer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of nodular smooth muscle metaplasia occurring in peritoneal endometriosis. A...

Comparative study on γ-ray spectrum by several filtering method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan Xinyu; Liu Liangjun; Zhou Jianliang

2011-01-01

Comparative study was conducted on results of gamma-ray spectrum by using a majority of active smoothing method, which were used to show filtering effect. The results showed that peak was widened and overlap peaks increased with energy domain filter in γ-ray spectrum. Filter and its parameters should be seriously taken into consideration in frequency domain. Wavelet transformation can keep signal in high frequency region well. Improved threshold method showed the advantages of hard and soft threshold method at the same time by comparison, which was suitable for weak peaks detection. A new filter was put forward to eke out gravity model approach, whose denoise level was detected by standard deviation. This method not only kept signal and net area of peak well,but also attained better result and had simple computer program. (authors)

Smoothed Analysis of Local Search Algorithms

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Manthey, Bodo; Dehne, Frank; Sack, Jörg-Rüdiger; Stege, Ulrike

2015-01-01

Smoothed analysis is a method for analyzing the performance of algorithms for which classical worst-case analysis fails to explain the performance observed in practice. Smoothed analysis has been applied to explain the performance of a variety of algorithms in the last years. One particular class of

16-dimensional smooth projective planes with large collineation groups

OpenAIRE

Bödi, Richard

1998-01-01

Erworben im Rahmen der Schweizer Nationallizenzen (http://www.nationallizenzen.ch) Smooth projective planes are projective planes defined on smooth manifolds (i.e. the set of points and the set of lines are smooth manifolds) such that the geometric operations of join and intersection are smooth. A systematic study of such planes and of their collineation groups can be found in previous works of the author. We prove in this paper that a 16-dimensional smooth projective plane which admits a ...

Radial Basis Function Based Quadrature over Smooth Surfaces

Science.gov (United States)

2016-03-24

Radial Basis Functions φ(r) Piecewise Smooth (Conditionally Positive Definite) MN Monomial |r|2m+1 TPS thin plate spline |r|2mln|r| Infinitely Smooth...smooth surfaces using polynomial interpolants, while [27] couples Thin - Plate Spline interpolation (see table 1) with Green’s integral formula [29

Neurophysiology and Neuroanatomy of Smooth Pursuit in Humans

Science.gov (United States)

Lencer, Rebekka; Trillenberg, Peter

2008-01-01

Smooth pursuit eye movements enable us to focus our eyes on moving objects by utilizing well-established mechanisms of visual motion processing, sensorimotor transformation and cognition. Novel smooth pursuit tasks and quantitative measurement techniques can help unravel the different smooth pursuit components and complex neural systems involved…

Non-parametric smoothing of experimental data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kuketayev, A.T.; Pen'kov, F.M.

2007-01-01

Full text: Rapid processing of experimental data samples in nuclear physics often requires differentiation in order to find extrema. Therefore, even at the preliminary stage of data analysis, a range of noise reduction methods are used to smooth experimental data. There are many non-parametric smoothing techniques: interval averages, moving averages, exponential smoothing, etc. Nevertheless, it is more common to use a priori information about the behavior of the experimental curve in order to construct smoothing schemes based on the least squares techniques. The latter methodology's advantage is that the area under the curve can be preserved, which is equivalent to conservation of total speed of counting. The disadvantages of this approach include the lack of a priori information. For example, very often the sums of undifferentiated (by a detector) peaks are replaced with one peak during the processing of data, introducing uncontrolled errors in the determination of the physical quantities. The problem is solvable only by having experienced personnel, whose skills are much greater than the challenge. We propose a set of non-parametric techniques, which allows the use of any additional information on the nature of experimental dependence. The method is based on a construction of a functional, which includes both experimental data and a priori information. Minimum of this functional is reached on a non-parametric smoothed curve. Euler (Lagrange) differential equations are constructed for these curves; then their solutions are obtained analytically or numerically. The proposed approach allows for automated processing of nuclear physics data, eliminating the need for highly skilled laboratory personnel. Pursuant to the proposed approach is the possibility to obtain smoothing curves in a given confidence interval, e.g. according to the χ 2 distribution. This approach is applicable when constructing smooth solutions of ill-posed problems, in particular when solving

Doing smooth pursuit paradigms in Windows 7

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wilms, Inge Linda

predict strengths or deficits in perception and attention. However, smooth pursuit movements have been difficult to study and very little normative data is available for smooth pursuit performance in children and adults. This poster describes the challenges in setting up a smooth pursuit paradigm...... in Windows 7 with live capturing of eye movements using a Tobii TX300 eye tracker. In particular, the poster describes the challenges and limitations created by the hardware and the software...

Nodular smooth muscle metaplasia in multiple peritoneal endometriosis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Hyun-Soo; Yoon, Gun; Ha, Sang Yun; Song, Sang Yong

2015-01-01

We report here an unusual presentation of peritoneal endometriosis with smooth muscle metaplasia as multiple protruding masses on the lateral pelvic wall. Smooth muscle metaplasia is a common finding in rectovaginal endometriosis, whereas in peritoneal endometriosis, smooth muscle metaplasia is uncommon and its nodular presentation on the pelvic wall is even rarer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of nodular smooth muscle metaplasia occurring in peritoneal endometriosis. As observed in this case, when performing laparoscopic surgery in order to excise malignant tumors of intra-abdominal or pelvic organs, it can be difficult for surgeons to distinguish the metastatic tumors from benign nodular pelvic wall lesions, including endometriosis, based on the gross findings only. Therefore, an intraoperative frozen section biopsy of the pelvic wall nodules should be performed to evaluate the peritoneal involvement by malignant tumors. Moreover, this report implies that peritoneal endometriosis, as well as rectovaginal endometriosis, can clinically present as nodular lesions if obvious smooth muscle metaplasia is present. The pathological investigation of smooth muscle cells in peritoneal lesions can contribute not only to the precise diagnosis but also to the structure and function of smooth muscle cells and related cells involved in the histogenesis of peritoneal endometriosis.

Smooth pursuit eye movements and schizophrenia: literature review.

Science.gov (United States)

Franco, J G; de Pablo, J; Gaviria, A M; Sepúlveda, E; Vilella, E

2014-09-01

To review the scientific literature about the relationship between impairment on smooth pursuit eye movements and schizophrenia. Narrative review that includes historical articles, reports about basic and clinical investigation, systematic reviews, and meta-analysis on the topic. Up to 80% of schizophrenic patients have impairment of smooth pursuit eye movements. Despite the diversity of test protocols, 65% of patients and controls are correctly classified by their overall performance during this pursuit. The smooth pursuit eye movements depend on the ability to anticipate the target's velocity and the visual feedback, as well as on learning and attention. The neuroanatomy implicated in smooth pursuit overlaps to some extent with certain frontal cortex zones associated with some clinical and neuropsychological characteristics of the schizophrenia, therefore some specific components of smooth pursuit anomalies could serve as biomarkers of the disease. Due to their sedative effect, antipsychotics have a deleterious effect on smooth pursuit eye movements, thus these movements cannot be used to evaluate the efficacy of the currently available treatments. Standardized evaluation of smooth pursuit eye movements on schizophrenia will allow to use specific aspects of that pursuit as biomarkers for the study of its genetics, psychopathology, or neuropsychology. Copyright © 2013 Sociedad Española de Oftalmología. Published by Elsevier Espana. All rights reserved.

Smoothing-Norm Preconditioning for Regularizing Minimum-Residual Methods

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Per Christian; Jensen, Toke Koldborg

2006-01-01

take into account a smoothing norm for the solution. This technique is well established for CGLS, but it does not immediately carry over to minimum-residual methods when the smoothing norm is a seminorm or a Sobolev norm. We develop a new technique which works for any smoothing norm of the form $\\|L...

Bifurcation theory for finitely smooth planar autonomous differential systems

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Maoan; Sheng, Lijuan; Zhang, Xiang

2018-03-01

In this paper we establish bifurcation theory of limit cycles for planar Ck smooth autonomous differential systems, with k ∈ N. The key point is to study the smoothness of bifurcation functions which are basic and important tool on the study of Hopf bifurcation at a fine focus or a center, and of Poincaré bifurcation in a period annulus. We especially study the smoothness of the first order Melnikov function in degenerate Hopf bifurcation at an elementary center. As we know, the smoothness problem was solved for analytic and C∞ differential systems, but it was not tackled for finitely smooth differential systems. Here, we present their optimal regularity of these bifurcation functions and their asymptotic expressions in the finite smooth case.

Propagation of TE and TM polarised light through smoothed sixty degree bends in planar photonic crystal waveguides

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frandsen, Lars Hagedorn; Borel, Peter Ingo; Thorhauge, Morten

2003-01-01

In this paper, bends in planar PCWs are investigated by introducing two smoothed 60° bends each having one hole. The PCWs are defined by leaving out single rows of holes. In and out coupling of light to the PCWs is obtained utilising tapered ridge waveguides. Transmission spectra are recorded for...... for both the TE and TM polarisation with an optical spectrum analyser by using two LED sources centred at 1330 nm and 1550 nm. The 3D FDTD simulations successfully explain the observed bend losses both for the TE and TM polarisations....

Smooth solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pokhozhaev, S I

2014-01-01

We consider smooth solutions of the Cauchy problem for the Navier-Stokes equations on the scale of smooth functions which are periodic with respect to x∈R 3 . We obtain existence theorems for global (with respect to t>0) and local solutions of the Cauchy problem. The statements of these depend on the smoothness and the norm of the initial vector function. Upper bounds for the behaviour of solutions in both classes, which depend on t, are also obtained. Bibliography: 10 titles

Computed tomography in the evaluation of migrational disorders of the brain. 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Byrd, S.E.; Bohan, T.P.; Osborn, R.E.

1988-01-01

The migrational disorders are a rare group of congenital malformations of the brain which are almost exclusively seen in children. They are comprised of four types, lissencephaly, schizencephaly, heterotopia and polymicrogyria. They have received little attention in the radiology literature because until recently the radiographic modalities to evaluate these disorders (which are primarily abnormalities of the cortex of the brain (gyri and sulci) and gray matter) were not available. Advanced CT scanners have allowed better resolution of the pediatric brain, and in turn better delineation of this group of congenital malformations. The development of the neocortex of the brain is reviewed and the entity of lissencephaly is emphasized. The characteristic CT appearance of lissencephaly is discussed with a delineation of the major findings of (1) agyric-pachygyric cortex (2) shallow sylvian grooves producing a 'figure of eight' appearance and (3) thickened cortical gray matter with loss of the gray-white matter interdigitations. A classification of lissencephaly is proposed, based on the 13 patients of this study and the patients' reviews in the medical literature. 24 refs.; 8 figs.; 3 tabs

Quantum key distribution with finite resources: Smooth Min entropy vs. Smooth Renyi entropy

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mertz, Markus; Abruzzo, Silvestre; Bratzik, Sylvia; Kampermann, Hermann; Bruss, Dagmar [Institut fuer Theoretische Physik III, Duesseldorf (Germany)

2010-07-01

We consider different entropy measures that play an important role in the analysis of the security of QKD with finite resources. The smooth min entropy leads to an optimal bound for the length of a secure key. Another bound on the secure key length was derived by using Renyi entropies. Unfortunately, it is very hard or even impossible to calculate these entropies for realistic QKD scenarios. To estimate the security rate it becomes important to find computable bounds on these entropies. Here, we compare a lower bound for the smooth min entropy with a bound using Renyi entropies. We compare these entropies for the six-state protocol with symmetric attacks.

Smoothness without smoothing: why Gaussian naive Bayes is not naive for multi-subject searchlight studies.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rajeev D S Raizada

Full Text Available Spatial smoothness is helpful when averaging fMRI signals across multiple subjects, as it allows different subjects' corresponding brain areas to be pooled together even if they are slightly misaligned. However, smoothing is usually not applied when performing multivoxel pattern-based analyses (MVPA, as it runs the risk of blurring away the information that fine-grained spatial patterns contain. It would therefore be desirable, if possible, to carry out pattern-based analyses which take unsmoothed data as their input but which produce smooth images as output. We show here that the Gaussian Naive Bayes (GNB classifier does precisely this, when it is used in "searchlight" pattern-based analyses. We explain why this occurs, and illustrate the effect in real fMRI data. Moreover, we show that analyses using GNBs produce results at the multi-subject level which are statistically robust, neurally plausible, and which replicate across two independent data sets. By contrast, SVM classifiers applied to the same data do not generate a replication, even if the SVM-derived searchlight maps have smoothing applied to them. An additional advantage of GNB classifiers for searchlight analyses is that they are orders of magnitude faster to compute than more complex alternatives such as SVMs. Collectively, these results suggest that Gaussian Naive Bayes classifiers may be a highly non-naive choice for multi-subject pattern-based fMRI studies.

Some splines produced by smooth interpolation

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Segeth, Karel

2018-01-01

Roč. 319, 15 February (2018), s. 387-394 ISSN 0096-3003 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA14-02067S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : smooth data approximation * smooth data interpolation * cubic spline Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Applied mathematics Impact factor: 1.738, year: 2016 http://www. science direct.com/ science /article/pii/S0096300317302746?via%3Dihub

Some splines produced by smooth interpolation

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Segeth, Karel

2018-01-01

Roč. 319, 15 February (2018), s. 387-394 ISSN 0096-3003 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA14-02067S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : smooth data approximation * smooth data interpolation * cubic spline Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Applied mathematics Impact factor: 1.738, year: 2016 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0096300317302746?via%3Dihub

Response of a uniform optical fiber Bragg grating to strain with a non-smooth distribution: measurements and simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Detka, Małgorzata

2017-08-01

The paper presents results of numerical analyses of the response of a uniform fiber Bragg grating subjected to a strain with non-smooth profile. Results of measurements of the response of the grating to a compressive strain correspond well with results of the simulation and show, that the induced strain profile of the grating causes a widening of its reflection spectrum with a considerable shape irregularity, dependent on the location of the point where slope of the strain profile changes abruptly, and on the maximum value of the strain.

Smooth Phase Interpolated Keying

Science.gov (United States)

Borah, Deva K.

2007-01-01

Smooth phase interpolated keying (SPIK) is an improved method of computing smooth phase-modulation waveforms for radio communication systems that convey digital information. SPIK is applicable to a variety of phase-shift-keying (PSK) modulation schemes, including quaternary PSK (QPSK), octonary PSK (8PSK), and 16PSK. In comparison with a related prior method, SPIK offers advantages of better performance and less complexity of implementation. In a PSK scheme, the underlying information waveform that one seeks to convey consists of discrete rectangular steps, but the spectral width of such a waveform is excessive for practical radio communication. Therefore, the problem is to smooth the step phase waveform in such a manner as to maintain power and bandwidth efficiency without incurring an unacceptably large error rate and without introducing undesired variations in the amplitude of the affected radio signal. Although the ideal constellation of PSK phasor points does not cause amplitude variations, filtering of the modulation waveform (in which, typically, a rectangular pulse is converted to a square-root raised cosine pulse) causes amplitude fluctuations. If a power-efficient nonlinear amplifier is used in the radio communication system, the fluctuating-amplitude signal can undergo significant spectral regrowth, thus compromising the bandwidth efficiency of the system. In the related prior method, one seeks to solve the problem in a procedure that comprises two major steps: phase-value generation and phase interpolation. SPIK follows the two-step approach of the related prior method, but the details of the steps are different. In the phase-value-generation step, the phase values of symbols in the PSK constellation are determined by a phase function that is said to be maximally smooth and that is chosen to minimize the spectral spread of the modulated signal. In this step, the constellation is divided into two groups by assigning, to information symbols, phase values

Stability of bumps in piecewise smooth neural fields with nonlinear adaptation

KAUST Repository

Kilpatrick, Zachary P.

2010-06-01

We study the linear stability of stationary bumps in piecewise smooth neural fields with local negative feedback in the form of synaptic depression or spike frequency adaptation. The continuum dynamics is described in terms of a nonlocal integrodifferential equation, in which the integral kernel represents the spatial distribution of synaptic weights between populations of neurons whose mean firing rate is taken to be a Heaviside function of local activity. Discontinuities in the adaptation variable associated with a bump solution means that bump stability cannot be analyzed by constructing the Evans function for a network with a sigmoidal gain function and then taking the high-gain limit. In the case of synaptic depression, we show that linear stability can be formulated in terms of solutions to a system of pseudo-linear equations. We thus establish that sufficiently strong synaptic depression can destabilize a bump that is stable in the absence of depression. These instabilities are dominated by shift perturbations that evolve into traveling pulses. In the case of spike frequency adaptation, we show that for a wide class of perturbations the activity and adaptation variables decouple in the linear regime, thus allowing us to explicitly determine stability in terms of the spectrum of a smooth linear operator. We find that bumps are always unstable with respect to this class of perturbations, and destabilization of a bump can result in either a traveling pulse or a spatially localized breather. © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Development of analytical software for semi-quantitative analysis of x-ray spectrum acquired from energy-dispersive spectrometer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karim, A.; Rana, M.A.; Qamar, R.; Latif, A; Ahmad, M.; Farooq, M.A.; Ahmad, Z.

2003-12-01

Software package for elemental analysis for X-ray spectrum obtained from Energy Dispersive Spectrometer (EDS) attached with Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) has been developed: A Personal Computer Analyzer card PCA-800 is used to acquire data from the EDS. This spectrum is obtained in binary format, which is transformed into ASCII format using PCAII card software. The program is modular in construction and coded using Microsoft's QUICKBASIC compiler linker. Energy line library containing all lines of elements is created for analysis of acquired characteristic X-ray spectrum. Two techniques of peak identification are provided. Statistical tools are employed for smoothing of a curve and for computing area under the curve. Elemental concentration is calculated in weight % and in atomic. (author)

Efficient computation of smoothing splines via adaptive basis sampling

KAUST Repository

Ma, Ping

2015-06-24

© 2015 Biometrika Trust. Smoothing splines provide flexible nonparametric regression estimators. However, the high computational cost of smoothing splines for large datasets has hindered their wide application. In this article, we develop a new method, named adaptive basis sampling, for efficient computation of smoothing splines in super-large samples. Except for the univariate case where the Reinsch algorithm is applicable, a smoothing spline for a regression problem with sample size n can be expressed as a linear combination of n basis functions and its computational complexity is generally O(n³). We achieve a more scalable computation in the multivariate case by evaluating the smoothing spline using a smaller set of basis functions, obtained by an adaptive sampling scheme that uses values of the response variable. Our asymptotic analysis shows that smoothing splines computed via adaptive basis sampling converge to the true function at the same rate as full basis smoothing splines. Using simulation studies and a large-scale deep earth core-mantle boundary imaging study, we show that the proposed method outperforms a sampling method that does not use the values of response variables.

Efficient computation of smoothing splines via adaptive basis sampling

KAUST Repository

Ma, Ping; Huang, Jianhua Z.; Zhang, Nan

2015-01-01

© 2015 Biometrika Trust. Smoothing splines provide flexible nonparametric regression estimators. However, the high computational cost of smoothing splines for large datasets has hindered their wide application. In this article, we develop a new method, named adaptive basis sampling, for efficient computation of smoothing splines in super-large samples. Except for the univariate case where the Reinsch algorithm is applicable, a smoothing spline for a regression problem with sample size n can be expressed as a linear combination of n basis functions and its computational complexity is generally O(n³). We achieve a more scalable computation in the multivariate case by evaluating the smoothing spline using a smaller set of basis functions, obtained by an adaptive sampling scheme that uses values of the response variable. Our asymptotic analysis shows that smoothing splines computed via adaptive basis sampling converge to the true function at the same rate as full basis smoothing splines. Using simulation studies and a large-scale deep earth core-mantle boundary imaging study, we show that the proposed method outperforms a sampling method that does not use the values of response variables.

The Smoothing Hypothesis, Stock Returns and Risk in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Antonio Lopo Martinez

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Income smoothing is defined as the deliberate normalization of income in order to reach a desired trend. If the smoothing causes more information to be reflected in the stock price, it is likely to improve the allocation of resources and can be a critical factor in investment decisions. This study aims to build metrics to determine the degree of smoothing in Brazilian public companies, to classify them as smoothing and non-smoothing companies and additionally to present evidence on the long-term relationship between the smoothing hypothesis and stock return and risk. Using the Economatica and CVM databases, this study focuses on 145 companies in the period 1998-2007. We find that Brazilian smoothers have a smaller degree of systemic risk than non-smoothers. In average terms, the beta of smoothers is significantly lower than non-smoothers. Regarding return, we find that the abnormal annualized returns of smoothers are significantly higher. We confirm differences in the groups by nonparametric and parametric tests in cross section or as time series, indicating that there is a statistically significant difference in performance in the Brazilian market between firms that do and do not engage in smoothing.

Phosphodiesterases regulate airway smooth muscle function in health and disease.

Science.gov (United States)

Krymskaya, Vera P; Panettieri, Reynold A

2007-01-01

On the basis of structure, regulation, and kinetic properties, phosphodiesterases (PDEs) represent a superfamily of enzymes divided into 11 subfamilies that catalyze cytosolic levels of 3',5'-cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) or 3',5'-cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) to 5'-AMP or 5'-GMP, respectively. PDE4 represents the major PDE expressed in inflammatory cells as well as airway smooth muscle (ASM), and selective PDE4 inhibitors provide a broad spectrum of anti-inflammatory effects such as abrogating cytokine and chemokine release from inflammatory cells and inhibiting inflammatory cell trafficking. Due to cell- and tissue-specific gene expression and regulation, PDEs modulate unique organ-based functions. New tools or compounds that selectively inhibit PDE subfamilies and genetically engineered mice deficient in selective isoforms have greatly enhanced our understanding of PDE function in airway inflammation and resident cell function. This chapter will focus on recent advances in our understanding of the role of PDE in regulating ASM function.

Investigation of angular and axial smoothing of PET data

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Daube-Witherspoon, M.E.; Carson, R.E.

1996-01-01

Radial filtering of emission and transmission data is routinely performed in PET during reconstruction in order to reduce image noise. Angular smoothing is not typically done, due to the introduction of a non-uniform resolution loss; axial filtering is also not usually performed on data acquired in 2D mode. The goal of this paper was to assess the effects of angular and axial smoothing on noise and resolution. Angular and axial smoothing was incorporated into the reconstruction process on the Scanditronix PC2048-15B brain PET scanner. In-plane spatial resolution and noise reduction were measured for different amounts of radial and angular smoothing. For radial positions away from the center of the scanner, noise reduction and degraded tangential resolution with no loss of radial resolution were seen. Near the center, no resolution loss was observed, but there was also no reduction in noise for angular filters up to a 7 degrees FWHM. These results can be understood by considering the combined effects of smoothing projections across rows (angles) and then summing (backprojecting). Thus, angular smoothing is not optimal due to its anisotropic noise reduction and resolution degradation properties. However, uniform noise reduction comparable to that seen with radial filtering can be achieved with axial smoothing of transmission data. The axial results suggest that combined radial and axial transmission smoothing could lead to improved noise characteristics with more isotropic resolution degradation

Mechanisms of mechanical strain memory in airway smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Hak Rim; Hai, Chi-Ming

2005-10-01

We evaluated the hypothesis that mechanical deformation of airway smooth muscle induces structural remodeling of airway smooth muscle cells, thereby modulating mechanical performance in subsequent contractions. This hypothesis implied that past experience of mechanical deformation was retained (or "memorized") as structural changes in airway smooth muscle cells, which modulated the cell's subsequent contractile responses. We termed this phenomenon mechanical strain memory. Preshortening has been found to induce attenuation of both force and isotonic shortening velocity in cholinergic receptor-activated airway smooth muscle. Rapid stretching of cholinergic receptor-activated airway smooth muscle from an initial length to a final length resulted in post-stretch force and myosin light chain phosphorylation that correlated significantly with initial length. Thus post-stretch muscle strips appeared to retain memory of the initial length prior to rapid stretch (mechanical strain memory). Cytoskeletal recruitment of actin- and integrin-binding proteins and Erk 1/2 MAPK appeared to be important mechanisms of mechanical strain memory. Sinusoidal length oscillation led to force attenuation during oscillation and in subsequent contractions in intact airway smooth muscle, and p38 MAPK appeared to be an important mechanism. In contrast, application of local mechanical strain to cultured airway smooth muscle cells induced local actin polymerization and cytoskeletal stiffening. It is conceivable that deep inspiration-induced bronchoprotection may be a manifestation of mechanical strain memory such that mechanical deformation from past breathing cycles modulated the mechanical performance of airway smooth muscle in subsequent cycles in a continuous and dynamic manner.

CBRS Spectrum Sharing between LTE-U and WiFi: A Multiarmed Bandit Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Imtiaz Parvez

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The surge of mobile devices such as smartphone and tablets requires additional capacity. To achieve ubiquitous and high data rate Internet connectivity, effective spectrum sharing and utilization of the wireless spectrum carry critical importance. In this paper, we consider the use of unlicensed LTE (LTE-U technology in the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS band and develop a multiarmed bandit (MAB based spectrum sharing technique for a smooth coexistence with WiFi. In particular, we consider LTE-U to operate as a General Authorized Access (GAA user; hereby MAB is used to adaptively optimize the transmission duty cycle of LTE-U transmissions. Additionally, we incorporate downlink power control which yields a high energy efficiency and interference suppression. Simulation results demonstrate a significant improvement in the aggregate capacity (approximately 33% and cell-edge throughput of coexisting LTE-U and WiFi networks for different base station densities and user densities.

The smooth cyclotron line in Her X-1 as seen with nuclear spectroscopic telescope array

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fürst, Felix; Grefenstette, Brian W.; Bellm, Eric C.; Harrison, Fiona; Madsen, Kristin K.; Walton, Dominic J. [Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Staubert, Rüdiger; Klochkov, Dmitry [Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Tübingen (IAAT), D-72076 Tübingen (Germany); Tomsick, John A.; Boggs, Steven E.; Craig, William W. [Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Bachetti, Matteo; Barret, Didier [Université de Toulouse, UPS-OMP, IRAP, F-31028 Toulouse (France); Chenevez, Jerome; Christensen, Finn E. [DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Elektrovej 327, DK-2800 Lyngby (Denmark); Hailey, Charles J. [Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (United States); Pottschmidt, Katja [CRESST, UMBC, and NASA GSFC, Code 661, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Stern, Daniel [Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109 (United States); Wilms, Jörn [Dr. Karl-Remeis-Sternwarte and ECAP, Sternwartstr. 7, D-96049 Bamberg (Germany); William Zhang [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States)

2013-12-10

Her X-1, one of the brightest and best studied X-ray binaries, shows a cyclotron resonant scattering feature (CRSF) near 37 keV. This makes it an ideal target for a detailed study with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), taking advantage of its excellent hard X-ray spectral resolution. We observed Her X-1 three times, coordinated with Suzaku, during one of the high flux intervals of its 35 day superorbital period. This paper focuses on the shape and evolution of the hard X-ray spectrum. The broadband spectra can be fitted with a power law with a high-energy cutoff, an iron line, and a CRSF. We find that the CRSF has a very smooth and symmetric shape in all observations and at all pulse phases. We compare the residuals of a line with a Gaussian optical-depth profile to a Lorentzian optical-depth profile and find no significant differences, strongly constraining the very smooth shape of the line. Even though the line energy changes dramatically with pulse phase, we find that its smooth shape does not. Additionally, our data show that the continuum only changes marginally between the three observations. These changes can be explained with varying amounts of Thomson scattering in the hot corona of the accretion disk. The average, luminosity-corrected CRSF energy is lower than in past observations and follows a secular decline. The excellent data quality of NuSTAR provides the best constraint on the CRSF energy to date.

Surface smoothness

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tummala, Sudhakar; Dam, Erik B.

2010-01-01

accuracy, such novel markers must therefore be validated against clinically meaningful end-goals such as the ability to allow correct diagnosis. We present a method for automatic cartilage surface smoothness quantification in the knee joint. The quantification is based on a curvature flow method used....... We demonstrate that the fully automatic markers eliminate the time required for radiologist annotations, and in addition provide a diagnostic marker superior to the evaluated semi-manual markers....

Avoiding the blue spectrum and the fine-tuning of initial conditions in hybrid inflation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clesse, Sebastien; Rocher, Jonathan

2009-01-01

Hybrid inflation faces two well-known problems: the blue spectrum of the nonsupersymmetric version of the model and the fine-tuning of the initial conditions of the fields leading to sufficient inflation to account for the standard cosmological problems. They are investigated by studying the exact two-fields dynamics instead of assuming slow-roll. When the field values are restricted to be less than the reduced Planck mass, a non-negligible part of the initial condition space (around 15% depending on potential parameters) leads to successful inflation. Most of it is located outside the usual inflationary valley and organized in continuous patterns instead of being isolated as previously found. Their existence is explained and their properties are studied. This shows that no excessive fine-tuning is required for successful hybrid inflation. Moreover, by extending the initial condition space to Planckian-like or super-Planckian values, inflation becomes generically sufficiently long and can produce a red-tilted scalar power spectrum due to slow-roll violations. The robustness of these properties is confirmed by conducting our analysis on three other models of hybrid-type inflation in various framework: 'smooth' and 'shifted' inflation in SUSY and SUGRA, and 'radion assisted' gauge inflation. A high percentage of successful inflation for smooth hybrid inflation (up to 80%) is observed.

Experimental investigation of smoothing by spectral dispersion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Regan, Sean P.; Marozas, John A.; Kelly, John H.; Boehly, Thomas R.; Donaldson, William R.; Jaanimagi, Paul A.; Keck, Robert L.; Kessler, Terrance J.; Meyerhofer, David D.; Seka, Wolf

2000-01-01

Measurements of smoothing rates for smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD) of high-power, solid-state laser beams used for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research are reported. Smoothing rates were obtained from the intensity distributions of equivalent target plane images for laser pulses of varying duration. Simulations of the experimental data with the known properties of the phase plates and the frequency modulators are in good agreement with the experimental data. These results inspire confidence in extrapolating to higher bandwidths and other SSD configurations that may be suitable for ICF experiments and ultimately for direct-drive laser-fusion ignition. (c) 2000 Optical Society of America

Fast compact algorithms and software for spline smoothing

CERN Document Server

Weinert, Howard L

2012-01-01

Fast Compact Algorithms and Software for Spline Smoothing investigates algorithmic alternatives for computing cubic smoothing splines when the amount of smoothing is determined automatically by minimizing the generalized cross-validation score. These algorithms are based on Cholesky factorization, QR factorization, or the fast Fourier transform. All algorithms are implemented in MATLAB and are compared based on speed, memory use, and accuracy. An overall best algorithm is identified, which allows very large data sets to be processed quickly on a personal computer.

Direct numerical simulation of open channel flow over smooth-to-rough and rough-to-smooth step changes

Science.gov (United States)

Rouhi, Amirreza; Chung, Daniel; Hutchins, Nicholas

2017-11-01

Direct numerical simulations (DNSs) are reported for open channel flow over streamwise-alternating patches of smooth and fully rough walls. Owing to the streamwise periodicity, the flow configuration is composed of a step change from smooth to rough, and a step change from rough to smooth. The friction Reynolds number varies from 443 over the smooth patch to 715 over the rough patch. The flow is thoroughly studied by mean and fluctuation profiles, and spectrograms. The detailed flow from DNS reveals discrepancies of up to 50% among the various definitions of the internal-layer thickness, with apparent power-law exponents differing by up to 60%. The definition based on the logarithmic slope of the velocity profile, as proposed by Chamorro et al. (Boundary-Layer Meteorol., vol. 130, 2009, pp. 29-41), is most consistent with the physical notion of the internal layer; this is supported by the defect similarity based on this internal-layer thickness, and the streamwise homogeneity of the dissipation length-scale within this internal layer. The statistics inside this internal-layer, and the growth of the internal layer itself, are minimally affected by the streamwise periodicity when the patch length is at least six times the channel height.

Revealed smooth nontransitive preferences

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Keiding, Hans; Tvede, Mich

2013-01-01

In the present paper, we are concerned with the behavioural consequences of consumers having nontransitive preference relations. Data sets consist of finitely many observations of price vectors and consumption bundles. A preference relation rationalizes a data set provided that for every observed...... consumption bundle, all strictly preferred bundles are more expensive than the observed bundle. Our main result is that data sets can be rationalized by a smooth nontransitive preference relation if and only if prices can normalized such that the law of demand is satisfied. Market data sets consist of finitely...... many observations of price vectors, lists of individual incomes and aggregate demands. We apply our main result to characterize market data sets consistent with equilibrium behaviour of pure-exchange economies with smooth nontransitive consumers....

Generalizing smooth transition autoregressions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chini, Emilio Zanetti

We introduce a variant of the smooth transition autoregression - the GSTAR model - capable to parametrize the asymmetry in the tails of the transition equation by using a particular generalization of the logistic function. A General-to-Specific modelling strategy is discussed in detail, with part......We introduce a variant of the smooth transition autoregression - the GSTAR model - capable to parametrize the asymmetry in the tails of the transition equation by using a particular generalization of the logistic function. A General-to-Specific modelling strategy is discussed in detail......, with particular emphasis on two different LM-type tests for the null of symmetric adjustment towards a new regime and three diagnostic tests, whose power properties are explored via Monte Carlo experiments. Four classical real datasets illustrate the empirical properties of the GSTAR, jointly to a rolling...

Effects of contrast on smooth pursuit eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Spering, Miriam; Kerzel, Dirk; Braun, Doris I; Hawken, Michael J; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2005-05-20

It is well known that moving stimuli can appear to move more slowly when contrast is reduced (P. Thompson, 1982). Here we address the question whether changes in stimulus contrast also affect smooth pursuit eye movements. Subjects were asked to smoothly track a moving Gabor patch. Targets varied in velocity (1, 8, and 15 deg/s), spatial frequency (0.1, 1, 4, and 8 c/deg), and contrast, ranging from just below individual thresholds to maximum contrast. Results show that smooth pursuit eye velocity gain rose significantly with increasing contrast. Below a contrast level of two to three times threshold, pursuit gain, acceleration, latency, and positional accuracy were severely impaired. Therefore, the smooth pursuit motor response shows the same kind of slowing at low contrast that was demonstrated in previous studies on perception.

Heterozygous de novo and inherited mutations in the smooth muscle actin (ACTG2 gene underlie megacystis-microcolon-intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michael F Wangler

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Megacystis-microcolon-intestinal hypoperistalsis syndrome (MMIHS is a rare disorder of enteric smooth muscle function affecting the intestine and bladder. Patients with this severe phenotype are dependent on total parenteral nutrition and urinary catheterization. The cause of this syndrome has remained a mystery since Berdon's initial description in 1976. No genes have been clearly linked to MMIHS. We used whole-exome sequencing for gene discovery followed by targeted Sanger sequencing in a cohort of patients with MMIHS and intestinal pseudo-obstruction. We identified heterozygous ACTG2 missense variants in 15 unrelated subjects, ten being apparent de novo mutations. Ten unique variants were detected, of which six affected CpG dinucleotides and resulted in missense mutations at arginine residues, perhaps related to biased usage of CpG containing codons within actin genes. We also found some of the same heterozygous mutations that we observed as apparent de novo mutations in MMIHS segregating in families with intestinal pseudo-obstruction, suggesting that ACTG2 is responsible for a spectrum of smooth muscle disease. ACTG2 encodes γ2 enteric actin and is the first gene to be clearly associated with MMIHS, suggesting an important role for contractile proteins in enteric smooth muscle disease.

Damage Mechanism in Counter Pairs Caused by Bionic Non-smoothed Surface

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

ZHANG Zhan-hui

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Four biomimetic non-smoothed surface specimens with different shapes were prepared by laser processing. Tests were conducted on MMU-5G wear and abrasion test machine to study the influencing rule of non-smoothed surfaces on counter pairs. The results show that the mass loss of the friction pair matching with the non-smoothed units is much greater than the ones matching with the smooth specimens. The pairs matching with different non-smoothed units suffer differently. The non-smoothed surface protruding zone exerts micro cutting on counter pairs. The striation causes the greatest mass loss of the pairs than the other non-smoothed units, which almost doubles the damage of the grid ones suffering the least. The difference in pairs damage is attributed to the different mechanism of undertaking the load in the process of wear. The damage can be alleviated effectively by changing the shapes of the units without increasing or decreasing the area ratio of the non-smoothed units.

The optical smoothing for high power laser chain. Fundamental concepts and analytical modeling, computerized simulations, experiments on smoothing by multimode optical fiber

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Videau, Laurent

1998-01-01

Laser-plasma interaction experiments require a focal spot whose spatial width is imposed and whose energy distribution is uniform. Optical smoothing techniques have been developed for high power laser chains in order to reach the required uniformity level. We present theoretical principles for optical smoothing and we develop a statistical approach which allows a precise study of smoothing techniques. This study deals with the contrast of the time-integrated pattern and with the hot spot motion and their life time. We give more details about the technique of Smoothing by Optical Fiber (SOF). A broadband pulse is injected into a multimode optical fiber. At the output of the fiber, the spatial modes, correlated to a propagation angle in the core of the fiber, are statistically independent and produce a speckle pattern. The speckles move because of the temporal incoherence and the time-integrated pattern is smoothed. The smoothing is characterized by the spectral correlation width defined as the width of the spectral correlation function. We show a smoothing difference between the fiber image plane and the convergence one which is the Fourier plane. Furthermore, we analyze the mode coupling into the core of the fiber which allows an explanation of experimental results compared to theoretical ones. A second study presents experimental results of Smoothing by Optical Fiber on a high power laser chain. In fact, SOF implies amplitude modulations in spatial and temporal domains which induce nonlinear effects. We show that the amplification efficiency decreases and we compare experimental results with an analytic model which takes into account spatial and temporal incoherencies. Finally, we propose a different setup using the cascading effect which creates spatially and/or temporally incoherent pulses. (author) [fr

Smooth embeddings with Stein surface images

OpenAIRE

Gompf, Robert E.

2011-01-01

A simple characterization is given of open subsets of a complex surface that smoothly perturb to Stein open subsets. As applications, complex 2-space C^2 contains domains of holomorphy (Stein open subsets) that are exotic R^4's, and others homotopy equivalent to the 2-sphere but cut out by smooth, compact 3-manifolds. Pseudoconvex embeddings of Brieskorn spheres and other 3-manifolds into complex surfaces are constructed, as are pseudoconcave holomorphic fillings (with disagreeing contact and...

Optimal Smooth Consumption and Annuity Design

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bruhn, Kenneth; Steffensen, Mogens

2013-01-01

We propose an optimization criterion that yields extraordinary consumption smoothing compared to the well known results of the life-cycle model. Under this criterion we solve the related consumption and investment optimization problem faced by individuals with preferences for intertemporal stabil...... stability in consumption. We find that the consumption and investment patterns demanded under the optimization criterion is in general offered as annuity benefits from products in the class of ‘Formula Based Smoothed Investment-Linked Annuities’....

Lyapunov exponents and smooth ergodic theory

CERN Document Server

Barreira, Luis

2001-01-01

This book is a systematic introduction to smooth ergodic theory. The topics discussed include the general (abstract) theory of Lyapunov exponents and its applications to the stability theory of differential equations, stable manifold theory, absolute continuity, and the ergodic theory of dynamical systems with nonzero Lyapunov exponents (including geodesic flows). The authors consider several non-trivial examples of dynamical systems with nonzero Lyapunov exponents to illustrate some basic methods and ideas of the theory. This book is self-contained. The reader needs a basic knowledge of real analysis, measure theory, differential equations, and topology. The authors present basic concepts of smooth ergodic theory and provide complete proofs of the main results. They also state some more advanced results to give readers a broader view of smooth ergodic theory. This volume may be used by those nonexperts who wish to become familiar with the field.

Aging may negatively impact movement smoothness during stair negotiation.

Science.gov (United States)

Dixon, P C; Stirling, L; Xu, X; Chang, C C; Dennerlein, J T; Schiffman, J M

2018-05-26

Stairs represent a barrier to safe locomotion for some older adults, potentially leading to the adoption of a cautious gait strategy that may lack fluidity. This strategy may be characterized as unsmooth; however, stair negotiation smoothness has yet to be quantified. The aims of this study were to assess age- and task-related differences in head and body center of mass (COM) acceleration patterns and smoothness during stair negotiation and to determine if smoothness was associated with the timed "Up and Go" (TUG) test of functional movement. Motion data from nineteen older and twenty young adults performing stair ascent, stair descent, and overground straight walking trials were analyzed and used to compute smoothness based on the log-normalized dimensionless jerk (LDJ) and the velocity spectral arc length (SPARC) metrics. The associations between TUG and smoothness measures were evaluated using Pearson's correlation coefficient (r). Stair tasks increased head and body COM acceleration pattern differences across groups, compared to walking (p < 0.05). LDJ smoothness for the head and body COM decreased in older adults during stair descent, compared to young adults (p ≤ 0.015) and worsened with increasing TUG for all tasks (-0.60 ≤ r ≤ -0.43). SPARC smoothness of the head and body COM increased in older adults, regardless of task (p < 0.001), while correlations showed improved SPARC smoothness with increasing TUG for some tasks (0.33 ≤ r ≤ 0.40). The LDJ outperforms SPARC in identifying age-related stair negotiation adaptations and is associated with performance on a clinical test of gait. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neutron spectrum unfolding using computer code SAIPS

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Karim, S.

1999-01-01

The main objective of this project was to study the neutron energy spectrum at rabbit station-1 in Pakistan Research Reactor (PARR-I). To do so, multiple foils activation method was used to get the saturated activities. The computer code SAIPS was used to unfold the neutron spectra from the measured reaction rates. Of the three built in codes in SAIPS, only SANDI and WINDOWS were used. Contribution of thermal part of the spectra was observed to be higher than the fast one. It was found that the WINDOWS gave smooth spectra while SANDII spectra have violet oscillations in the resonance region. The uncertainties in the WINDOWS results are higher than those of SANDII. The results show reasonable agreement with the published results. (author)

State densities and spectrum fluctuations: Information propagation in complex nuclei

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

French, J.B.; Kota, V.K.B.

1988-01-01

At excitation energies in nuclei where the state density is unambiguously defined there is a sharp separation between the smoothed spectrum (which defines the density) and fluctuations about it which have recently been studied with a view to understanding some aspects of quantum chaos. We briefly review these two complementary subjects, paying special attention to: the role of the effective interaction in determining the density; the calculation of interacting-particle state and level densities, and of expectation values of interesting operators; the information about the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction which is carried both by the density and the fluctuations. 28 refs., 1 fig

Objective Crystal Spectrometer (OXS) for the Spectrum-X-γ satellite

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Christensen, Finn Erland; Byrnak, B.P.; Hornstrup, Allan

1990-01-01

The status of the Objective Crystal Spectrometer (OXS) to be flown on the Soviet Spectrum-X-Gamma satellite together with the X-ray investigation of two of the three natural crystals (LiF(220), Ge(111) and RAP(001) which are chosen as the baseline option are presented. An important result...... on the LiF(220) and Ge(111) surfaces is presented. This design allows simultaneous spectroscopy in two energy bands each centered on cosmically interesting line emission regions. X-ray reflectivity measurements demonstrate that the crystal surface can be made sufficiently smooth for the application...

Vardenafil inhibiting parasympathetic function of tracheal smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Fei-Peng; Chao, Pin-Zhir; Wang, Hsing-Won

2018-07-01

Levitra, a phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitor, is the trade name of vardenafil. Nowadays, it is applied to treatment of erectile dysfunction. PDE5 inhibitors are employed to induce dilatation of the vascular smooth muscle. The effect of Levitra on impotency is well known; however, its effect on the tracheal smooth muscle has rarely been explored. When administered for sexual symptoms via oral intake or inhalation, Levitra might affect the trachea. This study assessed the effects of Levitra on isolated rat tracheal smooth muscle by examining its effect on resting tension of tracheal smooth muscle, contraction caused by 10 -6  M methacholine as a parasympathetic mimetic, and electrically induced tracheal smooth muscle contractions. The results showed that adding methacholine to the incubation medium caused the trachea to contract in a dose-dependent manner. Addition of Levitra at doses of 10 -5  M or above elicited a significant relaxation response to 10 -6  M methacholine-induced contraction. Levitra could inhibit electrical field stimulation-induced spike contraction. It alone had minimal effect on the basal tension of the trachea as the concentration increased. High concentrations of Levitra could inhibit parasympathetic function of the trachea. Levitra when administered via oral intake might reduce asthma attacks in impotent patients because it might inhibit parasympathetic function and reduce methacholine-induced contraction of the tracheal smooth muscle. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Taiwan LLC.

Stimulation of aortic smooth muscle cell mitogenesis by serotonin

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nemecek, G.M.; Coughlin, S.R.; Handley, D.A.; Moskowitz, M.A.

1986-01-01

Bovine aortic smooth muscle cells in vitro responded to 1 nM to 10 μM serotonin with increased incorporation of [ 3 H]thymidine into DNA. The mitogenic effect of serotonin was half-maximal at 80 nM and maximal above 1 μM. At a concentration of 1 μM, serotonin stimulated smooth muscle cell mitogenesis to the same extent as human platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) at 12 ng/ml. Tryptamine was ≅ 1/10th as potent as serotonin as a mitogen for smooth muscle cells. Other indoles that are structurally related to serotonin (D- and L-tryptophan, 5-hydroxy-L-tryptophan, N-acetyl-5-hydroxytryptamine, melatonin, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid, and 5-hydroxytryptophol) and quipazine were inactive. The stimulatory effect of serotonin on smooth muscle cell DNA synthesis required prolonged (20-24 hr) exposure to the agonist and was attenuated in the presence of serotonin D receptor antagonists. When smooth muscle cells were incubated with submaximal concentrations of serotonin and PDGF, synergistic rather than additive mitogenic responses were observed. These data indicate that serotonin has a significant mitogenic effect on smooth muscle cells in vitro, which appears to be mediated by specific plasma membrane receptors

Carrier tracking by smoothing filter improves symbol SNR

Science.gov (United States)

Pomalaza-Raez, Carlos A.; Hurd, William J.

1986-01-01

The potential benefit of using a smoothing filter to estimate carrier phase over use of phase locked loops (PLL) is determined. Numerical results are presented for the performance of three possible configurations of the deep space network advanced receiver. These are residual carrier PLL, sideband aided residual carrier PLL, and finally sideband aiding with a Kalman smoother. The average symbol signal to noise ratio (SNR) after losses due to carrier phase estimation error is computed for different total power SNRs, symbol rates and symbol SNRs. It is found that smoothing is most beneficial for low symbol SNRs and low symbol rates. Smoothing gains up to 0.4 dB over a sideband aided residual carrier PLL, and the combined benefit of smoothing and sideband aiding relative to a residual carrier loop is often in excess of 1 dB.

Impact of spectral smoothing on gamma radiation portal alarm probabilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Burr, T.; Hamada, M.; Hengartner, N.

2011-01-01

Gamma detector counts are included in radiation portal monitors (RPM) to screen for illicit nuclear material. Gamma counts are sometimes smoothed to reduce variance in the estimated underlying true mean count rate, which is the 'signal' in our context. Smoothing reduces total error variance in the estimated signal if the bias that smoothing introduces is more than offset by the variance reduction. An empirical RPM study for vehicle screening applications is presented for unsmoothed and smoothed gamma counts in low-resolution plastic scintillator detectors and in medium-resolution NaI detectors. - Highlights: → We evaluate options for smoothing counts from gamma detectors deployed for portal monitoring. → A new multiplicative bias correction (MBC) is shown to reduce bias in peak and valley regions. → Performance is measured using mean squared error and detection probabilities for sources. → Smoothing with the MBC improves detection probabilities and the mean squared error.

Heat conduction in one-dimensional chains and nonequilibrium Lyapunov spectrum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Posch, H.A.; Hoover, W.G.

1998-01-01

We define and study the heat conductivity κ and the Lyapunov spectrum for a modified 'ding-a-ling' chain undergoing steady heat flow. Free and bound particles alternate along a chain. In the present work, we use a linear gravitational potential to bind all the even-numbered particles to their lattice sites. The chain is bounded by two stochastic heat reservoirs, one hot and one cold. The Fourier conductivity of the chain decreases smoothly to a finite large-system limit. Special treatment of satellite collisions with the stochastic boundaries is required to obtain Lyapunov spectra. The summed spectra are negative, and correspond to a relatively small contraction in phase space, with the formation of a multifractal strange attractor. The largest of the Lyapunov exponents for the ding-a-ling chain appears to converge to a limiting value with increasing chain length, so that the large-system Lyapunov spectrum has a finite limit. copyright 1998 The American Physical Society

Some asymptotic theory for variance function smoothing | Kibua ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Simple selection of the smoothing parameter is suggested. Both homoscedastic and heteroscedastic regression models are considered. Keywords: Asymptotic, Smoothing, Kernel, Bandwidth, Bias, Variance, Mean squared error, Homoscedastic, Heteroscedastic. > East African Journal of Statistics Vol. 1 (1) 2005: pp. 9-22 ...

Congenital malformations of the supratentorial brain. Pt. 1. Disorders of cortical development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ertl-Wagner, B.; Rummeny, C.; Reiser, M.F.

2003-01-01

Disorders of supratentorial cortical development are usually divided into disorders of neuronal proliferation, neuronal migration and cortical organization. Based upon molecular biologic discoveries, a modified classification has recently been proposed. The category of malformations of abnormal neuronal and glial proliferation and apoptosis now includes microlissencephalies, megalencephalies, hemimegalencephalies and cortical dysplasias with balloon cells. Malformations due to abnormal neuronal migration now subsume the lissencephaly spectrum including the subcortical band heterotopias, the cobblestone complex and the group of heterotopias. Malformations due to abnormal cortical organization include the spectrum of polymicrogyria and schizencephaly as well as cortical dysplasias without balloon cells. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has led to an increasing awareness of these malformations. This article aims to illustrate the classification, MRI presentation and relevant clinical features of the most commonly encountered disorders of cortical development. (orig.) [de

Producing a scale-invariant spectrum of perturbations in a Hagedorn phase of string cosmology.

Science.gov (United States)

Nayeri, Ali; Brandenberger, Robert H; Vafa, Cumrun

2006-07-14

We study the generation of cosmological perturbations during the Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology. Using tools of string thermodynamics we provide indications that it may be possible to obtain a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological fluctuations on scales which are of cosmological interest today. In our cosmological scenario, the early Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology goes over smoothly into the radiation-dominated phase of standard cosmology, without having a period of cosmological inflation.

A Fourier transform method for the selection of a smoothing interval

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kekre, H.B.; Madan, V.K.; Bairi, B.R.

1989-01-01

A novel method for the selection of a smoothing interval for the widely used Savitzky and Golay's smoothing filter is proposed. Complementary bandwidths for the nuclear spectral data and the smoothing filter are defined. The criterion for the selection of smoothing interval is based on matching the bandwidths of the spectral data to the filter. Using the above method five real observed spectral peaks of different full width at half maximum, viz. 23.5, 19.5, 17, 8.5 and 6.5 channels, were smoothed and the results are presented. (orig.)

Full Waveform Inversion Using Nonlinearly Smoothed Wavefields

KAUST Repository

Li, Y.; Choi, Yun Seok; Alkhalifah, Tariq Ali; Li, Z.

2017-01-01

The lack of low frequency information in the acquired data makes full waveform inversion (FWI) conditionally converge to the accurate solution. An initial velocity model that results in data with events within a half cycle of their location in the observed data was required to converge. The multiplication of wavefields with slightly different frequencies generates artificial low frequency components. This can be effectively utilized by multiplying the wavefield with itself, which is nonlinear operation, followed by a smoothing operator to extract the artificially produced low frequency information. We construct the objective function using the nonlinearly smoothed wavefields with a global-correlation norm to properly handle the energy imbalance in the nonlinearly smoothed wavefield. Similar to the multi-scale strategy, we progressively reduce the smoothing width applied to the multiplied wavefield to welcome higher resolution. We calculate the gradient of the objective function using the adjoint-state technique, which is similar to the conventional FWI except for the adjoint source. Examples on the Marmousi 2 model demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed FWI method to mitigate the cycle-skipping problem in the case of a lack of low frequency information.

Full Waveform Inversion Using Nonlinearly Smoothed Wavefields

KAUST Repository

Li, Y.

2017-05-26

The lack of low frequency information in the acquired data makes full waveform inversion (FWI) conditionally converge to the accurate solution. An initial velocity model that results in data with events within a half cycle of their location in the observed data was required to converge. The multiplication of wavefields with slightly different frequencies generates artificial low frequency components. This can be effectively utilized by multiplying the wavefield with itself, which is nonlinear operation, followed by a smoothing operator to extract the artificially produced low frequency information. We construct the objective function using the nonlinearly smoothed wavefields with a global-correlation norm to properly handle the energy imbalance in the nonlinearly smoothed wavefield. Similar to the multi-scale strategy, we progressively reduce the smoothing width applied to the multiplied wavefield to welcome higher resolution. We calculate the gradient of the objective function using the adjoint-state technique, which is similar to the conventional FWI except for the adjoint source. Examples on the Marmousi 2 model demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed FWI method to mitigate the cycle-skipping problem in the case of a lack of low frequency information.

Myosin light chain kinase phosphorylation in tracheal smooth muscle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stull, J.T.; Hsu, L.C.; Tansey, M.G.; Kamm, K.E.

1990-01-01

Purified myosin light chain kinase from smooth muscle is phosphorylated by cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase, protein kinase C, and the multifunctional calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II. Because phosphorylation in a specific site (site A) by any one of these kinases desensitizes myosin light chain kinase to activation by Ca2+/calmodulin, kinase phosphorylation could play an important role in regulating smooth muscle contractility. This possibility was investigated in 32 P-labeled bovine tracheal smooth muscle. Treatment of tissues with carbachol, KCl, isoproterenol, or phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate increased the extent of kinase phosphorylation. Six primary phosphopeptides (A-F) of myosin light chain kinase were identified. Site A was phosphorylated to an appreciable extent only with carbachol or KCl, agents which contract tracheal smooth muscle. The extent of site A phosphorylation correlated to increases in the concentration of Ca2+/calmodulin required for activation. These results show that cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase and protein kinase C do not affect smooth muscle contractility by phosphorylating site A in myosin light chain kinase. It is proposed that phosphorylation of myosin light chain kinase in site A in contracting tracheal smooth muscle may play a role in the reported desensitization of contractile elements to activation by Ca2+

Improved peak detection in mass spectrum by incorporating continuous wavelet transform-based pattern matching.

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Pan; Kibbe, Warren A; Lin, Simon M

2006-09-01

A major problem for current peak detection algorithms is that noise in mass spectrometry (MS) spectra gives rise to a high rate of false positives. The false positive rate is especially problematic in detecting peaks with low amplitudes. Usually, various baseline correction algorithms and smoothing methods are applied before attempting peak detection. This approach is very sensitive to the amount of smoothing and aggressiveness of the baseline correction, which contribute to making peak detection results inconsistent between runs, instrumentation and analysis methods. Most peak detection algorithms simply identify peaks based on amplitude, ignoring the additional information present in the shape of the peaks in a spectrum. In our experience, 'true' peaks have characteristic shapes, and providing a shape-matching function that provides a 'goodness of fit' coefficient should provide a more robust peak identification method. Based on these observations, a continuous wavelet transform (CWT)-based peak detection algorithm has been devised that identifies peaks with different scales and amplitudes. By transforming the spectrum into wavelet space, the pattern-matching problem is simplified and in addition provides a powerful technique for identifying and separating the signal from the spike noise and colored noise. This transformation, with the additional information provided by the 2D CWT coefficients can greatly enhance the effective signal-to-noise ratio. Furthermore, with this technique no baseline removal or peak smoothing preprocessing steps are required before peak detection, and this improves the robustness of peak detection under a variety of conditions. The algorithm was evaluated with SELDI-TOF spectra with known polypeptide positions. Comparisons with two other popular algorithms were performed. The results show the CWT-based algorithm can identify both strong and weak peaks while keeping false positive rate low. The algorithm is implemented in R and will be

Optical smoothing of laser imprinting in planar-target experiments on OMEGA EP using multi-FM 1-D smoothing by spectral dispersion

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hohenberger, M., E-mail: mhoh@lle.rochester.edu; Shvydky, A.; Marozas, J. A.; Bonino, M. J.; Canning, D.; Collins, T. J. B.; Dorrer, C.; Kessler, T. J.; Kruschwitz, B. E.; McKenty, P. W.; Regan, S. P.; Sangster, T. C.; Zuegel, J. D. [Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road Rochester, Rochester, New York 14623 (United States); Fiksel, G. [Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences (NERS), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 (United States); Meyerhofer, D. D. [Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545 (United States)

2016-09-15

Direct-drive ignition on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) requires single-beam smoothing to minimize imprinting of laser nonuniformities that can negatively affect implosion performance. One-dimensional, multi-FM smoothing by spectral dispersion (SSD) has been proposed to provide the required smoothing [Marozas et al., Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 55, 294 (2010)]. A prototype multi-FM SSD system has been integrated into the NIF-like beamline of the OMEGA EP Laser System. Experiments have been performed to verify the smoothing performance by measuring Rayleigh–Taylor growth rates in planar targets of laser-imprinted and preimposed surface modulations. Multi-FM 1-D SSD has been observed to reduce imprint levels by ∼50% compared to the nominal OMEGA EP SSD system. The experimental results are in agreement with 2-D DRACO simulations using realistic, time-dependent far-field spot-intensity calculations that emulate the effect of SSD.

Six-term exact sequences for smooth generalized crossed products

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gabriel, Olivier; Grensing, Martin

2013-01-01

We define smooth generalized crossed products and prove six-term exact sequences of Pimsner–Voiculescu type. This sequence may, in particular, be applied to smooth subalgebras of the quantum Heisenberg manifolds in order to compute the generators of their cyclic cohomology. Further, our results...... include the known results for smooth crossed products. Our proof is based on a combination of arguments from the setting of (Cuntz–)Pimsner algebras and the Toeplitz proof of Bott periodicity....

Large area smoothing of surfaces by ion bombardment: fundamentals and applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frost, F; Fechner, R; Ziberi, B; Voellner, J; Flamm, D; Schindler, A

2009-01-01

Ion beam erosion can be used as a process for achieving surface smoothing at microscopic length scales and for the preparation of ultrasmooth surfaces, as an alternative to nanostructuring of various surfaces via self-organization. This requires that in the evolution of the surface topography different relaxation mechanisms dominate over the roughening, and smoothing of initially rough surfaces can occur. This contribution focuses on the basic mechanisms as well as potential applications of surface smoothing using low energy ion beams. In the first part, the fundamentals for the smoothing of III/V semiconductors, Si and quartz glass surfaces using low energy ion beams (ion energy: ≤2000 eV) are reviewed using examples. The topography evolution of these surfaces with respect to different process parameters (ion energy, ion incidence angle, erosion time, sample rotation) has been investigated. On the basis of the time evolution of different roughness parameters, the relevant surface relaxation mechanisms responsible for surface smoothing are discussed. In this context, physical constraints as regards the effectiveness of surface smoothing by direct ion bombardment will also be addressed and furthermore ion beam assisted smoothing techniques are introduced. In the second application-orientated part, recent technological developments related to ion beam assisted smoothing of optically relevant surfaces are summarized. It will be demonstrated that smoothing by direct ion bombardment in combination with the use of sacrificial smoothing layers and the utilization of appropriate broad beam ion sources enables the polishing of various technologically important surfaces down to 0.1 nm root mean square roughness level, showing great promise for large area surface processing. Specific examples are given for ion beam smoothing of different optical surfaces, especially for substrates used for advanced optical applications (e.g., in x-ray optics and components for extreme

Bandwidth selection in smoothing functions | Kibua | East African ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

... inexpensive and, hence, worth adopting. We argue that the bandwidth parameter is determined by two factors: the kernel function and the length of the smoothing region. We give an illustrative example of its application using real data. Keywords: Kernel, Smoothing functions, Bandwidth > East African Journal of Statistics ...

Intermittent Smoothing Approaches for Wind Power Output: A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Jabir

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Wind energy is one of the most common types of renewable energy resource. Due to its sustainability and environmental benefits, it is an emerging source for electric power generation. Rapid and random changes of wind speed makes it an irregular and inconsistent power source when connected to the grid, causing different technical problems in protection, power quality and generation dispatch control. Due to these problems, effective intermittent smoothing approaches for wind power output are crucially needed to minimize such problems. This paper reviews various intermittent smoothing approaches used in smoothing the output power fluctuations caused by wind energy. Problems associated with the inclusion of wind energy resources to grid are also briefly reviewed. From this review, it has been found that battery energy storage system is the most suitable and effective smoothing approach, provided that an effective control strategy is available for optimal utilization of battery energy system. This paper further demonstrates different control strategies built for battery energy storage system to obtain the smooth output wind power.

Ureter smooth muscle cell orientation in rat is predominantly longitudinal.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bart Spronck

Full Text Available In ureter peristalsis, the orientation of the contracting smooth muscle cells is essential, yet current descriptions of orientation and composition of the smooth muscle layer in human as well as in rat ureter are inconsistent. The present study aims to improve quantification of smooth muscle orientation in rat ureters as a basis for mechanistic understanding of peristalsis. A crucial step in our approach is to use two-photon laser scanning microscopy and image analysis providing objective, quantitative data on smooth muscle cell orientation in intact ureters, avoiding the usual sectioning artifacts. In 36 rat ureter segments, originating from a proximal, middle or distal site and from a left or right ureter, we found close to the adventitia a well-defined longitudinal smooth muscle orientation. Towards the lamina propria, the orientation gradually became slightly more disperse, yet the main orientation remained longitudinal. We conclude that smooth muscle cell orientation in rat ureter is predominantly longitudinal, though the orientation gradually becomes more disperse towards the proprial side. These findings do not support identification of separate layers. The observed longitudinal orientation suggests that smooth muscle contraction would rather cause local shortening of the ureter, than cause luminal constriction. However, the net-like connective tissue of the ureter wall may translate local longitudinal shortening into co-local luminal constriction, facilitating peristalsis. Our quantitative, minimally invasive approach is a crucial step towards more mechanistic insight into ureter peristalsis, and may also be used to study smooth muscle cell orientation in other tube-like structures like gut and blood vessels.

Ureter smooth muscle cell orientation in rat is predominantly longitudinal.

Science.gov (United States)

Spronck, Bart; Merken, Jort J; Reesink, Koen D; Kroon, Wilco; Delhaas, Tammo

2014-01-01

In ureter peristalsis, the orientation of the contracting smooth muscle cells is essential, yet current descriptions of orientation and composition of the smooth muscle layer in human as well as in rat ureter are inconsistent. The present study aims to improve quantification of smooth muscle orientation in rat ureters as a basis for mechanistic understanding of peristalsis. A crucial step in our approach is to use two-photon laser scanning microscopy and image analysis providing objective, quantitative data on smooth muscle cell orientation in intact ureters, avoiding the usual sectioning artifacts. In 36 rat ureter segments, originating from a proximal, middle or distal site and from a left or right ureter, we found close to the adventitia a well-defined longitudinal smooth muscle orientation. Towards the lamina propria, the orientation gradually became slightly more disperse, yet the main orientation remained longitudinal. We conclude that smooth muscle cell orientation in rat ureter is predominantly longitudinal, though the orientation gradually becomes more disperse towards the proprial side. These findings do not support identification of separate layers. The observed longitudinal orientation suggests that smooth muscle contraction would rather cause local shortening of the ureter, than cause luminal constriction. However, the net-like connective tissue of the ureter wall may translate local longitudinal shortening into co-local luminal constriction, facilitating peristalsis. Our quantitative, minimally invasive approach is a crucial step towards more mechanistic insight into ureter peristalsis, and may also be used to study smooth muscle cell orientation in other tube-like structures like gut and blood vessels.

Existence and smoothness of solutions to second initial boundary value problems for Schrodinger systems in cylinders with non-smooth bases

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nguyen Manh Hung

2008-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper, we consider the second initial boundary value problem for strongly general Schrodinger systems in both the finite and the infinite cylinders $Q_T, 0smooth base $Omega$. Some results on the existence, uniqueness and smoothness with respect to time variable of generalized solution of this problem are given.

On smoothed analysis of quicksort and Hoare's find

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fouz, Mahmoud; Kufleitner, Manfred; Manthey, Bodo; Zeini Jahromi, Nima; Ngo, H.Q.

2009-01-01

We provide a smoothed analysis of Hoare’s find algorithm and we revisit the smoothed analysis of quicksort. Hoare’s find algorithm – often called quickselect – is an easy-to-implement algorithm for finding the $k$-th smallest element of a sequence. While the worst-case number of comparisons that

Dynamics of wetting on smooth and rough surfaces.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cazabat, A.M.; Cohen Stuart, M.A.

1987-01-01

The rate of spreading of non-volatile liquids on smooth and on rough surfaces was investigated. The radius of the wetted spot was found to agree with recently proposed scaling laws (t 1/10 for capillarity driven andt 1/8 for gravity driven spreading) when the surface was smooth. However, the

Non-smooth dynamical systems

CERN Document Server

2000-01-01

The book provides a self-contained introduction to the mathematical theory of non-smooth dynamical problems, as they frequently arise from mechanical systems with friction and/or impacts. It is aimed at applied mathematicians, engineers, and applied scientists in general who wish to learn the subject.

Additional Smooth and Rough Water Trials of SKI-CAT.

Science.gov (United States)

1981-08-01

REPORT & PERIOD COVERED ADDITIONAL SMOOTH AND ROUGH WATER TRIALS OF FINAL SKI- CAT S. PERFORMING ORO. REPORT NUMSER 7. AUTHOR() I. CONTRACT OR GRANT NUMUr...Identif by bloc membe) ’ " -Further tests of SKI- CAT were made in smooth and rough water. Smooth water results confirmed the performance results of...reductions in the accelerations and motions of SKI- CAT over against the head seasreut DD , +A ,3 1473 EDITION OF I NOVS IS OBSOLETE UNCIbSJFIED SIME 0102-014

Role of Smooth Muscle in Intestinal Inflammation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stephen M Collins

1996-01-01

Full Text Available The notion that smooth muscle function is altered in inflammation is prompted by clinical observations of altered motility in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD. While altered motility may reflect inflammation-induced changes in intrinsic or extrinsic nerves to the gut, changes in gut hormone release and changes in muscle function, recent studies have provided in vitro evidence of altered muscle contractility in muscle resected from patients with ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease. In addition, the observation that smooth muscle cells are more numerous and prominent in the strictured bowel of IBD patients compared with controls suggests that inflammation may alter the growth of intestinal smooth muscle. Thus, inflammation is associated with changes in smooth muscle growth and contractility that, in turn, contribute to important symptoms of IBD including diarrhea (from altered motility and pain (via either altered motility or stricture formation. The involvement of smooth muscle in this context may be as an innocent bystander, where cells and products of the inflammatory process induce alterations in muscle contractility and growth. However, it is likely that intestinal muscle cells play a more active role in the inflammatory process via the elaboration of mediators and trophic factors, including cytokines, and via the production of collagen. The concept of muscle cells as active participants in the intestinal inflammatory process is a new concept that is under intense study. This report summarizes current knowledge as it relates to these two aspects of altered muscle function (growth and contractility in the inflamed intestine, and will focus on mechanisms underlying these changes, based on data obtained from animal models of intestinal inflammation.

Modeling the dispersion effects of contractile fibers in smooth muscles

Science.gov (United States)

Murtada, Sae-Il; Kroon, Martin; Holzapfel, Gerhard A.

2010-12-01

Micro-structurally based models for smooth muscle contraction are crucial for a better understanding of pathological conditions such as atherosclerosis, incontinence and asthma. It is meaningful that models consider the underlying mechanical structure and the biochemical activation. Hence, a simple mechanochemical model is proposed that includes the dispersion of the orientation of smooth muscle myofilaments and that is capable to capture available experimental data on smooth muscle contraction. This allows a refined study of the effects of myofilament dispersion on the smooth muscle contraction. A classical biochemical model is used to describe the cross-bridge interactions with the thin filament in smooth muscles in which calcium-dependent myosin phosphorylation is the only regulatory mechanism. A novel mechanical model considers the dispersion of the contractile fiber orientations in smooth muscle cells by means of a strain-energy function in terms of one dispersion parameter. All model parameters have a biophysical meaning and may be estimated through comparisons with experimental data. The contraction of the middle layer of a carotid artery is studied numerically. Using a tube the relationships between the internal pressure and the stretches are investigated as functions of the dispersion parameter, which implies a strong influence of the orientation of smooth muscle myofilaments on the contraction response. It is straightforward to implement this model in a finite element code to better analyze more complex boundary-value problems.

Multiple predictor smoothing methods for sensitivity analysis.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Helton, Jon Craig; Storlie, Curtis B.

2006-08-01

The use of multiple predictor smoothing methods in sampling-based sensitivity analyses of complex models is investigated. Specifically, sensitivity analysis procedures based on smoothing methods employing the stepwise application of the following nonparametric regression techniques are described: (1) locally weighted regression (LOESS), (2) additive models, (3) projection pursuit regression, and (4) recursive partitioning regression. The indicated procedures are illustrated with both simple test problems and results from a performance assessment for a radioactive waste disposal facility (i.e., the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). As shown by the example illustrations, the use of smoothing procedures based on nonparametric regression techniques can yield more informative sensitivity analysis results than can be obtained with more traditional sensitivity analysis procedures based on linear regression, rank regression or quadratic regression when nonlinear relationships between model inputs and model predictions are present.

Multiple predictor smoothing methods for sensitivity analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Helton, Jon Craig; Storlie, Curtis B.

2006-01-01

The use of multiple predictor smoothing methods in sampling-based sensitivity analyses of complex models is investigated. Specifically, sensitivity analysis procedures based on smoothing methods employing the stepwise application of the following nonparametric regression techniques are described: (1) locally weighted regression (LOESS), (2) additive models, (3) projection pursuit regression, and (4) recursive partitioning regression. The indicated procedures are illustrated with both simple test problems and results from a performance assessment for a radioactive waste disposal facility (i.e., the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). As shown by the example illustrations, the use of smoothing procedures based on nonparametric regression techniques can yield more informative sensitivity analysis results than can be obtained with more traditional sensitivity analysis procedures based on linear regression, rank regression or quadratic regression when nonlinear relationships between model inputs and model predictions are present

Adsorption on smooth electrodes: A radiotracer study

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rice-Jackson, L.M.

1990-01-01

Adsorption on solids is a complicated process and in most cases, occurs as the early stage of other more complicated processes, i.e. chemical reactions, electrooxidation, electroreduction. The research reported here combines the electroanalytical method, cyclic voltammetry, and the use of radio-labeled isotopes, soft beta emitters, to study adsorption processes at smooth electrodes. The in-situ radiotracer method is highly anion (molecule) specific and provides information on the structure and composition of the electric double layer. The emphasis of this research was on studying adsorption processes at smooth electrodes of copper, gold, and platinum. The application of the radiotracer method to these smooth surfaces have led to direct in-situ measurements from which surface coverage was determined; anions and molecules were identified; and weak interactions of adsorbates with the surface of the electrodes were readily monitored. 179 refs

Neurophysiology and Neuroanatomy of Smooth Pursuit: Lesion Studies

Science.gov (United States)

Sharpe, James A.

2008-01-01

Smooth pursuit impairment is recognized clinically by the presence of saccadic tracking of a small object and quantified by reduction in pursuit gain, the ratio of smooth eye movement velocity to the velocity of a foveal target. Correlation of the site of brain lesions, identified by imaging or neuropathological examination, with defective smooth…

Smooth massless limit of field theories

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fronsdal, C.

1980-01-01

The massless limit of Fierz-Pauli field theories, describing fields with fixed mass and spin interacting with external sources, is examined. Results are obtained for spins, 1, 3/2, 2 and 3 using conventional models, and then for all half-integral spins in a relatively model-independent manner. It is found that the massless limit is smooth provided that the sources satisfy certain conditions. In the massless limit these conditions reduce to the conservation laws required by internal consistency of massless field theory. Smoothness simply requires that quantities that vanish in the massless case approach zero in a certain well-defined manner. (orig.)

Mapping of Agricultural Crops from Single High-Resolution Multispectral Images—Data-Driven Smoothing vs. Parcel-Based Smoothing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asli Ozdarici-Ok

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Mapping agricultural crops is an important application of remote sensing. However, in many cases it is based either on hyperspectral imagery or on multitemporal coverage, both of which are difficult to scale up to large-scale deployment at high spatial resolution. In the present paper, we evaluate the possibility of crop classification based on single images from very high-resolution (VHR satellite sensors. The main objective of this work is to expose performance difference between state-of-the-art parcel-based smoothing and purely data-driven conditional random field (CRF smoothing, which is yet unknown. To fulfill this objective, we perform extensive tests with four different classification methods (Support Vector Machines, Random Forest, Gaussian Mixtures, and Maximum Likelihood to compute the pixel-wise data term; and we also test two different definitions of the pairwise smoothness term. We have performed a detailed evaluation on different multispectral VHR images (Ikonos, QuickBird, Kompsat-2. The main finding of this study is that pairwise CRF smoothing comes close to the state-of-the-art parcel-based method that requires parcel boundaries (average difference ≈ 2.5%. Our results indicate that a single multispectral (R, G, B, NIR image is enough to reach satisfactory classification accuracy for six crop classes (corn, pasture, rice, sugar beet, wheat, and tomato in Mediterranean climate. Overall, it appears that crop mapping using only one-shot VHR imagery taken at the right time may be a viable alternative, especially since high-resolution multitemporal or hyperspectral coverage as well as parcel boundaries are in practice often not available.

A User Guide for Smoothing Air Traffic Radar Data

Science.gov (United States)

Bach, Ralph E.; Paielli, Russell A.

2014-01-01

Matlab software was written to provide smoothing of radar tracking data to simulate ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast) data in order to test a tactical conflict probe. The probe, called TSAFE (Tactical Separation-Assured Flight Environment), is designed to handle air-traffic conflicts left undetected or unresolved when loss-of-separation is predicted to occur within approximately two minutes. The data stream that is down-linked from an aircraft equipped with an ADS-B system would include accurate GPS-derived position and velocity information at sample rates of 1 Hz. Nation-wide ADS-B equipage (mandated by 2020) should improve surveillance accuracy and TSAFE performance. Currently, position data are provided by Center radar (nominal 12-sec samples) and Terminal radar (nominal 4.8-sec samples). Aircraft ground speed and ground track are estimated using real-time filtering, causing lags up to 60 sec, compromising performance of a tactical resolution tool. Offline smoothing of radar data reduces wild-point errors, provides a sample rate as high as 1 Hz, and yields more accurate and lag-free estimates of ground speed, ground track, and climb rate. Until full ADS-B implementation is available, smoothed radar data should provide reasonable track estimates for testing TSAFE in an ADS-B-like environment. An example illustrates the smoothing of radar data and shows a comparison of smoothed-radar and ADS-B tracking. This document is intended to serve as a guide for using the smoothing software.

Carrier tracking by smoothing filter can improve symbol SNR

Science.gov (United States)

Hurd, W. J.; Pomalaza-Raez, C. A.

1985-01-01

The potential benefit of using a smoothing filter to estimate carrier phase over use of phase locked loops (PLL) is determined. Numerical results are presented for the performance of three possible configurations of the deep space network advanced receiver. These are residual carrier PLL, sideband aided residual carrier PLL, and finally sideband aiding with a Kalman smoother. The average symbol signal to noise ratio (CNR) after losses due to carrier phase estimation error is computed for different total power SNRs, symbol rates and symbol SNRs. It is found that smoothing is most beneficial for low symbol SNRs and low symbol rates. Smoothing gains up to 0.4 dB over a sideband aided residual carrier PLL, and the combined benefit of smoothing and sideband aiding relative to a residual carrier loop is often in excess of 1 dB.

Effective Five Directional Partial Derivatives-Based Image Smoothing and a Parallel Structure Design.

Science.gov (United States)

Choongsang Cho; Sangkeun Lee

2016-04-01

Image smoothing has been used for image segmentation, image reconstruction, object classification, and 3D content generation. Several smoothing approaches have been used at the pre-processing step to retain the critical edge, while removing noise and small details. However, they have limited performance, especially in removing small details and smoothing discrete regions. Therefore, to provide fast and accurate smoothing, we propose an effective scheme that uses a weighted combination of the gradient, Laplacian, and diagonal derivatives of a smoothed image. In addition, to reduce computational complexity, we designed and implemented a parallel processing structure for the proposed scheme on a graphics processing unit (GPU). For an objective evaluation of the smoothing performance, the images were linearly quantized into several layers to generate experimental images, and the quantized images were smoothed using several methods for reconstructing the smoothly changed shape and intensity of the original image. Experimental results showed that the proposed scheme has higher objective scores and better successful smoothing performance than similar schemes, while preserving and removing critical and trivial details, respectively. For computational complexity, the proposed smoothing scheme running on a GPU provided 18 and 16 times lower complexity than the proposed smoothing scheme running on a CPU and the L0-based smoothing scheme, respectively. In addition, a simple noise reduction test was conducted to show the characteristics of the proposed approach; it reported that the presented algorithm outperforms the state-of-the art algorithms by more than 5.4 dB. Therefore, we believe that the proposed scheme can be a useful tool for efficient image smoothing.

On smoothness-asymmetric null infinities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Valiente Kroon, Juan Antonio

2006-01-01

We discuss the existence of asymptotically Euclidean initial data sets for the vacuum Einstein field equations which would give rise (modulo an existence result for the evolution equations near spatial infinity) to developments with a past and a future null infinity of different smoothness. For simplicity, the analysis is restricted to the class of conformally flat, axially symmetric initial data sets. It is shown how the free parameters in the second fundamental form of the data can be used to satisfy certain obstructions to the smoothness of null infinity. The resulting initial data sets could be interpreted as those of some sort of (nonlinearly) distorted Schwarzschild black hole. Their developments would be that they admit a peeling future null infinity, but at the same time have a polyhomogeneous (non-peeling) past null infinity

Diagnosis of osteoarthritis by cartilage surface smoothness quantified automatically from knee MRI

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Tummala, Sudhakar; Bay-Jensen, Anne-Christine; Karsdal, Morten A.

2011-01-01

Objective: We investigated whether surface smoothness of articular cartilage in the medial tibiofemoral compartment quantified from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could be appropriate as a diagnostic marker of osteoarthritis (OA). Method: At baseline, 159 community-based subjects aged 21 to 81...... with normal or OA-affected knees were recruited to provide a broad range of OA states. Smoothness was quantified using an automatic framework from low-field MRI in the tibial, femoral, and femoral subcompartments. Diagnostic ability of smoothness was evaluated by comparison with conventional OA markers......, correlations between smoothness and pain values and smoothness loss and cartilage loss supported a link to progression of OA. Thereby, smoothness markers may allow detection and monitoring of OA-supplemented currently accepted markers....

Classification of smooth structures on a homotopy complex ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Abstract. We classify, up to diffeomorphism, all closed smooth manifolds homeo- morphic to the complex projective n-space CPn, where n = 3 and 4. Let M2n be a closed smooth 2n-manifold homotopy equivalent to CPn. We show that, up to diffeo- morphism, M6 has a unique differentiable structure and M8 has at most two ...

Classification of smooth structures on a homotopy complex ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

We classify, up to diffeomorphism, all closed smooth manifolds homeomorphic to the complex projective n -space C P n , where n = 3 and 4. Let M 2 n be a closed smooth 2 n -manifold homotopy equivalent to C P n . We show that, up to diffeomorphism, M 6 has a unique differentiable structure and M 8 has at most two ...

Vestibular-related frontal cortical areas and their roles in smooth-pursuit eye movements: representation of neck velocity, neck-vestibular interactions and memory-based smooth-pursuit

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kikuro eFukushima

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Smooth-pursuit eye movements are voluntary responses to small slow-moving objects in the fronto-parallel plane. They evolved in primates, who possess high-acuity foveae, to ensure clear vision about the moving target. The primate frontal cortex contains two smooth-pursuit related areas; the caudal part of the frontal eye fields (FEF and the supplementary eye fields (SEF. Both areas receive vestibular inputs. We review functional differences between the two areas in smooth-pursuit. Most FEF pursuit neurons signal pursuit parameters such as eye velocity and gaze-velocity, and are involved in cancelling the vestibulo-ocular reflex by linear addition of vestibular and smooth-pursuit responses. In contrast, gaze-velocity signals are rarely represented in the SEF. Most FEF pursuit neurons receive neck velocity inputs, while discharge modulation during pursuit and trunk-on-head rotation adds linearly. Linear addition also occurs between neck velocity responses and vestibular responses during head-on-trunk rotation in a task-dependent manner. During cross-axis pursuit-vestibular interactions, vestibular signals effectively initiate predictive pursuit eye movements. Most FEF pursuit neurons discharge during the interaction training after the onset of pursuit eye velocity, making their involvement unlikely in the initial stages of generating predictive pursuit. Comparison of representative signals in the two areas and the results of chemical inactivation during a memory-based smooth-pursuit task indicate they have different roles; the SEF plans smooth-pursuit including working memory of motion-direction, whereas the caudal FEF generates motor commands for pursuit eye movements. Patients with idiopathic Parkinson’s disease were asked to perform this task, since impaired smooth-pursuit and visual working memory deficit during cognitive tasks have been reported in most patients. Preliminary results suggested specific roles of the basal ganglia in memory

Three-phase electric drive with modified electronic smoothing inductor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Singh, Yash Veer; Rasmussen, Peter Omand; Andersen, Torben Ole

2010-01-01

This paper presents a three-phase electric drive with a modified electronic smoothing inductor (MESI) having reduced size of passive components. The classical electronic smoothing inductor (ESI) is able to control a diode bridge output current and also reduce not only mains current harmonics...

EXCHANGE-RATES FORECASTING: EXPONENTIAL SMOOTHING TECHNIQUES AND ARIMA MODELS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dezsi Eva

2011-07-01

Full Text Available Exchange rates forecasting is, and has been a challenging task in finance. Statistical and econometrical models are widely used in analysis and forecasting of foreign exchange rates. This paper investigates the behavior of daily exchange rates of the Romanian Leu against the Euro, United States Dollar, British Pound, Japanese Yen, Chinese Renminbi and the Russian Ruble. Smoothing techniques are generated and compared with each other. These models include the Simple Exponential Smoothing technique, as the Double Exponential Smoothing technique, the Simple Holt-Winters, the Additive Holt-Winters, namely the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average model.

Smooth invariant densities for random switching on the torus

Science.gov (United States)

Bakhtin, Yuri; Hurth, Tobias; Lawley, Sean D.; Mattingly, Jonathan C.

2018-04-01

We consider a random dynamical system obtained by switching between the flows generated by two smooth vector fields on the 2d-torus, with the random switchings happening according to a Poisson process. Assuming that the driving vector fields are transversal to each other at all points of the torus and that each of them allows for a smooth invariant density and no periodic orbits, we prove that the switched system also has a smooth invariant density, for every switching rate. Our approach is based on an integration by parts formula inspired by techniques from Malliavin calculus.

Smoothing optimization of supporting quadratic surfaces with Zernike polynomials

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Hang; Lu, Jiandong; Liu, Rui; Ma, Peifu

2018-03-01

A new optimization method to get a smooth freeform optical surface from an initial surface generated by the supporting quadratic method (SQM) is proposed. To smooth the initial surface, a 9-vertex system from the neighbor quadratic surface and the Zernike polynomials are employed to establish a linear equation system. A local optimized surface to the 9-vertex system can be build by solving the equations. Finally, a continuous smooth optimization surface is constructed by stitching the above algorithm on the whole initial surface. The spot corresponding to the optimized surface is no longer discrete pixels but a continuous distribution.

Some remarks on smooth renormings of Banach spaces

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Hájek, Petr Pavel; Russo, T.

2017-01-01

Roč. 455, č. 2 (2017), s. 1272-1284 ISSN 0022-247X R&D Projects: GA ČR GA16-07378S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : Fréchet smooth * approximation of norms * Ck-smooth norm Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics Impact factor: 1.064, year: 2016 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022247X17305462?via%3Dihub

Star Products with Separation of Variables Admitting a Smooth Extension

Science.gov (United States)

Karabegov, Alexander

2012-08-01

Given a complex manifold M with an open dense subset Ω endowed with a pseudo-Kähler form ω which cannot be smoothly extended to a larger open subset, we consider various examples where the corresponding Kähler-Poisson structure and a star product with separation of variables on (Ω, ω) admit smooth extensions to M. We give a simple criterion of the existence of a smooth extension of a star product and apply it to these examples.

Star products with separation of variables admitting a smooth extension

OpenAIRE

Karabegov, Alexander

2010-01-01

Given a complex manifold $M$ with an open dense subset $\\Omega$ endowed with a pseudo-Kaehler form $\\omega$ which cannot be smoothly extended to a larger open subset, we consider various examples where the corresponding Kaehler-Poisson structure and a star product with separation of variables on $(\\Omega, \\omega)$ admit smooth extensions to $M$. We suggest a simple criterion of the existence of a smooth extension of a star product and apply it to these examples.

Vinpocetine Attenuates the Osteoblastic Differentiation of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yun-Yun Ma

Full Text Available Vascular calcification is an active process of osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells; however, its definite mechanism remains unknown. Vinpocetine, a derivative of the alkaloid vincamine, has been demonstrated to inhibit the high glucose-induced proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells; however, it remains unknown whether vinpocetine can affect the osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells. We hereby investigated the effect of vinpocetine on vascular calcification using a beta-glycerophosphate-induced cell model. Our results showed that vinpocetine significantly reduced the osteoblast-like phenotypes of vascular smooth muscle cells including ALP activity, osteocalcin, collagen type I, Runx2 and BMP-2 expression as well as the formation of mineralized nodule. Vinpocetine, binding to translocation protein, induced phosphorylation of extracellular signal-related kinase and Akt and thus inhibited the translocation of nuclear factor-kappa B into the nucleus. Silencing of translocator protein significantly attenuated the inhibitory effect of vinpocetine on osteoblastic differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells. Taken together, vinpocetine may be a promising candidate for the clinical therapy of vascular calcification.

HSP20 phosphorylation and airway smooth muscle relaxation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariam Ba

2009-06-01

Full Text Available Mariam Ba1, Cherie A Singer1, Manoj Tyagi2, Colleen Brophy3, Josh E Baker4, Christine Cremo4, Andrew Halayko5, William T Gerthoffer21Department of Pharmacology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, NV, USA; 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA; 3Harrington Department of Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA; 4Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nevada, Reno, NV, USA; 5Departments of Physiology and Internal Medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, CanadaAbstract: HSP20 (HSPB6 is a small heat shock protein expressed in smooth muscles that is hypothesized to inhibit contraction when phosphorylated by cAMP-dependent protein kinase. To investigate this hypothesis in airway smooth muscle (ASM we showed that HSP20 was constitutively expressed as well as being inducible in cultured hASM cells by treatment with 1 µM isoproterenol or 10 µM salmeterol. In contrast, a mixture of proinflammatory mediators (interleukin-1β, tumor necrosis factor α, and interferon γ inhibited expression of HSP20 by about 50% in 48 hours. To determine whether phosphorylation of HSP20 is sufficient to induce relaxation, canine tracheal smooth muscle was treated with a cell permeant phosphopeptide that mimics the phosphorylation of HSP20. The HSP20 phosphopeptide antagonized carbacholinduced contraction by 60% with no change in myosin light chain phosphorylation. Recombinant full length HSP20 inhibited skeletal actin binding to smooth muscle myosin subfragment 1 (S1, and recombinant cell permeant TAT-HSP20 S16D mutant reduced F-actin filaments in cultured hASM cells. Carbachol stimulation of canine tracheal smooth muscle tissue caused redistribution of HSP20 from large macromolecular complexes (200–500 kDa to smaller complexes (<60 kDa. The results are consistent with HSP20 expression and macromolecular structure being dynamically regulated in airway

Automatic smoothing parameter selection in GAMLSS with an application to centile estimation.

Science.gov (United States)

Rigby, Robert A; Stasinopoulos, Dimitrios M

2014-08-01

A method for automatic selection of the smoothing parameters in a generalised additive model for location, scale and shape (GAMLSS) model is introduced. The method uses a P-spline representation of the smoothing terms to express them as random effect terms with an internal (or local) maximum likelihood estimation on the predictor scale of each distribution parameter to estimate its smoothing parameters. This provides a fast method for estimating multiple smoothing parameters. The method is applied to centile estimation where all four parameters of a distribution for the response variable are modelled as smooth functions of a transformed explanatory variable x This allows smooth modelling of the location, scale, skewness and kurtosis parameters of the response variable distribution as functions of x. © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.

Return Smoothing Mechanisms in Life and Pension Insurance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Montserrat, Guillén; Jørgensen, Peter Løchte; Nielsen, Jens Perch

2006-01-01

pricing theory. We explore the properties of this pension scheme in detail and find that in terms of market value, smoothing is an illusion, but also that the return smoothing mechanism implies a dynamic asset allocation strategy which corresponds with traditional pension saving advice......Traditional with-profits pension saving schemes have been criticized for their opacity, plagued by embedded options and guarantees, and have recently created enormous problems for the solvency of the life insurance and pension industry. This has fueled creativity in the industry's product...... development departments, and this paper analyzes a representative member of a family of new pension schemes that have been introduced in the new millennium to alleviate these problems. The complete transparency of the new scheme's smoothing mechanism means that it can be analyzed using contingent claims...

Panel Smooth Transition Regression Models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

González, Andrés; Terasvirta, Timo; Dijk, Dick van

We introduce the panel smooth transition regression model. This new model is intended for characterizing heterogeneous panels, allowing the regression coefficients to vary both across individuals and over time. Specifically, heterogeneity is allowed for by assuming that these coefficients are bou...

Applying of USB interface technique in nuclear spectrum acquisition system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhou Jianbin; Huang Jinhua

2004-01-01

This paper introduces applying of USB technique and constructing nuclear spectrum acquisition system via PC's USB interface. The authors choose the USB component USB100 module and the W77E58μc to do the key work. It's easy to apply USB interface technique, when USB100 module is used. USB100 module can be treated as a common I/O component for the μc controller, and can be treated as a communication interface (COM) when connected to PC' USB interface. It's easy to modify the PC's program for the new system with USB100 module. The authors can smoothly change from ISA, RS232 bus to USB bus. (authors)

Second-order numerical methods for multi-term fractional differential equations: Smooth and non-smooth solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Zeng, Fanhai; Zhang, Zhongqiang; Karniadakis, George Em

2017-12-01

Starting with the asymptotic expansion of the error equation of the shifted Gr\\"{u}nwald--Letnikov formula, we derive a new modified weighted shifted Gr\\"{u}nwald--Letnikov (WSGL) formula by introducing appropriate correction terms. We then apply one special case of the modified WSGL formula to solve multi-term fractional ordinary and partial differential equations, and we prove the linear stability and second-order convergence for both smooth and non-smooth solutions. We show theoretically and numerically that numerical solutions up to certain accuracy can be obtained with only a few correction terms. Moreover, the correction terms can be tuned according to the fractional derivative orders without explicitly knowing the analytical solutions. Numerical simulations verify the theoretical results and demonstrate that the new formula leads to better performance compared to other known numerical approximations with similar resolution.

Income smoothing by Dutch hospitals

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boterenbrood, D.R.

2014-01-01

Research indicates that hospitals manage their earnings. However, these findings might be influenced by methodological issues. In this study, I exploit specific features of Dutch hospitals to study income smoothing while limiting these methodological issues. The managers of Dutch hospitals have the

An adaptive segment method for smoothing lidar signal based on noise estimation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yuzhao; Luo, Pingping

2014-10-01

An adaptive segmentation smoothing method (ASSM) is introduced in the paper to smooth the signal and suppress the noise. In the ASSM, the noise is defined as the 3σ of the background signal. An integer number N is defined for finding the changing positions in the signal curve. If the difference of adjacent two points is greater than 3Nσ, the position is recorded as an end point of the smoothing segment. All the end points detected as above are recorded and the curves between them will be smoothed separately. In the traditional method, the end points of the smoothing windows in the signals are fixed. The ASSM creates changing end points in different signals and the smoothing windows could be set adaptively. The windows are always set as the half of the segmentations and then the average smoothing method will be applied in the segmentations. The Iterative process is required for reducing the end-point aberration effect in the average smoothing method and two or three times are enough. In ASSM, the signals are smoothed in the spacial area nor frequent area, that means the frequent disturbance will be avoided. A lidar echo was simulated in the experimental work. The echo was supposed to be created by a space-born lidar (e.g. CALIOP). And white Gaussian noise was added to the echo to act as the random noise resulted from environment and the detector. The novel method, ASSM, was applied to the noisy echo to filter the noise. In the test, N was set to 3 and the Iteration time is two. The results show that, the signal could be smoothed adaptively by the ASSM, but the N and the Iteration time might be optimized when the ASSM is applied in a different lidar.

Full-waveform inversion using a nonlinearly smoothed wavefield

KAUST Repository

Li, Yuanyuan

2017-12-08

Conventional full-waveform inversion (FWI) based on the least-squares misfit function faces problems in converging to the global minimum when using gradient methods because of the cycle-skipping phenomena. An initial model producing data that are at most a half-cycle away from the observed data is needed for convergence to the global minimum. Low frequencies are helpful in updating low-wavenumber components of the velocity model to avoid cycle skipping. However, low enough frequencies are usually unavailable in field cases. The multiplication of wavefields of slightly different frequencies adds artificial low-frequency components in the data, which can be used for FWI to generate a convergent result and avoid cycle skipping. We generalize this process by multiplying the wavefield with itself and then applying a smoothing operator to the multiplied wavefield or its square to derive the nonlinearly smoothed wavefield, which is rich in low frequencies. The global correlation-norm-based objective function can mitigate the dependence on the amplitude information of the nonlinearly smoothed wavefield. Therefore, we have evaluated the use of this objective function when using the nonlinearly smoothed wavefield. The proposed objective function has much larger convexity than the conventional objective functions. We calculate the gradient of the objective function using the adjoint-state technique, which is similar to that of the conventional FWI except for the adjoint source. We progressively reduce the smoothing width applied to the nonlinear wavefield to naturally adopt the multiscale strategy. Using examples on the Marmousi 2 model, we determine that the proposed FWI helps to generate convergent results without the need for low-frequency information.

Comparative Analysis for Robust Penalized Spline Smoothing Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bin Wang

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Smoothing noisy data is commonly encountered in engineering domain, and currently robust penalized regression spline models are perceived to be the most promising methods for coping with this issue, due to their flexibilities in capturing the nonlinear trends in the data and effectively alleviating the disturbance from the outliers. Against such a background, this paper conducts a thoroughly comparative analysis of two popular robust smoothing techniques, the M-type estimator and S-estimation for penalized regression splines, both of which are reelaborated starting from their origins, with their derivation process reformulated and the corresponding algorithms reorganized under a unified framework. Performances of these two estimators are thoroughly evaluated from the aspects of fitting accuracy, robustness, and execution time upon the MATLAB platform. Elaborately comparative experiments demonstrate that robust penalized spline smoothing methods possess the capability of resistance to the noise effect compared with the nonrobust penalized LS spline regression method. Furthermore, the M-estimator exerts stable performance only for the observations with moderate perturbation error, whereas the S-estimator behaves fairly well even for heavily contaminated observations, but consuming more execution time. These findings can be served as guidance to the selection of appropriate approach for smoothing the noisy data.

Expression of smooth muscle and non-muscle myosin heavy chain isoforms in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rovner, A.S.; Murphy, R.A.; Owens, G.K.

1986-01-01

Immunocytochemical studies of cultured smooth muscle cells (SMCs) have disagreed on the nature of myosin expression. This investigation was undertaken to test for the presence of heterogeneous myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms in cell culture as a possible explanation for these results. Previously, Rovner et al. detected two MHCs in intact smooth muscles which differed in molecular weight by ca. 4000 daltons (SM1 and SM2) using a 3-4% acrylamide gradient SDS gel system. When sub-confluent primary cultures of rat aorta SMCs were assayed by this system, SM1 and SM2 were seen, along with large amounts of a third, unique MHC, NM, which closely resembled the MHC from human platelet in size and antigenicity. Data from 35 S-methionine autoradiograms showed that the log growth phase SMC cultures were producing almost exclusively NM, but the growth arrest, post-confluent cultures synthesized increased relative amounts of the SM MHC forms and contained comparable amounts of SM1, SM2, and NM. The same patterns of MHC synthesis were seen in sub-passaged SMCs. The expression of the SM-specific forms of myosin in quiescent, post-confluent cultures parallels that of smooth muscle actin suggesting that density induced growth arrest promotes cytodifferentiation in cultured vascular SMCs

Exploration of faint absorption bands in the reflectance spectra of the asteroids by method of optimal smoothing: Vestoids

Science.gov (United States)

Shestopalov, D. I.; McFadden, L. A.; Golubeva, L. F.

2007-04-01

An optimization method of smoothing noisy spectra was developed to investigate faint absorption bands in the visual spectral region of reflectance spectra of asteroids and the compositional information derived from their analysis. The smoothing algorithm is called "optimal" because the algorithm determines the best running box size to separate weak absorption bands from the noise. The method is tested for its sensitivity to identifying false features in the smoothed spectrum, and its correctness of forecasting real absorption bands was tested with artificial spectra simulating asteroid reflectance spectra. After validating the method we optimally smoothed 22 vestoid spectra from SMASS1 [Xu, Sh., Binzel, R.P., Burbine, T.H., Bus, S.J., 1995. Icarus 115, 1-35]. We show that the resulting bands are not telluric features. Interpretation of the absorption bands in the asteroid spectra was based on the spectral properties of both terrestrial and meteorite pyroxenes. The bands located near 480, 505, 530, and 550 nm we assigned to spin-forbidden crystal field bands of ferrous iron, whereas the bands near 570, 600, and 650 nm are attributed to the crystal field bands of trivalent chromium and/or ferric iron in low-calcium pyroxenes on the asteroids' surface. While not measured by microprobe analysis, Fe 3+ site occupancy can be measured with Mössbauer spectroscopy, and is seen in trace amounts in pyroxenes. We believe that trace amounts of Fe 3+ on vestoid surfaces may be due to oxidation from impacts by icy bodies. If that is the case, they should be ubiquitous in the asteroid belt wherever pyroxene absorptions are found. Pyroxene composition of four asteroids of our set is determined from the band position of absorptions at 505 and 1000 nm, implying that there can be orthopyroxenes in all range of ferruginosity on the vestoid surfaces. For the present we cannot unambiguously interpret of the faint absorption bands that are seen in the spectra of 4005 Dyagilev, 4038

Covariances of smoothed observational data

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Vondrák, Jan; Čepek, A.

2000-01-01

Roč. 40, 5-6 (2000), s. 42-44 ISSN 1210-2709 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA205/98/1104 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z1003909 Keywords : digital filter * smoothing * estimation of uncertainties Subject RIV: BN - Astronomy, Celestial Mechanics, Astrophysics

A Note on the Definition of a Smooth Curve

Science.gov (United States)

Euler, Russell; Sadek, Jawad

2005-01-01

In many elementary calculus textbooks in use today, the definition of a "smooth curve" is slightly ambiguous from the students' perspective. Even when smoothness is defined carefully, there is a shortage of relevant exercises that would serve to elaborate on related subtle points which many students may find confusing. In this article, the authors…

An approach for spherical harmonic analysis of non-smooth data

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hansheng; Wu, Patrick; Wang, Zhiyong

2006-12-01

A method is proposed to evaluate the spherical harmonic coefficients of a global or regional, non-smooth, observable dataset sampled on an equiangular grid. The method is based on an integration strategy using new recursion relations. Because a bilinear function is used to interpolate points within the grid cells, this method is suitable for non-smooth data; the slope of the data may be piecewise continuous, with extreme changes at the boundaries. In order to validate the method, the coefficients of an axisymmetric model are computed, and compared with the derived analytical expressions. Numerical results show that this method is indeed reasonable for non-smooth models, and that the maximum degree for spherical harmonic analysis should be empirically determined by several factors including the model resolution and the degree of non-smoothness in the dataset, and it can be several times larger than the total number of latitudinal grid points. It is also shown that this method is appropriate for the approximate analysis of a smooth dataset. Moreover, this paper provides the program flowchart and an internet address where the FORTRAN code with program specifications are made available.

Obtaining the Bunch Shape in a Linac from Beam Spectrum Measurements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bane, Karl LF

1999-01-01

In linacs with high single-bunch charge, and tight tolerances for energy spread and emittance growth, controlling the short-range wakefield effects becomes extremely important. The effects of the wakefields, in turn, depend on the bunch length and also on the bunch shape. It was shown in the linac of the Stanford Linear Collider (SLC), for example, that by shaping the bunch, the final rms energy spread could be greatly reduced, compared to for the standard Gaussian bunch shape[1]. Therefore, in machines with high single-bunch charge, a method of measuring bunch shape can be an important beam diagnostic. In a linac with low single-bunch charge, the longitudinal bunch shape can be obtained relatively easily from a single measurement of the beam's final energy spectrum, provided that the final to initial energy ratio is large. One merely shifts the average phase of the beam, so that it rides off-crest sufficiently to induce an energy variation that is monotonic with longitudinal position. Then, by knowing the initial and final energies, the rf wave number, and the average beam phase, one can directly map the spectrum into the bunch shape. In a linac with high single-bunch charge, however, due to the effect of the longitudinal wakefield, this method either does not work at all, or it requires such a large shift in beam phase as to become impractical. In earlier work[2],[3] it was shown that, even when wakefields are important, if one measures the final beam spectrum for two different (properly chosen) values of beam phase, then one can again obtain the bunch shape, and--as a by-product--also the form of the wakefield induced voltage; this method was then illustrated using data from the linac of the SLC. These SLC measurements, however, had been performed with the machine in a special configuration, where the current was low; in addition, the noise the data was low and the measured spectra were smooth distributions. Under normal SLC conditions, however, the currents

Smoothing of, and parameter estimation from, noisy biophysical recordings.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Quentin J M Huys

2009-05-01

Full Text Available Biophysically detailed models of single cells are difficult to fit to real data. Recent advances in imaging techniques allow simultaneous access to various intracellular variables, and these data can be used to significantly facilitate the modelling task. These data, however, are noisy, and current approaches to building biophysically detailed models are not designed to deal with this. We extend previous techniques to take the noisy nature of the measurements into account. Sequential Monte Carlo ("particle filtering" methods, in combination with a detailed biophysical description of a cell, are used for principled, model-based smoothing of noisy recording data. We also provide an alternative formulation of smoothing where the neural nonlinearities are estimated in a non-parametric manner. Biophysically important parameters of detailed models (such as channel densities, intercompartmental conductances, input resistances, and observation noise are inferred automatically from noisy data via expectation-maximization. Overall, we find that model-based smoothing is a powerful, robust technique for smoothing of noisy biophysical data and for inference of biophysical parameters in the face of recording noise.

An analysis of 1-D smoothed particle hydrodynamics kernels

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fulk, D.A.; Quinn, D.W.

1996-01-01

In this paper, the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) kernel is analyzed, resulting in measures of merit for one-dimensional SPH. Various methods of obtaining an objective measure of the quality and accuracy of the SPH kernel are addressed. Since the kernel is the key element in the SPH methodology, this should be of primary concern to any user of SPH. The results of this work are two measures of merit, one for smooth data and one near shocks. The measure of merit for smooth data is shown to be quite accurate and a useful delineator of better and poorer kernels. The measure of merit for non-smooth data is not quite as accurate, but results indicate the kernel is much less important for these types of problems. In addition to the theory, 20 kernels are analyzed using the measure of merit demonstrating the general usefulness of the measure of merit and the individual kernels. In general, it was decided that bell-shaped kernels perform better than other shapes. 12 refs., 16 figs., 7 tabs

Exponential smoothing weighted correlations

Science.gov (United States)

Pozzi, F.; Di Matteo, T.; Aste, T.

2012-06-01

In many practical applications, correlation matrices might be affected by the "curse of dimensionality" and by an excessive sensitiveness to outliers and remote observations. These shortcomings can cause problems of statistical robustness especially accentuated when a system of dynamic correlations over a running window is concerned. These drawbacks can be partially mitigated by assigning a structure of weights to observational events. In this paper, we discuss Pearson's ρ and Kendall's τ correlation matrices, weighted with an exponential smoothing, computed on moving windows using a data-set of daily returns for 300 NYSE highly capitalized companies in the period between 2001 and 2003. Criteria for jointly determining optimal weights together with the optimal length of the running window are proposed. We find that the exponential smoothing can provide more robust and reliable dynamic measures and we discuss that a careful choice of the parameters can reduce the autocorrelation of dynamic correlations whilst keeping significance and robustness of the measure. Weighted correlations are found to be smoother and recovering faster from market turbulence than their unweighted counterparts, helping also to discriminate more effectively genuine from spurious correlations.

Spectrum estimation method based on marginal spectrum

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cai Jianhua; Hu Weiwen; Wang Xianchun

2011-01-01

FFT method can not meet the basic requirements of power spectrum for non-stationary signal and short signal. A new spectrum estimation method based on marginal spectrum from Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) was proposed. The procession of obtaining marginal spectrum in HHT method was given and the linear property of marginal spectrum was demonstrated. Compared with the FFT method, the physical meaning and the frequency resolution of marginal spectrum were further analyzed. Then the Hilbert spectrum estimation algorithm was discussed in detail, and the simulation results were given at last. The theory and simulation shows that under the condition of short data signal and non-stationary signal, the frequency resolution and estimation precision of HHT method is better than that of FFT method. (authors)

Walking smoothness is associated with self-reported function after accounting for gait speed.

Science.gov (United States)

Lowry, Kristin A; Vanswearingen, Jessie M; Perera, Subashan; Studenski, Stephanie A; Brach, Jennifer S

2013-10-01

Gait speed has shown to be an indicator of functional status in older adults; however, there may be aspects of physical function not represented by speed but by the quality of movement. The purpose of this study was to determine the relations between walking smoothness, an indicator of the quality of movement based on trunk accelerations, and physical function. Thirty older adults (mean age, 77.7±5.1 years) participated. Usual gait speed was measured using an instrumented walkway. Walking smoothness was quantified by harmonic ratios derived from anteroposterior, vertical, and mediolateral trunk accelerations recorded during overground walking. Self-reported physical function was recorded using the function subscales of the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument. Anteroposterior smoothness was positively associated with all function components of the Late-Life Function and Disability Instrument, whereas mediolateral smoothness exhibited negative associations. Adjusting for gait speed, anteroposterior smoothness remained associated with the overall and lower extremity function subscales, whereas mediolateral smoothness remained associated with only the advanced lower extremity subscale. These findings indicate that walking smoothness, particularly the smoothness of forward progression, represents aspects of the motor control of walking important for physical function not represented by gait speed alone.

Some properties of the smoothed Wigner function

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Soto, F.; Claverie, P.

1981-01-01

Recently it has been proposed a modification of the Wigner function which consists in smoothing it by convolution with a phase-space gaussian function; this smoothed Wigner function is non-negative if the gaussian parameters Δ and delta satisfy the condition Δdelta > h/2π. We analyze in this paper the predictions of this modified Wigner function for the harmonic oscillator, for anharmonic oscillator and finally for the hydrogen atom. We find agreement with experiment in the linear case, but for strongly nonlinear systems, such as the hydrogen atom, the results obtained are completely wrong. (orig.)

Cardiac, Skeletal, and smooth muscle mitochondrial respiration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Park, Song-Young; Gifford, Jayson R; Andtbacka, Robert H I

2014-01-01

, skeletal, and smooth muscle was harvested from a total of 22 subjects (53±6 yrs) and mitochondrial respiration assessed in permeabilized fibers. Complex I+II, state 3 respiration, an index of oxidative phosphorylation capacity, fell progressively from cardiac, skeletal, to smooth muscle (54±1; 39±4; 15......±1 pmol•s(-1)•mg (-1), prespiration rates were normalized by CS (respiration...... per mitochondrial content), oxidative phosphorylation capacity was no longer different between the three muscle types. Interestingly, Complex I state 2 normalized for CS activity, an index of non-phosphorylating respiration per mitochondrial content, increased progressively from cardiac, skeletal...

Effects of Piecewise Spatial Smoothing in 4-D SPECT Reconstruction

Science.gov (United States)

Qi, Wenyuan; Yang, Yongyi; King, Michael A.

2014-02-01

In nuclear medicine, cardiac gated SPECT images are known to suffer from significantly increased noise owing to limited data counts. Consequently, spatial (and temporal) smoothing has been indispensable for suppressing the noise artifacts in SPECT reconstruction. However, recently we demonstrated that the benefit of spatial processing in motion-compensated reconstruction of gated SPECT (aka 4-D) could be outweighed by its adverse effects on the myocardium, which included degraded wall motion and perfusion defect detectability. In this work, we investigate whether we can alleviate these adverse effects by exploiting an alternative spatial smoothing prior in 4-D based on image total variation (TV). TV based prior is known to induce piecewise smoothing which can preserve edge features (such as boundaries of the heart wall) in reconstruction. However, it is not clear whether such a property would necessarily be beneficial for improving the accuracy of the myocardium in 4-D reconstruction. In particular, it is unknown whether it would adversely affect the detectability of perfusion defects that are small in size or low in contrast. In our evaluation study, we first use Monte Carlo simulated imaging with 4-D NURBS-based cardiac-torso (NCAT) phantom wherein the ground truth is known for quantitative comparison. We evaluated the accuracy of the reconstructed myocardium using a number of metrics, including regional and overall accuracy of the myocardium, accuracy of the phase activity curve (PAC) of the LV wall for wall motion, uniformity and spatial resolution of the LV wall, and detectability of perfusion defects using a channelized Hotelling observer (CHO). For lesion detection, we simulated perfusion defects with different sizes and contrast levels with the focus being on perfusion defects that are subtle. As a preliminary demonstration, we also tested on three sets of clinical acquisitions. From the quantitative results, it was demonstrated that TV smoothing could

Calcium signaling in smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Hill-Eubanks, David C; Werner, Matthias E; Heppner, Thomas J; Nelson, Mark T

2011-09-01

Changes in intracellular Ca(2+) are central to the function of smooth muscle, which lines the walls of all hollow organs. These changes take a variety of forms, from sustained, cell-wide increases to temporally varying, localized changes. The nature of the Ca(2+) signal is a reflection of the source of Ca(2+) (extracellular or intracellular) and the molecular entity responsible for generating it. Depending on the specific channel involved and the detection technology employed, extracellular Ca(2+) entry may be detected optically as graded elevations in intracellular Ca(2+), junctional Ca(2+) transients, Ca(2+) flashes, or Ca(2+) sparklets, whereas release of Ca(2+) from intracellular stores may manifest as Ca(2+) sparks, Ca(2+) puffs, or Ca(2+) waves. These diverse Ca(2+) signals collectively regulate a variety of functions. Some functions, such as contractility, are unique to smooth muscle; others are common to other excitable cells (e.g., modulation of membrane potential) and nonexcitable cells (e.g., regulation of gene expression).

Fuzzy Logic Based Edge Detection in Smooth and Noisy Clinical Images.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Izhar Haq

Full Text Available Edge detection has beneficial applications in the fields such as machine vision, pattern recognition and biomedical imaging etc. Edge detection highlights high frequency components in the image. Edge detection is a challenging task. It becomes more arduous when it comes to noisy images. This study focuses on fuzzy logic based edge detection in smooth and noisy clinical images. The proposed method (in noisy images employs a 3 × 3 mask guided by fuzzy rule set. Moreover, in case of smooth clinical images, an extra mask of contrast adjustment is integrated with edge detection mask to intensify the smooth images. The developed method was tested on noise-free, smooth and noisy images. The results were compared with other established edge detection techniques like Sobel, Prewitt, Laplacian of Gaussian (LOG, Roberts and Canny. When the developed edge detection technique was applied to a smooth clinical image of size 270 × 290 pixels having 24 dB 'salt and pepper' noise, it detected very few (22 false edge pixels, compared to Sobel (1931, Prewitt (2741, LOG (3102, Roberts (1451 and Canny (1045 false edge pixels. Therefore it is evident that the developed method offers improved solution to the edge detection problem in smooth and noisy clinical images.

Determining the Optimal Values of Exponential Smoothing Constants--Does Solver Really Work?

Science.gov (United States)

Ravinder, Handanhal V.

2013-01-01

A key issue in exponential smoothing is the choice of the values of the smoothing constants used. One approach that is becoming increasingly popular in introductory management science and operations management textbooks is the use of Solver, an Excel-based non-linear optimizer, to identify values of the smoothing constants that minimize a measure…

Smooth surfaces from bilinear patches: Discrete affine minimal surfaces

KAUST Repository

Käferböck, Florian

2013-06-01

Motivated by applications in freeform architecture, we study surfaces which are composed of smoothly joined bilinear patches. These surfaces turn out to be discrete versions of negatively curved affine minimal surfaces and share many properties with their classical smooth counterparts. We present computational design approaches and study special cases which should be interesting for the architectural application. 2013 Elsevier B.V.

The persistence of active smooth muscle in the female rat cervix through pregnancy.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferland, David J; Darios, Emma S; Watts, Stephanie W

2015-02-01

A controversy exists as to whether functional smooth muscle exists in the cervix before and during pregnancy, potentially continuous with the uterus. We hypothesized that cervical smooth muscle persists through pregnancy and is functional. Uteri and cervices were taken from female virgin, 11 day, and 20 day (near labor) pregnant rats. All experiments used the uterus as a positive control. Three different smooth muscle proteins (smooth muscle α-actin, SM-22α, and calponin-1) allowed immunohistochemical detection of the continuous nature of the smooth muscle from the vagina, cervix, and uterus. Tissues were also hung in isolated tissue baths for the measurement of isometric smooth muscle contraction. Uterine and cervical homogenates were also used in Western analyses to measure protein expression. Immunohistochemistry revealed there to be smooth muscle as validated by an expression of all 3 markers in the cervix. This smooth muscle was continuous with that of the vagina and uterus. Smooth muscle α-actin was detected in virgin tissue (291.3 ± 32.2 arbitrary densitometry units/β-actin), day 11 (416.8 ± 19.5), and day 20 pregnant tissue (293.0 ± 34.4). The virgin, day 11, and day 20 cervices contracted 2.18 ± 0.24 g, 1.46 ± 0.08 g, and 3.88 ± 0.49 g (respectively) to depolarizing KCl. Cervices contracted at day 20 to the cholinergic muscarinic agonist carbamylcholine (maximum, 133% ± 18.2% KCl contraction, n = 4). These findings strongly support that smooth muscle is present in the cervix through pregnancy and continuous with the uterus. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Electrochemically replicated smooth aluminum foils for anodic alumina nanochannel arrays

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Biring, Sajal; Tsai, K-T; Sur, Ujjal Kumar; Wang, Y-L

2008-01-01

A fast electrochemical replication technique has been developed to fabricate large-scale ultra-smooth aluminum foils by exploiting readily available large-scale smooth silicon wafers as the masters. Since the adhesion of aluminum on silicon depends on the time of surface pretreatment in water, it is possible to either detach the replicated aluminum from the silicon master without damaging the replicated aluminum and master or integrate the aluminum film to the silicon substrate. Replicated ultra-smooth aluminum foils are used for the growth of both self-organized and lithographically guided long-range ordered arrays of anodic alumina nanochannels without any polishing pretreatment

Optimal Smoothing in Adaptive Location Estimation

OpenAIRE

Mammen, Enno; Park, Byeong U.

1997-01-01

In this paper higher order performance of kernel basedadaptive location estimators are considered. Optimalchoice of smoothing parameters is discussed and it isshown how much is lossed in efficiency by not knowingthe underlying translation density.

Quantification of smoothing requirement for 3D optic flow calculation of volumetric images

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bab-Hadiashar, Alireza; Tennakoon, Ruwan B.; de Bruijne, Marleen

2013-01-01

Complexities of dynamic volumetric imaging challenge the available computer vision techniques on a number of different fronts. This paper examines the relationship between the estimation accuracy and required amount of smoothness for a general solution from a robust statistics perspective. We show...... that a (surprisingly) small amount of local smoothing is required to satisfy both the necessary and sufficient conditions for accurate optic flow estimation. This notion is called 'just enough' smoothing, and its proper implementation has a profound effect on the preservation of local information in processing 3D...... dynamic scans. To demonstrate the effect of 'just enough' smoothing, a robust 3D optic flow method with quantized local smoothing is presented, and the effect of local smoothing on the accuracy of motion estimation in dynamic lung CT images is examined using both synthetic and real image sequences...

Measurement-induced decoherence and Gaussian smoothing of the Wigner distribution function

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chun, Yong-Jin; Lee, Hai-Woong

2003-01-01

We study the problem of measurement-induced decoherence using the phase-space approach employing the Gaussian-smoothed Wigner distribution function. Our investigation is based on the notion that measurement-induced decoherence is represented by the transition from the Wigner distribution to the Gaussian-smoothed Wigner distribution with the widths of the smoothing function identified as measurement errors. We also compare the smoothed Wigner distribution with the corresponding distribution resulting from the classical analysis. The distributions we computed are the phase-space distributions for simple one-dimensional dynamical systems such as a particle in a square-well potential and a particle moving under the influence of a step potential, and the time-frequency distributions for high-harmonic radiation emitted from an atom irradiated by short, intense laser pulses

Spectrum 101: An Introduction to Spectrum Management

Science.gov (United States)

2004-03-01

produces a Joint Restricted Frequency List (JRFL). The JFRL consolidates and classifies the spectrum uses that are most critical to operations and to...Management Office JRFL Joint Restricted Frequency List JSC Joint Spectrum Center JSIR Joint Spectrum Interference Resolution JSME Joint Spectrum...Multifunctional Information Distribution System MILSATCOM Military Satellite Communications MOA Memorandum of Agreement MRFL Master Radio Frequency

Smooth-arm spiral galaxies: their properties and significance to cluster-galaxy evolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wilkerson, M.S.

1979-01-01

In this dissertation a number of galaxies with optical appearances between those of normal, actively-star-forming spirals and SO galaxies have been examined. These so-called smooth-arm spiral galaxies exhibit spiral arms without any of the spiral tracers - H II regions, O-B star associations, dust - indicative of current star formation. Tests were made to find if, perhaps, these smooth-arm spirals could have, at one time, been normal, actively-star-forming spirals whose gas had been somehow removed; and that are currently transforming into SO galaxies. This scenario proceeds as (1) removal of gas, (2) gradual dying of disk density wave, (3) emergence of SO galaxy. If the dominant method of gas removal is ram-pressure stripping by a hot, intracluster medium, then smooth-arm spirals should occur primarily in x-ray clusters. Some major findings of this dissertation are as follows: (1) Smooth-arm spirals are redder than normal spirals of the same morphological type. Most smooth-arm spirals cannot be distinguished by color from SO galaxies. (2) A weak trend exists for smooth-arm spirals with stronger arms to be bluer than those with weaker arms; thus implying that the interval since gas removal has been shorter for the galaxies with stronger arms. (3) Smooth-arm spirals are deficient in neutral hydrogen - sometimes by an order of magnitude or, possibly, more

Restoring a smooth function from its noisy integrals

Science.gov (United States)

Goulko, Olga; Prokof'ev, Nikolay; Svistunov, Boris

2018-05-01

Numerical (and experimental) data analysis often requires the restoration of a smooth function from a set of sampled integrals over finite bins. We present the bin hierarchy method that efficiently computes the maximally smooth function from the sampled integrals using essentially all the information contained in the data. We perform extensive tests with different classes of functions and levels of data quality, including Monte Carlo data suffering from a severe sign problem and physical data for the Green's function of the Fröhlich polaron.

Adaptive Smoothed Finite Elements (ASFEM) for history dependent material models

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Quak, W.; Boogaard, A. H. van den

2011-01-01

A successful simulation of a bulk forming process with finite elements can be difficult due to distortion of the finite elements. Nodal smoothed Finite Elements (NSFEM) are an interesting option for such a process since they show good distortion insensitivity and moreover have locking-free behavior and good computational efficiency. In this paper a method is proposed which takes advantage of the nodally smoothed field. This method, named adaptive smoothed finite elements (ASFEM), revises the mesh for every step of a simulation without mapping the history dependent material parameters. In this paper an updated-Lagrangian implementation is presented. Several examples are given to illustrate the method and to show its properties.

Spectrum

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Høgfeldt Hansen, Leif

2016-01-01

The publication functions as a proces description of the development and construction of an urban furniture SPECTRUM in the city of Gwangju, Republic of Korea. It is used as the cataloque for the exhibition of Spectrum.......The publication functions as a proces description of the development and construction of an urban furniture SPECTRUM in the city of Gwangju, Republic of Korea. It is used as the cataloque for the exhibition of Spectrum....

Smooth random change point models.

Science.gov (United States)

van den Hout, Ardo; Muniz-Terrera, Graciela; Matthews, Fiona E

2011-03-15

Change point models are used to describe processes over time that show a change in direction. An example of such a process is cognitive ability, where a decline a few years before death is sometimes observed. A broken-stick model consists of two linear parts and a breakpoint where the two lines intersect. Alternatively, models can be formulated that imply a smooth change between the two linear parts. Change point models can be extended by adding random effects to account for variability between subjects. A new smooth change point model is introduced and examples are presented that show how change point models can be estimated using functions in R for mixed-effects models. The Bayesian inference using WinBUGS is also discussed. The methods are illustrated using data from a population-based longitudinal study of ageing, the Cambridge City over 75 Cohort Study. The aim is to identify how many years before death individuals experience a change in the rate of decline of their cognitive ability. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Regularization by fractional filter methods and data smoothing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Klann, E; Ramlau, R

2008-01-01

This paper is concerned with the regularization of linear ill-posed problems by a combination of data smoothing and fractional filter methods. For the data smoothing, a wavelet shrinkage denoising is applied to the noisy data with known error level δ. For the reconstruction, an approximation to the solution of the operator equation is computed from the data estimate by fractional filter methods. These fractional methods are based on the classical Tikhonov and Landweber method, but avoid, at least partially, the well-known drawback of oversmoothing. Convergence rates as well as numerical examples are presented

Non-linear second-order periodic systems with non-smooth potential

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

In this paper we study second order non-linear periodic systems driven by the ordinary vector -Laplacian with a non-smooth, locally Lipschitz potential function. Our approach is variational and it is based on the non-smooth critical point theory. We prove existence and multiplicity results under general growth conditions on ...

Non-linear second-order periodic systems with non-smooth potential

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

R. Narasimhan (Krishtel eMaging) 1461 1996 Oct 15 13:05:22

Abstract. In this paper we study second order non-linear periodic systems driven by the ordinary vector p-Laplacian with a non-smooth, locally Lipschitz potential function. Our approach is variational and it is based on the non-smooth critical point theory. We prove existence and multiplicity results under general growth ...

Poster - 52: Smoothing constraints in Modulated Photon Radiotherapy (XMRT) fluence map optimization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McGeachy, Philip; Villarreal-Barajas, Jose Eduardo; Zinchenko, Yuriy; Khan, Rao

2016-01-01

Purpose: Modulated Photon Radiotherapy (XMRT), which simultaneously optimizes photon beamlet energy (6 and 18 MV) and fluence, has recently shown dosimetric improvement in comparison to conventional IMRT. That said, the degree of smoothness of resulting fluence maps (FMs) has yet to be investigated and could impact the deliverability of XMRT. This study looks at investigating FM smoothness and imposing smoothing constraint in the fluence map optimization. Methods: Smoothing constraints were modeled in the XMRT algorithm with the sum of positive gradient (SPG) technique. XMRT solutions, with and without SPG constraints, were generated for a clinical prostate scan using standard dosimetric prescriptions, constraints, and a seven coplanar beam arrangement. The smoothness, with and without SPG constraints, was assessed by looking at the absolute and relative maximum SPG scores for each fluence map. Dose volume histograms were utilized when evaluating impact on the dose distribution. Results: Imposing SPG constraints reduced the absolute and relative maximum SPG values by factors of up to 5 and 2, respectively, when compared with their non-SPG constrained counterparts. This leads to a more seamless conversion of FMS to their respective MLC sequences. This improved smoothness resulted in an increase to organ at risk (OAR) dose, however the increase is not clinically significant. Conclusions: For a clinical prostate case, there was a noticeable improvement in the smoothness of the XMRT FMs when SPG constraints were applied with a minor increase in dose to OARs. This increase in OAR dose is not clinically meaningful.

Poster - 52: Smoothing constraints in Modulated Photon Radiotherapy (XMRT) fluence map optimization

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McGeachy, Philip; Villarreal-Barajas, Jose Eduardo; Zinchenko, Yuriy; Khan, Rao [Department of Medical Physics, CancerCare Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, CAN, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CAN, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CAN, Department of Radiation Oncology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO (United States)

2016-08-15

Purpose: Modulated Photon Radiotherapy (XMRT), which simultaneously optimizes photon beamlet energy (6 and 18 MV) and fluence, has recently shown dosimetric improvement in comparison to conventional IMRT. That said, the degree of smoothness of resulting fluence maps (FMs) has yet to be investigated and could impact the deliverability of XMRT. This study looks at investigating FM smoothness and imposing smoothing constraint in the fluence map optimization. Methods: Smoothing constraints were modeled in the XMRT algorithm with the sum of positive gradient (SPG) technique. XMRT solutions, with and without SPG constraints, were generated for a clinical prostate scan using standard dosimetric prescriptions, constraints, and a seven coplanar beam arrangement. The smoothness, with and without SPG constraints, was assessed by looking at the absolute and relative maximum SPG scores for each fluence map. Dose volume histograms were utilized when evaluating impact on the dose distribution. Results: Imposing SPG constraints reduced the absolute and relative maximum SPG values by factors of up to 5 and 2, respectively, when compared with their non-SPG constrained counterparts. This leads to a more seamless conversion of FMS to their respective MLC sequences. This improved smoothness resulted in an increase to organ at risk (OAR) dose, however the increase is not clinically significant. Conclusions: For a clinical prostate case, there was a noticeable improvement in the smoothness of the XMRT FMs when SPG constraints were applied with a minor increase in dose to OARs. This increase in OAR dose is not clinically meaningful.

Direct detection of a break in the teraelectronvolt cosmic-ray spectrum of electrons and positrons

Science.gov (United States)

DAMPE Collaboration; Ambrosi, G.; An, Q.; Asfandiyarov, R.; Azzarello, P.; Bernardini, P.; Bertucci, B.; Cai, M. S.; Chang, J.; Chen, D. Y.; Chen, H. F.; Chen, J. L.; Chen, W.; Cui, M. Y.; Cui, T. S.; D'Amone, A.; de Benedittis, A.; De Mitri, I.; di Santo, M.; Dong, J. N.; Dong, T. K.; Dong, Y. F.; Dong, Z. X.; Donvito, G.; Droz, D.; Duan, K. K.; Duan, J. L.; Duranti, M.; D'Urso, D.; Fan, R. R.; Fan, Y. Z.; Fang, F.; Feng, C. Q.; Feng, L.; Fusco, P.; Gallo, V.; Gan, F. J.; Gao, M.; Gao, S. S.; Gargano, F.; Garrappa, S.; Gong, K.; Gong, Y. Z.; Guo, D. Y.; Guo, J. H.; Hu, Y. M.; Huang, G. S.; Huang, Y. Y.; Ionica, M.; Jiang, D.; Jiang, W.; Jin, X.; Kong, J.; Lei, S. J.; Li, S.; Li, X.; Li, W. L.; Li, Y.; Liang, Y. F.; Liang, Y. M.; Liao, N. H.; Liu, H.; Liu, J.; Liu, S. B.; Liu, W. Q.; Liu, Y.; Loparco, F.; Ma, M.; Ma, P. X.; Ma, S. Y.; Ma, T.; Ma, X. Q.; Ma, X. Y.; Marsella, G.; Mazziotta, M. N.; Mo, D.; Niu, X. Y.; Peng, X. Y.; Peng, W. X.; Qiao, R.; Rao, J. N.; Salinas, M. M.; Shang, G. Z.; H. Shen, W.; Shen, Z. Q.; Shen, Z. T.; Song, J. X.; Su, H.; Su, M.; Sun, Z. Y.; Surdo, A.; Teng, X. J.; Tian, X. B.; Tykhonov, A.; Vagelli, V.; Vitillo, S.; Wang, C.; Wang, H.; Wang, H. Y.; Wang, J. Z.; Wang, L. G.; Wang, Q.; Wang, S.; Wang, X. H.; Wang, X. L.; Wang, Y. F.; Wang, Y. P.; Wang, Y. Z.; Wen, S. C.; Wang, Z. M.; Wei, D. M.; Wei, J. J.; Wei, Y. F.; Wu, D.; Wu, J.; Wu, L. B.; Wu, S. S.; Wu, X.; Xi, K.; Xia, Z. Q.; Xin, Y. L.; Xu, H. T.; Xu, Z. L.; Xu, Z. Z.; Xue, G. F.; Yang, H. B.; Yang, P.; Yang, Y. Q.; Yang, Z. L.; Yao, H. J.; Yu, Y. H.; Yuan, Q.; Yue, C.; Zang, J. J.; Zhang, C.; Zhang, D. L.; Zhang, F.; Zhang, J. B.; Zhang, J. Y.; Zhang, J. Z.; Zhang, L.; Zhang, P. F.; Zhang, S. X.; Zhang, W. Z.; Zhang, Y.; Zhang, Y. J.; Zhang, Y. Q.; Zhang, Y. L.; Zhang, Y. P.; Zhang, Z.; Zhang, Z. Y.; Zhao, H.; Zhao, H. Y.; Zhao, X. F.; Zhou, C. Y.; Zhou, Y.; Zhu, X.; Zhu, Y.; Zimmer, S.

2017-12-01

High-energy cosmic-ray electrons and positrons (CREs), which lose energy quickly during their propagation, provide a probe of Galactic high-energy processes and may enable the observation of phenomena such as dark-matter particle annihilation or decay. The CRE spectrum has been measured directly up to approximately 2 teraelectronvolts in previous balloon- or space-borne experiments, and indirectly up to approximately 5 teraelectronvolts using ground-based Cherenkov γ-ray telescope arrays. Evidence for a spectral break in the teraelectronvolt energy range has been provided by indirect measurements, although the results were qualified by sizeable systematic uncertainties. Here we report a direct measurement of CREs in the energy range 25 gigaelectronvolts to 4.6 teraelectronvolts by the Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) with unprecedentedly high energy resolution and low background. The largest part of the spectrum can be well fitted by a ‘smoothly broken power-law’ model rather than a single power-law model. The direct detection of a spectral break at about 0.9 teraelectronvolts confirms the evidence found by previous indirect measurements, clarifies the behaviour of the CRE spectrum at energies above 1 teraelectronvolt and sheds light on the physical origin of the sub-teraelectronvolt CREs.

Hypoxia Enhances Differentiation of Adipose Tissue-Derived Stem Cells toward the Smooth Muscle Phenotype

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fang Wang

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Smooth muscle differentiated adipose tissue-derived stem cells are a valuable resource for regeneration of gastrointestinal tissues, such as the gut and sphincters. Hypoxia has been shown to promote adipose tissue-derived stem cells proliferation and maintenance of pluripotency, but the influence of hypoxia on their smooth myogenic differentiation remains unexplored. This study investigated the phenotype and contractility of adipose-derived stem cells differentiated toward the smooth myogenic lineage under hypoxic conditions. Oxygen concentrations of 2%, 5%, 10%, and 20% were used during differentiation of adipose tissue-derived stem cells. Real time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and immunofluorescence staining were used to detect the expression of smooth muscle cells-specific markers, including early marker smooth muscle alpha actin, middle markers calponin, caldesmon, and late marker smooth muscle myosin heavy chain. The specific contractile properties of cells were verified with both a single cell contraction assay and a gel contraction assay. Five percent oxygen concentration significantly increased the expression levels of α-smooth muscle actin, calponin, and myosin heavy chain in adipose-derived stem cell cultures after 2 weeks of induction (p < 0.01. Cells differentiated in 5% oxygen conditions showed greater contraction effect (p < 0.01. Hypoxia influences differentiation of smooth muscle cells from adipose stem cells and 5% oxygen was the optimal condition to generate smooth muscle cells that contract from adipose stem cells.

Validation of CMIP5 multimodel ensembles through the smoothness of climate variables

KAUST Repository

Lee, Myoungji

2015-05-14

Smoothness is an important characteristic of a spatial process that measures local variability. If climate model outputs are realistic, then not only the values at each grid pixel but also the relative variation over nearby pixels should represent the true climate. We estimate the smoothness of long-term averages for land surface temperature anomalies in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), and compare them by climate regions and seasons. We also compare the estimated smoothness of the climate outputs in CMIP5 with those of reanalysis data. The estimation is done through the composite likelihood approach for locally self-similar processes. The composite likelihood that we consider is a product of conditional likelihoods of neighbouring observations. We find that the smoothness of the surface temperature anomalies in CMIP5 depends primarily on the modelling institution and on the climate region. The seasonal difference in the smoothness is generally small, except for some climate regions where the average temperature is extremely high or low.

Analysis of elastic-plastic problems using edge-based smoothed finite element method

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cui, X.Y.; Liu, G.R.; Li, G.Y.; Zhang, G.Y.; Sun, G.Y.

2009-01-01

In this paper, an edge-based smoothed finite element method (ES-FEM) is formulated for stress field determination of elastic-plastic problems using triangular meshes, in which smoothing domains associated with the edges of the triangles are used for smoothing operations to improve the accuracy and the convergence rate of the method. The smoothed Galerkin weak form is adopted to obtain the discretized system equations, and the numerical integration becomes a simple summation over the edge-based smoothing domains. The pseudo-elastic method is employed for the determination of stress field and Hencky's total deformation theory is used to define effective elastic material parameters, which are treated as field variables and considered as functions of the final state of stress fields. The effective elastic material parameters are then obtained in an iterative manner based on the strain controlled projection method from the uniaxial material curve. Some numerical examples are investigated and excellent results have been obtained demonstrating the effectivity of the present method.

Smoothing and projecting age-specific probabilities of death by TOPALS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joop de Beer

2012-10-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND TOPALS is a new relational model for smoothing and projecting age schedules. The model is operationally simple, flexible, and transparent. OBJECTIVE This article demonstrates how TOPALS can be used for both smoothing and projecting age-specific mortality for 26 European countries and compares the results of TOPALS with those of other smoothing and projection methods. METHODS TOPALS uses a linear spline to describe the ratios between the age-specific death probabilities of a given country and a standard age schedule. For smoothing purposes I use the average of death probabilities over 15 Western European countries as standard, whereas for projection purposes I use an age schedule of 'best practice' mortality. A partial adjustment model projects how quickly the death probabilities move in the direction of the best-practice level of mortality. RESULTS On average, TOPALS performs better than the Heligman-Pollard model and the Brass relational method in smoothing mortality age schedules. TOPALS can produce projections that are similar to those of the Lee-Carter method, but can easily be used to produce alternative scenarios as well. This article presents three projections of life expectancy at birth for the year 2060 for 26 European countries. The Baseline scenario assumes a continuation of the past trend in each country, the Convergence scenario assumes that there is a common trend across European countries, and the Acceleration scenario assumes that the future decline of death probabilities will exceed that in the past. The Baseline scenario projects that average European life expectancy at birth will increase to 80 years for men and 87 years for women in 2060, whereas the Acceleration scenario projects an increase to 90 and 93 years respectively. CONCLUSIONS TOPALS is a useful new tool for demographers for both smoothing age schedules and making scenarios.

A note on the Akivis algebra of a smooth hyporeductive loop

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Issa, A.N.

2002-05-01

Using the fundamental tensors of a smooth loop and the differential geometric characterization of smooth hyporeductive loops, the Akivis operations of a local smooth hyporeductive loop are expressed through the two binary and the one ternary operations of the hyporeductive triple algebra (h.t.a.) associated with the given hyporeductive loop. Those Akivis operations are also given in terms of Lie brackets of a Lie algebra of vector fields with the hyporeductive decomposition which generalizes the reductive decomposition of Lie algebras. A nontrivial real two-dimensional h.t.a. is presented. (author)

Log canonical thresholds of smooth Fano threefolds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cheltsov, Ivan A; Shramov, Konstantin A

2008-01-01

The complex singularity exponent is a local invariant of a holomorphic function determined by the integrability of fractional powers of the function. The log canonical thresholds of effective Q-divisors on normal algebraic varieties are algebraic counterparts of complex singularity exponents. For a Fano variety, these invariants have global analogues. In the former case, it is the so-called α-invariant of Tian; in the latter case, it is the global log canonical threshold of the Fano variety, which is the infimum of log canonical thresholds of all effective Q-divisors numerically equivalent to the anticanonical divisor. An appendix to this paper contains a proof that the global log canonical threshold of a smooth Fano variety coincides with its α-invariant of Tian. The purpose of the paper is to compute the global log canonical thresholds of smooth Fano threefolds (altogether, there are 105 deformation families of such threefolds). The global log canonical thresholds are computed for every smooth threefold in 64 deformation families, and the global log canonical thresholds are computed for a general threefold in 20 deformation families. Some bounds for the global log canonical thresholds are computed for 14 deformation families. Appendix A is due to J.-P. Demailly.

Transformation-invariant and nonparametric monotone smooth estimation of ROC curves.

Science.gov (United States)

Du, Pang; Tang, Liansheng

2009-01-30

When a new diagnostic test is developed, it is of interest to evaluate its accuracy in distinguishing diseased subjects from non-diseased subjects. The accuracy of the test is often evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Smooth ROC estimates are often preferable for continuous test results when the underlying ROC curves are in fact continuous. Nonparametric and parametric methods have been proposed by various authors to obtain smooth ROC curve estimates. However, there are certain drawbacks with the existing methods. Parametric methods need specific model assumptions. Nonparametric methods do not always satisfy the inherent properties of the ROC curves, such as monotonicity and transformation invariance. In this paper we propose a monotone spline approach to obtain smooth monotone ROC curves. Our method ensures important inherent properties of the underlying ROC curves, which include monotonicity, transformation invariance, and boundary constraints. We compare the finite sample performance of the newly proposed ROC method with other ROC smoothing methods in large-scale simulation studies. We illustrate our method through a real life example. Copyright (c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Linear MALDI-ToF simultaneous spectrum deconvolution and baseline removal.

Science.gov (United States)

Picaud, Vincent; Giovannelli, Jean-Francois; Truntzer, Caroline; Charrier, Jean-Philippe; Giremus, Audrey; Grangeat, Pierre; Mercier, Catherine

2018-04-05

Thanks to a reasonable cost and simple sample preparation procedure, linear MALDI-ToF spectrometry is a growing technology for clinical microbiology. With appropriate spectrum databases, this technology can be used for early identification of pathogens in body fluids. However, due to the low resolution of linear MALDI-ToF instruments, robust and accurate peak picking remains a challenging task. In this context we propose a new peak extraction algorithm from raw spectrum. With this method the spectrum baseline and spectrum peaks are processed jointly. The approach relies on an additive model constituted by a smooth baseline part plus a sparse peak list convolved with a known peak shape. The model is then fitted under a Gaussian noise model. The proposed method is well suited to process low resolution spectra with important baseline and unresolved peaks. We developed a new peak deconvolution procedure. The paper describes the method derivation and discusses some of its interpretations. The algorithm is then described in a pseudo-code form where the required optimization procedure is detailed. For synthetic data the method is compared to a more conventional approach. The new method reduces artifacts caused by the usual two-steps procedure, baseline removal then peak extraction. Finally some results on real linear MALDI-ToF spectra are provided. We introduced a new method for peak picking, where peak deconvolution and baseline computation are performed jointly. On simulated data we showed that this global approach performs better than a classical one where baseline and peaks are processed sequentially. A dedicated experiment has been conducted on real spectra. In this study a collection of spectra of spiked proteins were acquired and then analyzed. Better performances of the proposed method, in term of accuracy and reproductibility, have been observed and validated by an extended statistical analysis.

Cospectral budget of turbulence explains the bulk properties of smooth pipe flow

Science.gov (United States)

Katul, Gabriel G.; Manes, Costantino

2014-12-01

Connections between the wall-normal turbulent velocity spectrum Ew w(k ) at wave number k and the mean velocity profile (MVP) are explored in pressure-driven flows confined within smooth walls at moderate to high bulk Reynolds numbers (Re). These connections are derived via a cospectral budget for the longitudinal (u') and wall-normal (w') velocity fluctuations, which include a production term due to mean shear interacting with Ew w(k ) , viscous effects, and a decorrelation between u' and w' by pressure-strain effects [=π (k ) ]. The π (k ) is modeled using a conventional Rotta-like return-to-isotropy closure but adjusted to include the effects of isotropization of the production term. The resulting cospectral budget yields a generalization of a previously proposed "spectral link" between the MVP and the spectrum of turbulence. The proposed cospectral budget is also shown to reproduce the measured MVP across the pipe with changing Re including the MVP shapes in the buffer and wake regions. Because of the links between Ew w(k ) and the MVP, the effects of intermittency corrections to inertial subrange scales and the so-called spectral bottleneck reported as k approaches viscous dissipation eddy sizes (η ) on the MVP shapes are investigated and shown to be of minor importance. Inclusion of a local Reynolds number correction to a parameter associated with the spectral exponential cutoff as k η →1 appears to be more significant to the MVP shape in the buffer region. While the bulk shape of the MVP is reasonably reproduced in all regions of the pipe, the solution to the cospectral budget systematically underestimates the negative curvature of the MVP within the buffer layer.

Cospectral budget of turbulence explains the bulk properties of smooth pipe flow.

Science.gov (United States)

Katul, Gabriel G; Manes, Costantino

2014-12-01

Connections between the wall-normal turbulent velocity spectrum E(ww)(k) at wave number k and the mean velocity profile (MVP) are explored in pressure-driven flows confined within smooth walls at moderate to high bulk Reynolds numbers (Re). These connections are derived via a cospectral budget for the longitudinal (u') and wall-normal (w') velocity fluctuations, which include a production term due to mean shear interacting with E(ww)(k), viscous effects, and a decorrelation between u' and w' by pressure-strain effects [=π(k)]. The π(k) is modeled using a conventional Rotta-like return-to-isotropy closure but adjusted to include the effects of isotropization of the production term. The resulting cospectral budget yields a generalization of a previously proposed "spectral link" between the MVP and the spectrum of turbulence. The proposed cospectral budget is also shown to reproduce the measured MVP across the pipe with changing Re including the MVP shapes in the buffer and wake regions. Because of the links between E(ww)(k) and the MVP, the effects of intermittency corrections to inertial subrange scales and the so-called spectral bottleneck reported as k approaches viscous dissipation eddy sizes (η) on the MVP shapes are investigated and shown to be of minor importance. Inclusion of a local Reynolds number correction to a parameter associated with the spectral exponential cutoff as kη→1 appears to be more significant to the MVP shape in the buffer region. While the bulk shape of the MVP is reasonably reproduced in all regions of the pipe, the solution to the cospectral budget systematically underestimates the negative curvature of the MVP within the buffer layer.

Major vault protein in cardiac and smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Shults, Nataliia V; Das, Dividutta; Suzuki, Yuichiro J

Major vault protein (MVP) is the major component of the vault particle whose functions are not well understood. One proposed function of the vault is to serve as a mechanism of drug transport, which confers drug resistance in cancer cells. We show that MVP can be found in cardiac and smooth muscle. In human airway smooth muscle cells, knocking down MVP was found to cause cell death, suggesting that MVP serves as a cell survival factor. Further, our laboratory found that MVP is S-glutathionylated in response to ligand/receptor-mediated cell signaling. The S-glutathionylation of MVP appears to regulate protein-protein interactions between MVP and a protein called myosin heavy chain 9 (MYH9). Through MYH9 and Vsp34, MVP may form a complex with Beclin-1 that regulates autophagic cell death. In pulmonary vascular smooth muscle, proteasome inhibition promotes the ubiquitination of MVP, which may function as a mechanism of proteasome inhibition-mediated cell death. Investigating the functions and the regulatory mechanisms of MVP and vault particles is an exciting new area of research in cardiovascular/pulmonary pathophysiology.

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in disturbances of cortical development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kaminaga, T.; Kobayashi, M.; Abe, T.

2001-01-01

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy( 1 H-MRS) can be used for looking at cerebral metabolites in vivo. However, measurement of concentrations of cerebral metabolites in patients with disturbances of cerebral development have not been successful. Our purpose was to measure the concentrations of cerebral metabolites in such patients. We carried out quantitative 1 H-MRS in eight patients with cortical dysplasia, four with lissencephaly and three with heterotopic grey matter and six age-matched normal controls. Regions of interest for 1 H-MRS were set over the affected cortex in the patients and the occipital cortex in controls. The calculated concentration of N-acetylaspartate (NAA) was significantly lower in the affected cortex in patients with cortical dysplasia (P < 0.05), lissencephaly (P < 0.01), and heterotopia (P < 0.05) than in controls, idnicating a decreased number and/or immaturity or dysfunction of neurones in the affected cortex. The concentration of choline (Cho) was significantly lower in patients with lissencephaly (P < 0.01) than in controls, indicating glial proliferation and/or membrane abnormality. (orig.)

Smooth homogeneous structures in operator theory

CERN Document Server

Beltita, Daniel

2005-01-01

Geometric ideas and techniques play an important role in operator theory and the theory of operator algebras. Smooth Homogeneous Structures in Operator Theory builds the background needed to understand this circle of ideas and reports on recent developments in this fruitful field of research. Requiring only a moderate familiarity with functional analysis and general topology, the author begins with an introduction to infinite dimensional Lie theory with emphasis on the relationship between Lie groups and Lie algebras. A detailed examination of smooth homogeneous spaces follows. This study is illustrated by familiar examples from operator theory and develops methods that allow endowing such spaces with structures of complex manifolds. The final section of the book explores equivariant monotone operators and Kähler structures. It examines certain symmetry properties of abstract reproducing kernels and arrives at a very general version of the construction of restricted Grassmann manifolds from the theory of loo...

Intelligent PV Power Smoothing Control Using Probabilistic Fuzzy Neural Network with Asymmetric Membership Function

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Faa-Jeng Lin

2017-01-01

Full Text Available An intelligent PV power smoothing control using probabilistic fuzzy neural network with asymmetric membership function (PFNN-AMF is proposed in this study. First, a photovoltaic (PV power plant with a battery energy storage system (BESS is introduced. The BESS consisted of a bidirectional DC/AC 3-phase inverter and LiFePO4 batteries. Then, the difference of the actual PV power and smoothed power is supplied by the BESS. Moreover, the network structure of the PFNN-AMF and its online learning algorithms are described in detail. Furthermore, the three-phase output currents of the PV power plant are converted to the dq-axis current components. The resulted q-axis current is the input of the PFNN-AMF power smoothing control, and the output is a smoothing PV power curve to achieve the effect of PV power smoothing. Comparing to the other smoothing methods, a minimum energy capacity of the BESS with a small fluctuation of the grid power can be achieved by the PV power smoothing control using PFNN-AMF. In addition, a personal computer- (PC- based PV power plant emulator and BESS are built for the experimentation. From the experimental results of various irradiance variation conditions, the effectiveness of the proposed intelligent PV power smoothing control can be verified.

Low density lipoprotein uptake by an endothelial-smooth muscle cell bilayer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alexander, J.J.; Miguel, R.; Graham, D.

1991-01-01

To study the interaction of endothelial and smooth muscle cells, and the means by which such interaction may affect lipid permeability of the arterial wall, cell bilayers were established by use of a transwell culture system. After confluent growth of both cell types had been achieved, iodine 125 bound to low-density lipoprotein (10 ng protein/ml) was added to the media of the upper well. After a 3-hour incubation period, the iodine 125-bound low-density lipoprotein content of the upper and lower media demonstrated an impedance to lipoprotein movement across the endothelial cell monolayer as compared to the bare porous polycarbonate filter of the transwell (p less than 10(-6)). The presence of smooth muscle cells in the bottom well significantly enhanced the permeability of the endothelial cell layer (p less than 10(-60)). This effect remained unchanged over a 9-day time course. Membrane binding and cellular uptake of low-density lipoprotein by endothelial cells was not altered by smooth muscle cells, indicating that this change in permeability could not be easily attributed to changes in receptor-mediated transport or transcytosis. Membrane binding (p less than 0.02) and cellular uptake (p less than 10(-6)) of low-density lipoprotein by smooth muscle cells in the bilayer, when adjusted for counts available in the smooth muscle cell media, were both reduced in the early incubation period as compared to isolated smooth muscle cells. The disproportionate reduction in uptake as compared to binding would suggest that this was not entirely a receptor-dependent process

A 310-bp minimal promoter mediates smooth muscle cell-specific expression of telokin.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, A F; Bigsby, R M; Word, R A; Herring, B P

1998-05-01

A cell-specific promoter located in an intron of the smooth muscle myosin light chain kinase gene directs transcription of telokin exclusively in smooth muscle cells. Transgenic mice were generated in which a 310-bp rabbit telokin promoter fragment, extending from -163 to +147, was used to drive expression of simian virus 40 large T antigen. Smooth muscle-specific expression of the T-antigen transgene paralleled that of the endogenous telokin gene in all smooth muscle tissues except uterus. The 310-bp promoter fragment resulted in very low levels of transgene expression in uterus; in contrast, a transgene driven by a 2.4-kb fragment (-2250 to +147) resulted in high levels of transgene expression in uterine smooth muscle. Telokin expression levels correlate with the estrogen status of human myometrial tissues, suggesting that deletion of an estrogen response element (ERE) may account for the low levels of transgene expression driven by the 310-bp rabbit telokin promoter in uterine smooth muscle. Experiments in A10 smooth muscle cells directly showed that reporter gene expression driven by the 2.4-kb, but not 310-bp, promoter fragment could be stimulated two- to threefold by estrogen. This stimulation was mediated through an ERE located between -1447 and -1474. Addition of the ERE to the 310-bp fragment restored estrogen responsiveness in A10 cells. These data demonstrate that in addition to a minimal 310-bp proximal promoter at least one distal cis-acting regulatory element is required for telokin expression in uterine smooth muscle. The distal element may include an ERE between -1447 and -1474.

The smooth entropy formalism for von Neumann algebras

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Berta, Mario; Furrer, Fabian; Scholz, Volkher B.

2016-01-01

We discuss information-theoretic concepts on infinite-dimensional quantum systems. In particular, we lift the smooth entropy formalism as introduced by Renner and collaborators for finite-dimensional systems to von Neumann algebras. For the smooth conditional min- and max-entropy, we recover similar characterizing properties and information-theoretic operational interpretations as in the finite-dimensional case. We generalize the entropic uncertainty relation with quantum side information of Tomamichel and Renner and discuss applications to quantum cryptography. In particular, we prove the possibility to perform privacy amplification and classical data compression with quantum side information modeled by a von Neumann algebra

Chain rules for smooth min-and max-entropies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vitanov, Alexande; Dupont-Dupuis, Fréderic; Tomamichel, Marco

2013-01-01

The chain rule for the Shannon and von Neumann en- tropy, which relates the total entropy of a system to the entropies of its parts, is of central importance to information theory. Here, we consider the chain rule for the more general smooth min- and max-entropies, used in one-shot in formation...... theory. For these en- tropy measures, the chain rule no longer holds as an equality. How- ever, the standard chain rule for the von Neum ann entropy is re- trieved asymptotically when evaluating the smooth entropies for many identical and independently distributed states....

The smooth entropy formalism for von Neumann algebras

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Berta, Mario, E-mail: berta@caltech.edu [Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 (United States); Furrer, Fabian, E-mail: furrer@eve.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp [Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan and Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leibniz University Hanover, Hanover (Germany); Scholz, Volkher B., E-mail: scholz@phys.ethz.ch [Institute for Theoretical Physics, ETH Zurich, Zurich (Switzerland)

2016-01-15

We discuss information-theoretic concepts on infinite-dimensional quantum systems. In particular, we lift the smooth entropy formalism as introduced by Renner and collaborators for finite-dimensional systems to von Neumann algebras. For the smooth conditional min- and max-entropy, we recover similar characterizing properties and information-theoretic operational interpretations as in the finite-dimensional case. We generalize the entropic uncertainty relation with quantum side information of Tomamichel and Renner and discuss applications to quantum cryptography. In particular, we prove the possibility to perform privacy amplification and classical data compression with quantum side information modeled by a von Neumann algebra.

Smoothing type buffer memory device

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Podorozhnyj, D.M.; Yashin, I.V.

1990-01-01

The layout of the micropower 4-bit smoothing type buffer memory device allowing one to record without counting the sequence of input randomly distributed pulses in multi-channel devices with serial poll, is given. The power spent by a memory cell for one binary digit recording is not greater than 0.15 mW, the device dead time is 10 mus

Weak Measurement and Quantum Smoothing of a Superconducting Qubit

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Dian

In quantum mechanics, the measurement outcome of an observable in a quantum system is intrinsically random, yielding a probability distribution. The state of the quantum system can be described by a density matrix rho(t), which depends on the information accumulated until time t, and represents our knowledge about the system. The density matrix rho(t) gives probabilities for the outcomes of measurements at time t. Further probing of the quantum system allows us to refine our prediction in hindsight. In this thesis, we experimentally examine a quantum smoothing theory in a superconducting qubit by introducing an auxiliary matrix E(t) which is conditioned on information obtained from time t to a final time T. With the complete information before and after time t, the pair of matrices [rho(t), E(t)] can be used to make smoothed predictions for the measurement outcome at time t. We apply the quantum smoothing theory in the case of continuous weak measurement unveiling the retrodicted quantum trajectories and weak values. In the case of strong projective measurement, while the density matrix rho(t) with only diagonal elements in a given basis |n〉 may be treated as a classical mixture, we demonstrate a failure of this classical mixture description in determining the smoothed probabilities for the measurement outcome at time t with both diagonal rho(t) and diagonal E(t). We study the correlations between quantum states and weak measurement signals and examine aspects of the time symmetry of continuous quantum measurement. We also extend our study of quantum smoothing theory to the case of resonance fluorescence of a superconducting qubit with homodyne measurement and observe some interesting effects such as the modification of the excited state probabilities, weak values, and evolution of the predicted and retrodicted trajectories.

Adaptive quantization-parameter clip scheme for smooth quality in H.264/AVC.

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Sudeng; Wang, Hanli; Kwong, Sam

2012-04-01

In this paper, we investigate the issues over the smooth quality and the smooth bit rate during rate control (RC) in H.264/AVC. An adaptive quantization-parameter (Q(p)) clip scheme is proposed to optimize the quality smoothness while keeping the bit-rate fluctuation at an acceptable level. First, the frame complexity variation is studied by defining a complexity ratio between two nearby frames. Second, the range of the generated bits is analyzed to prevent the encoder buffer from overflow and underflow. Third, based on the safe range of the generated bits, an optimal Q(p) clip range is developed to reduce the quality fluctuation. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed Q(p) clip scheme can achieve excellent performance in quality smoothness and buffer regulation.

Effects of drugs and ionic variations on contractions of rat smooth ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The result of this suggests that as membrane depolarisation increases contraction in Rat Vas Deferens smooth muscle declined, while Verapamil and Nifedipine were more sensitive in blocking K+ than Ach and NA induced contractions. Keywords: Smooth muscle, Ileum, Stomach strip, Vas deferens, Contractions, Rat.

EMMPRIN (CD147) Expression in Smooth Muscle Tumors of the Uterus.

Science.gov (United States)

Kefeli, Mehmet; Yildiz, Levent; Gun, Seda; Ozen, Fatma Z; Karagoz, Filiz

2016-01-01

Smooth muscle tumors of the uterus are the most common mesenchymal tumors of the gynecologic tract. The vast majority of these are benign leiomyomas that present no diagnostic difficulty. Because some benign smooth muscle tumors may degenerate and uncommon variants exist, the diagnosis can be challenging in some cases. The goal of this research was to investigate EMMPRIN expression in leiomyomas, leiomyoma variants, and leiomyosarcomas (LMS) to determine whether it has a potential role in differential diagnosis. EMMPRIN expression was investigated with immunohistochemistry in 103 uterine smooth muscle tumors, which included 19 usual leiomyomas, 52 leiomyoma variants, and 32 LMS. They were evaluated on the basis of staining extent, intensity, and also their combined score, and the groups were compared. EMMPRIN expression was present in 3 of 19 (15.7%) usual leiomyomas, 23 of 52 (44.3%) leiomyoma variants, and 28 of 32 (87.5%) LMS. There were statistically significant differences in staining extent and intensity, and also for their combined scores, between the LMS and benign groups. Although uterine smooth muscle tumors are usually diagnosed easily with conventional diagnostic criteria, the differentiation of LMS from some variants of leiomyoma can be challenging based soley on morphology. EMMPRIN may be a valuable immunohistochemical marker for differentiating LMS from benign smooth muscle tumors in problematic cases.

Smooth Maps of a Foliated Manifold in a Symplectic Manifold

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Let be a smooth manifold with a regular foliation F and a 2-form which induces closed forms on the leaves of F in the leaf topology. A smooth map f : ( M , F ) ⟶ ( N , ) in a symplectic manifold ( N , ) is called a foliated symplectic immersion if restricts to an immersion on each leaf of the foliation and further, the ...

WaVPeak: Picking NMR peaks through wavelet-based smoothing and volume-based filtering

KAUST Repository

Liu, Zhi

2012-02-10

Motivation: Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been widely used as a powerful tool to determine the 3D structures of proteins in vivo. However, the post-spectra processing stage of NMR structure determination usually involves a tremendous amount of time and expert knowledge, which includes peak picking, chemical shift assignment and structure calculation steps. Detecting accurate peaks from the NMR spectra is a prerequisite for all following steps, and thus remains a key problem in automatic NMR structure determination. Results: We introduce WaVPeak, a fully automatic peak detection method. WaVPeak first smoothes the given NMR spectrum by wavelets. The peaks are then identified as the local maxima. The false positive peaks are filtered out efficiently by considering the volume of the peaks. WaVPeak has two major advantages over the state-of-the-art peak-picking methods. First, through wavelet-based smoothing, WaVPeak does not eliminate any data point in the spectra. Therefore, WaVPeak is able to detect weak peaks that are embedded in the noise level. NMR spectroscopists need the most help isolating these weak peaks. Second, WaVPeak estimates the volume of the peaks to filter the false positives. This is more reliable than intensity-based filters that are widely used in existing methods. We evaluate the performance of WaVPeak on the benchmark set proposed by PICKY (Alipanahi et al., 2009), one of the most accurate methods in the literature. The dataset comprises 32 2D and 3D spectra from eight different proteins. Experimental results demonstrate that WaVPeak achieves an average of 96%, 91%, 88%, 76% and 85% recall on 15N-HSQC, HNCO, HNCA, HNCACB and CBCA(CO)NH, respectively. When the same number of peaks are considered, WaVPeak significantly outperforms PICKY. The Author(s) 2012. Published by Oxford University Press.

Cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle mitochondrial respiration: are all mitochondria created equal?

Science.gov (United States)

Park, Song-Young; Gifford, Jayson R; Andtbacka, Robert H I; Trinity, Joel D; Hyngstrom, John R; Garten, Ryan S; Diakos, Nikolaos A; Ives, Stephen J; Dela, Flemming; Larsen, Steen; Drakos, Stavros; Richardson, Russell S

2014-08-01

Unlike cardiac and skeletal muscle, little is known about vascular smooth muscle mitochondrial respiration. Therefore, the present study examined mitochondrial respiratory rates in smooth muscle of healthy human feed arteries and compared with that of healthy cardiac and skeletal muscles. Cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscles were harvested from a total of 22 subjects (53 ± 6 yr), and mitochondrial respiration was assessed in permeabilized fibers. Complex I + II, state 3 respiration, an index of oxidative phosphorylation capacity, fell progressively from cardiac to skeletal to smooth muscles (54 ± 1, 39 ± 4, and 15 ± 1 pmol·s(-1)·mg(-1), P respiration rates were normalized by CS (respiration per mitochondrial content), oxidative phosphorylation capacity was no longer different between the three muscle types. Interestingly, complex I state 2 normalized for CS activity, an index of nonphosphorylating respiration per mitochondrial content, increased progressively from cardiac to skeletal to smooth muscles, such that the respiratory control ratio, state 3/state 2 respiration, fell progressively from cardiac to skeletal to smooth muscles (5.3 ± 0.7, 3.2 ± 0.4, and 1.6 ± 0.3 pmol·s(-1)·mg(-1), P respiration highlight the existence of intrinsic functional differences between these muscle mitochondria. This likely influences the efficiency of oxidative phosphorylation and could potentially alter ROS production.

A Smooth Tour Construction Approach for a Mobile Robot with Kinematic Constraints

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahmet Yazici

2013-10-01

Full Text Available Mobile robots are increasingly used for service-like applications in which the service points are known and the mobile robot starts from a starting location, visits all the service points requested and returns to the starting location. The tour construction problem in these applications can be treated as a Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP. Classical tour construction algorithms that are proposed for the TSP find tours do not consider robot kinematic constraints. These tours may have sharp turns at some service points. When a mobile robot follows such a tour, it stops, turns and speeds up again. Therefore, the robots waste a considerable amount of power and time. In these cases, tour smoothing can be used to overcome this problem. However, smoothing an existing tour may result in unnecessarily long tours. In this study, a Smooth Tour Construction (STC approach is proposed for mobile robots with kinematic constraints. The STC approach considers tour construction and tour smoothing concurrently. The logic behind the tour construction part of the approach is based on the Savings Algorithm (SA. The tour smoothing is based on Dubins' arc-line approach. Experiments are conducted for P3-DX robots in a laboratory environment. Comparisons are also drawn with various tour smoothing algorithms in simulation environments to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed STC approach.

Dense-body aggregates as plastic structures supporting tension in smooth muscle cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jie; Herrera, Ana M; Paré, Peter D; Seow, Chun Y

2010-11-01

The wall of hollow organs of vertebrates is a unique structure able to generate active tension and maintain a nearly constant passive stiffness over a large volume range. These properties are predominantly attributable to the smooth muscle cells that line the organ wall. Although smooth muscle is known to possess plasticity (i.e., the ability to adapt to large changes in cell length through structural remodeling of contractile apparatus and cytoskeleton), the detailed structural basis for the plasticity is largely unknown. Dense bodies, one of the most prominent structures in smooth muscle cells, have been regarded as the anchoring sites for actin filaments, similar to the Z-disks in striated muscle. Here, we show that the dense bodies and intermediate filaments formed cable-like structures inside airway smooth muscle cells and were able to adjust the cable length according to cell length and tension. Stretching the muscle cell bundle in the relaxed state caused the cables to straighten, indicating that these intracellular structures were connected to the extracellular matrix and could support passive tension. These plastic structures may be responsible for the ability of smooth muscle to maintain a nearly constant tensile stiffness over a large length range. The finding suggests that the structural plasticity of hollow organs may originate from the dense-body cables within the smooth muscle cells.

Finishing aeronautical planetary herringbone gear wheels in container vibrating smoothing machine

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jacek MICHALSKI

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The paper presents the technological process of abrasive-chemical machining wheel bearing surface of the cylindrical herringbone gears planetary gear in vibrating container smoothing machine according to Isotropic Finishing ISF® technology of the REM Chemicals Inc. company. Gear wheels are made of stainless Pyrowear 53 and subjected to carburizing, hardening, cold working and low tempering. The change in value of deviation indicators for the kinematic accuracy, smoothness and geometric structure of the machined surfaces of the gear teeth after smoothing compared with the contoured grinding were analyzed. The findings are different a characteristic performance on the surface of the tooth side along the outline, especially with a higher value at the head of the tooths. This creates a need for appropriate modification of the lateral surface of the teeth in the process of contoured grinding. The results of the mechanical strength of the samples gear wheel after the smoothing process and evaluating the hydrogen embrittlement are presented.

Smooth Nb surfaces fabricated by buffered electropolishing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Andy T.; Mammosser, John; Phillips, Larry; Delayen, Jean; Reece, Charles; Wilkerson, Amy; Smith, David; Ike, Robert

2007-01-01

It was demonstrated that smooth Nb surfaces could be obtained through buffered electropolishing (BEP) employing an electrolyte consisting of lactic, sulfuric, and hydrofluoric acids. Parameters that control the polishing process were optimized to achieve a smooth surface finish. The polishing rate of BEP was determined to be 0.646 μm/min which was much higher than 0.381 μm/min achieved by the conventional electropolishing (EP) process widely used in the superconducting radio frequency (SRF) community. Root mean square measurements using a 3D profilometer revealed that Nb surfaces treated by BEP were an order of magnitude smoother than those treated by the optimized EP process. The chemical composition of the Nb surfaces after BEP was analyzed by static and dynamic secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) systems. SIMS results implied that the surface oxide structure of Nb might be more complicated than what usually believed and could be inhomogeneous. Preliminary results of BEP on Nb SRF single cell cavities and half-cells were reported. It was shown that smooth and bright surfaces could be obtained in 1800 s when the electric field inside a SRF cavity was uniform during a BEP process. This study showed that BEP is a promising technique for surface treatment on Nb SRF cavities to be used in particle accelerators

Parametric inference for stochastic differential equations: a smooth and match approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gugushvili, S.; Spreij, P.

2012-01-01

We study the problem of parameter estimation for a univariate discretely observed ergodic diffusion process given as a solution to a stochastic differential equation. The estimation procedure we propose consists of two steps. In the first step, which is referred to as a smoothing step, we smooth the

The small GTPase Rac1 is required for smooth muscle contraction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rahman, Awahan; Davis, Benjamin; Lövdahl, Cecilia

2014-01-01

The role of the small GTP-binding protein Rac1 in smooth muscle contraction was examined using small molecule inhibitors (EHT1864, NSC23766) and a novel smooth muscle-specific, conditional, Rac1 knockout mouse strain. EHT1864, which affects nucleotide binding and inhibits Rac1 activity, concentra...

Multiple predictor smoothing methods for sensitivity analysis: Example results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Storlie, Curtis B.; Helton, Jon C.

2008-01-01

The use of multiple predictor smoothing methods in sampling-based sensitivity analyses of complex models is investigated. Specifically, sensitivity analysis procedures based on smoothing methods employing the stepwise application of the following nonparametric regression techniques are described in the first part of this presentation: (i) locally weighted regression (LOESS), (ii) additive models, (iii) projection pursuit regression, and (iv) recursive partitioning regression. In this, the second and concluding part of the presentation, the indicated procedures are illustrated with both simple test problems and results from a performance assessment for a radioactive waste disposal facility (i.e., the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). As shown by the example illustrations, the use of smoothing procedures based on nonparametric regression techniques can yield more informative sensitivity analysis results than can be obtained with more traditional sensitivity analysis procedures based on linear regression, rank regression or quadratic regression when nonlinear relationships between model inputs and model predictions are present

Border-Collision Bifurcations and Chaotic Oscillations in a Piecewise-Smooth Dynamical System

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zhusubaliyev, Z.T.; Soukhoterin, E.A.; Mosekilde, Erik

2002-01-01

Many problems of engineering and applied science result in the consideration of piecewise-smooth dynamical systems. Examples are relay and pulse-width control systems, impact oscillators, power converters, and various electronic circuits with piecewise-smooth characteristics. The subject...... of investigation in the present paper is the dynamical model of a constant voltage converter which represents a three-dimensional piecewise-smooth system of nonautonomous differential equations. A specific type of phenomena that arise in the dynamics of piecewise-smooth systems are the so-called border......-collision bifurcations. The paper contains a detailed analysis of this type of bifurcational transition in the dynamics of the voltage converter, in particular, the merging and subsequent disappearance of cycles of different types, change of solution type, and period-doubling, -tripling, -quadrupling and -quintupling...

Smooth maps of a foliated manifold in a symplectic manifold

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Abstract. Let M be a smooth manifold with a regular foliation F and a 2-form ω which induces closed forms on the leaves of F in the leaf topology. A smooth map f : (M, F) −→ (N,σ) in a symplectic manifold (N,σ) is called a foliated symplectic immersion if f restricts to an immersion on each leaf of the foliation and further, the.

Identification and characterization of novel smoothelin isoforms in vascular smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Krämer, J; Quensel, C; Meding, J; Cardoso, M C; Leonhardt, H

2001-01-01

Smoothelin is a cytoskeletal protein specifically expressed in differentiated smooth muscle cells and has been shown to colocalize with smooth muscle alpha actin. In addition to the small smoothelin isoform of 59 kD, we recently identified a large smoothelin isoform of 117 kD. The aim of this study was to identify and characterize novel smoothelin isoforms. The genomic structure and sequence of the smoothelin gene were determined by genomic PCR, RT-PCR and DNA sequencing. Comparison of the cDNA and genomic sequences shows that the small smoothelin isoform is generated by transcription initiation 10 kb downstream of the start site of the large isoform. In addition to the known smoothelin cDNA (c1 isoform) we identified two novel cDNA variants (c2 and c3 isoform) that are generated by alternative splicing within a region, which shows similarity to the spectrin family of F-actin cross-linking proteins. Visceral organs express the c1 form, while the c2 form prevails in well-vascularized tissue as analyzed by RT-PCR. We then generated specific antibodies against the major smoothelin isoforms and could show by Western blotting and immunohistochemistry that the large isoform is specifically expressed in vascular smooth muscle cells, while the small isoform is abundant in visceral smooth muscle. These results strongly suggest that the smoothelin gene contains a vascular and a visceral smooth muscle promoter. The cell-type-specific expression of smoothelin isoforms that are associated with actin filaments may play a role in the modulation of the contractile properties of different smooth muscle cell types. Copyright 2001 S. Karger AG, Basel

Evidence Supports Tradition: The in Vitro Effects of Roman Chamomile on Smooth Muscles

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zsolt Sándor

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The dried flowers of Chamaemelum nobile (L. All. have been used in traditional medicine for different conditions related to the spasm of the gastrointestinal system. However, there have been no experimental studies to support the smooth muscle relaxant effect of this plant. The aim of our research was to assess the effects of the hydroethanolic extract of Roman chamomile, its fractions, four of its flavonoids (apigenin, luteolin, hispidulin, and eupafolin, and its essential oil on smooth muscles. The phytochemical compositions of the extract and its fractions were characterized and quantified by HPLC-DAD, the essential oil was characterized by GC and GC-MS. Neuronally mediated and smooth muscle effects were tested in isolated organ bath experiments on guinea pig, rat, and human smooth muscle preparations. The crude herbal extract induced an immediate, moderate, and transient contraction of guinea pig ileum via the activation of cholinergic neurons of the gut wall. Purinoceptor and serotonin receptor antagonists did not influence this effect. The more sustained relaxant effect of the extract, measured after pre-contraction of the preparations, was remarkable and was not affected by an adrenergic beta receptor antagonist. The smooth muscle-relaxant activity was found to be associated with the flavonoid content of the fractions. The essential oil showed only the relaxant effect, but no contracting activity. The smooth muscle-relaxant effect was also detected on rat gastrointestinal tissues, as well as on strip preparations of human small intestine. These results suggest that Roman chamomile extract has a direct and prolonged smooth muscle-relaxant effect on guinea pig ileum which is related to its flavonoid content. In some preparations, a transient stimulation of enteric cholinergic motoneurons was also detected. The essential oil also had a remarkable smooth muscle relaxant effect in this setting. Similar relaxant effects were also detected on

Evidence Supports Tradition: The in Vitro Effects of Roman Chamomile on Smooth Muscles.

Science.gov (United States)

Sándor, Zsolt; Mottaghipisheh, Javad; Veres, Katalin; Hohmann, Judit; Bencsik, Tímea; Horváth, Attila; Kelemen, Dezső; Papp, Róbert; Barthó, Loránd; Csupor, Dezső

2018-01-01

The dried flowers of Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. have been used in traditional medicine for different conditions related to the spasm of the gastrointestinal system. However, there have been no experimental studies to support the smooth muscle relaxant effect of this plant. The aim of our research was to assess the effects of the hydroethanolic extract of Roman chamomile, its fractions, four of its flavonoids (apigenin, luteolin, hispidulin, and eupafolin), and its essential oil on smooth muscles. The phytochemical compositions of the extract and its fractions were characterized and quantified by HPLC-DAD, the essential oil was characterized by GC and GC-MS. Neuronally mediated and smooth muscle effects were tested in isolated organ bath experiments on guinea pig, rat, and human smooth muscle preparations. The crude herbal extract induced an immediate, moderate, and transient contraction of guinea pig ileum via the activation of cholinergic neurons of the gut wall. Purinoceptor and serotonin receptor antagonists did not influence this effect. The more sustained relaxant effect of the extract, measured after pre-contraction of the preparations, was remarkable and was not affected by an adrenergic beta receptor antagonist. The smooth muscle-relaxant activity was found to be associated with the flavonoid content of the fractions. The essential oil showed only the relaxant effect, but no contracting activity. The smooth muscle-relaxant effect was also detected on rat gastrointestinal tissues, as well as on strip preparations of human small intestine. These results suggest that Roman chamomile extract has a direct and prolonged smooth muscle-relaxant effect on guinea pig ileum which is related to its flavonoid content. In some preparations, a transient stimulation of enteric cholinergic motoneurons was also detected. The essential oil also had a remarkable smooth muscle relaxant effect in this setting. Similar relaxant effects were also detected on other visceral

A Non-smooth Newton Method for Multibody Dynamics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Erleben, K.; Ortiz, R.

2008-01-01

In this paper we deal with the simulation of rigid bodies. Rigid body dynamics have become very important for simulating rigid body motion in interactive applications, such as computer games or virtual reality. We present a novel way of computing contact forces using a Newton method. The contact problem is reformulated as a system of non-linear and non-smooth equations, and we solve this system using a non-smooth version of Newton's method. One of the main contribution of this paper is the reformulation of the complementarity problems, used to model impacts, as a system of equations that can be solved using traditional methods.

A Smoothed Finite Element-Based Elasticity Model for Soft Bodies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juan Zhang

2017-01-01

Full Text Available One of the major challenges in mesh-based deformation simulation in computer graphics is to deal with mesh distortion. In this paper, we present a novel mesh-insensitive and softer method for simulating deformable solid bodies under the assumptions of linear elastic mechanics. A face-based strain smoothing method is adopted to alleviate mesh distortion instead of the traditional spatial adaptive smoothing method. Then, we propose a way to combine the strain smoothing method and the corotational method. With this approach, the amplitude and frequency of transient displacements are slightly affected by the distorted mesh. Realistic simulation results are generated under large rotation using a linear elasticity model without adding significant complexity or computational cost to the standard corotational FEM. Meanwhile, softening effect is a by-product of our method.

Universal spectrum data analysis program for microsoft windows

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hao, F.; Cai, Z.; Wang, H.

1993-01-01

We have developed a universal spectrum analysis and characterization program the Microsoft Windows environment. This sophisticated and easy to use software package can be employed in many areas for spectra data analysis, parametrization and line profile recognition. Spectra can for example be smoothed, calibrated and transformed from the laboratory frame to the projectile frame and background can be subtracted by using cubic spline functions or exponential functions. Up to 10 peaks and 40 different parameters can be fitted simultaneously either automatically by least squares routines or manually by system interactive devices. Line profiles include triangular, Gaussian, Lorentzian, Fano, Shore, post collisonal interactions functions etc., and also can be easily expanded to virtually any nonlinear fitting function. In addition, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) routines allow users to convolute, deconvolute or Fourier analyze complex spectral patterns. Specifically this program has been applied for high resolution electron- and photon emission spectra following electron or ion collision with gaseous targets. Some examples for data evaluation will be presented

Eye features in three Danish patients with multisystemic smooth muscle dysfunction syndrome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Moller, Hans Ulrik; Fledelius, Hans C; Milewicz, Dianna M

2012-01-01

A de novo mutation of the ACTA2 gene encoding the smooth muscle cell α-actin has been established in patients with multisystemic smooth muscle dysfunction syndrome associated with patent ductus arteriosus and mydriasis present at birth....

Trajectory generation algorithm for smooth movement of a hybrid-type robot Rocker-Pillar

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Jung, Seung Min; Choi, Dong Kyu; Kim, Jong Won [School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Hwa Soo [Dept. of Mechanical System Engineering, Kyonggi University, Suwon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-11-15

While traveling on rough terrain, smooth movement of a mobile robot plays an important role in carrying out the given tasks successfully. This paper describes the trajectory generation algorithm for smooth movement of hybrid-type mobile robot Rocker-Pillar by adjusting the angular velocity of its caterpillar as well as each wheel velocity in such a manner to minimize a proper index for smoothness. To this end, a new Smoothness index (SI) is first suggested to evaluate the smoothness of movement of Rocker-Pillar. Then, the trajectory generation algorithm is proposed to reduce the undesired oscillations of its Center of mass (CoM). The experiment are performed to examine the movement of Rocker-Pillar climbing up the step whose height is twice larger than its wheel radius. It is verified that the resulting SI is improved by more than 40 % so that the movement of Rocker-Pillar becomes much smoother by the proposed trajectory algorithm.

Did you smooth your well logs the right way for seismic interpretation?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Duchesne, Mathieu J; Gaillot, Philippe

2011-01-01

Correlations between physical properties and seismic reflection data are useful to determine the geological nature of seismic reflections and the lateral extent of geological strata. The difference in resolution between well logs and seismic data is a major hurdle faced by seismic interpreters when tying both data sets. In general, log data have a resolution of at least two orders of magnitude greater than seismic data. Smoothing physical property logs improves correlation at the seismic scale. Three different approaches were used and compared to smooth a density log: binomial filtering, seismic wavelet filtering and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) filtering. Regression plots between the density logs and the acoustic impedance show that the data smoothed with the DWT is the only method that preserves the original relationship between the raw density data and the acoustic impedance. Smoothed logs were then used to generate synthetic seismograms that were tied to seismic data at the borehole site. Best ties were achieved using the synthetic seismogram computed with the density log processed with the DWT. The good performance of the DWT is explained by its adaptive multi-scale characteristic which preserved significant local changes of density on the high-resolution data series that were also pictured at the seismic scale. Since synthetic seismograms are generated using smoothed logs, the choice of the smoothing method impacts on the quality of seismic-to-well ties. This ultimately can have economical implications during hydrocarbon exploration or exploitation phases

Smoothness in Banach spaces. Selected problems

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Fabian, Marián; Montesinos, V.; Zizler, Václav

2006-01-01

Roč. 100, č. 2 (2006), s. 101-125 ISSN 1578-7303 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA201/04/0090; GA AV ČR(CZ) IAA100190610 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : smooth norm * renorming * weakly compactly generated space Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics

Ion bombardment induced smoothing of amorphous metallic surfaces: Experiments versus computer simulations

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vauth, Sebastian; Mayr, S. G.

2008-01-01

Smoothing of rough amorphous metallic surfaces by bombardment with heavy ions in the low keV regime is investigated by a combined experimental-simulational study. Vapor deposited rough amorphous Zr 65 Al 7.5 Cu 27.5 films are the basis for systematic in situ scanning tunneling microscopy measurements on the smoothing reaction due to 3 keV Kr + ion bombardment. The experimental results are directly compared to the predictions of a multiscale simulation approach, which incorporates stochastic rate equations of the Langevin type in combination with previously reported classical molecular dynamics simulations [Phys. Rev. B 75, 224107 (2007)] to model surface smoothing across length and time scales. The combined approach of experiments and simulations clearly corroborates a key role of ion induced viscous flow and ballistic effects in low keV heavy ion induced smoothing of amorphous metallic surfaces at ambient temperatures

Smoothing by spectral dispersion using random phase modulation for inertial confinement fusion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rothenberg, J.E.

1995-01-01

Numerical simulations of beam smoothing using random phase modulation and grating dispersion are presented. Spatial spectra of the target illumination show that significantly improved smoothing at low spatial frequency is achieved while maintaining uniform intensity in the laser amplifier

Implementation of mobile ip smooth handoff in wireless networks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kayastha, M.; Chowdhry, B.S.; Memon, A.R.

2002-01-01

This paper describes implementation of mobile IP services in two separate wireless LANs based on IEEE 802.11b standards, located in two distant buildings of a university campus. The purpose of the project was to achieve smooth hand-off when a mobile node moves between the two LANs. During our experimentation we have identified some of the limitation of IEEE 802.11b that affects mobile 1P smooth hand off. We have also proposed an algorithm to solve this problem when the mobility is within a limited number of separate wireless LANs. (author)

Adult Autism Subthreshold Spectrum (AdAS Spectrum): Validation of a questionnaire investigating subthreshold autism spectrum.

Science.gov (United States)

Dell'Osso, L; Gesi, C; Massimetti, E; Cremone, I M; Barbuti, M; Maccariello, G; Moroni, I; Barlati, S; Castellini, G; Luciano, M; Bossini, L; Rocchetti, M; Signorelli, M; Aguglia, E; Fagiolini, A; Politi, P; Ricca, V; Vita, A; Carmassi, C; Maj, M

2017-02-01

Increasing literature has shown the usefulness of a dimensional approach to autism. The present study aimed to determine the psychometric properties of the Adult Autism Subthreshold Spectrum (AdAS Spectrum), a new questionnaire specifically tailored to assess subthreshold forms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in adulthood. 102 adults endorsing at least one DSM-5 symptom criterion for ASD (ASDc), 143 adults diagnosed with a feeding and eating disorder (FED), and 160 subjects with no mental disorders (CTL), were recruited from 7 Italian University Departments of Psychiatry and administered the following: SCID-5, Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), Ritvo Autism and Asperger Diagnostic Scale 14-item version (RAADS-14), and AdAS Spectrum. The AdAS Spectrum demonstrated excellent internal consistency for the total score (Kuder-Richardson's coefficient=.964) as well as for five out of seven domains (all coefficients>.80) and sound test-retest reliability (ICC=.976). The total and domain AdAS Spectrum scores showed a moderate to strong (>.50) positive correlation with one another and with the AQ and RAADS-14 total scores. ASDc subjects reported significantly higher AdAS Spectrum total scores than both FED (pcriteria (FED 0 ) and those with one ASD symptom criterion (FED 1 ) , a gradient of severity in AdAS Spectrum scores from CTL subjects to ASD patients, across FED 0 , ASD 1 , FED 1 was shown. The AdAS Spectrum showed excellent internal consistency and test-retest reliability and strong convergent validity with alternative dimensional measures of ASD. The questionnaire performed differently among the three diagnostic groups and enlightened some significant effects of gender in the expression of autistic traits. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Local smoothness for global optical flow

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rakêt, Lars Lau

2012-01-01

by this technique and work on local-global optical flow we propose a simple method for fusing optical flow estimates of different smoothness by evaluating interpolation quality locally by means of L1 block match on the corresponding set of gradient images. We illustrate the method in a setting where optical flows...

Turbulence Intensity and the Friction Factor for Smooth- and Rough-Wall Pipe Flow

OpenAIRE

Nils T. Basse

2017-01-01

Turbulence intensity profiles are compared for smooth- and rough-wall pipe flow measurements made in the Princeton Superpipe. The profile development in the transition from hydraulically smooth to fully rough flow displays a propagating sequence from the pipe wall towards the pipe axis. The scaling of turbulence intensity with Reynolds number shows that the smooth- and rough wall level deviates with increasing Reynolds number. We quantify the correspondence between turbulence intensity and th...

Fast Diffusion to Self-Similarity: Complete Spectrum, Long-Time Asymptotics, and Numerology

Science.gov (United States)

Denzler, Jochen; McCann, Robert J.

2005-03-01

The complete spectrum is determined for the operator on the Sobolev space W1,2ρ(Rn) formed by closing the smooth functions of compact support with respect to the norm Here the Barenblatt profile ρ is the stationary attractor of the rescaled diffusion equation in the fast, supercritical regime m the same diffusion dynamics represent the steepest descent down an entropy E(u) on probability measures with respect to the Wasserstein distance d2. Formally, the operator H=HessρE is the Hessian of this entropy at its minimum ρ, so the spectral gap H≧α:=2-n(1-m) found below suggests the sharp rate of asymptotic convergence: from any centered initial data 0≦u(0,x) ∈ L1(Rn) with second moments. This bound improves various results in the literature, and suggests the conjecture that the self-similar solution u(t,x)=R(t)-nρ(x/R(t)) is always slowest to converge. The higher eigenfunctions which are polynomials with hypergeometric radial parts and the presence of continuous spectrum yield additional insight into the relations between symmetries of Rn and the flow. Thus the rate of convergence can be improved if we are willing to replace the distance to ρ with the distance to its nearest mass-preserving dilation (or still better, affine image). The strange numerology of the spectrum is explained in terms of the number of moments of ρ.

A Meshfree Cell-based Smoothed Point Interpolation Method for Solid Mechanics Problems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang Guiyong; Liu Guirong

2010-01-01

In the framework of a weakened weak (W 2 ) formulation using a generalized gradient smoothing operation, this paper introduces a novel meshfree cell-based smoothed point interpolation method (CS-PIM) for solid mechanics problems. The W 2 formulation seeks solutions from a normed G space which includes both continuous and discontinuous functions and allows the use of much more types of methods to create shape functions for numerical methods. When PIM shape functions are used, the functions constructed are in general not continuous over the entire problem domain and hence are not compatible. Such an interpolation is not in a traditional H 1 space, but in a G 1 space. By introducing the generalized gradient smoothing operation properly, the requirement on function is now further weakened upon the already weakened requirement for functions in a H 1 space and G 1 space can be viewed as a space of functions with weakened weak (W 2 ) requirement on continuity. The cell-based smoothed point interpolation method (CS-PIM) is formulated based on the W 2 formulation, in which displacement field is approximated using the PIM shape functions, which possess the Kronecker delta property facilitating the enforcement of essential boundary conditions [3]. The gradient (strain) field is constructed by the generalized gradient smoothing operation within the cell-based smoothing domains, which are exactly the triangular background cells. A W 2 formulation of generalized smoothed Galerkin (GS-Galerkin) weak form is used to derive the discretized system equations. It was found that the CS-PIM possesses the following attractive properties: (1) It is very easy to implement and works well with the simplest linear triangular mesh without introducing additional degrees of freedom; (2) it is at least linearly conforming; (3) this method is temporally stable and works well for dynamic analysis; (4) it possesses a close-to-exact stiffness, which is much softer than the overly-stiff FEM model and

Suppression of stochastic pulsation in laser-plasma interaction by smoothing methods

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hora, H.; Aydin, M.

1992-01-01

The control of the very complex behavior of a plasma with laser interaction by smoothing with induced spatial incoherence or other methods was related to improving the lateral uniformity of the irradiation. While this is important, it is shown from numerical hydrodynamic studies that the very strong temporal pulsation (stuttering) will mostly be suppressed by these smoothing methods too

A subpopulation of smooth muscle cells, derived from melanocyte-competent precursors, prevents patent ductus arteriosus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ichiro Yajima

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Patent ductus arteriosus is a life-threatening condition frequent in premature newborns but also present in some term infants. Current mouse models of this malformation generally lead to perinatal death, not reproducing the full phenotypic spectrum in humans, in whom genetic inheritance appears complex. The ductus arteriosus (DA, a temporary fetal vessel that bypasses the lungs by shunting the aortic arch to the pulmonary artery, is constituted by smooth muscle cells of distinct origins (SMC1 and SMC2 and many fewer melanocytes. To understand novel mechanisms preventing DA closure at birth, we evaluated the importance of cell fate specification in SMC that form the DA during embryonic development. Upon specific Tyr::Cre-driven activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling at the time of cell fate specification, melanocytes replaced the SMC2 population of the DA, suggesting that SMC2 and melanocytes have a common precursor. The number of SMC1 in the DA remained similar to that in controls, but insufficient to allow full DA closure at birth. Thus, there was no cellular compensation by SMC1 for the loss of SMC2. Mice in which only melanocytes were genetically ablated after specification from their potential common precursor with SMC2, demonstrated that differentiated melanocytes themselves do not affect DA closure. Loss of the SMC2 population, independent of the presence of melanocytes, is therefore a cause of patent ductus arteriosus and premature death in the first months of life. Our results indicate that patent ductus arteriosus can result from the insufficient differentiation, proliferation, or contractility of a specific smooth muscle subpopulation that shares a common neural crest precursor with cardiovascular melanocytes.

A Subpopulation of Smooth Muscle Cells, Derived from Melanocyte-Competent Precursors, Prevents Patent Ductus Arteriosus

Science.gov (United States)

Puig, Isabel; Champeval, Delphine; Kumasaka, Mayuko; Belloir, Elodie; Bonaventure, Jacky; Mark, Manuel; Yamamoto, Hiroaki; Taketo, Mark M.; Choquet, Philippe; Etchevers, Heather C.; Beermann, Friedrich; Delmas, Véronique; Monassier, Laurent; Larue, Lionel

2013-01-01

Background Patent ductus arteriosus is a life-threatening condition frequent in premature newborns but also present in some term infants. Current mouse models of this malformation generally lead to perinatal death, not reproducing the full phenotypic spectrum in humans, in whom genetic inheritance appears complex. The ductus arteriosus (DA), a temporary fetal vessel that bypasses the lungs by shunting the aortic arch to the pulmonary artery, is constituted by smooth muscle cells of distinct origins (SMC1 and SMC2) and many fewer melanocytes. To understand novel mechanisms preventing DA closure at birth, we evaluated the importance of cell fate specification in SMC that form the DA during embryonic development. Upon specific Tyr::Cre-driven activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling at the time of cell fate specification, melanocytes replaced the SMC2 population of the DA, suggesting that SMC2 and melanocytes have a common precursor. The number of SMC1 in the DA remained similar to that in controls, but insufficient to allow full DA closure at birth. Thus, there was no cellular compensation by SMC1 for the loss of SMC2. Mice in which only melanocytes were genetically ablated after specification from their potential common precursor with SMC2, demonstrated that differentiated melanocytes themselves do not affect DA closure. Loss of the SMC2 population, independent of the presence of melanocytes, is therefore a cause of patent ductus arteriosus and premature death in the first months of life. Our results indicate that patent ductus arteriosus can result from the insufficient differentiation, proliferation, or contractility of a specific smooth muscle subpopulation that shares a common neural crest precursor with cardiovascular melanocytes. PMID:23382837

Smooth Muscle-Like Cells Generated from Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Display Marker Gene Expression and Electrophysiological Competence Comparable to Bladder Smooth Muscle Cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Brun, Juliane; Lutz, Katrin A; Neumayer, Katharina M H; Klein, Gerd; Seeger, Tanja; Uynuk-Ool, Tatiana; Wörgötter, Katharina; Schmid, Sandra; Kraushaar, Udo; Guenther, Elke; Rolauffs, Bernd; Aicher, Wilhelm K; Hart, Melanie L

2015-01-01

The use of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) differentiated toward a smooth muscle cell (SMC) phenotype may provide an alternative for investigators interested in regenerating urinary tract organs such as the bladder where autologous smooth muscle cells cannot be used or are unavailable. In this study we measured the effects of good manufacturing practice (GMP)-compliant expansion followed by myogenic differentiation of human MSCs on the expression of a range of contractile (from early to late) myogenic markers in relation to the electrophysiological parameters to assess the functional role of the differentiated MSCs and found that differentiation of MSCs associated with electrophysiological competence comparable to bladder SMCs. Within 1-2 weeks of myogenic differentiation, differentiating MSCs significantly expressed alpha smooth muscle actin (αSMA; ACTA2), transgelin (TAGLN), calponin (CNN1), and smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC; MYH11) according to qRT-PCR and/or immunofluorescence and Western blot. Voltage-gated Na+ current levels also increased within the same time period following myogenic differentiation. In contrast to undifferentiated MSCs, differentiated MSCs and bladder SMCs exhibited elevated cytosolic Ca2+ transients in response to K+-induced depolarization and contracted in response to K+ indicating functional maturation of differentiated MSCs. Depolarization was suppressed by Cd2+, an inhibitor of voltage-gated Ca2+-channels. The expression of Na+-channels was pharmacologically identified as the Nav1.4 subtype, while the K+ and Ca2+ ion channels were identified by gene expression of KCNMA1, CACNA1C and CACNA1H which encode for the large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel BKCa channels, Cav1.2 L-type Ca2+ channels and Cav3.2 T-type Ca2+ channels, respectively. This protocol may be used to differentiate adult MSCs into smooth muscle-like cells with an intermediate-to-late SMC contractile phenotype exhibiting voltage-gated ion channel

Smooth Muscle-Like Cells Generated from Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Display Marker Gene Expression and Electrophysiological Competence Comparable to Bladder Smooth Muscle Cells.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Juliane Brun

Full Text Available The use of mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs differentiated toward a smooth muscle cell (SMC phenotype may provide an alternative for investigators interested in regenerating urinary tract organs such as the bladder where autologous smooth muscle cells cannot be used or are unavailable. In this study we measured the effects of good manufacturing practice (GMP-compliant expansion followed by myogenic differentiation of human MSCs on the expression of a range of contractile (from early to late myogenic markers in relation to the electrophysiological parameters to assess the functional role of the differentiated MSCs and found that differentiation of MSCs associated with electrophysiological competence comparable to bladder SMCs. Within 1-2 weeks of myogenic differentiation, differentiating MSCs significantly expressed alpha smooth muscle actin (αSMA; ACTA2, transgelin (TAGLN, calponin (CNN1, and smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC; MYH11 according to qRT-PCR and/or immunofluorescence and Western blot. Voltage-gated Na+ current levels also increased within the same time period following myogenic differentiation. In contrast to undifferentiated MSCs, differentiated MSCs and bladder SMCs exhibited elevated cytosolic Ca2+ transients in response to K+-induced depolarization and contracted in response to K+ indicating functional maturation of differentiated MSCs. Depolarization was suppressed by Cd2+, an inhibitor of voltage-gated Ca2+-channels. The expression of Na+-channels was pharmacologically identified as the Nav1.4 subtype, while the K+ and Ca2+ ion channels were identified by gene expression of KCNMA1, CACNA1C and CACNA1H which encode for the large conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel BKCa channels, Cav1.2 L-type Ca2+ channels and Cav3.2 T-type Ca2+ channels, respectively. This protocol may be used to differentiate adult MSCs into smooth muscle-like cells with an intermediate-to-late SMC contractile phenotype exhibiting voltage-gated ion

From depolarization-dependent contractions in gastrointestinal smooth muscle to aortic pulse-synchronized contractions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marion SB

2014-03-01

Full Text Available Sarah B Marion, Allen W MangelRTI Health Solutions, Research Triangle Park, NC, USAAbstract: For decades, it was believed that the diameter of gastrointestinal smooth muscle cells is sufficiently narrow, and that the diffusion of calcium across the plasma membrane is sufficient, to support contractile activity. Thus, depolarization-triggered release of intracellular calcium was not believed to be operative in gastrointestinal smooth muscle. However, after the incubation of muscle segments in solutions devoid of calcium and containing the calcium chelator ethylene glycol tetraacetic acid, an alternative electrical event occurred that was distinct from normal slow waves and spikes. Subsequently, it was demonstrated in gastrointestinal smooth muscle segments that membrane depolarization associated with this alternative electrical event triggered rhythmic contractions by release of intracellular calcium. Although this concept of depolarization-triggered calcium release was iconoclastic, it has now been demonstrated in multiple gastrointestinal smooth muscle preparations. On the basis of these observations, we investigated whether a rhythmic electrical and mechanical event would occur in aortic smooth muscle under the same calcium-free conditions. The incubation of aortic segments in a solution with no added calcium plus ethylene glycol tetraacetic acid induced a fast electrical event without corresponding tension changes. On the basis of the frequency of these fast electrical events, we pursued, contrary to what has been established dogma for more than three centuries, the question of whether the smooth muscle wall of the aorta undergoes rhythmic activation during the cardiac cycle. As with depolarization-triggered contractile activity in gastrointestinal smooth muscle, it was “well known” that rhythmic activation of the aorta does not occur in synchrony with the heartbeat. In a series of experiments, however, it was demonstrated that rhythmic

Ensemble Kalman filtering with one-step-ahead smoothing

KAUST Repository

Raboudi, Naila F.

2018-01-11

The ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is widely used for sequential data assimilation. It operates as a succession of forecast and analysis steps. In realistic large-scale applications, EnKFs are implemented with small ensembles and poorly known model error statistics. This limits their representativeness of the background error covariances and, thus, their performance. This work explores the efficiency of the one-step-ahead (OSA) smoothing formulation of the Bayesian filtering problem to enhance the data assimilation performance of EnKFs. Filtering with OSA smoothing introduces an updated step with future observations, conditioning the ensemble sampling with more information. This should provide an improved background ensemble in the analysis step, which may help to mitigate the suboptimal character of EnKF-based methods. Here, the authors demonstrate the efficiency of a stochastic EnKF with OSA smoothing for state estimation. They then introduce a deterministic-like EnKF-OSA based on the singular evolutive interpolated ensemble Kalman (SEIK) filter. The authors show that the proposed SEIK-OSA outperforms both SEIK, as it efficiently exploits the data twice, and the stochastic EnKF-OSA, as it avoids observational error undersampling. They present extensive assimilation results from numerical experiments conducted with the Lorenz-96 model to demonstrate SEIK-OSA’s capabilities.

Exchange rate smoothing in Hungary

OpenAIRE

Karádi, Péter

2005-01-01

The paper proposes a structural empirical model capable of examining exchange rate smoothing in the small, open economy of Hungary. The framework assumes the existence of an unobserved and changing implicit exchange rate target. The central bank is assumed to use interest rate policy to obtain this preferred rate in the medium term, while market participants are assumed to form rational expectations about this target and influence exchange rates accordingly. The paper applies unobserved varia...

Technique for smoothing free-flight oscillation data.

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Beyers, ME

1975-01-01

Full Text Available A technique based on superposition of tricyclic solutions has been proposed for smoothing free-flight angular motion. When incorporated into a conventional tricyclic data reduction program, the method is convenient to use and does not require a...

Discrete wavelet transform: a tool in smoothing kinematic data.

Science.gov (United States)

Ismail, A R; Asfour, S S

1999-03-01

Motion analysis systems typically introduce noise to the displacement data recorded. Butterworth digital filters have been used to smooth the displacement data in order to obtain smoothed velocities and accelerations. However, this technique does not yield satisfactory results, especially when dealing with complex kinematic motions that occupy the low- and high-frequency bands. The use of the discrete wavelet transform, as an alternative to digital filters, is presented in this paper. The transform passes the original signal through two complementary low- and high-pass FIR filters and decomposes the signal into an approximation function and a detail function. Further decomposition of the signal results in transforming the signal into a hierarchy set of orthogonal approximation and detail functions. A reverse process is employed to perfectly reconstruct the signal (inverse transform) back from its approximation and detail functions. The discrete wavelet transform was applied to the displacement data recorded by Pezzack et al., 1977. The smoothed displacement data were twice differentiated and compared to Pezzack et al.'s acceleration data in order to choose the most appropriate filter coefficients and decomposition level on the basis of maximizing the percentage of retained energy (PRE) and minimizing the root mean square error (RMSE). Daubechies wavelet of the fourth order (Db4) at the second decomposition level showed better results than both the biorthogonal and Coiflet wavelets (PRE = 97.5%, RMSE = 4.7 rad s-2). The Db4 wavelet was then used to compress complex displacement data obtained from a noisy mathematically generated function. Results clearly indicate superiority of this new smoothing approach over traditional filters.

Smoothing the payoff for efficient computation of Basket option prices

KAUST Repository

Bayer, Christian

2017-07-22

We consider the problem of pricing basket options in a multivariate Black–Scholes or Variance-Gamma model. From a numerical point of view, pricing such options corresponds to moderate and high-dimensional numerical integration problems with non-smooth integrands. Due to this lack of regularity, higher order numerical integration techniques may not be directly available, requiring the use of methods like Monte Carlo specifically designed to work for non-regular problems. We propose to use the inherent smoothing property of the density of the underlying in the above models to mollify the payoff function by means of an exact conditional expectation. The resulting conditional expectation is unbiased and yields a smooth integrand, which is amenable to the efficient use of adaptive sparse-grid cubature. Numerical examples indicate that the high-order method may perform orders of magnitude faster than Monte Carlo or Quasi Monte Carlo methods in dimensions up to 35.

Multiple predictor smoothing methods for sensitivity analysis: Description of techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Storlie, Curtis B.; Helton, Jon C.

2008-01-01

The use of multiple predictor smoothing methods in sampling-based sensitivity analyses of complex models is investigated. Specifically, sensitivity analysis procedures based on smoothing methods employing the stepwise application of the following nonparametric regression techniques are described: (i) locally weighted regression (LOESS), (ii) additive models, (iii) projection pursuit regression, and (iv) recursive partitioning regression. Then, in the second and concluding part of this presentation, the indicated procedures are illustrated with both simple test problems and results from a performance assessment for a radioactive waste disposal facility (i.e., the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant). As shown by the example illustrations, the use of smoothing procedures based on nonparametric regression techniques can yield more informative sensitivity analysis results than can be obtained with more traditional sensitivity analysis procedures based on linear regression, rank regression or quadratic regression when nonlinear relationships between model inputs and model predictions are present

Effect of layer composition on band spectrum of CdxHg1-xTe - CdyHg1-yTe-type superlattices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gerchikov, L.G.; Subashiev, A.V.; Salman Dalla

1993-01-01

Evolution of energy spectrum of Cd x Hg 1-x Te -Cd y Hg 1-y Te superlattices at variation of layer composition is considered. Transition from 3 type superlattice to 1 type superlattice occurring for y=0.16 is studied comprehensively. In this case, dependence of the width of superlattice forbidden zone on layer thickness is shown to become more smooth, than in CdTe - HgTe superlattice and it gives more possibilities to use such superlattices for making IR phototransistors. 10 refs., 4 figs

A simple smoothness indicator for the WENO scheme with adaptive order

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Cong; Chen, Li Li

2018-01-01

The fifth order WENO scheme with adaptive order is competent for solving hyperbolic conservation laws, its reconstruction is a convex combination of a fifth order linear reconstruction and three third order linear reconstructions. Note that, on uniform mesh, the computational cost of smoothness indicator for fifth order linear reconstruction is comparable with the sum of ones for three third order linear reconstructions, thus it is too heavy; on non-uniform mesh, the explicit form of smoothness indicator for fifth order linear reconstruction is difficult to be obtained, and its computational cost is much heavier than the one on uniform mesh. In order to overcome these problems, a simple smoothness indicator for fifth order linear reconstruction is proposed in this paper.

Fragmented esophageal smooth muscle contraction segments on high resolution manometry: a marker of esophageal hypomotility.

Science.gov (United States)

Porter, R F; Kumar, N; Drapekin, J E; Gyawali, C P

2012-08-01

Esophageal peristalsis consists of a chain of contracting striated and smooth muscle segments on high resolution manometry (HRM). We compared smooth muscle contraction segments in symptomatic subjects with reflux disease to healthy controls. High resolution manometry Clouse plots were analyzed in 110 subjects with reflux disease (50 ± 1.4 years, 51.5% women) and 15 controls (27 ± 2.1 years, 60.0% women). Using the 30 mmHg isobaric contour tool, sequences were designated fragmented if either smooth muscle contraction segment was absent or if the two smooth muscle segments were separated by a pressure trough, and failed if both smooth muscle contraction segments were absent. The discriminative value of contraction segment analysis was assessed. A total of 1115 swallows were analyzed (reflux group: 965, controls: 150). Reflux subjects had lower peak and averaged contraction amplitudes compared with controls (P value to HRM analysis. Specifically, fragmented smooth muscle contraction segments may be a marker of esophageal hypomotility. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Adaptive Smoothing in fMRI Data Processing Neural Networks

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vilamala, Albert; Madsen, Kristoffer Hougaard; Hansen, Lars Kai

2017-01-01

in isolation. With the advent of new tools for deep learning, recent work has proposed to turn these pipelines into end-to-end learning networks. This change of paradigm offers new avenues to improvement as it allows for a global optimisation. The current work aims at benefitting from this paradigm shift...... by defining a smoothing step as a layer in these networks able to adaptively modulate the degree of smoothing required by each brain volume to better accomplish a given data analysis task. The viability is evaluated on real fMRI data where subjects did alternate between left and right finger tapping tasks....

Generation of a new spectral format, the lifetime synchronous spectrum (LiSS), using phase-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shaver, J.M.; McGown, L.B.

1994-01-01

A new fluorescence spectral format is introduced in which fluorescence lifetime is shown as a function of synchronously scanned wavelength to generate a Lifetime Synchronous Spectrum (LiSS). Lifetimes are determined in the frequency domain with the use of Phase-Resolved Fluorescence Spectroscopy (PRFS) to obtain the phase of the fluorescence signal. Theory and construction of the LiSS are presented and experimental results are shown for solutions of single components and simple binary and ternary mixtures. These results show how the lifetime information in the LiSS augments the steady-state intensity information of a standard synchronous spectrum, providing unique information for identification of components and resolution of overlapping spectral peaks. The LiSS technique takes advantage of noise reduction inherent in the extraction of lifetime from PRFS in addition to standard spectral smoothing techniques. The precision of phase determination through PRFS is found to be comparable to that of direct phase measurements at normal fluorescence intensities and superior for low-intensity signals

Role of retinal slip in the prediction of target motion during smooth and saccadic pursuit.

Science.gov (United States)

de Brouwer, S; Missal, M; Lefèvre, P

2001-08-01

Visual tracking of moving targets requires the combination of smooth pursuit eye movements with catch-up saccades. In primates, catch-up saccades usually take place only during pursuit initiation because pursuit gain is close to unity. This contrasts with the lower and more variable gain of smooth pursuit in cats, where smooth eye movements are intermingled with catch-up saccades during steady-state pursuit. In this paper, we studied in detail the role of retinal slip in the prediction of target motion during smooth and saccadic pursuit in the cat. We found that the typical pattern of pursuit in the cat was a combination of smooth eye movements with saccades. During smooth pursuit initiation, there was a correlation between peak eye acceleration and target velocity. During pursuit maintenance, eye velocity oscillated at approximately 3 Hz around a steady-state value. The average gain of smooth pursuit was approximately 0.5. Trained cats were able to continue pursuing in the absence of a visible target, suggesting a role of the prediction of future target motion in this species. The analysis of catch-up saccades showed that the smooth-pursuit motor command is added to the saccadic command during catch-up saccades and that both position error and retinal slip are taken into account in their programming. The influence of retinal slip on catch-up saccades showed that prediction about future target motion is used in the programming of catch-up saccades. Altogether, these results suggest that pursuit systems in primates and cats are qualitatively similar, with a lower average gain in the cat and that prediction affects both saccades and smooth eye movements during pursuit.

Isolation and characterization of the inositol trisphosphate receptor from smooth muscle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chadwick, C.C.; Saito, A.; Fleischer, S.

1990-01-01

The release of Ca 2+ from internal stores is requisite to muscle contraction. In skeletal muscle and heart, the Ca 2+ release channels (ryanodine receptor) of sarcoplasmic reticulum, involved in excitation-contraction coupling, have recently been isolated and characterized. In smooth muscle, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP 3 ) is believed to mobilize Ca 2+ from internal stores and thereby modulate contraction. The authors describe the isolation of an IP 3 receptor from smooth muscle. Bovine aorta smooth muscle microsomes were solubilized with 3-[(3-cholamidopropyl) dimethylammonio]-1-propanesulfonate, and the IP 3 receptor was purified by sucrose gradient centrifugation and column chromatography with heparin-agarose and wheat germ agglutinin-agarose. The receptor is an oligomer of a single polypeptide with a M r of 224,000 as determined by SDS/PAGE. Negative-staining electron microscopy reveals that the receptor is a large pinwheel-like structure having surface dimensions of ∼250 x 250 angstrom with fourfold symmetry. The IP 3 receptor from smooth muscle is similar to the ryanodine receptor with regard to its large size and fourfold symmetry, albeit distinct with regard to appearance, protomer size, and ligand binding

Smooth controllability of infinite-dimensional quantum-mechanical systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Re-Bing; Tarn, Tzyh-Jong; Li, Chun-Wen

2006-01-01

Manipulation of infinite-dimensional quantum systems is important to controlling complex quantum dynamics with many practical physical and chemical backgrounds. In this paper, a general investigation is casted to the controllability problem of quantum systems evolving on infinite-dimensional manifolds. Recognizing that such problems are related with infinite-dimensional controllability algebras, we introduce an algebraic mathematical framework to describe quantum control systems possessing such controllability algebras. Then we present the concept of smooth controllability on infinite-dimensional manifolds, and draw the main result on approximate strong smooth controllability. This is a nontrivial extension of the existing controllability results based on the analysis over finite-dimensional vector spaces to analysis over infinite-dimensional manifolds. It also opens up many interesting problems for future studies

Regulation of collagen biosynthesis in cultured bovine aortic smooth muscle cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stepp, M.A.

1986-01-01

Aortic smooth muscles cells have been implicated in the etiology of lesions which occur in atherosclerosis and hypertension. Both diseases involve proliferation of smooth muscle cells and accumulation of excessive amounts of extracellular matrix proteins, including collagen type I and type III produced by the smooth muscle cells. To better understand the sites of regulation of collagen biosynthesis and to correlate these with the growth rate of the cells, cultured bovine aortic smooth muscle cells were studied as a function of the number of days (3 to 14) in second passage. Cells grew rapidly up to day 6 when confluence was reached. The total incorporation of [ 3 H]-proline into proteins was highest at day 3 and decreased to a constant level after the cultures reached confluence. In contrast, collagen protein production was lowest before confluence and continued to increase over the entire time course of the experiments. cDNA clones for the α1 and α2 chains of type I and the α1 chain of type III collagen were used to quantitate the steady state level of collagen mRNAs. RNA was tested in a cell-free translation system. Changes in the translational activity of collagen mRNAs parallelled the observed increases in collagen protein production. Thus, at later time points, collagen mRNAs are more active in directing synthesis of preprocollagens, even though less collagen mRNA is present. The conclusion is that the site of regulation of the expression of collagen genes is a function of the growth rate of cultured smooth muscle cells

A three-dimensional cell-based smoothed finite element method for elasto-plasticity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Kye Hyung; Im, Se Yong; Lim, Jae Hyuk; Sohn, Dong Woo

2015-01-01

This work is concerned with a three-dimensional cell-based smoothed finite element method for application to elastic-plastic analysis. The formulation of smoothed finite elements is extended to cover elastic-plastic deformations beyond the classical linear theory of elasticity, which has been the major application domain of smoothed finite elements. The finite strain deformations are treated with the aid of the formulation based on the hyperelastic constitutive equation. The volumetric locking originating from the nearly incompressible behavior of elastic-plastic deformations is remedied by relaxing the volumetric strain through the mean value. The comparison with the conventional finite elements demonstrates the effectiveness and accuracy of the present approach.

A three-dimensional cell-based smoothed finite element method for elasto-plasticity

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Kye Hyung; Im, Se Yong [KAIST, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Lim, Jae Hyuk [KARI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of); Sohn, Dong Woo [Korea Maritime and Ocean University, Busan (Korea, Republic of)

2015-02-15

This work is concerned with a three-dimensional cell-based smoothed finite element method for application to elastic-plastic analysis. The formulation of smoothed finite elements is extended to cover elastic-plastic deformations beyond the classical linear theory of elasticity, which has been the major application domain of smoothed finite elements. The finite strain deformations are treated with the aid of the formulation based on the hyperelastic constitutive equation. The volumetric locking originating from the nearly incompressible behavior of elastic-plastic deformations is remedied by relaxing the volumetric strain through the mean value. The comparison with the conventional finite elements demonstrates the effectiveness and accuracy of the present approach.

On the Significance of Demand and Inventory Smoothing Interventions in Supply Chain

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cannella, S.; Ciancimino, E.; Ashayeri, J.

2010-01-01

The aim of this paper is to quantify the benefit of demand and inventory smoothing in contrasting the extreme volatility and impetuous alteration of the market produced by the current economic recession. To do so we model a traditional supply chain and we test five settings of order smoothing under

Weak-noise limit of a piecewise-smooth stochastic differential equation.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yaming; Baule, Adrian; Touchette, Hugo; Just, Wolfram

2013-11-01

We investigate the validity and accuracy of weak-noise (saddle-point or instanton) approximations for piecewise-smooth stochastic differential equations (SDEs), taking as an illustrative example a piecewise-constant SDE, which serves as a simple model of Brownian motion with solid friction. For this model, we show that the weak-noise approximation of the path integral correctly reproduces the known propagator of the SDE at lowest order in the noise power, as well as the main features of the exact propagator with higher-order corrections, provided the singularity of the path integral associated with the nonsmooth SDE is treated with some heuristics. We also show that, as in the case of smooth SDEs, the deterministic paths of the noiseless system correctly describe the behavior of the nonsmooth SDE in the low-noise limit. Finally, we consider a smooth regularization of the piecewise-constant SDE and study to what extent this regularization can rectify some of the problems encountered when dealing with discontinuous drifts and singularities in SDEs.

Inlet effect induced ''upstream'' critical heat flux in smooth tubes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kitto, J.B. Jr.

1986-01-01

An unusual form of ''upstream'' critical heat flux (CHF) has been observed and directly linked to the inlet flow pattern during an experimental study of high pressure (17 - 20 MPa) water flowing through a vertical 38.1 mm ID smooth bore tube with uniform axial and nonuniform circumferential heating. These upstream CHF data were characterized by temperature excursions which initially occurred at a relatively fixed axial location in the middle of the test section while the outlet and inlet heated lengths experienced no change. A rifled tube inlet flow conditioner could be substituted for a smooth tube section to generate the desired swirling inlet flow pattern. The upstream CHF data were found to match data from a uniformly heated smooth bore tube when the comparison was made using the peak local heat flux. The mechanism proposed to account for the upstream CHF observations involves the destructive interference between the decaying swirl flow and the secondary circumferential liquid flow field resulting from the one-sided heating

Suspension system vibration analysis with regard to variable type ability to smooth road irregularities

Science.gov (United States)

Rykov, S. P.; Rykova, O. A.; Koval, V. S.; Makhno, D. E.; Fedotov, K. V.

2018-03-01

The paper aims to analyze vibrations of the dynamic system equivalent of the suspension system with regard to tyre ability to smooth road irregularities. The research is based on static dynamics for linear systems of automated control, methods of correlation, spectral and numerical analysis. Input of new data on the smoothing effect of the pneumatic tyre reflecting changes of a contact area between the wheel and road under vibrations of the suspension makes the system non-linear which requires using numerical analysis methods. Taking into account the variable smoothing ability of the tyre when calculating suspension vibrations, one can approximate calculation and experimental results and improve the constant smoothing ability of the tyre.

Fast radio burst search: cross spectrum vs. auto spectrum method

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Lei; Zheng, Weimin; Yan, Zhen; Zhang, Juan

2018-06-01

The search for fast radio bursts (FRBs) is a hot topic in current radio astronomy studies. In this work, we carry out a single pulse search with a very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) pulsar observation data set using both auto spectrum and cross spectrum search methods. The cross spectrum method, first proposed in Liu et al., maximizes the signal power by fully utilizing the fringe phase information of the baseline cross spectrum. The auto spectrum search method is based on the popular pulsar software package PRESTO, which extracts single pulses from the auto spectrum of each station. According to our comparison, the cross spectrum method is able to enhance the signal power and therefore extract single pulses from data contaminated by high levels of radio frequency interference (RFI), which makes it possible to carry out a search for FRBs in regular VLBI observations when RFI is present.

A nonlinear wavelet method for data smoothing of low-level gamma-ray spectra

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gang Xiao; Li Deng; Benai Zhang; Jianshi Zhu

2004-01-01

A nonlinear wavelet method was designed for smoothing low-level gamma-ray spectra. The spectra of a 60 Co graduated radioactive source and a mixed soil sample were smoothed respectively according to this method and a 5 point smoothing method. The FWHM of 1,332 keV peak of 60 Co source and the absolute activities of 238 U of soil sample were calculated. The results show that the nonlinear wavelet method is better than the traditional method, with less loss of spectral peak and a more complete reduction of statistical fluctuation. (author)

A smooth landscape: ending saddle point inflation requires features to be shallow

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Battefeld, Diana; Battefeld, Thorsten

2013-01-01

We consider inflation driven near a saddle point in a higher dimensional field space, which is the most likely type of slow roll inflation on the string theoretical landscape; anthropic arguments need to be invoked in order to find a sufficiently flat region. To give all inflatons large masses after inflation and yield a small but positive cosmological constant, the trajectory in field space needs to terminate in a hole on the inflationary plateau, introducing a curved end-of-inflation hypersurface. We compute non-Gaussianities (bi- and tri-spectrum) caused by this curved hyper-surface and find a negative, potentially large, local non-linearity parameter. To be consistent with current observational bounds, the hole needs to be shallow, i.e. considerably wider than deep in natural units. To avoid singling out our vacuum as special (i.e. more special than a positive cosmological constant entails), we deduce that all features on field space should be similarly shallow, severely limiting the type of landscapes one may use for inflationary model building. We justify the use of a truncated Fourier series with random coefficients, which are suppressed the higher the frequency, to model such a smooth landscape by a random potential, as is often done in the literature without a good a priory reason

The Koch curve as a smooth manifold

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Epstein, Marcelo; Sniatycki, Jedrzej

2008-01-01

We show that there exists a homeomorphism between the closed interval [0,1] is contained in R and the Koch curve endowed with the subset topology of R 2 . We use this homeomorphism to endow the Koch curve with the structure of a smooth manifold with boundary

An adaptive method for γ spectra smoothing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiao Gang; Zhou Chunlin; Li Tiantuo; Han Feng; Di Yuming

2001-01-01

Adaptive wavelet method and multinomial fitting gliding method are used for smoothing γ spectra, respectively, and then FWHM of 1332 keV peak of 60 Co and activities of 238 U standard specimen are calculated. Calculated results show that adaptive wavelet method is better than the other

Smooth Tubercle Bacilli: Neglected Opportunistic Tropical Pathogens

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Djaltou eAboubaker

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Smooth tubercle bacilli (STB including ‘‘Mycobacterium canettii’’ are members of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC which cause non-contagious tuberculosis in human. This group comprises less than one hundred isolates characterized by smooth colonies and cordless organisms. Most STB isolates have been obtained from patients exposed to the Republic of Djibouti but seven isolates, including the three seminal ones obtained by Georges Canetti between 1968 and 1970, were recovered from patients in France, Madagascar, Sub-Sahara East Africa and French Polynesia. STB form a genetically heterogeneous group of MTBC organisms with large 4.48 ± 0.05 Mb genomes which may link Mycobacterium kansasii to MTBC organisms. Lack of inter-human transmission suggested a yet unknown environmental reservoir. Clinical data indicate a respiratory tract route of contamination and the digestive tract as an alternative route of contamination. Further epidemiological and clinical studies are warranted to elucidate areas of uncertainty regarding these unusual mycobacteria and the tuberculosis they cause.

Snap evaporation of droplets on smooth topographies.

Science.gov (United States)

Wells, Gary G; Ruiz-Gutiérrez, Élfego; Le Lirzin, Youen; Nourry, Anthony; Orme, Bethany V; Pradas, Marc; Ledesma-Aguilar, Rodrigo

2018-04-11

Droplet evaporation on solid surfaces is important in many applications including printing, micro-patterning and cooling. While seemingly simple, the configuration of evaporating droplets on solids is difficult to predict and control. This is because evaporation typically proceeds as a "stick-slip" sequence-a combination of pinning and de-pinning events dominated by static friction or "pinning", caused by microscopic surface roughness. Here we show how smooth, pinning-free, solid surfaces of non-planar topography promote a different process called snap evaporation. During snap evaporation a droplet follows a reproducible sequence of configurations, consisting of a quasi-static phase-change controlled by mass diffusion interrupted by out-of-equilibrium snaps. Snaps are triggered by bifurcations of the equilibrium droplet shape mediated by the underlying non-planar solid. Because the evolution of droplets during snap evaporation is controlled by a smooth topography, and not by surface roughness, our ideas can inspire programmable surfaces that manage liquids in heat- and mass-transfer applications.

Voltage dependent potassium channel remodeling in murine intestinal smooth muscle hypertrophy induced by partial obstruction.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Dong-Hai; Huang, Xu; Guo, Xin; Meng, Xiang-Min; Wu, Yi-Song; Lu, Hong-Li; Zhang, Chun-Mei; Kim, Young-chul; Xu, Wen-Xie

2014-01-01

Partial obstruction of the small intestine causes obvious hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells and motility disorder in the bowel proximate to the obstruction. To identify electric remodeling of hypertrophic smooth muscles in partially obstructed murine small intestine, the patch-clamp and intracellular microelectrode recording methods were used to identify the possible electric remodeling and Western blot, immunofluorescence and immunoprecipitation were utilized to examine the channel protein expression and phosphorylation level changes in this research. After 14 days of obstruction, partial obstruction caused obvious smooth muscle hypertrophy in the proximally located intestine. The slow waves of intestinal smooth muscles in the dilated region were significantly suppressed, their amplitude and frequency were reduced, whilst the resting membrane potentials were depolarized compared with normal and sham animals. The current density of voltage dependent potassium channel (KV) was significantly decreased in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cells and the voltage sensitivity of KV activation was altered. The sensitivity of KV currents (IKV) to TEA, a nonselective potassium channel blocker, increased significantly, but the sensitivity of IKv to 4-AP, a KV blocker, stays the same. The protein levels of KV4.3 and KV2.2 were up-regulated in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cell membrane. The serine and threonine phosphorylation levels of KV4.3 and KV2.2 were significantly increased in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cells. Thus this study represents the first identification of KV channel remodeling in murine small intestinal smooth muscle hypertrophy induced by partial obstruction. The enhanced phosphorylations of KV4.3 and KV2.2 may be involved in this process.

An α-smooth muscle actin (acta2/αsma zebrafish transgenic line marking vascular mural cells and visceral smooth muscle cells.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Thomas R Whitesell

Full Text Available Mural cells of the vascular system include vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs and pericytes whose role is to stabilize and/or provide contractility to blood vessels. One of the earliest markers of mural cell development in vertebrates is α smooth muscle actin (acta2; αsma, which is expressed by pericytes and SMCs. In vivo models of vascular mural cell development in zebrafish are currently lacking, therefore we developed two transgenic zebrafish lines driving expression of GFP or mCherry in acta2-expressing cells. These transgenic fish were used to trace the live development of mural cells in embryonic and larval transgenic zebrafish. acta2:EGFP transgenic animals show expression that largely mirrors native acta2 expression, with early pan-muscle expression starting at 24 hpf in the heart muscle, followed by skeletal and visceral muscle. At 3.5 dpf, expression in the bulbus arteriosus and ventral aorta marks the first expression in vascular smooth muscle. Over the next 10 days of development, the number of acta2:EGFP positive cells and the number of types of blood vessels associated with mural cells increases. Interestingly, the mural cells are not motile and remain in the same position once they express the acta2:EGFP transgene. Taken together, our data suggests that zebrafish mural cells develop relatively late, and have little mobility once they associate with vessels.

Patent ductus arteriosus in mice with smooth muscle-specific Jag1 deletion

Science.gov (United States)

Feng, Xuesong; Krebs, Luke T.; Gridley, Thomas

2010-01-01

The ductus arteriosus is an arterial vessel that shunts blood flow away from the lungs during fetal life, but normally occludes after birth to establish the adult circulation pattern. Failure of the ductus arteriosus to close after birth is termed patent ductus arteriosus and is one of the most common congenital heart defects. Mice with smooth muscle cell-specific deletion of Jag1, which encodes a Notch ligand, die postnatally from patent ductus arteriosus. These mice exhibit defects in contractile smooth muscle cell differentiation in the vascular wall of the ductus arteriosus and adjacent descending aorta. These defects arise through an inability to propagate the JAG1-Notch signal via lateral induction throughout the width of the vascular wall. Both heterotypic endothelial smooth muscle cell interactions and homotypic vascular smooth muscle cell interactions are required for normal patterning and differentiation of the ductus arteriosus and adjacent descending aorta. This new model for a common congenital heart defect provides novel insights into the genetic programs that underlie ductus arteriosus development and closure. PMID:21068062

Was The Electromagnetic Spectrum A Blackbody Spectrum In The Early Universe?

OpenAIRE

Opher, Merav; Opher, Reuven

1997-01-01

It is assumed, in general, that the electromagnetic spectrum in the Primordial Universe was a blackbody spectrum in vacuum. We derive the electromagnetic spectrum, based on the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem that describes the electromagnetic fluctuations in a plasma. Our description includes thermal and collisional effects in a plasma. The electromagnetic spectrum obtained differs from the blackbody spectrum in vacuum at low frequencies. In particular, concentrating on the primordial nucleo...

Data driven smooth tests for composite hypotheses

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Inglot, Tadeusz; Kallenberg, Wilbert C.M.; Ledwina, Teresa

1997-01-01

The classical problem of testing goodness-of-fit of a parametric family is reconsidered. A new test for this problem is proposed and investigated. The new test statistic is a combination of the smooth test statistic and Schwarz's selection rule. More precisely, as the sample size increases, an

Interval Forecast for Smooth Transition Autoregressive Model ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In this paper, we propose a simple method for constructing interval forecast for smooth transition autoregressive (STAR) model. This interval forecast is based on bootstrapping the residual error of the estimated STAR model for each forecast horizon and computing various Akaike information criterion (AIC) function. This new ...

Population differences in dysmorphic features among children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

May, Philip A; Gossage, J Phillip; Smith, Matthew; Tabachnick, Barbara G; Robinson, Luther K; Manning, Melanie; Cecanti, Mauro; Jones, Kenneth Lyons; Khaole, Nathaniel; Buckley, David; Kalberg, Wendy O; Trujillo, Phyllis M; Hoyme, H Eugene

2010-05-01

To examine the variation in significant dysmorphic features in children from 3 different populations with the most dysmorphic forms of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), and partial fetal alcohol syndrome (PFAS). Advanced multiple regression techniques are used to determine the discriminating physical features in the diagnosis of FAS and PFAS among children from Northern Plains Indian communities, South Africa, and Italy. Within the range of physical features used to identify children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, specifically FAS and PFAS, there is some significant variation in salient diagnostic features from one population to the next. Intraclass correlations in diagnostic features between these 3 populations is 0.20, indicating that about 20% of the variability in dysmorphology core features is associated with location and, therefore, specific racial/ethnic population. The highly significant diagnostic indicators present in each population are identified for the full samples of FAS, PFAS, and normals and also among children with FAS only. A multilevel model for these populations combined indicates that these variables predict dysmorphology unambiguously: small palpebral fissures, narrow vermillion, smooth philtrum, flat nasal bridge, and fifth finger clinodactyly. Long philtrum varies substantially as a predictor in the 3 populations. Predictors not significantly related to fetal alcohol spectrum disorders dysmorphology across the 3 populations are centile of height (except in Italy) strabismus, interpupilary distance, intercanthal distance, and heart murmurs. The dysmorphology associated with FAS and PFAS vary across populations, yet a particular array of common features occurs in each population, which permits a consistent diagnosis across populations.

Ensemble Kalman filtering with one-step-ahead smoothing

KAUST Repository

Raboudi, Naila F.; Ait-El-Fquih, Boujemaa; Hoteit, Ibrahim

2018-01-01

error statistics. This limits their representativeness of the background error covariances and, thus, their performance. This work explores the efficiency of the one-step-ahead (OSA) smoothing formulation of the Bayesian filtering problem to enhance

GRADSPH: A parallel smoothed particle hydrodynamics code for self-gravitating astrophysical fluid dynamics

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vanaverbeke, S.; Keppens, R.; Poedts, S.; Boffin, H.

2009-01-01

We describe the algorithms implemented in the first version of GRADSPH, a parallel, tree-based, smoothed particle hydrodynamics code for simulating self-gravitating astrophysical systems written in FORTRAN 90. The paper presents details on the implementation of the Smoothed Particle Hydro (SPH)

Regulation of GPCR-mediated smooth muscle contraction : implications for asthma and pulmonary hypertension

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wright, D B; Tripathi, S; Sikarwar, A; Santosh, K T; Perez-Zoghbi, J; Ojo, O O; Irechukwu, N; Ward, J P T; Schaafsma, D

Contractile G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) have emerged as key regulators of smooth muscle contraction, both under healthy and diseased conditions. This brief review will discuss some key topics and novel insights regarding GPCR-mediated airway and vascular smooth muscle contraction as

A Smooth Transition Logit Model of the Effects of Deregulation in the Electricity Market

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hurn, A.S.; Silvennoinen, Annastiina; Teräsvirta, Timo

We consider a nonlinear vector model called the logistic vector smooth transition autoregressive model. The bivariate single-transition vector smooth transition regression model of Camacho (2004) is generalised to a multivariate and multitransition one. A modelling strategy consisting of specific......We consider a nonlinear vector model called the logistic vector smooth transition autoregressive model. The bivariate single-transition vector smooth transition regression model of Camacho (2004) is generalised to a multivariate and multitransition one. A modelling strategy consisting...... of specification, including testing linearity, estimation and evaluation of these models is constructed. Nonlinear least squares estimation of the parameters of the model is discussed. Evaluation by misspecification tests is carried out using tests derived in a companion paper. The use of the modelling strategy...

Ownership and Control Structures, Corporate Governance and Income Smoothing in Brazil

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Damiana Torres

2010-01-01

Full Text Available This article examines the association between the ownership and control structure, level of corporate governance and origin of capital (foreign or domestic of Brazilian companies on their propensity to smooth income. Using a sample of nonancialrms with shares traded on the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa at the end of 2007, we performed covariance analysis based on data from the preceding ten years, where the dependent variable was the index proposed by Eckel, an empirical proxy for smoothing. The results indicate that the more concentrated the shareholding and control structures of Brazilianrms are, both according to overall capital and voting capital, the more intensely they tend to smooth earnings to favor the interests of the majority shareholder. The results also show that this effect is less pronounced forrms with enhanced corporate governance levels and those with foreign capital.

Was The Electromagnetic Spectrum A Blackbody Spectrum In The Early Universe?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Opher, M.; Opher, R.

1997-01-01

It is generally assumed that the electromagnetic spectrum in the primordial universe was a blackbody spectrum in vacuum. We derive the electromagnetic spectrum based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem that describes the electromagnetic fluctuations in a plasma. Our description includes thermal and collisional effects in a plasma. The electromagnetic spectrum obtained differs from a blackbody spectrum in vacuum at low frequencies. In particular, concentrating on the primordial nucleosynthesis era, it has more energy than the blackbody spectrum for frequencies less than 3ω pe to 6ω pe , where ω pe is the electron plasma frequency. copyright 1997 The American Physical Society

A Signal Decomposition Method for Ultrasonic Guided Wave Generated from Debonding Combining Smoothed Pseudo Wigner-Ville Distribution and Vold–Kalman Filter Order Tracking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junhua Wu

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Carbon fibre composites have a promising application future of the vehicle, due to its excellent physical properties. Debonding is a major defect of the material. Analyses of wave packets are critical for identification of the defect on ultrasonic nondestructive evaluation and testing. In order to isolate different components of ultrasonic guided waves (GWs, a signal decomposition algorithm combining Smoothed Pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution and Vold–Kalman filter order tracking is presented. In the algorithm, the time-frequency distribution of GW is first obtained by using Smoothed Pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution. The frequencies of different modes are computed based on summation of the time-frequency coefficients in the frequency direction. On the basis of these frequencies, isolation of different modes is done by Vold–Kalman filter order tracking. The results of the simulation signal and the experimental signal reveal that the presented algorithm succeeds in decomposing the multicomponent signal into monocomponents. Even though components overlap in corresponding Fourier spectrum, they can be isolated by using the presented algorithm. So the frequency resolution of the presented method is promising. Based on this, we can do research about defect identification, calculation of the defect size, and locating the position of the defect.

Hyperplasia of smooth muscle in mild to moderate asthma without changes in cell size or gene expression.

Science.gov (United States)

Woodruff, Prescott G; Dolganov, Gregory M; Ferrando, Ronald E; Donnelly, Samantha; Hays, Steven R; Solberg, Owen D; Carter, Roderick; Wong, Hofer H; Cadbury, Peggy S; Fahy, John V

2004-05-01

Bronchial hyperresponsiveness in mild to moderate asthma may result from airway smooth muscle cell proliferation or acquisition of a hypercontractile phenotype. Because these cells have not been well characterized in mild to moderate asthma, we examined the morphometric and gene expression characteristics of smooth muscle cells in this subgroup of patients with asthma. Using bronchial biopsies from 14 subjects with mild to moderate asthma and 15 control subjects, we quantified smooth muscle cell morphology by stereology and the expression of a panel of genes related to a hypercontractile phenotype of airway smooth muscle, using laser microdissection and two-step real-time polymerase chain reaction. We found that airway smooth muscle cell size was similar in both groups, but cell number was nearly twofold higher in subjects with asthma (p = 0.03), and the amount of smooth muscle in the submucosa was increased 50-83% (p 0.1). We conclude that airway smooth muscle proliferation is a pathologic characteristic of subjects with mild to moderate asthma. However, smooth muscle cells in mild to moderate asthma do not show hypertrophy or gene expression changes of a hypercontractile phenotype observed in vitro.

Smoothed Conditional Scale Function Estimation in AR(1-ARCH(1 Processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lema Logamou Seknewna

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The estimation of the Smoothed Conditional Scale Function for time series was taken out under the conditional heteroscedastic innovations by imitating the kernel smoothing in nonparametric QAR-QARCH scheme. The estimation was taken out based on the quantile regression methodology proposed by Koenker and Bassett. And the proof of the asymptotic properties of the Conditional Scale Function estimator for this type of process was given and its consistency was shown.

Notch signal reception is required in vascular smooth muscle cells for ductus arteriosus closure

Science.gov (United States)

Krebs, Luke T.; Norton, Christine R.; Gridley, Thomas

2017-01-01

Summary The ductus arteriosus is an arterial vessel that shunts blood flow away from the lungs during fetal life, but normally occludes after birth to establish the adult circulation pattern. Failure of the ductus arteriosus to close after birth is termed patent ductus arteriosus, and is one of the most common congenital heart defects. Our previous work demonstrated that vascular smooth muscle cell expression of the Jag1 gene, which encodes a ligand for Notch family receptors, is essential for postnatal closure of the ductus arteriosus in mice. However, it was not known what cell population was responsible for receiving the Jag1-mediated signal. Here we show, using smooth muscle cell-specific deletion of the Rbpj gene, which encodes a transcription factor that mediates all canonical Notch signaling, that Notch signal reception in the vascular smooth muscle cell compartment is required for ductus arteriosus closure. These data indicate that homotypic vascular smooth muscle cell interactions are required for proper contractile smooth muscle cell differentiation and postnatal closure of the ductus arteriosus in mice. PMID:26742650

Investigating the Impact of Acetone Vapor Smoothing on the Strength and Elongation of Printed ABS Parts

Science.gov (United States)

Gao, Harry; Kaweesa, Dorcas V.; Moore, Jacob; Meisel, Nicholas A.

2017-03-01

Acetone vapor smoothing is a chemical treatment that "melts" the surface of additively manufactured acrylonitrile butadiene styrene parts. The process fuses layers together and allows them to reform when vapor is removed, resulting in a smooth surface finish. Although commonly used to improve aesthetics, recent work has begun to investigate the effects of vapor smoothing on part strength. Nevertheless, most of this work has failed to take into account the anisotropic nature of printed parts. Prior research has shown that vapor smoothing reduces strength under best-case loading conditions, when the tensile load is parallel with the direction of the layers. In this article, the authors hypothesize that vapor smoothing may increase strength under nonoptimal loading conditions as a result of increased cohesion between layers and a reduction in stress concentrations. They use a design of experiments approach to identify the combined impact of printing and vapor smoothing parameters on part material properties.

The effect of food bolus location on jaw movement smoothness and masticatory efficiency

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Molenaar, W.N.B.; Gezelle Meerburg, P.J.; Luraschi, J.; Whittle, T.; Schimmel, M.; Lobbezoo, F.; Peck, C.C.; Murray, G.M.; Minami, I.

2012-01-01

Masticatory efficiency in individuals with extensive tooth loss has been widely discussed. However, little is known about jaw movement smoothness during chewing and the effect of differences in food bolus location on movement smoothness and masticatory efficiency. The aim of this study was to

Income Smoothing and Earnings Informativeness : A matter of institutional characteristics or accounting standards?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A. Tudor (Alexandra)

2010-01-01

textabstractExecutive Summary This study investigates the level of income smoothing and its impact on the informativeness of earnings. The main contribution of this research is that as well IFRS as investor protection are considered to examine the association between income smoothing and earnings

Multiple Beta Spectrum Analysis Method Based on Spectrum Fitting

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Uk Jae; Jung, Yun Song; Kim, Hee Reyoung [UNIST, Ulsan (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

When the sample of several mixed radioactive nuclides is measured, it is difficult to divide each nuclide due to the overlapping of spectrums. For this reason, simple mathematical analysis method for spectrum analysis of the mixed beta ray source has been studied. However, existing research was in need of more accurate spectral analysis method as it has a problem of accuracy. The study will describe the contents of the separation methods of the mixed beta ray source through the analysis of the beta spectrum slope based on the curve fitting to resolve the existing problem. The fitting methods including It was understood that sum of sine fitting method was the best one of such proposed methods as Fourier, polynomial, Gaussian and sum of sine to obtain equation for distribution of mixed beta spectrum. It was shown to be the most appropriate for the analysis of the spectrum with various ratios of mixed nuclides. It was thought that this method could be applied to rapid spectrum analysis of the mixed beta ray source.

Supplementary speed control for wind power smoothing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Haan, de J.E.S.; Frunt, J.; Kechroud, A.; Kling, W.L.

2010-01-01

Wind fluctuations result in even larger wind power fluctuations because the power of wind is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. This report analyzes wind power fluctuations to investigate inertial power smoothing, in particular for the frequency range of 0.08 - 0.5 Hz. Due to the growing

Two-dimensional interpolation with experimental data smoothing

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Trejbal, Z.

1989-01-01

A method of two-dimensional interpolation with smoothing of time statistically deflected points is developed for processing of magnetic field measurements at the U-120M field measurements at the U-120M cyclotron. Mathematical statement of initial requirements and the final result of relevant algebraic transformations are given. 3 refs

Voltage dependent potassium channel remodeling in murine intestinal smooth muscle hypertrophy induced by partial obstruction.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dong-Hai Liu

Full Text Available Partial obstruction of the small intestine causes obvious hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells and motility disorder in the bowel proximate to the obstruction. To identify electric remodeling of hypertrophic smooth muscles in partially obstructed murine small intestine, the patch-clamp and intracellular microelectrode recording methods were used to identify the possible electric remodeling and Western blot, immunofluorescence and immunoprecipitation were utilized to examine the channel protein expression and phosphorylation level changes in this research. After 14 days of obstruction, partial obstruction caused obvious smooth muscle hypertrophy in the proximally located intestine. The slow waves of intestinal smooth muscles in the dilated region were significantly suppressed, their amplitude and frequency were reduced, whilst the resting membrane potentials were depolarized compared with normal and sham animals. The current density of voltage dependent potassium channel (KV was significantly decreased in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cells and the voltage sensitivity of KV activation was altered. The sensitivity of KV currents (IKV to TEA, a nonselective potassium channel blocker, increased significantly, but the sensitivity of IKv to 4-AP, a KV blocker, stays the same. The protein levels of KV4.3 and KV2.2 were up-regulated in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cell membrane. The serine and threonine phosphorylation levels of KV4.3 and KV2.2 were significantly increased in the hypertrophic smooth muscle cells. Thus this study represents the first identification of KV channel remodeling in murine small intestinal smooth muscle hypertrophy induced by partial obstruction. The enhanced phosphorylations of KV4.3 and KV2.2 may be involved in this process.

Arc-based smoothing of ion beam intensity on targets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Friedman, Alex

2012-01-01

By manipulating a set of ion beams upstream of a target, it is possible to arrange for a smoother deposition pattern, so as to achieve more uniform illumination of the target. A uniform energy deposition pattern is important for applications including ion-beam-driven high energy density physics and heavy-ion beam-driven inertial fusion energy (“heavy-ion fusion”). Here, we consider an approach to such smoothing that is based on rapidly “wobbling” each of the beams back and forth along a short arc-shaped path, via oscillating fields applied upstream of the final pulse compression. In this technique, uniformity is achieved in the time-averaged sense; this is sufficient provided the beam oscillation timescale is short relative to the hydrodynamic timescale of the target implosion. This work builds on two earlier concepts: elliptical beams applied to a distributed-radiator target [D. A. Callahan and M. Tabak, Phys. Plasmas 7, 2083 (2000)] and beams that are wobbled so as to trace a number of full rotations around a circular or elliptical path [R. C. Arnold et al., Nucl. Instrum. Methods 199, 557 (1982)]. Here, we describe the arc-based smoothing approach and compare it to results obtainable using an elliptical-beam prescription. In particular, we assess the potential of these approaches for minimization of azimuthal asymmetry, for the case of a ring of beams arranged on a cone. It is found that, for small numbers of beams on the ring, the arc-based smoothing approach offers superior uniformity. In contrast with the full-rotation approach, arc-based smoothing remains usable when the geometry precludes wobbling the beams around a full circle, e.g., for the X-target [E. Henestroza, B. G. Logan, and L. J. Perkins, Phys. Plasmas 18, 032702 (2011)] and some classes of distributed-radiator targets.

Output Power Smoothing Control for a Wind Farm Based on the Allocation of Wind Turbines

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ying Zhu

2018-06-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a new output power smoothing control strategy for a wind farm based on the allocation of wind turbines. The wind turbines in the wind farm are divided into control wind turbines (CWT and power wind turbines (PWT, separately. The PWTs are expected to output as much power as possible and a maximum power point tracking (MPPT control strategy combining the rotor inertia based power smoothing method is adopted. The CWTs are in charge of the output power smoothing for the whole wind farm by giving the calculated appropriate power. The battery energy storage system (BESS with small capacity is installed to be the support and its charge and discharge times are greatly reduced comparing with the traditional ESSs based power smoothing strategies. The simulation model of the permanent magnet synchronous generators (PMSG based wind farm by considering the wake effect is built in Matlab/Simulink to test the proposed power smoothing method. Three different working modes of the wind farm are given in the simulation and the simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed power smoothing control strategy.

Rho Kinase (ROCK) collaborates with Pak to Regulate Actin Polymerization and Contraction in Airway Smooth Muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Wenwu; Bhetwal, Bhupal P; Gunst, Susan J

2018-05-10

The mechanisms by which Rho kinase (ROCK) regulates airway smooth muscle contraction were determined in tracheal smooth muscle tissues. ROCK may mediate smooth muscle contraction by inhibiting myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) phosphatase. ROCK can also regulate F-actin dynamics during cell migration, and actin polymerization is critical for airway smooth muscle contraction. Our results show that ROCK does not regulate airway smooth muscle contraction by inhibiting myosin RLC phosphatase or by stimulating myosin RLC phosphorylation. We find that ROCK regulates airway smooth muscle contraction by activating the serine-threonine kinase Pak, which mediates the activation of Cdc42 and Neuronal-Wiskott-Aldrich Syndrome protein (N-WASp). N-WASP transmits signals from cdc42 to the Arp2/3 complex for the nucleation of actin filaments. These results demonstrate a novel molecular function for ROCK in the regulation of Pak and cdc42 activation that is critical for the processes of actin polymerization and contractility in airway smooth muscle. Rho kinase (ROCK), a RhoA GTPase effector, can regulate the contraction of airway and other smooth muscle tissues. In some tissues, ROCK can inhibit myosin regulatory light chain (RLC) phosphatase, which increases the phosphorylation of myosin RLC and promotes smooth muscle contraction. ROCK can also regulate cell motility and migration by affecting F-actin dynamics. Actin polymerization is stimulated by contractile agonists in airway smooth muscle tissues and is required for contractile tension development in addition to myosin RLC phosphorylation. We investigated the mechanisms by which ROCK regulates the contractility of tracheal smooth muscle tissues by expressing a kinase inactive mutant of ROCK, ROCK-K121G, in the tissues or by treating them with the ROCK inhibitor, H-1152P. Our results show no role for ROCK in the regulation of non-muscle or smooth muscle myosin RLC phosphorylation during contractile stimulation in this tissue

Dry deposition on smooth and rough urban surfaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Roed, J.

1987-01-01

Following the Chernobyl accident, dry deposition velocities on smooth surfaces indoors and outdoors have been measured in Denmark. Internal wall surfaces gave deposition velocities of 0.0008-0.0009 cm/s for 131I and 0.0001-0.0002 cm/s for 134Cs and 103Ru. Internal floor surfaces gave higher values for the deposition velocities: for 131I, 0.002 cm/s and for 134Cs and 103Ru, 0.0005-0.0013 cm/s. The deposition velocities on vertical and horizontal external surfaces were nearly equal. Those for 131I were found as 0.02-0.03 cm/s and for 137Cs as 0.001-0.002 cm/s. On external rough surfaces such as grass and corrugated roof material the deposition velocities for 134Cs and 103Ru were 0.03-0.05 cm/s. For iodine, however, deposition velocities were higher for clipped grass (2 cm/s) than for roof material (0.2-0.4 cm/s). The results show that internal deposition velocities are considerably lower than those on external smooth surfaces, and that the deposition velocities on rough surfaces are an order of magnitude higher than on smooth surfaces. It was also shown that the deposition velocities of iodine are considerably higher than those of cesium and ruthenium. This work was supported by EEC Radiation Protection Programme No B16-107-DK and by NKA, The Nordic Liaison Committee for Atomic Energy. (author)

Analyzing the non-smooth dynamics induced by a split-path nonlinear integral controller

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hunnekens, B.G.B.; van Loon, S.J.L.M.; van de Wouw, N.; Heemels, W.P.M.H.; Nijmeijer, H.; Ecker, Horst; Steindl, Alois; Jakubek, Stefan

2014-01-01

In this paper, we introduce a novel non-smooth integral controller, which aims at achieving a better transient response in terms of overshoot of a feedback controlled dynamical system. The resulting closed-loop system can be represented as a non-smooth system with different continuous dynamics being

Aerobic metabolism on muscle contraction in porcine gastric smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Kanda, Hidenori; Kaneda, Takeharu; Nagai, Yuta; Urakawa, Norimoto; Shimizu, Kazumasa

2018-05-18

Exposure to chronic hypoxic conditions causes various gastric diseases, including gastric ulcers. It has been suggested that gastric smooth muscle contraction is associated with aerobic metabolism. However, there are no reports on the association between gastric smooth muscle contraction and aerobic metabolism, and we have investigated this association in the present study. High K + - and carbachol (CCh)-induced muscle contractions involved increasing O 2 consumption. Aeration with N 2 (hypoxia) and NaCN significantly decreased high K + - and CCh-induced muscle contraction and O 2 consumption. In addition, hypoxia and NaCN significantly decreased creatine phosphate (PCr) contents in the presence of high K + . Moreover, decrease in CCh-induced contraction and O 2 consumption was greater than that of high K + . Our results suggest that hypoxia and NaCN inhibit high K + - and CCh-induced contractions in gastric fundus smooth muscles by decreasing O 2 consumption and intracellular PCr content. However, the inhibition of CCh-induced muscle contraction was greater than that of high K + -induced muscle contraction.

Adaptive spectrum decision framework for heterogeneous dynamic spectrum access networks

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Masonta, M

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Spectrum decision is the ability of a cognitive radio (CR) system to select the best available spectrum band to satisfy dynamic spectrum access network (DSAN) users¿ quality of service (QoS) requirements without causing harmful interference...

Application of Data Smoothing Method in Signal Processing for Vortex Flow Meters

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhang Jun

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Vortex flow meter is typical flow measure equipment. Its measurement output signals can easily be impaired by environmental conditions. In order to obtain an improved estimate of the time-averaged velocity from the vortex flow meter, a signal filter method is applied in this paper. The method is based on a simple Savitzky-Golay smoothing filter algorithm. According with the algorithm, a numerical program is developed in Python with the scientific library numerical Numpy. Two sample data sets are processed through the program. The results demonstrate that the processed data is available accepted compared with the original data. The improved data of the time-averaged velocity is obtained within smoothing curves. Finally the simple data smoothing program is useable and stable for this filter.

Effects of income smoothing practices on the conservatism of public companies listed on the BM & FBOVESPA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

José Elias Feres de Almeida

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate two aspects of accounting information that may be inherently related: income smoothing practices and conditional conservatism. Theoretically, the more a firm employs income smoothing, i.e., uses accruals to reduce the variability of profits, the less possibility there is for the timely acknowledgement of future economic losses (i.e., bad economic news in profits. Eckel's model (1981 was used in this study to classify listed companies as smoothing or non-smoothing, and Basu's model (1997 was used to quantify the degree of conditional conservatism present in each firm. To make the results more robust, samples were created with annual stock return data from both March and December. The results indicated that non-smoothing firms had a higher degree of conditional conservatism, i.e., more opportunity to recognize future economic losses because the market could use the stock return data to anticipate future losses contained in the information regarding profits. This research made it possible to observe theoretical relationships between properties of accounting information: i there is a relationship between income smoothing and conditional conservatism (i.e., accounting choices; ii the informational environment of the Brazilian capital market contributes to the market distinction between smoothing and non-smoothing firms; and iii the improvement of the capital market provides economic operators with greater insight into economic losses that are contained in accounting results.

Smoothing dynamic positron emission tomography time courses using functional principal components

OpenAIRE

Jiang, Ci-Ren; Aston, John A. D.; Wang, Jane-Ling

2009-01-01

A functional smoothing approach to the analysis of PET time course data is presented. By borrowing information across space and accounting for this pooling through the use of a non-parametric covariate adjustment, it is possible to smooth the PET time course data thus reducing the noise. A new model for functional data analysis, the Multiplicative Nonparametric Random Effects Model, is introduced to more accurately account for the variation in the data. A locally adaptive bandwidth choice hel...

on Isolated Smooth Muscle Preparation in Rats

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Samuel Olaleye

ABSTRACT. This study investigated the receptor effects of methanolic root extract of ... Phytochemical Analysis: Photochemistry of the methanolic extract was ... mounted with resting tension 0.5g in an organ bath containing .... Effects of extra cellular free Ca2+ and 0.5mM ... isolated smooth muscle by high K+ on the other.

Design and simulation of origami structures with smooth folds.

Science.gov (United States)

Peraza Hernandez, E A; Hartl, D J; Lagoudas, D C

2017-04-01

Origami has enabled new approaches to the fabrication and functionality of multiple structures. Current methods for origami design are restricted to the idealization of folds as creases of zeroth-order geometric continuity. Such an idealization is not proper for origami structures of non-negligible fold thickness or maximum curvature at the folds restricted by material limitations. For such structures, folds are not properly represented as creases but rather as bent regions of higher-order geometric continuity. Such fold regions of arbitrary order of continuity are termed as smooth folds . This paper presents a method for solving the following origami design problem: given a goal shape represented as a polygonal mesh (termed as the goal mesh ), find the geometry of a single planar sheet, its pattern of smooth folds, and the history of folding motion allowing the sheet to approximate the goal mesh. The parametrization of the planar sheet and the constraints that allow for a valid pattern of smooth folds are presented. The method is tested against various goal meshes having diverse geometries. The results show that every determined sheet approximates its corresponding goal mesh in a known folded configuration having fold angles obtained from the geometry of the goal mesh.

Spectral and cross-spectral analysis of uneven time series with the smoothed Lomb-Scargle periodogram and Monte Carlo evaluation of statistical significance

Science.gov (United States)

Pardo-Igúzquiza, Eulogio; Rodríguez-Tovar, Francisco J.

2012-12-01

Many spectral analysis techniques have been designed assuming sequences taken with a constant sampling interval. However, there are empirical time series in the geosciences (sediment cores, fossil abundance data, isotope analysis, …) that do not follow regular sampling because of missing data, gapped data, random sampling or incomplete sequences, among other reasons. In general, interpolating an uneven series in order to obtain a succession with a constant sampling interval alters the spectral content of the series. In such cases it is preferable to follow an approach that works with the uneven data directly, avoiding the need for an explicit interpolation step. The Lomb-Scargle periodogram is a popular choice in such circumstances, as there are programs available in the public domain for its computation. One new computer program for spectral analysis improves the standard Lomb-Scargle periodogram approach in two ways: (1) It explicitly adjusts the statistical significance to any bias introduced by variance reduction smoothing, and (2) it uses a permutation test to evaluate confidence levels, which is better suited than parametric methods when neighbouring frequencies are highly correlated. Another novel program for cross-spectral analysis offers the advantage of estimating the Lomb-Scargle cross-periodogram of two uneven time series defined on the same interval, and it evaluates the confidence levels of the estimated cross-spectra by a non-parametric computer intensive permutation test. Thus, the cross-spectrum, the squared coherence spectrum, the phase spectrum, and the Monte Carlo statistical significance of the cross-spectrum and the squared-coherence spectrum can be obtained. Both of the programs are written in ANSI Fortran 77, in view of its simplicity and compatibility. The program code is of public domain, provided on the website of the journal (http://www.iamg.org/index.php/publisher/articleview/frmArticleID/112/). Different examples (with simulated and

Electron histochemical and autoradiographic studies of vascular smooth muscle cell

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kameyama, Kohji; Aida, Takeo; Asano, Goro

1982-01-01

The authors have studied the vascular smooth muscle cell in the aorta and the arteries of brain, heart in autopsied cases, cholesterol fed rabbits and canine through electron histochemical and autoradiographic methods, using 3 H-proline and 3 H-thymidine. The vascular changes are variable presumably due to the functional and morphological difference of vessels. Aging, pathological condition and physiological requirement induce the disturbances of vascular functions as contractility. According to various pathological conditions, the smooth muscle cell altered their shape, surface properties and arrangement of subcellular organelles including changes in number. The morphological features of arteries during aging is characterized by the thickening of endothelium and media. Decreasing cellularity and increasing collagen contents in media. The autoradiographic and histochemical observations using periodic acid methenamine silver (PAM) and ruthenium red stains demonstrated that the smooth muscle cell is a connective tissue synthetic cell. The PAM impregnation have proved that the small bundle of microfilaments become associated with small conglomerate of collagen and elastic fibers. Cytochemical examination will provide sufficient evidence to establish the contribution of subcellular structure. The acid phosphatase play an important role in vascular disease and they are directly involved in cellular lipid metabolism in cholesterol fed animals, and the activity of Na-K ATPase on the plasma membrane may contribute to the regulation of vascular blood flow and vasospasms. Direct injury and subsequent abnormal contraction of smooth muscle cell may initiate increased permeability of plasma protein and lipid in the media layer and eventually may developed and enhance arteriosclerosis. (author)

Singular Spectrum Near a Singular Point of Friedrichs Model Operators of Absolute Type

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iakovlev, Serguei I.

2006-01-01

In L 2 (R) we consider a family of self adjoint operators of the Friedrichs model: A m =|t| m +V. Here |t| m is the operator of multiplication by the corresponding function of the independent variable t element of R, and (perturbation) is a trace-class integral operator with a continuous Hermitian kernel ν(t,x) satisfying some smoothness condition. These absolute type operators have one singular point of order m>0. Conditions on the kernel ν(t,x) are found guaranteeing the absence of the point spectrum and the singular continuous one of such operators near the origin. These conditions are actually necessary and sufficient. They depend on the finiteness of the rank of a perturbation operator and on the order of singularity. The sharpness of these conditions is confirmed by counterexamples

Seamless Heterogeneous 3D Tessellation via DWT Domain Smoothing and Mosaicking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gilles Gesquière

2010-01-01

Full Text Available With todays geobrowsers, the tessellations are far from being smooth due to a variety of reasons: the principal being the light difference and resolution heterogeneity. Whilst the former has been extensively dealt with in the literature through classic mosaicking techniques, the latter has got little attention. We focus on this latter aspect and present two DWT domain methods to seamlessly stitch tiles of heterogeneous resolutions. The first method is local in that each of the tiles that constitute the view, is subjected to one of the three context-based smoothing functions proposed for horizontal, vertical, and radial smoothing, depending on its localization in the tessellation. These functions are applied at the DWT subband level and followed by an inverse DWT to give a smoothened tile. In the second method, though we assume the same tessellation scenario, the view field is thought to be of a sliding window which may contain parts of the tiles from the heterogeneous tessellation. The window is refined in the DWT domain through mosaicking and smoothing followed by a global inverse DWT. Rather than the traditional sense, the mosaicking employed over here targets the heterogeneous resolution. Perceptually, this second method has shown better results than the first one. The methods have been successfully applied to practical examples of both the texture and its corresponding DEM for seamless 3D terrain visualization.

Comparison of RF spectrum prediction methods for dynamic spectrum access

Science.gov (United States)

Kovarskiy, Jacob A.; Martone, Anthony F.; Gallagher, Kyle A.; Sherbondy, Kelly D.; Narayanan, Ram M.

2017-05-01

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) refers to the adaptive utilization of today's busy electromagnetic spectrum. Cognitive radio/radar technologies require DSA to intelligently transmit and receive information in changing environments. Predicting radio frequency (RF) activity reduces sensing time and energy consumption for identifying usable spectrum. Typical spectrum prediction methods involve modeling spectral statistics with Hidden Markov Models (HMM) or various neural network structures. HMMs describe the time-varying state probabilities of Markov processes as a dynamic Bayesian network. Neural Networks model biological brain neuron connections to perform a wide range of complex and often non-linear computations. This work compares HMM, Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), and Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) algorithms and their ability to perform RF channel state prediction. Monte Carlo simulations on both measured and simulated spectrum data evaluate the performance of these algorithms. Generalizing spectrum occupancy as an alternating renewal process allows Poisson random variables to generate simulated data while energy detection determines the occupancy state of measured RF spectrum data for testing. The results suggest that neural networks achieve better prediction accuracy and prove more adaptable to changing spectral statistics than HMMs given sufficient training data.

Bessel smoothing filter for spectral-element mesh

Science.gov (United States)

Trinh, P. T.; Brossier, R.; Métivier, L.; Virieux, J.; Wellington, P.

2017-06-01

Smoothing filters are extremely important tools in seismic imaging and inversion, such as for traveltime tomography, migration and waveform inversion. For efficiency, and as they can be used a number of times during inversion, it is important that these filters can easily incorporate prior information on the geological structure of the investigated medium, through variable coherent lengths and orientation. In this study, we promote the use of the Bessel filter to achieve these purposes. Instead of considering the direct application of the filter, we demonstrate that we can rely on the equation associated with its inverse filter, which amounts to the solution of an elliptic partial differential equation. This enhances the efficiency of the filter application, and also its flexibility. We apply this strategy within a spectral-element-based elastic full waveform inversion framework. Taking advantage of this formulation, we apply the Bessel filter by solving the associated partial differential equation directly on the spectral-element mesh through the standard weak formulation. This avoids cumbersome projection operators between the spectral-element mesh and a regular Cartesian grid, or expensive explicit windowed convolution on the finite-element mesh, which is often used for applying smoothing operators. The associated linear system is solved efficiently through a parallel conjugate gradient algorithm, in which the matrix vector product is factorized and highly optimized with vectorized computation. Significant scaling behaviour is obtained when comparing this strategy with the explicit convolution method. The theoretical numerical complexity of this approach increases linearly with the coherent length, whereas a sublinear relationship is observed practically. Numerical illustrations are provided here for schematic examples, and for a more realistic elastic full waveform inversion gradient smoothing on the SEAM II benchmark model. These examples illustrate well the

The MR evaluation of pachygyria and associated syndromes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Byrd, S.E.; Radkowski, M.A.; Northwestern Univ., Chicago, IL; Osborn, R.E.

1991-01-01

A retrospective study of 40 children with some form of pachygyria was performed at the Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. All children had MR brain scans. The MR findings were analyzed, and correlated with the clinical symptoms and course in all the children. 15 percent had autopsy findings. Based on the clinical, MR and autopsy findings, in conjunction with the medical literature, the following was found: (1) Pachygyria can occur as an isolated entity without an association with lissencephaly. The MR findings in these children consisted of a brain that demonstrated normal opercularization with either focal or diffuse areas of pachygyria without areas of agyria. These children live longer and have less severity of symptoms than the children with lissencephaly. (2) The MR findings in children with lissencephaly consisted of a brain that demonstrated abnormal oper-cularization with areas of total agyria or areas with agyria with pachygyria. (3) The MR findings in 25 percent of the children with poly-microgyria simulated pachygyria. The MR findings of the brain in these children consisted of a 'nubby' appearance to the outer surface of these abnormal gyri which resembled pachygyria but on histologic exam was polymicrogyria. (author). 11 refs.; 7 figs.; 1 tab

On the theory of smooth structures. 2

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shafei Deh Abad, A.

1992-09-01

In this paper we continue by introducing the concepts of substructures, quotient structures and tensor product, and examine some of their properties. By using the concept of tensor product, in the next paper, we will give another product for smooth structures which is a characterization of integral domains which are not fields. (author). 2 refs

A method of piecewise-smooth numerical branching

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Ligurský, Tomáš; Renard, Y.

2017-01-01

Roč. 97, č. 7 (2017), s. 815-827 ISSN 1521-4001 R&D Projects: GA MŠk LQ1602 Institutional support: RVO:68145535 Keywords : numerical branching * piecewise smooth * steady-state problem * contact problem * Coulomb friction Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Applied mathematics http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/zamm.201600219/epdf

Expression profile and protein translation of TMEM16A in murine smooth muscle

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Davis, Alison J; Forrest, Abigail S; Jepps, Thomas Andrew

2010-01-01

Recently, overexpression of the genes TMEM16A and TMEM16B has been shown to produce currents qualitatively similar to native Ca(2+)-activated Cl(-) currents (I(ClCa)) in vascular smooth muscle. However, there is no information about this new gene family in vascular smooth muscle, where Cl(-) chan...

SMOOTH MYOCYTES AND COLLAGENOUS FIBERS OF THE URINARY BLADDER OF RATS IN DIABETES MELLITUS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nadiya Tokaruk

2015-12-01

Ivano-Frankivsk National Medical University, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine   Key words: diabetes mellitus; smooth myocytes; collagenous fibers.   Introduction. Diabetes mellitus (DM causes diabetic cystopathy, which is associated with detrusor dysfunction and the content of collagenous fibers. The results of the performed studies are ambiguous and often contradictory, requiring objective data which could be obtained on the basis of the simultaneous determination of relative areas of smooth myocytes and collagenous fibers and their ultrastructural study. Objective: To determine the peculiarities of the structural and metric organization of smooth myocytes and collagenous fibers of the urinary bladder (UB of rats during different stages of DM. Materials and methods. DM was modeled by streptozotocin in Wistar rats. Relative areas of the studied structures were defined on digital images of histological sections of UB stained by Mason using the original automatic way. Smooth myocytes were studied ultrastructurally. Results. During the 14th-28th day of DM development the percent of collagenous fibers area decreases and the percentage of smooth myocytes area of UB wall increases. The expanding of intercellular spaces and the development of vacuolar degeneration of myocytes are observed. During the 42nd-56th days the percentage of collagenous fibers area increases and the percentage of the area of smooth myocytes decreases. Ultrastructurally subsiding of vacuolar dystrophy, short-term baloon dystrophy, the appearance of dark myocytes, moderate karyorrhexis were observed. During the 70th day of the experiment the percentage of collagenous fibers and smooth myocytes areas does not change significantly, most dark myocytes are involutive, there are local fibrosis and myocyte sequestration areas. Conclusions. Ultrastructural changes are characterized by a pronounced polymorphism and have a chronological relationship. Author’s worked out original method of determination of the

Unexpected properties of bandwidth choice when smoothing discrete data for constructing a functional data classifier

KAUST Repository

Carroll, Raymond J.

2013-12-01

The data functions that are studied in the course of functional data analysis are assembled from discrete data, and the level of smoothing that is used is generally that which is appropriate for accurate approximation of the conceptually smooth functions that were not actually observed. Existing literature shows that this approach is effective, and even optimal, when using functional data methods for prediction or hypothesis testing. However, in the present paper we show that this approach is not effective in classification problems. There a useful rule of thumb is that undersmoothing is often desirable, but there are several surprising qualifications to that approach. First, the effect of smoothing the training data can be more significant than that of smoothing the new data set to be classified; second, undersmoothing is not always the right approach, and in fact in some cases using a relatively large bandwidth can be more effective; and third, these perverse results are the consequence of very unusual properties of error rates, expressed as functions of smoothing parameters. For example, the orders of magnitude of optimal smoothing parameter choices depend on the signs and sizes of terms in an expansion of error rate, and those signs and sizes can vary dramatically from one setting to another, even for the same classifier.

Unexpected properties of bandwidth choice when smoothing discrete data for constructing a functional data classifier

KAUST Repository

Carroll, Raymond J.; Delaigle, Aurore; Hall, Peter

2013-01-01

The data functions that are studied in the course of functional data analysis are assembled from discrete data, and the level of smoothing that is used is generally that which is appropriate for accurate approximation of the conceptually smooth functions that were not actually observed. Existing literature shows that this approach is effective, and even optimal, when using functional data methods for prediction or hypothesis testing. However, in the present paper we show that this approach is not effective in classification problems. There a useful rule of thumb is that undersmoothing is often desirable, but there are several surprising qualifications to that approach. First, the effect of smoothing the training data can be more significant than that of smoothing the new data set to be classified; second, undersmoothing is not always the right approach, and in fact in some cases using a relatively large bandwidth can be more effective; and third, these perverse results are the consequence of very unusual properties of error rates, expressed as functions of smoothing parameters. For example, the orders of magnitude of optimal smoothing parameter choices depend on the signs and sizes of terms in an expansion of error rate, and those signs and sizes can vary dramatically from one setting to another, even for the same classifier.

Smooth functions statistics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Arnold, V.I.

2006-03-01

To describe the topological structure of a real smooth function one associates to it the graph, formed by the topological variety, whose points are the connected components of the level hypersurface of the function. For a Morse function, such a graph is a tree. Generically, it has T triple vertices, T + 2 endpoints, 2T + 2 vertices and 2T + 1 arrows. The main goal of the present paper is to study the statistics of the graphs, corresponding to T triple points: what is the growth rate of the number φ(T) of different graphs? Which part of these graphs is representable by the polynomial functions of corresponding degree? A generic polynomial of degree n has at most (n - 1) 2 critical points on R 2 , corresponding to 2T + 2 = (n - 1) 2 + 1, that is to T = 2k(k - 1) saddle-points for degree n = 2k

Pathologic bladder microenvironment attenuates smooth muscle differentiation of skin derived precursor cells: implications for tissue regeneration.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cornelia Tolg

Full Text Available Smooth muscle cell containing organs (bladder, heart, blood vessels are damaged by a variety of pathological conditions necessitating surgery or organ replacement. Currently, regeneration of contractile tissues is hampered by lack of functional smooth muscle cells. Multipotent skin derived progenitor cells (SKPs can easily be isolated from adult skin and can be differentiated in vitro into contractile smooth muscle cells by exposure to FBS. Here we demonstrate an inhibitory effect of a pathologic contractile organ microenvironment on smooth muscle cell differentiation of SKPs. In vivo, urinary bladder strain induces microenvironmental changes leading to de-differentiation of fully differentiated bladder smooth muscle cells. Co-culture of SKPs with organoids isolated from ex vivo stretched bladders or exposure of SKPs to diffusible factors released by stretched bladders (e.g. bFGF suppresses expression of smooth muscle markers (alpha SMactin, calponin, myocardin, myosin heavy chain as demonstrated by qPCR and immunofluorescent staining. Rapamycin, an inhibitor of mTOR signalling, previously observed to prevent bladder strain induced de-differentiation of fully differentiated smooth muscle cells in vitro, inhibits FBS-induced smooth muscle cell differentiation of undifferentiated SKPs. These results suggest that intended precursor cell differentiation may be paradoxically suppressed by the disease context for which regeneration may be required. Organ-specific microenvironment contexts, particularly prevailing disease, may play a significant role in modulating or attenuating an intended stem cell phenotypic fate, possibly explaining the variable and inefficient differentiation of stem cell constructs in in vivo settings. These observations must be considered in drafting any regeneration strategies.

Improving the resolution for Lamb wave testing via a smoothed Capon algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Cao, Xuwei; Zeng, Liang; Lin, Jing; Hua, Jiadong

2018-04-01

Lamb wave testing is promising for damage detection and evaluation in large-area structures. The dispersion of Lamb waves is often unavoidable, restricting testing resolution and making the signal hard to interpret. A smoothed Capon algorithm is proposed in this paper to estimate the accurate path length of each wave packet. In the algorithm, frequency domain whitening is firstly used to obtain the transfer function in the bandwidth of the excitation pulse. Subsequently, wavenumber domain smoothing is employed to reduce the correlation between wave packets. Finally, the path lengths are determined by distance domain searching based on the Capon algorithm. Simulations are applied to optimize the number of smoothing times. Experiments are performed on an aluminum plate consisting of two simulated defects. The results demonstrate that spatial resolution is improved significantly by the proposed algorithm.

Smooth torque speed characteristic of switched reluctance motors

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Zeng, Hui; Chen, Zhe; Chen, Hao

2014-01-01

The torque ripple of switched reluctance motors (SRMs) is the main disadvantage that limits the industrial application of these motors. Although several methods for smooth-toque operation (STO) have been proposed, STO works well only within a certain torque and speed range because...

Water Flow Simulation using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH)

Science.gov (United States)

Vu, Bruce; Berg, Jared; Harris, Michael F.

2014-01-01

Simulation of water flow from the rainbird nozzles has been accomplished using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). The advantage of using SPH is that no meshing is required, thus the grid quality is no longer an issue and accuracy can be improved.

Exceptional curves on smooth rational surfaces with -K not nef and of self-intersection zero

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lahyane, Mustapha

2001-08-01

We prove that a smooth rational surface X defined over the field of complex numbers having an anti-canonical divisor not nef and of self-intersection zero has a finite number of (-1)-curves. A (-1)-curve is a smooth rational curve of self-interaction -1. By giving an example, we also show that X may have no (-2)-curves, a (-2)-curve is a smooth rational curve of self-intersection -2. (author)

The Smooth Muscle of the Artery

Science.gov (United States)

1975-01-01

of vascular smooth muscle are contrac- tion, thereby mediating vaso constriction, and the synthesis of the extracellular proteins and polysaccharides ...of the monosaccharides turned out to be different for instance from cornea to aorta (229, 283). In the conditions yed (4 hours incubation at 37 degrees... polysaccharides only. This glyco- protein is not very rich in sugar components (- 5Z) (228, 284), but is a very acidic protein (286). Fig.66 shows

Does responsive pricing smooth demand shocks?

OpenAIRE

Pascal, Courty; Mario, Pagliero

2011-01-01

Using data from a unique pricing experiment, we investigate Vickrey’s conjecture that responsive pricing can be used to smooth both predictable and unpredictable demand shocks. Our evidence shows that increasing the responsiveness of price to demand conditions reduces the magnitude of deviations in capacity utilization rates from a pre-determined target level. A 10 percent increase in price variability leads to a decrease in the variability of capacity utilization rates between...

Smitin, a novel smooth muscle titin-like protein, interacts with myosin filaments in vivo and in vitro.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Kyoungtae; Keller, Thomas C S

2002-01-07

Smooth muscle cells use an actin-myosin II-based contractile apparatus to produce force for a variety of physiological functions, including blood pressure regulation and gut peristalsis. The organization of the smooth muscle contractile apparatus resembles that of striated skeletal and cardiac muscle, but remains much more poorly understood. We have found that avian vascular and visceral smooth muscles contain a novel, megadalton protein, smitin, that is similar to striated muscle titin in molecular morphology, localization in a contractile apparatus, and ability to interact with myosin filaments. Smitin, like titin, is a long fibrous molecule with a globular domain on one end. Specific reactivities of an anti-smitin polyclonal antibody and an anti-titin monoclonal antibody suggest that smitin and titin are distinct proteins rather than differentially spliced isoforms encoded by the same gene. Smitin immunofluorescently colocalizes with myosin in chicken gizzard smooth muscle, and interacts with two configurations of smooth muscle myosin filaments in vitro. In physiological ionic strength conditions, smitin and smooth muscle myosin coassemble into irregular aggregates containing large sidepolar myosin filaments. In low ionic strength conditions, smitin and smooth muscle myosin form highly ordered structures containing linear and polygonal end-to-end and side-by-side arrays of small bipolar myosin filaments. We have used immunogold localization and sucrose density gradient cosedimentation analyses to confirm association of smitin with both the sidepolar and bipolar smooth muscle myosin filaments. These findings suggest that the titin-like protein smitin may play a central role in organizing myosin filaments in the contractile apparatus and perhaps in other structures in smooth muscle cells.

PHANTOM: Smoothed particle hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics code

Science.gov (United States)

Price, Daniel J.; Wurster, James; Nixon, Chris; Tricco, Terrence S.; Toupin, Stéven; Pettitt, Alex; Chan, Conrad; Laibe, Guillaume; Glover, Simon; Dobbs, Clare; Nealon, Rebecca; Liptai, David; Worpel, Hauke; Bonnerot, Clément; Dipierro, Giovanni; Ragusa, Enrico; Federrath, Christoph; Iaconi, Roberto; Reichardt, Thomas; Forgan, Duncan; Hutchison, Mark; Constantino, Thomas; Ayliffe, Ben; Mentiplay, Daniel; Hirsh, Kieran; Lodato, Giuseppe

2017-09-01

Phantom is a smoothed particle hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics code focused on stellar, galactic, planetary, and high energy astrophysics. It is modular, and handles sink particles, self-gravity, two fluid and one fluid dust, ISM chemistry and cooling, physical viscosity, non-ideal MHD, and more. Its modular structure makes it easy to add new physics to the code.

Modelling free surface flows with smoothed particle hydrodynamics

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

L.Di G.Sigalotti

2006-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper the method of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH is extended to include an adaptive density kernel estimation (ADKE procedure. It is shown that for a van der Waals (vdW fluid, this method can be used to deal with free-surface phenomena without difficulties. In particular, arbitrary moving boundaries can be easily handled because surface tension is effectively simulated by the cohesive pressure forces. Moreover, the ADKE method is seen to increase both the accuracy and stability of SPH since it allows the width of the kernel interpolant to vary locally in a way that only the minimum necessary smoothing is applied at and near free surfaces and sharp fluid-fluid interfaces. The method is robust and easy to implement. Examples of its resolving power are given for both the formation of a circular liquid drop under surface tension and the nonlinear oscillation of excited drops.

Probing dark energy using convergence power spectrum and bi-spectrum

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dinda, Bikash R., E-mail: bikash@ctp-jamia.res.in [Centre for Theoretical Physics, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi-110025 (India)

2017-09-01

Weak lensing convergence statistics is a powerful tool to probe dark energy. Dark energy plays an important role to the structure formation and the effects can be detected through the convergence power spectrum, bi-spectrum etc. One of the most promising and simplest dark energy model is the ΛCDM . However, it is worth investigating different dark energy models with evolving equation of state of the dark energy. In this work, detectability of different dark energy models from ΛCDM model has been explored through convergence power spectrum and bi-spectrum.

Smooth muscle adaptation after intestinal transection and resection.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, J S; Quigley, E M; Adrian, T E

1996-09-01

Changes in motor function occur in the intestinal remnant after intestinal resection. Smooth muscle adaptation also occurs, particularly after extensive resection. The time course of these changes and their interrelationship are unclear. Our aim was to evaluate changes in canine smooth muscle structure and function during intestinal adaptation after transection and resection. Twenty-five dogs underwent either transection (N = 10), 50% distal resection (N = 10), or 50% proximal resection (N = 5). Thickness and length of the circular (CM) and longitudinal (LM) muscle layers were measured four and 12 weeks after resection. In vitro length-tension properties and response to a cholinergic agonist were studied in mid-jejunum and mid-ileum. Transection alone caused increased CM length in the jejunum proximal to the transection but did not affect LM length or muscle thickness. A 50% resection resulted in increased length of CM throughout the intestine and thickening of CM and LM near the anastomosis. Active tension of jejunal CM increased transiently four weeks after resection. Active tension in jejunal LM was decreased 12 weeks after transection and resection. Sensitivity of CM to carbachol was similar after transection and resection. It is concluded that: (1) Structural adaptation of both circular and longitudinal muscle occurs after intestinal resection. (2) This process is influenced by the site of the intestinal remnant. (3) Only minor and transient changes occur in smooth muscle function after resection. (4) Factors other than muscle adaptation are likely involved in the changes in motor function seen following massive bowel resection.

Dynamics and Control of Non-Smooth Systems with Applications to Supercavitating Vehicles

Science.gov (United States)

2011-01-01

ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: Dynamics and Control of Non-Smooth Systems with Applications to Supercavitating Vehicles Vincent Nguyen, Doctor of...relates to the dynamics of non-smooth vehicle systems, and in particular, supercavitating vehicles. These high-speed under- water vehicles are...Applications to Supercavitating Vehicles 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER 5b. GRANT NUMBER 5c. PROGRAM ELEMENT NUMBER 6. AUTHOR(S) 5d. PROJECT NUMBER 5e. TASK

Modeling and control of three phase rectifier with electronic smoothing inductor

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Singh, Yash Veer; Rasmussen, Peter Omand; Andersen, Torben Ole

2011-01-01

This paper presents a simple, direct method for deriving the approximate, small-signal, average model and control strategy for three-phase diode bridge rectifier operating with electronic smoothing technique. Electronic smoothing inductor (ESI) performs the function of an inductor that has...... controlled variable impedance. This increases power factor (PF) and reduces total harmonic distortions (THDs) in mains current. The ESI based rectifier enables compact and cost effective design of three phase electric drive as size of passive components is reduced significantly. In order to carry out...

Movements of a Sphere Moving Over Smooth and Rough Inclines

Science.gov (United States)

Jan, Chyan-Deng

1992-01-01

The steady movements of a sphere over a rough incline in air, and over smooth and rough inclines in a liquid were studied theoretically and experimentally. The principle of energy conservation was used to analyze the translation velocities, rolling resistances, and drag coefficients of a sphere moving over the inclines. The rolling resistance to the movement of a sphere from the rough incline was presumed to be caused by collisions and frictional slidings. A varnished wooden board was placed on the bottom of an experimental tilting flume to form a smooth incline and a layer of spheres identical to the sphere moving over them was placed on the smooth wooden board to form a rough incline. Spheres used in the experiments were glass spheres, steel spheres, and golf balls. Experiments show that a sphere moving over a rough incline with negligible fluid drag in air can reach a constant translation velocity. This constant velocity was found to be proportional to the bed inclination (between 11 ^circ and 21^circ) and the square root of the sphere's diameter, but seemingly independent of the sphere's specific gravity. Two empirical coefficients in the theoretical expression of the sphere's translation velocity were determined by experiments. The collision and friction parts of the shear stress exerted on the interface between the moving sphere and rough incline were determined. The ratio of collision to friction parts appears to increase with increase in the bed inclination. These two parts seem to be of the same order of magnitude. The rolling resistances and the relations between the drag coefficient and Reynolds number for a sphere moving over smooth and rough inclines in a liquid, such as water or salad oil, were determined by a regression analysis based on experimental data. It was found that the drag coefficient for a sphere over the rough incline is larger than that for a sphere over the smooth incline, and both of which are much larger than that for a sphere in free

Cultured smooth muscle cells of the human vesical sphincter are more sensitive to histamine than are detrusor smooth muscle cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Neuhaus, Jochen; Oberbach, Andreas; Schwalenberg, Thilo; Stolzenburg, Jens-Uwe

2006-05-01

To compare histamine receptor expression in cultured smooth muscle cells from the human detrusor and internal sphincter using receptor-specific agonists. Smooth muscle cells from the bladder dome and internal sphincter were cultured from 5 male patients undergoing cystectomy for bladder cancer therapy. Calcium transients in cells stimulated with carbachol, histamine, histamine receptor 1 (H1R)-specific heptanecarboxamide (HTMT), dimaprit (H2R), and R-(alpha)-methylhistamine (H3R) were measured by calcium imaging. Histamine receptor proteins were detected by Western blot analysis and immunocytochemistry. H1R, H2R, and H3R expression was found in tissue and cultured cells. Carbachol stimulated equal numbers of detrusor and sphincter cells (60% and 51%, respectively). Histamine stimulated significantly more cells than carbachol in detrusor (100%) and sphincter (99.34%) cells. Calcium responses to carbachol in detrusor and sphincter cells were comparable and did not differ from those to histamine in detrusor cells. However, histamine and specific agonists stimulated more sphincter cells than did carbachol (P <0.001), and the calcium increase was greater in sphincter cells than in detrusor cells. Single cell analysis revealed comparable H2R responses in detrusor and sphincter cells, but H1R and H3R-mediated calcium reactions were significantly greater in sphincter cells. Histamine very effectively induces calcium release in smooth muscle cells. In sphincter cells, histamine is even more effective than carbachol regarding the number of reacting cells and the intracellular calcium increase. Some of the variability in the outcome of antihistaminic interstitial cystitis therapies might be caused by the ineffectiveness of the chosen antihistaminic or unintentional weakening of sphincteric function.

Airway smooth muscle cells : regulators of airway inflammation

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zuyderduyn, Suzanne

2007-01-01

Airways from asthmatic subjects are more responsive to bronchoconstrictive stimuli than airways from healthy subjects. Airway smooth muscle (ASM) cells mediate contraction of the airways by responding to the bronchoconstrictive stimuli, which was thought to be the primary role of ASM cells. In this

Phenotype modulation of airway smooth muscle in asthma

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wright, David B.; Trian, Thomas; Siddiqui, Sana; Pascoe, Chris D.; Johnson, Jill R.; Dekkers, Bart G. J.; Dakshinamurti, Shyamala; Bagchi, Rushita; Burgess, Janette K.; Kanabar, Varsha; Ojo, Oluwaseun O.

The biological responses of airway smooth muscle (ASM) are diverse, in part due to ASM phenotype plasticity. ASM phenotype plasticity refers to the ability of ASM cells to change the degree of a variety of functions, including contractility, proliferation, migration and secretion of inflammatory

Thresholds and Smooth Transitions in Vector Autoregressive Models

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hubrich, Kirstin; Teräsvirta, Timo

This survey focuses on two families of nonlinear vector time series models, the family of Vector Threshold Regression models and that of Vector Smooth Transition Regression models. These two model classes contain incomplete models in the sense that strongly exogeneous variables are allowed in the...

Simulating water hammer with corrective smoothed particle method

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hou, Q.; Kruisbrink, A.C.H.; Tijsseling, A.S.; Keramat, A.

2012-01-01

The corrective smoothed particle method (CSPM) is used to simulate water hammer. The spatial derivatives in the water-hammer equations are approximated by a corrective kernel estimate. For the temporal derivatives, the Euler-forward time integration algorithm is employed. The CSPM results are in

Adaptive Outlier-tolerant Exponential Smoothing Prediction Algorithms with Applications to Predict the Temperature in Spacecraft

OpenAIRE

Hu Shaolin; Zhang Wei; Li Ye; Fan Shunxi

2011-01-01

The exponential smoothing prediction algorithm is widely used in spaceflight control and in process monitoring as well as in economical prediction. There are two key conundrums which are open: one is about the selective rule of the parameter in the exponential smoothing prediction, and the other is how to improve the bad influence of outliers on prediction. In this paper a new practical outlier-tolerant algorithm is built to select adaptively proper parameter, and the exponential smoothing pr...

Experimental model of human corpus cavernosum smooth muscle relaxation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rommel P. Regadas

2010-08-01

Full Text Available PURPOSE: To describe a technique for en bloc harvesting of the corpus cavernosum, cavernous artery and urethra from transplant organ donors and contraction-relaxation experiments with corpus cavernosum smooth muscle. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The corpus cavernosum was dissected to the point of attachment with the crus penis. A 3 cm segment (corpus cavernosum and urethra was isolated and placed in ice-cold sterile transportation buffer. Under magnification, the cavernous artery was dissected. Thus, 2 cm fragments of cavernous artery and corpus cavernosum were obtained. Strips measuring 3 x 3 x 8 mm3 were then mounted vertically in an isolated organ bath device. Contractions were measured isometrically with a Narco-Biosystems force displacement transducer (model F-60, Narco-Biosystems, Houston, TX, USA and recorded on a 4-channel Narco-Biosystems desk model polygraph. RESULTS: Phenylephrine (1µM was used to induce tonic contractions in the corpus cavernosum (3 - 5 g tension and cavernous artery (0.5 - 1g tension until reaching a plateau. After precontraction, smooth muscle relaxants were used to produce relaxation-response curves (10-12M to 10-4 M. Sodium nitroprusside was used as a relaxation control. CONCLUSION: The harvesting technique and the smooth muscle contraction-relaxation model described in this study were shown to be useful instruments in the search for new drugs for the treatment of human erectile dysfunction.

The Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Income Smoothing and Stock Returns (Case in Medical Companies

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr. H. Vakilifard

2013-05-01

Full Text Available This article examines the relationship between intellectual capital, income smoothing and stock returns. We are capturing income smoothing through total accruals. Income smoothing firms have significantly higher abnormal returns around earnings announcement. In the knowledge economy, intellectual capital has become one of the primary sources of competitive advantage for a firm. Given the remarkable shift in the underlying production factors of a business within the new knowledge economy, it is important for firms to be aware of the elements of intellectual capital that would lead to value creation. So we associated relationship between intellectual capital and income smoothing and stock returns. The sample includes 108 firm-year observations from 2006 to 2011.We have used five variables: three variables to measure IC, and two variables to measure stock returns and income smoothing. Initial data analyses were conducted through SPSS. The results of our study showed that there was relationship between physical capital and stock returns but they did not provide support for the positive relationship between structural capital, human capital and firm’s financial performance.

Smoothing of ZnO films by gas cluster ion beam

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, H.; Liu, S.W.; Wang, X.M.; Iliev, M.N.; Chen, C.L.; Yu, X.K.; Liu, J.R.; Ma, K.; Chu, W.K.

2005-01-01

Planarization of wide-band-gap semiconductor ZnO surface is crucial for thin-film device performance. In this study, the rough initial surfaces of ZnO films deposited by r.f. magnetron sputtering on Si substrates were smoothed by gas cluster ion beams. AFM measurements show that the average surface roughness (R a ) of the ZnO films could be reduced considerably from 16.1 nm to 0.9 nm. Raman spectroscopy was used to monitor the structure of both the as-grown and the smoothed ZnO films. Rutherford back-scattering in combination with channeling effect was used to study the damage production induced by the cluster bombardment

Gravitational collapse from smooth initial data with vanishing radial pressure

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mahajan, Ashutosh; Goswami, Rituparno; Joshi, Pankaj S

2005-01-01

We study here the spherical gravitational collapse assuming initial data to be necessarily smooth, as motivated by requirements based on physical reasonableness. A tangential pressure model is constructed and analysed in order to understand the final fate of collapse explicitly in terms of the density and pressure parameters at the initial epoch from which the collapse develops. It is seen that both black holes and naked singularities are produced as collapse end states even when the initial data are smooth. We show that the outcome is decided entirely in terms of the initial data, as given by density, pressure and velocity profiles at the initial epoch, from which the collapse evolves

Contextual effects on motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2008-08-15

Smooth pursuit eye movements are continuous, slow rotations of the eyes that allow us to follow the motion of a visual object of interest. These movements are closely related to sensory inputs from the visual motion processing system. To track a moving object in the natural environment, its motion first has to be segregated from the motion signals provided by surrounding stimuli. Here, we review experiments on the effect of the visual context on motion processing with a focus on the relationship between motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements. While perception and pursuit are closely linked, we show that they can behave quite distinctly when required by the visual context.

A new smoothing procedure to reduce delivery segments for static MLC-based IMRT planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sun Xuepeng; Xia Ping

2004-01-01

In the application of pixel-based intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) using the step-and-shoot delivery method, one major difficulty is the prolonged delivery time. In this study, we present an integrated IMRT planning system that involves a simple smoothing method to reduce the complexity of the beam profiles. The system consists of three main steps: (a) an inverse planning process based on a least-square dose-based cost function; (b) smoothing of the intensity maps; (c) reoptimization of the segment weights. Step (a) obtains the best plan with the lowest cost value using a simulated annealing optimization algorithm with discrete intensity levels. Step (b) takes the intensity maps obtained from (a) and reduces the complexity of the maps by smoothing the adjacent beamlet intensities. During this process each beamlet is assigned a structure index based on anatomical information. A smoothing update is applied to average adjacent beamlets with the same index. To control the quality of the plan, a predefined clinical protocol is used as an acceptance criterion. The smoothing updates that violate the criterion are rejected. After the smoothing process, the segment weights are reoptimized in step (c) to further improve the plan quality. Three clinical cases were studied using this system: a medulloblastoma, a prostate cancer, and an oropharyngeal carcinoma. While the final plans demonstrate a degradation of the original plan quality, they still meet the plan acceptance criterion. On the other hand, the segment numbers or delivery times are reduced by 40%, 20%, and 20% for the three cases, respectively

Animal model for angiotensin II effects in the internal anal sphincter smooth muscle: mechanism of action.

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Ya-Ping; Puri, Rajinder N; Rattan, Satish

2002-03-01

Effect of ANG II was investigated in in vitro smooth muscle strips and in isolated smooth muscle cells (SMC). Among different species, rat internal and sphincter (IAS) smooth muscle showed significant and reproducible contraction that remained unmodified by different neurohumoral inhibitors. The AT(1) antagonist losartan but not AT(2) antagonist PD-123319 antagonized ANG II-induced contraction of the IAS smooth muscle and SMC. ANG II-induced contraction of rat IAS smooth muscle and SMC was attenuated by tyrosine kinase inhibitors genistein and tyrphostin, protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor H-7, Ca(2+) channel blocker nicardipine, Rho kinase inhibitor Y-27632 or p(44/42) mitogen-activating protein kinase (MAPK(44/42)) inhibitor PD-98059. Combinations of nicardipine and H-7, Y-27632, and PD-98059 caused further attenuation of the ANG II effects. Western blot analyses revealed the presence of both AT(1) and AT(2) receptors. We conclude that ANG II causes contraction of rat IAS smooth muscle by the activation of AT(1) receptors at the SMC and involves multiple intracellular pathways, influx of Ca(2+), and activation of PKC, Rho kinase, and MAPK(44/42).

Ca2+ sparks act as potent regulators of excitation-contraction coupling in airway smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhuge, Ronghua; Bao, Rongfeng; Fogarty, Kevin E; Lifshitz, Lawrence M

2010-01-15

Ca2+ sparks are short lived and localized Ca2+ transients resulting from the opening of ryanodine receptors in sarcoplasmic reticulum. These events relax certain types of smooth muscle by activating big conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels to produce spontaneous transient outward currents (STOCs) and the resultant closure of voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels. But in many smooth muscles from a variety of organs, Ca2+ sparks can additionally activate Ca2+-activated Cl(-) channels to generate spontaneous transient inward current (STICs). To date, the physiological roles of Ca2+ sparks in this latter group of smooth muscle remain elusive. Here, we show that in airway smooth muscle, Ca2+ sparks under physiological conditions, activating STOCs and STICs, induce biphasic membrane potential transients (BiMPTs), leading to membrane potential oscillations. Paradoxically, BiMPTs stabilize the membrane potential by clamping it within a negative range and prevent the generation of action potentials. Moreover, blocking either Ca2+ sparks or hyperpolarization components of BiMPTs activates voltage-dependent Ca2+ channels, resulting in an increase in global [Ca2+](i) and cell contraction. Therefore, Ca2+ sparks in smooth muscle presenting both STICs and STOCs act as a stabilizer of membrane potential, and altering the balance can profoundly alter the status of excitability and contractility. These results reveal a novel mechanism underlying the control of excitability and contractility in smooth muscle.

The relationship between bronchial hyperresponsiveness to methacholine and airway smooth muscle structure and reactivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Armour, C L; Black, J L; Berend, N; Woolcock, A J

1984-11-01

The airway responsiveness of a group of 25 patients scheduled for lung resection was studied. 10 of 25 patients had a greater than or equal to 20% fall in FEV1 in response to inhaled methacholine (responders), with PD20 FEV1 values ranging from 0.6 to 7.3 mumol. Methacholine did not induce a 20% fall in FEV1 in 15 patients (non-responders). The sensitivity to carbachol and histamine of the bronchial smooth muscle resected from these patients was similar in tissue from responders and non-responders. There was no correlation between in vivo responsiveness to methacholine and in vitro sensitivity to carbachol or histamine. The volume of smooth muscle in some of these airway preparations was quantitated. There was a significant correlation between the maximum tension change in response to histamine and the volume of smooth muscle in each airway. There was no similar correlation for carbachol. The in vivo responsiveness to methacholine and in vitro sensitivity to histamine or carbachol was not related to the degree of inflammation in the airways studied. It is concluded that in vivo responsiveness cannot be explained in terms of smooth muscle sensitivity and that there may be differences between histamine and carbachol in the mechanism of contraction of airway smooth muscle.

Smoothing identification of systems with small non-linearities

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Kozánek, Jan; Piranda, J.

2003-01-01

Roč. 38, č. 1 (2003), s. 71-84 ISSN 0025-6455 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA101/00/1471 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z2076919 Keywords : identification * small non-linearities * smoothing methods Subject RIV: BI - Acoustics Impact factor: 0.237, year: 2003

Sharp Embeddings of Besov Spaces with Logarithmic Smoothness

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Gurka, P.; Opic, Bohumír

2005-01-01

Roč. 18, č. 1 (2005), s. 81-110 ISSN 1139-1138 R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA201/01/0333 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : Besov spaces wirh logarithmic smoothness * Lorentz-Zygmund spaces * sharp embeddings Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics

Smoothing-Based Relative Navigation and Coded Aperture Imaging

Science.gov (United States)

Saenz-Otero, Alvar; Liebe, Carl Christian; Hunter, Roger C.; Baker, Christopher

2017-01-01

This project will develop an efficient smoothing software for incremental estimation of the relative poses and velocities between multiple, small spacecraft in a formation, and a small, long range depth sensor based on coded aperture imaging that is capable of identifying other spacecraft in the formation. The smoothing algorithm will obtain the maximum a posteriori estimate of the relative poses between the spacecraft by using all available sensor information in the spacecraft formation.This algorithm will be portable between different satellite platforms that possess different sensor suites and computational capabilities, and will be adaptable in the case that one or more satellites in the formation become inoperable. It will obtain a solution that will approach an exact solution, as opposed to one with linearization approximation that is typical of filtering algorithms. Thus, the algorithms developed and demonstrated as part of this program will enhance the applicability of small spacecraft to multi-platform operations, such as precisely aligned constellations and fractionated satellite systems.

MURC deficiency in smooth muscle attenuates pulmonary hypertension.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakanishi, Naohiko; Ogata, Takehiro; Naito, Daisuke; Miyagawa, Kotaro; Taniguchi, Takuya; Hamaoka, Tetsuro; Maruyama, Naoki; Kasahara, Takeru; Nishi, Masahiro; Matoba, Satoaki; Ueyama, Tomomi

2016-08-22

Emerging evidence suggests that caveolin-1 (Cav1) is associated with pulmonary arterial hypertension. MURC (also called Cavin-4) is a member of the cavin family, which regulates caveolar formation and functions together with caveolins. Here, we show that hypoxia increased Murc mRNA expression in the mouse lung, and that Murc-null mice exhibited attenuation of hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension (PH) accompanied by reduced ROCK activity in the lung. Conditional knockout mice lacking Murc in smooth muscle also resist hypoxia-induced PH. MURC regulates the proliferation and migration of pulmonary artery smooth muscle cells (PASMCs) through Rho/ROCK signalling. Cav1 suppresses RhoA activity in PASMCs, which is reversed by MURC. MURC binds to Cav1 and inhibits the association of Cav1 with the active form of Gα13, resulting in the facilitated association of the active form of Gα13 with p115RhoGEF. These results reveal that MURC has a function in the development of PH through modulating Rho/ROCK signalling.

Nonclassical states of light with a smooth P function

Science.gov (United States)

Damanet, François; Kübler, Jonas; Martin, John; Braun, Daniel

2018-02-01

There is a common understanding in quantum optics that nonclassical states of light are states that do not have a positive semidefinite and sufficiently regular Glauber-Sudarshan P function. Almost all known nonclassical states have P functions that are highly irregular, which makes working with them difficult and direct experimental reconstruction impossible. Here we introduce classes of nonclassical states with regular, non-positive-definite P functions. They are constructed by "puncturing" regular smooth positive P functions with negative Dirac-δ peaks or other sufficiently narrow smooth negative functions. We determine the parameter ranges for which such punctures are possible without losing the positivity of the state, the regimes yielding antibunching of light, and the expressions of the Wigner functions for all investigated punctured states. Finally, we propose some possible experimental realizations of such states.

Smoothing of respiratory motion traces for motion-compensated radiotherapy.

Science.gov (United States)

Ernst, Floris; Schlaefer, Alexander; Schweikard, Achim

2010-01-01

The CyberKnife system has been used successfully for several years to radiosurgically treat tumors without the need for stereotactic fixation or sedation of the patient. It has been shown that tumor motion in the lung, liver, and pancreas can be tracked with acceptable accuracy and repeatability. However, highly precise targeting for tumors in the lower abdomen, especially for tumors which exhibit strong motion, remains problematic. Reasons for this are manifold, like the slow tracking system operating at 26.5 Hz, and using the signal from the tracking camera "as is." Since the motion recorded with the camera is used to compensate for system latency by prediction and the predicted signal is subsequently used to infer the tumor position from a correlation model based on x-ray imaging of gold fiducials around the tumor, camera noise directly influences the targeting accuracy. The goal of this work is to establish the suitability of a new smoothing method for respiratory motion traces used in motion-compensated radiotherapy. The authors endeavor to show that better prediction--With a lower rms error of the predicted signal--and/or smoother prediction is possible using this method. The authors evaluated six commercially available tracking systems (NDI Aurora, PolarisClassic, Polaris Vicra, MicronTracker2 H40, FP5000, and accuTrack compact). The authors first tracked markers both stationary and while in motion to establish the systems' noise characteristics. Then the authors applied a smoothing method based on the a trous wavelet decomposition to reduce the devices' noise level. Additionally, the smoothed signal of the moving target and a motion trace from actual human respiratory motion were subjected to prediction using the MULIN and the nLMS2 algorithms. The authors established that the noise distribution for a static target is Gaussian and that when the probe is moved such as to mimic human respiration, it remains Gaussian with the exception of the FP5000 and the

Smoothing of respiratory motion traces for motion-compensated radiotherapy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ernst, Floris; Schlaefer, Alexander; Schweikard, Achim

2010-01-01

Purpose: The CyberKnife system has been used successfully for several years to radiosurgically treat tumors without the need for stereotactic fixation or sedation of the patient. It has been shown that tumor motion in the lung, liver, and pancreas can be tracked with acceptable accuracy and repeatability. However, highly precise targeting for tumors in the lower abdomen, especially for tumors which exhibit strong motion, remains problematic. Reasons for this are manifold, like the slow tracking system operating at 26.5 Hz, and using the signal from the tracking camera ''as is''. Since the motion recorded with the camera is used to compensate for system latency by prediction and the predicted signal is subsequently used to infer the tumor position from a correlation model based on x-ray imaging of gold fiducials around the tumor, camera noise directly influences the targeting accuracy. The goal of this work is to establish the suitability of a new smoothing method for respiratory motion traces used in motion-compensated radiotherapy. The authors endeavor to show that better prediction--With a lower rms error of the predicted signal--and/or smoother prediction is possible using this method. Methods: The authors evaluated six commercially available tracking systems (NDI Aurora, PolarisClassic, Polaris Vicra, MicronTracker2 H40, FP5000, and accuTrack compact). The authors first tracked markers both stationary and while in motion to establish the systems' noise characteristics. Then the authors applied a smoothing method based on the a trous wavelet decomposition to reduce the devices' noise level. Additionally, the smoothed signal of the moving target and a motion trace from actual human respiratory motion were subjected to prediction using the MULIN and the nLMS 2 algorithms. Results: The authors established that the noise distribution for a static target is Gaussian and that when the probe is moved such as to mimic human respiration, it remains Gaussian with the

Evidence of direct smooth muscle relaxant effects of the fibrate gemfibrozil.

Science.gov (United States)

Phelps, Laura E; Peuler, Jacob D

2010-01-01

Fibrates are commonly employed to treat abnormal lipid metabolism via their unique ability to stimulate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARalpha). Interestingly, they also decrease systemic arterial pressure, despite recent evidence that PPAR alpha may contribute to expression of renin and related hypertension. Yet, mechanisms responsible for their potential antihypertensive activity remain unresolved. Rapid decreases in arterial pressure following bolus intravenous injections of bezafibrate strongly suggest they may relax arterial smooth muscle directly. But since bezafibrate is highly susceptible to photodegradation in aqueous media, it has never been critically tested for this possibility in vitro with isolated arterial smooth muscle preparations. Accordingly, we tested gemfibrozil which is resistant to photodegradation. We examined it over a therapeutically-relevant range (50-400 microM) for both acute and delayed relaxant effects on contractions of the isolated rat tail artery; contractions induced by either depolarizing its smooth muscle cell membranes with high potassium or stimulating its membrane-bound receptors with norepinephrine and arginine-vasopressin. We also examined these same gemfibrozil levels for effects on spontaneously-occurring phasic rhythmic contractile activity, typically not seen in arteries under in vitro conditions but commonly exhibited by smooth muscle of uterus, duodenum and bladder. We found that gemfibrozil significantly relaxed all induced forms of contraction in the rat tail artery, acutely at the higher test levels and after a delay of a few hours at the lower test levels. The highest test level of gemfibrozil (400 microM) also completely abolished spontaneously-occurring contractile activity of the isolated uterus and duodenum and markedly suppressed it in the bladder. This is the first evidence that a fibrate drug can directly relax smooth muscle contractions, either induced by various contractile agents or

Offset, tilted dipole models of Uranian smooth high-frequency radio emission

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Schweitzer, A.E.; Romig, J.H.; Evans, D.R.; Sawyer, C.B.; Warwick, J.W.

1990-01-01

During the Voyager 2 encounter with Uranus in January 1986, the Planetary Radio Astronomy (PRA) experiment detected a complex pattern of radio emissions. Two types of emissions were seen: smooth and bursty. The smooth emission has been divided into smooth high-frequency (SHF) and smooth low-frequency (SLF) components which are presumed to come from different sources because of their distinctly different characteristics. The SHF component is considered in this paper. The SHF emission has been modeled by many authors on OTD (offset, tilted dipole (Ness et al., 1986)) L shells ranging from 5 to 40. However, the bursts have been modeled at much higher L shells. The authors complete an OTD investigation of the SHF emission at high L shells within the range of the bursty source locations, and present a viable high L shell model. This model has fundamentally the same longitudinally symmetric net emission pattern in space as the L shell 5 model presented in Romig et al. (1987) and Barbosa (1988). However, they were unable to produce an acceptable model on intermediate L shells without restricting source longitude. They discuss the similarities and distinctions between their two models and the models of other authors. They believe that the high L shell model (and others similar to it) cannot account for the observed smoothness and periodicity of the SHF emissions because it has open field lines containing untrapped particles, which should produce more variable emission than that seen in the SHF data. Therefore, the authors prefer models at L shells less than 18, the boundary for closed field lines (Ness et al., 1986). They then discuss and contrast two models within this boundary: the L = 5 model and an L ∼ 12 model by Kaiser et al. (1987) and Farrell and Calvert (1989b). The main distinction between these two models is the longitudinal extent of the source location

Smooth surfaces from bilinear patches: Discrete affine minimal surfaces

KAUST Repository

Kä ferbö ck, Florian; Pottmann, Helmut

2013-01-01

Motivated by applications in freeform architecture, we study surfaces which are composed of smoothly joined bilinear patches. These surfaces turn out to be discrete versions of negatively curved affine minimal surfaces and share many properties

On splice site prediction using weight array models: a comparison of smoothing techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Taher, Leila; Meinicke, Peter; Morgenstern, Burkhard

2007-01-01

In most eukaryotic genes, protein-coding exons are separated by non-coding introns which are removed from the primary transcript by a process called 'splicing'. The positions where introns are cut and exons are spliced together are called 'splice sites'. Thus, computational prediction of splice sites is crucial for gene finding in eukaryotes. Weight array models are a powerful probabilistic approach to splice site detection. Parameters for these models are usually derived from m-tuple frequencies in trusted training data and subsequently smoothed to avoid zero probabilities. In this study we compare three different ways of parameter estimation for m-tuple frequencies, namely (a) non-smoothed probability estimation, (b) standard pseudo counts and (c) a Gaussian smoothing procedure that we recently developed

Heat transfer performance during in-tube condensation in horizontal smooth, micro-fin and herringbone tubes

OpenAIRE

2008-01-01

M.Ing. An experimental investigation was conducted into the heat transfer characteristics of horizontal smooth, micro-fin and herringbone tubes during in-tube condensation. The study focused on the heat transfer coefficients of refrigerants R-22, R-134a and R-407C inside the three tubes. The herringbone tube results were compared to the smooth and micro-fin tube results. The average increase in the heat transfer coefficient when compared to the smooth tube was found to be as high as 322% w...

Smooth individual level covariates adjustment in disease mapping.

Science.gov (United States)

Huque, Md Hamidul; Anderson, Craig; Walton, Richard; Woolford, Samuel; Ryan, Louise

2018-05-01

Spatial models for disease mapping should ideally account for covariates measured both at individual and area levels. The newly available "indiCAR" model fits the popular conditional autoregresssive (CAR) model by accommodating both individual and group level covariates while adjusting for spatial correlation in the disease rates. This algorithm has been shown to be effective but assumes log-linear associations between individual level covariates and outcome. In many studies, the relationship between individual level covariates and the outcome may be non-log-linear, and methods to track such nonlinearity between individual level covariate and outcome in spatial regression modeling are not well developed. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm, smooth-indiCAR, to fit an extension to the popular conditional autoregresssive model that can accommodate both linear and nonlinear individual level covariate effects while adjusting for group level covariates and spatial correlation in the disease rates. In this formulation, the effect of a continuous individual level covariate is accommodated via penalized splines. We describe a two-step estimation procedure to obtain reliable estimates of individual and group level covariate effects where both individual and group level covariate effects are estimated separately. This distributed computing framework enhances its application in the Big Data domain with a large number of individual/group level covariates. We evaluate the performance of smooth-indiCAR through simulation. Our results indicate that the smooth-indiCAR method provides reliable estimates of all regression and random effect parameters. We illustrate our proposed methodology with an analysis of data on neutropenia admissions in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Smooth Nanowire/Polymer Composite Transparent Electrodes

KAUST Repository

Gaynor, Whitney; Burkhard, George F.; McGehee, Michael D.; Peumans, Peter

2011-01-01

Smooth composite transparent electrodes are fabricated via lamination of silver nanowires into the polymer poly-(4,3-ethylene dioxythiophene): poly(styrene-sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The surface roughness is dramatically reduced compared to bare nanowires. High-efficiency P3HT:PCBM organic photovoltaic cells can be fabricated using these composites, reproducing the performance of cells on indium tin oxide (ITO) on glass and improving the performance of cells on ITO on plastic. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Smooth Nanowire/Polymer Composite Transparent Electrodes

KAUST Repository

Gaynor, Whitney

2011-04-29

Smooth composite transparent electrodes are fabricated via lamination of silver nanowires into the polymer poly-(4,3-ethylene dioxythiophene): poly(styrene-sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The surface roughness is dramatically reduced compared to bare nanowires. High-efficiency P3HT:PCBM organic photovoltaic cells can be fabricated using these composites, reproducing the performance of cells on indium tin oxide (ITO) on glass and improving the performance of cells on ITO on plastic. Copyright © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

A method for smoothing segmented lung boundary in chest CT images

Science.gov (United States)

Yim, Yeny; Hong, Helen

2007-03-01

To segment low density lung regions in chest CT images, most of methods use the difference in gray-level value of pixels. However, radiodense pulmonary vessels and pleural nodules that contact with the surrounding anatomy are often excluded from the segmentation result. To smooth lung boundary segmented by gray-level processing in chest CT images, we propose a new method using scan line search. Our method consists of three main steps. First, lung boundary is extracted by our automatic segmentation method. Second, segmented lung contour is smoothed in each axial CT slice. We propose a scan line search to track the points on lung contour and find rapidly changing curvature efficiently. Finally, to provide consistent appearance between lung contours in adjacent axial slices, 2D closing in coronal plane is applied within pre-defined subvolume. Our method has been applied for performance evaluation with the aspects of visual inspection, accuracy and processing time. The results of our method show that the smoothness of lung contour was considerably increased by compensating for pulmonary vessels and pleural nodules.

A Model of the Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement with Prediction and Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Davide Zambrano

2010-01-01

Full Text Available Smooth pursuit is one of the five main eye movements in humans, consisting of tracking a steadily moving visual target. Smooth pursuit is a good example of a sensory-motor task that is deeply based on prediction: tracking a visual target is not possible by correcting the error between the eye and the target position or velocity with a feedback loop, but it is only possible by predicting the trajectory of the target. This paper presents a model of smooth pursuit based on prediction and learning. It starts from amodel of the neuro-physiological system proposed by Shibata and Schaal (Shibata et al., Neural Networks, vol. 18, pp. 213-224, 2005. The learning component added here decreases the prediction time in the case of target dynamics already experienced by the system. In the implementation described here, the convergence time is, after the learning phase, 0.8 s.

Spectrum Recombination.

Science.gov (United States)

Greenslade, Thomas B., Jr.

1984-01-01

Describes several methods of executing lecture demonstrations involving the recombination of the spectrum. Groups the techniques into two general classes: bringing selected portions of the spectrum together using lenses or mirrors and blurring the colors by rapid movement or foreshortening. (JM)

Rac1 modulates G-protein-coupled receptor-induced bronchial smooth muscle contraction.

Science.gov (United States)

Sakai, Hiroyasu; Kai, Yuki; Sato, Ken; Ikebe, Mitsuo; Chiba, Yohihiko

2018-01-05

Increasing evidence suggests a functional role of RhoA/Rho-kinase signalling as a mechanism for smooth muscle contraction; however, little is known regarding the roles of Rac1 and other members of the Rho protein family. This study aimed to examine whether Rac1 modulates bronchial smooth muscle contraction. Ring preparations of bronchi isolated from rats were suspended in an organ bath, and isometric contraction of circular smooth muscle was measured. Immunoblotting was used to examine myosin light chain phosphorylation in bronchial smooth muscle. Our results demonstrated that muscle contractions induced by carbachol (CCh) and endothelin-1 (ET-1) were inhibited by EHT1864, a selective Rac1 inhibitor, and NSC23766, a selective inhibitor of Rac1-specific guanine nucleotide exchange factors. Similarly, myosin light chain and myosin phosphatase target subunit 1 (MYPT1) at Thr853 phosphorylation induced by contractile agonist were inhibited with Rac1 inhibition. However, contractions induced by high K + , calyculin A (a potent protein phosphatase inhibitor) and K + /PDBu were not inhibited by these Rac1 inhibitors. Interestingly, NaF (a G-protein activator)-induced contractions were inhibited by EHT1864 but not by NSC23766. We next examined the effects of a trans-acting activator of transcription protein transduction domain (PTD) fusion protein with Rac1 (PTD-Rac1) on muscle contraction. The constitutively active form of PTD-Rac1 directly induced force development and contractions were abolished by EHT1864. These results suggest that Rac1, activated by G protein-coupled receptor agonists, such as CCh and ET-1, may induce myosin light chain and MYPT phosphorylation and modulate the contraction of bronchial smooth muscle. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Adaptive smoothing based on Gaussian processes regression increases the sensitivity and specificity of fMRI data.

Science.gov (United States)

Strappini, Francesca; Gilboa, Elad; Pitzalis, Sabrina; Kay, Kendrick; McAvoy, Mark; Nehorai, Arye; Snyder, Abraham Z

2017-03-01

Temporal and spatial filtering of fMRI data is often used to improve statistical power. However, conventional methods, such as smoothing with fixed-width Gaussian filters, remove fine-scale structure in the data, necessitating a tradeoff between sensitivity and specificity. Specifically, smoothing may increase sensitivity (reduce noise and increase statistical power) but at the cost loss of specificity in that fine-scale structure in neural activity patterns is lost. Here, we propose an alternative smoothing method based on Gaussian processes (GP) regression for single subjects fMRI experiments. This method adapts the level of smoothing on a voxel by voxel basis according to the characteristics of the local neural activity patterns. GP-based fMRI analysis has been heretofore impractical owing to computational demands. Here, we demonstrate a new implementation of GP that makes it possible to handle the massive data dimensionality of the typical fMRI experiment. We demonstrate how GP can be used as a drop-in replacement to conventional preprocessing steps for temporal and spatial smoothing in a standard fMRI pipeline. We present simulated and experimental results that show the increased sensitivity and specificity compared to conventional smoothing strategies. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1438-1459, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Surface engineering with ion beams: from self-organized nanostructures to ultra-smooth surfaces

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Frost, F.; Ziberi, B.; Schindler, A.; Rauschenbach, B.

2008-01-01

Low-energy ion-beam sputtering, i.e. the removal of atoms from a surface due to the impact of energetic ions or atoms, is an inherent part of numerous surface processing techniques. Besides the actual removal of material, this surface erosion process often results in a pronounced alteration of the surface topography. Under certain conditions, sputtering results in the formation of well-ordered patterns. This self-organized pattern formation is related to a surface instability between curvature-dependent sputtering that roughens the surface and smoothing by different surface relaxation mechanisms. If the evolution of surface topography is dominated by relaxation mechanisms, surface smoothing can occur. In this presentation the current status of self-organized pattern formation and surface smoothing by low-energy ion-beam erosion of Si and Ge is summarized. In detail it will be shown that a multitude of patterns as well as ultra-smooth surfaces can develop, particularly on Si surfaces. Additionally, the most important experimental parameters that control these processes are discussed. Finally, examples are given for the application of low-energy ion beams as a novel approach for passive optical device engineering for many advanced optical applications. (orig.)

Fibronectin promotes differentiation of neural crest progenitors endowed with smooth muscle cell potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Costa-Silva, Bruno; Coelho da Costa, Meline; Melo, Fernanda Rosene; Neves, Cynara Mendes; Alvarez-Silva, Marcio; Calloni, Giordano Wosgrau; Trentin, Andrea Goncalves

2009-01-01

The neural crest (NC) is a model system used to investigate multipotency during vertebrate development. Environmental factors control NC cell fate decisions. Despite the well-known influence of extracellular matrix molecules in NC cell migration, the issue of whether they also influence NC cell differentiation has not been addressed at the single cell level. By analyzing mass and clonal cultures of mouse cephalic and quail trunk NC cells, we show for the first time that fibronectin (FN) promotes differentiation into the smooth muscle cell phenotype without affecting differentiation into glia, neurons, and melanocytes. Time course analysis indicated that the FN-induced effect was not related to massive cell death or proliferation of smooth muscle cells. Finally, by comparing clonal cultures of quail trunk NC cells grown on FN and collagen type IV (CLIV), we found that FN strongly increased both NC cell survival and the proportion of unipotent and oligopotent NC progenitors endowed with smooth muscle potential. In contrast, melanocytic progenitors were prominent in clonogenic NC cells grown on CLIV. Taken together, these results show that FN promotes NC cell differentiation along the smooth muscle lineage, and therefore plays an important role in fate decisions of NC progenitor cells

Importance of contraction history on muscle force of porcine urinary bladder smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Menzel, Robin; Böl, Markus; Siebert, Tobias

2017-02-01

The purpose of this study was to provide a comprehensive dataset of porcine urinary bladder smooth muscle properties. Particularly, the history dependence of force production, namely force depression (FD) following shortening and force enhancement (FE) following stretch, was analysed. During active micturition, the circumference of the urinary bladder changes enormously. Thus, FD might be an important phenomenon during smooth muscle contraction. Electrically stimulated, intact urinary bladder strips from pigs (n = 10) were suspended in an aerated-filled organ bath, and different isometric, isotonic, and isokinetic contraction protocols were performed to determine the force-length and the force-velocity relation. FD and FE were assessed in concentric and eccentric contractions with different ramp lengths and ramp velocities. Bladder smooth muscles exhibit considerable amounts of FD and FE. The amount of FD increased significantly with ramp length, while FE did not change. However, FE and FD were independent of ramp velocity. The results imply that smooth muscle bladder strips exhibit similar muscle properties and history-dependent behaviour compared to striated muscles. The provided dataset of muscle properties is important for bladder modelling as well as for the analyses and interpretation of dynamic bladder filling and voiding.

An MPCC Formulation and Its Smooth Solution Algorithm for Continuous Network Design Problem

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guangmin Wang

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Continuous network design problem (CNDP is searching for a transportation network configuration to minimize the sum of the total system travel time and the investment cost of link capacity expansions by considering that the travellers follow a traditional Wardrop user equilibrium (UE to choose their routes. In this paper, the CNDP model can be formulated as mathematical programs with complementarity constraints (MPCC by describing UE as a non-linear complementarity problem (NCP. To address the difficulty resulting from complementarity constraints in MPCC, they are substituted by the Fischer-Burmeister (FB function, which can be smoothed by the introduction of the smoothing parameter. Therefore, the MPCC can be transformed into a well-behaved non-linear program (NLP by replacing the complementarity constraints with a smooth equation. Consequently, the solver such as LINDOGLOBAL in GAMS can be used to solve the smooth approximate NLP to obtain the solution to MPCC for modelling CNDP. The numerical experiments on the example from the literature demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is feasible.

Estimate of K-functionals and modulus of smoothness constructed ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

2016-08-26

functional and a modulus of smoothness for the Dunkl transform on Rd. Author Affiliations. M El Hamma1 R Daher1. Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Sciences Aïn Chock, University of Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco. Dates.

Smooth muscle-like tissue constructs with circumferentially oriented cells formed by the cell fiber technology.

Science.gov (United States)

Hsiao, Amy Y; Okitsu, Teru; Onoe, Hiroaki; Kiyosawa, Mahiro; Teramae, Hiroki; Iwanaga, Shintaroh; Kazama, Tomohiko; Matsumoto, Taro; Takeuchi, Shoji

2015-01-01

The proper functioning of many organs and tissues containing smooth muscles greatly depends on the intricate organization of the smooth muscle cells oriented in appropriate directions. Consequently controlling the cellular orientation in three-dimensional (3D) cellular constructs is an important issue in engineering tissues of smooth muscles. However, the ability to precisely control the cellular orientation at the microscale cannot be achieved by various commonly used 3D tissue engineering building blocks such as spheroids. This paper presents the formation of coiled spring-shaped 3D cellular constructs containing circumferentially oriented smooth muscle-like cells differentiated from dedifferentiated fat (DFAT) cells. By using the cell fiber technology, DFAT cells suspended in a mixture of extracellular proteins possessing an optimized stiffness were encapsulated in the core region of alginate shell microfibers and uniformly aligned to the longitudinal direction. Upon differentiation induction to the smooth muscle lineage, DFAT cell fibers self-assembled to coiled spring structures where the cells became circumferentially oriented. By changing the initial core-shell microfiber diameter, we demonstrated that the spring pitch and diameter could be controlled. 21 days after differentiation induction, the cell fibers contained high percentages of ASMA-positive and calponin-positive cells. Our technology to create these smooth muscle-like spring constructs enabled precise control of cellular alignment and orientation in 3D. These constructs can further serve as tissue engineering building blocks for larger organs and cellular implants used in clinical treatments.

Effects of striated laser tracks on thermal fatigue resistance of cast iron samples with biomimetic non-smooth surface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tong, Xin; Zhou, Hong; Liu, Min; Dai, Ming-jiang

2011-01-01

In order to enhance the thermal fatigue resistance of cast iron materials, the samples with biomimetic non-smooth surface were processed by Neodymium:Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (Nd:YAG) laser. With self-controlled thermal fatigue test method, the thermal fatigue resistance of smooth and non-smooth samples was investigated. The effects of striated laser tracks on thermal fatigue resistance were also studied. The results indicated that biomimetic non-smooth surface was benefit for improving thermal fatigue resistance of cast iron sample. The striated non-smooth units formed by laser tracks which were vertical with thermal cracks had the best propagation resistance. The mechanisms behind these influences were discussed, and some schematic drawings were introduced to describe them.

Suppression of vascular smooth muscle cells' proliferation and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study aimed to determine the effects of valsartan on the proliferation and migration of isolated rat vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and the expression of phospho-p42/44 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) promoted by angiotensin II (Ang II). VSMCs from the rat thoracic aorta were cultured by ...

The effect of food bolus location on jaw movement smoothness and masticatory efficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Molenaar, W N B; Gezelle Meerburg, P J; Luraschi, J; Whittle, T; Schimmel, M; Lobbezoo, F; Peck, C C; Murray, G M; Minami, I

2012-09-01

Masticatory efficiency in individuals with extensive tooth loss has been widely discussed. However, little is known about jaw movement smoothness during chewing and the effect of differences in food bolus location on movement smoothness and masticatory efficiency. The aim of this study was to determine whether experimental differences in food bolus location (anterior versus posterior) had an effect on masticatory efficiency and jaw movement smoothness. Jaw movement smoothness was evaluated by measuring jerk-cost (calculated from acceleration) with an accelerometer that was attached to the skin of the mentum of 10 asymptomatic subjects, and acceleration was recorded during chewing on two-colour chewing gum, which was used to assessed masticatory efficiency. Chewing was performed under two conditions: posterior chewing (chewing on molars and premolars only) and anterior chewing (chewing on canine and first premolar teeth only). Jerk-cost and masticatory efficiency (calculated as the ratio of unmixed azure colour to the total area of gum, the unmixed fraction) were compared between anterior and posterior chewing with the Wilcoxon signed rank test (two-tailed). Subjects chewed significantly less efficiently during anterior chewing than during posterior chewing (P = 0·0051). There was no significant difference in jerk-cost between anterior and posterior conditions in the opening phase (P = 0·25), or closing phase (P = 0·42). This is the first characterisation of the effect of food bolus location on jaw movement smoothness at the same time as recording masticatory efficiency. The data suggest that anterior chewing decreases masticatory efficiency, but does not influence jerk-cost. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Laser beam smoothing and backscatter saturation processes in plasmas relevant to national ignition facility hohlraums

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

MacGowan, B.J.; Berger, R.L.; Cohen, B.I.

2001-01-01

We have used gas-filled targets irradiated by the Nova laser to simulate National Ignition Facility (NIF) hohlraum plasmas and to study the dependence of Stimulated Raman (SRS) and Brillouin (SBS) Scattering on beam smoothing at a range of laser intensities (3ω, 2-410 15 Wcm -2 ) and plasma conditions. We have demonstrated the effectiveness of polarization smoothing as a potential upgrade to the NIF. Experiments with higher intensities and higher densities characteristic of 350eV hohlraum designs indicate that with appropriate beam smoothing the backscatter from such hohlraums may be tolerable. (author)

StreamMap: Smooth Dynamic Visualization of High-Density Streaming Points.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Chenhui; Baciu, George; Han, Yu

2018-03-01

Interactive visualization of streaming points for real-time scatterplots and linear blending of correlation patterns is increasingly becoming the dominant mode of visual analytics for both big data and streaming data from active sensors and broadcasting media. To better visualize and interact with inter-stream patterns, it is generally necessary to smooth out gaps or distortions in the streaming data. Previous approaches either animate the points directly or present a sampled static heat-map. We propose a new approach, called StreamMap, to smoothly blend high-density streaming points and create a visual flow that emphasizes the density pattern distributions. In essence, we present three new contributions for the visualization of high-density streaming points. The first contribution is a density-based method called super kernel density estimation that aggregates streaming points using an adaptive kernel to solve the overlapping problem. The second contribution is a robust density morphing algorithm that generates several smooth intermediate frames for a given pair of frames. The third contribution is a trend representation design that can help convey the flow directions of the streaming points. The experimental results on three datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of StreamMap when dynamic visualization and visual analysis of trend patterns on streaming points are required.

Calcium-sensitivity of smooth muscle contraction in the isolated ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

sensitivity of smooth muscle contraction were studied in the isolated perfused rat tail artery, employing the activators noradrenaline (NA) (3ìM) sand potassium chloride (KC1) (100mM). Experiments were conduced in Ca2+ - buffered saline.

Deletion of Dicer in smooth muscle affects voiding pattern and reduces detrusor contractility and neuroeffector transmission.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mardjaneh Karbalaei Sadegh

Full Text Available MicroRNAs have emerged as important regulators of smooth muscle phenotype and may play important roles in pathogenesis of various smooth muscle related disease states. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of miRNAs for urinary bladder function. We used an inducible and smooth muscle specific Dicer knockout (KO mouse which resulted in significantly reduced levels of miRNAs, including miR-145, miR-143, miR-22, miR125b-5p and miR-27a, from detrusor preparations without mucosa. Deletion of Dicer resulted in a disturbed micturition pattern in vivo and reduced depolarization-induced pressure development in the isolated detrusor. Furthermore, electrical field stimulation revealed a decreased cholinergic but maintained purinergic component of neurogenic activation in Dicer KO bladder strips. The ultrastructure of detrusor smooth muscle cells was well maintained, and the density of nerve terminals was similar. Western blotting demonstrated reduced contents of calponin and desmin. Smooth muscle α-actin, SM22α and myocardin were unchanged. Activation of strips with exogenous agonists showed that depolarization-induced contraction was preferentially reduced; ATP- and calyculin A-induced contractions were unchanged. Quantitative real time PCR and western blotting demonstrated reduced expression of Cav1.2 (Cacna1c. It is concluded that smooth muscle miRNAs play an important role for detrusor contractility and voiding pattern of unrestrained mice. This is mediated in part via effects on expression of smooth muscle differentiation markers and L-type Ca(2+ channels in the detrusor.

Resembling a viper: implications of mimicry for conservation of the endangered smooth snake.

Science.gov (United States)

Valkonen, Janne K; Mappes, Johanna

2014-12-01

The phenomenon of Batesian mimicry, where a palatable animal gains protection against predation by resembling an unpalatable model, has been a core interest of evolutionary biologists for 150 years. An extensive range of studies has focused on revealing mechanistic aspects of mimicry (shared education and generalization of predators) and the evolutionary dynamics of mimicry systems (co-operation vs. conflict) and revealed that protective mimicry is widespread and is important for individual fitness. However, according to our knowledge, there are no case studies where mimicry theories have been applied to conservation of mimetic species. Theoretically, mimicry affects, for example, frequency dependency of predator avoidance learning and human induced mortality. We examined the case of the protected, endangered, nonvenomous smooth snake (Coronella austriaca) that mimics the nonprotected venomous adder (Vipera berus), both of which occur in the Åland archipelago, Finland. To quantify the added predation risk on smooth snakes caused by the rarity of vipers, we calculated risk estimates from experimental data. Resemblance of vipers enhances survival of smooth snakes against bird predation because many predators avoid touching venomous vipers. Mimetic resemblance is however disadvantageous against human predators, who kill venomous vipers and accidentally kill endangered, protected smooth snakes. We found that the effective population size of the adders in Åland is very low relative to its smooth snake mimic (28.93 and 41.35, respectively).Because Batesian mimicry is advantageous for the mimic only if model species exist in sufficiently high numbers, it is likely that the conservation program for smooth snakes will fail if adders continue to be destroyed. Understanding the population consequences of mimetic species may be crucial to the success of endangered species conservation. We suggest that when a Batesian mimic requires protection, conservation planners should

A generalized transport-velocity formulation for smoothed particle hydrodynamics

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Chi; Hu, Xiangyu Y., E-mail: xiangyu.hu@tum.de; Adams, Nikolaus A.

2017-05-15

The standard smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method suffers from tensile instability. In fluid-dynamics simulations this instability leads to particle clumping and void regions when negative pressure occurs. In solid-dynamics simulations, it results in unphysical structure fragmentation. In this work the transport-velocity formulation of Adami et al. (2013) is generalized for providing a solution of this long-standing problem. Other than imposing a global background pressure, a variable background pressure is used to modify the particle transport velocity and eliminate the tensile instability completely. Furthermore, such a modification is localized by defining a shortened smoothing length. The generalized formulation is suitable for fluid and solid materials with and without free surfaces. The results of extensive numerical tests on both fluid and solid dynamics problems indicate that the new method provides a unified approach for multi-physics SPH simulations.

Turbulent flow with suction in smooth and rough pipes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Verdier, Andre.

1977-11-01

It concerns an experimental study of turbulent flow inside a pipe with rough and porous wall and suction applied through it. The first part recall the basic knowledge concerning the turbulent flow with roughness. In second part statistical equations of fluid wall stress are written in the case of a permeable rough wall, in order to underline the respective role played by viscosity and pressure terms. In the third part the dynamic equilibrium of the flow is experimentally undertaken in the smooth and rough range with and without wall suction. Some empirical formulae are proposed for the mean velocity profiles in the inertial range and for friction velocity with suction. In the case of the sand roughness used, it does not seem that critical Reynolds number of transition from smooth to rough range is varied [fr

Energetic Surface Smoothing of Complex Metal-Oxide Thin Films

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Willmott, P.R.; Herger, R.; Schlepuetz, C.M.; Martoccia, D.; Patterson, B.D.

2006-01-01

A novel energetic smoothing mechanism in the growth of complex metal-oxide thin films is reported from in situ kinetic studies of pulsed laser deposition of La 1-x Sr x MnO 3 on SrTiO 3 , using x-ray reflectivity. Below 50% monolayer coverage, prompt insertion of energetic impinging species into small-diameter islands causes them to break up to form daughter islands. This smoothing mechanism therefore inhibits the formation of large-diameter 2D islands and the seeding of 3D growth. Above 50% coverage, islands begin to coalesce and their breakup is thereby suppressed. The energy of the incident flux is instead rechanneled into enhanced surface diffusion, which leads to an increase in the effective surface temperature of ΔT≅500 K. These results have important implications on optimal conditions for nanoscale device fabrication using these materials

Smooth Horizonless Geometries Deep Inside the Black-Hole Regime.

Science.gov (United States)

Bena, Iosif; Giusto, Stefano; Martinec, Emil J; Russo, Rodolfo; Shigemori, Masaki; Turton, David; Warner, Nicholas P

2016-11-11

We construct the first family of horizonless supergravity solutions that have the same mass, charges, and angular momenta as general supersymmetric rotating D1-D5-P black holes in five dimensions. This family includes solutions with arbitrarily small angular momenta, deep within the regime of quantum numbers and couplings for which a large classical black hole exists. These geometries are well approximated by the black-hole solution, and in particular exhibit the same near-horizon throat. Deep in this throat, the black-hole singularity is resolved into a smooth cap. We also identify the holographically dual states in the N=(4,4) D1-D5 orbifold conformal field theory (CFT). Our solutions are among the states counted by the CFT elliptic genus, and provide examples of smooth microstate geometries within the ensemble of supersymmetric black-hole microstates.

Enhanced elastin synthesis and maturation in human vascular smooth muscle tissue derived from induced-pluripotent stem cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Eoh, Joon H; Shen, Nian; Burke, Jacqueline A; Hinderer, Svenja; Xia, Zhiyong; Schenke-Layland, Katja; Gerecht, Sharon

2017-04-01

Obtaining vascular smooth muscle tissue with mature, functional elastic fibers is a key obstacle in tissue-engineered blood vessels. Poor elastin secretion and organization leads to a loss of specialization in contractile smooth muscle cells, resulting in over proliferation and graft failure. In this study, human induced-pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) were differentiated into early smooth muscle cells, seeded onto a hybrid poly(ethylene glycol) dimethacrylate/poly (l-lactide) (PEGdma-PLA) scaffold and cultured in a bioreactor while exposed to pulsatile flow, towards maturation into contractile smooth muscle tissue. We evaluated the effects of pulsatile flow on cellular organization as well as elastin expression and assembly in the engineered tissue compared to a static control through immunohistochemistry, gene expression and functionality assays. We show that culturing under pulsatile flow resulted in organized and functional hiPSC derived smooth muscle tissue. Immunohistochemistry analysis revealed hiPSC-smooth muscle tissue with robust, well-organized cells and elastic fibers and the supporting microfibril proteins necessary for elastic fiber assembly. Through qRT-PCR analysis, we found significantly increased expression of elastin, fibronectin, and collagen I, indicating the synthesis of necessary extracellular matrix components. Functionality assays revealed that hiPSC-smooth muscle tissue cultured in the bioreactor had an increased calcium signaling and contraction in response to a cholinergic agonist, significantly higher mature elastin content and improved mechanical properties in comparison to the static control. The findings presented here detail an effective approach to engineering elastic human vascular smooth muscle tissue with the functionality necessary for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. Obtaining robust, mature elastic fibers is a key obstacle in tissue-engineered blood vessels. Human induced-pluripotent stem cells have

Using biased image analysis for improving unbiased stereological number estimation - a pilot simulation study of the smooth fractionator

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gardi, Jonathan Eyal; Nyengaard, Jens Randel; Gundersen, Hans Jørgen Gottlieb

2006-01-01

uniformly random sampling design and the ordinary simple random sampling design. The smooth protocol is performed using biased information from crude (but fully automatic) image analysis of the fields of view. The different design paradigms are compared using simulation in three different cell distributions......The smooth fractionator was introduced in 2002. The combination of a smoothing protocol with a computer-aided stereology tool provides better precision and a lighter workload. This study uses simulation to compare fractionator sampling based on the smooth design, the commonly used systematic...

On a class of smooth Frechet subalgebras of C-algebras

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Keywords. Smooth subalgebra of a *-algebra; spectral invariance; closure under functional calculus; Arens–Michael decomposition of a Frechet algebra; Banach ( D p ∗ ) -algebra; Frechet ( D ∞ ∗ ) -algebra.

Potentiation of contraction of rabbit airway smooth muscle by some cyclooxygenase products.

Science.gov (United States)

Armour, C L; Johnson, P R; Black, J L

1988-06-01

An alteration in smooth muscle sensitivity may be one of the mechanisms of the airway hyperresponsiveness observed in asthma. Indomethacin inhibits experimentally induced airway hyperresponsiveness. We thus examined the effects of the cyclooxygenase products PGD2, PGF2 alpha and a thromboxane A2 analogue U46619 on contractile responses of rabbit airway smooth muscle to histamine, carbachol and electrical field stimulation (EFS). PGD2 did not potentiate any contractile responses. When PGF2 alpha (1 microM) was administered 30 min before cumulative concentration-response curves to histamine and carbachol, no potentiation was observed. However, PGF2 alpha (1 microM) added immediately before EFS and bolus doses of histamine potentiated the contractile responses. U46619 increased the cumulative concentration-responses to both histamine and carbachol. The fact that we could alter smooth muscle sensitivity in vitro with PGF2 alpha and a thromboxane analogue suggests that these mediators may be involved in the airway hyperresponsiveness observed in asthma.

A new deterministic Ensemble Kalman Filter with one-step-ahead smoothing for storm surge forecasting

KAUST Repository

Raboudi, Naila

2016-01-01

KF-OSA exploits the observation twice. The incoming observation is first used to smooth the ensemble at the previous time step. The resulting smoothed ensemble is then integrated forward to compute a "pseudo forecast" ensemble, which is again updated with the same

A Pragmatic Smoothing Method for Improving the Quality of the Results in Atomic Spectroscopy

Science.gov (United States)

Bennun, Leonardo

2017-07-01

A new smoothing method for the improvement on the identification and quantification of spectral functions based on the previous knowledge of the signals that are expected to be quantified, is presented. These signals are used as weighted coefficients in the smoothing algorithm. This smoothing method was conceived to be applied in atomic and nuclear spectroscopies preferably to these techniques where net counts are proportional to acquisition time, such as particle induced X-ray emission (PIXE) and other X-ray fluorescence spectroscopic methods, etc. This algorithm, when properly applied, does not distort the form nor the intensity of the signal, so it is well suited for all kind of spectroscopic techniques. This method is extremely effective at reducing high-frequency noise in the signal much more efficient than a single rectangular smooth of the same width. As all of smoothing techniques, the proposed method improves the precision of the results, but in this case we found also a systematic improvement on the accuracy of the results. We still have to evaluate the improvement on the quality of the results when this method is applied over real experimental results. We expect better characterization of the net area quantification of the peaks, and smaller Detection and Quantification Limits. We have applied this method to signals that obey Poisson statistics, but with the same ideas and criteria, it could be applied to time series. In a general case, when this algorithm is applied over experimental results, also it would be required that the sought characteristic functions, required for this weighted smoothing method, should be obtained from a system with strong stability. If the sought signals are not perfectly clean, this method should be carefully applied

PERATAAN LABA (INCOME SMOOTHING DAN ANALISIS FAKTOR-FAKTOR YANG MEMPENGARUHINYA (STUDI PADA PERUSAHAAN MANUFAKTUR YANG TERDAFTAR DI BURSA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

NI LUH PUTU ARIK PRABAYANTI

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this research is to identify factors influencing incomesmoothing. Income smoothing is an active manipulation of earnings toward apredetermined target. The target may be set by the management, requested bythe analysts, or expected by a particular group of stakeholders (Chong, 2006.The factors being examined were size of the company, company’s profitabilityratios, company’s financial leverage ratios, company’s institutional ownershipratio and auditor reputation. Index Eckel is used to determine the incomesmoothing practices.The sample of 41 manufacturers listed on Indonesian StockExchange, during a period between 2004-2008.The hypothesis were tested using binary logistic regression. The firsthypothesis was formulated to consisted examine the effect of size of thecompany on income smoothing. The second hypothesis was formulated toexamine the effect of company’s profitability ratios on income smoothing Thethird hypothesis was to examine the effect of company’s financial leverage onincome smoothing. The fourth hypothesis was formulated to examine the effect ofcompany’s institutional ownership ratio on income smoothing. The fifthhypothesis was to examine the effect of auditor reputation on income smoothing.The result of this research showed that some of the listed manufacturerson Indonesian Stock Exchange committed income smoothing practices. Binarylogistic regression showed that just company’s profitability ratios affect incomesmoothing,while size of the company, company’s financial leverage ratios,company’s institutional ownership ratio and auditor reputation did not affect theincome smoothing.

Collision-induced Raman scattering and the peculiar case of neon: Anisotropic spectrum, anisotropy, and the inverse scattering problem

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dixneuf, Sophie; Rachet, Florent; Chrysos, Michael

2015-01-01

Owing in part to the p orbitals of its filled L shell, neon has repeatedly come on stage for its peculiar properties. In the context of collision-induced Raman spectroscopy, in particular, we have shown, in a brief report published a few years ago [M. Chrysos et al., Phys. Rev. A 80, 054701 (2009)], that the room-temperature anisotropic Raman lineshape of Ne–Ne exhibits, in the far wing of the spectrum, a peculiar structure with an aspect other than a smooth wing (on a logarithmic plot) which contrasts with any of the existing studies, and whose explanation lies in the distinct way in which overlap and exchange interactions interfere with the classical electrostatic ones in making the polarizability anisotropy, α ∥ − α ⊥ . Here, we delve deeper into that study by reporting data for that spectrum up to 450 cm −1 and for even- and odd-order spectral moments up to M 6 , as well as quantum lineshapes, generated from SCF, CCSD, and CCSD(T) models for α ∥ − α ⊥ , which are critically compared with the experiment. On account of the knowledge of the spectrum over the augmented frequency domain, we show how the inverse scattering problem can be tackled both effectively and economically, and we report an analytic function for the anisotropy whose quantum lineshape faithfully reproduces our observations

Angiogenesis is induced by airway smooth muscle strain.

Science.gov (United States)

Hasaneen, Nadia A; Zucker, Stanley; Lin, Richard Z; Vaday, Gayle G; Panettieri, Reynold A; Foda, Hussein D

2007-10-01

Angiogenesis is an important feature of airway remodeling in both chronic asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Airways in those conditions are exposed to excessive mechanical strain during periods of acute exacerbations. We recently reported that mechanical strain of human airway smooth muscle (HASM) led to an increase in their proliferation and migration. Sustained growth in airway smooth muscle in vivo requires an increase in the nutritional supply to these muscles, hence angiogenesis. In this study, we examined the hypothesis that cyclic mechanical strain of HASM produces factors promoting angiogenic events in the surrounding vascular endothelial cells. Our results show: 1) a significant increase in human lung microvascular endothelial cell (HMVEC-L) proliferation, migration, and tube formation following incubation in conditioned media (CM) from HASM cells exposed to mechanical strain; 2) mechanical strain of HASM cells induced VEGF expression and release; 3) VEGF neutralizing antibodies inhibited the proliferation, migration, and tube formations of HMVEC-L induced by the strained airway smooth muscle CM; 4) mechanical strain of HASM induced a significant increase in hypoxia-inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1alpha) mRNA and protein, a transcription factor required for VEGF gene transcription; and 5) mechanical strain of HASM induced HIF-1alpha/VEGF through dual phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and ERK pathways. In conclusion, exposing HASM cells to mechanical strain induces signal transduction pathway through PI3K/Akt/mTOR and ERK pathways that lead to an increase in HIF-1alpha, a transcription factor required for VEGF expression. VEGF release by mechanical strain of HASM may contribute to the angiogenesis seen with repeated exacerbation of asthma and COPD.

Effects of slope smoothing in river channel modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Kyungmin; Liu, Frank; Hodges, Ben R.

2017-04-01

In extending dynamic river modeling with the 1D Saint-Venant equations from a single reach to a large watershed there are critical questions as to how much bathymetric knowledge is necessary and how it should be represented parsimoniously. The ideal model will include the detail necessary to provide realism, but not include extraneous detail that should not exert a control on a 1D (cross-section averaged) solution. In a Saint-Venant model, the overall complexity of the river channel morphometry is typically abstracted into metrics for the channel slope, cross-sectional area, hydraulic radius, and roughness. In stream segments where cross-section surveys are closely spaced, it is not uncommon to have sharp changes in slope or even negative values (where a positive slope is the downstream direction). However, solving river flow with the Saint-Venant equations requires a degree of smoothness in the equation parameters or the equation set with the directly measured channel slopes may not be Lipschitz continuous. The results of non-smoothness are typically extended computational time to converge solutions (or complete failure to converge) and/or numerical instabilities under transient conditions. We have investigated using cubic splines to smooth the bottom slope and ensure always positive reference slopes within a 1D model. This method has been implemented in the Simulation Program for River Networks (SPRNT) and is compared to the standard HEC-RAS river solver. It is shown that the reformulation of the reference slope is both in keeping with the underlying derivation of the Saint-Venant equations and provides practical numerical stability without altering the realism of the simulation. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant number CCF-1331610.

An inductive algorithm for smooth approximation of functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kupenova, T.N.

2011-01-01

An inductive algorithm is presented for smooth approximation of functions, based on the Tikhonov regularization method and applied to a specific kind of the Tikhonov parametric functional. The discrepancy principle is used for estimation of the regularization parameter. The principle of heuristic self-organization is applied for assessment of some parameters of the approximating function

Influence of smoothing of X-ray spectra on parameters of calibration model

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Antoniak, W.; Urbanski, P.; Kowalska, E.

1998-01-01

Parameters of the calibration model before and after smoothing of X-ray spectra have been investigated. The calibration model was calculated using multivariate procedure - namely the partial least square regression (PLS). Investigations have been performed on an example of six sets of various standards used for calibration of some instruments based on X-ray fluorescence principle. The smoothing methods were compared: regression splines, Savitzky-Golay and Discrete Fourier Transform. The calculations were performed using a software package MATLAB and some home-made programs. (author)

Dynamic MRI Using SmooThness Regularization on Manifolds (SToRM).

Science.gov (United States)

Poddar, Sunrita; Jacob, Mathews

2016-04-01

We introduce a novel algorithm to recover real time dynamic MR images from highly under-sampled k- t space measurements. The proposed scheme models the images in the dynamic dataset as points on a smooth, low dimensional manifold in high dimensional space. We propose to exploit the non-linear and non-local redundancies in the dataset by posing its recovery as a manifold smoothness regularized optimization problem. A navigator acquisition scheme is used to determine the structure of the manifold, or equivalently the associated graph Laplacian matrix. The estimated Laplacian matrix is used to recover the dataset from undersampled measurements. The utility of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by comparisons with state of the art methods in multi-slice real-time cardiac and speech imaging applications.

Mast cell numbers in airway smooth muscle and PC(20)AMP in asthma and COPD

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Liesker, J. J. W.; ten Hacken, N. H. T.; Rutgers, S. R.; Zeinstra-Smith, M.; Postma, D. S.; Timens, W.

Introduction: Most patients with asthma and many patients with COPD show bronchial hyperresponsiveness to adenosine (BHRAMP). BHRAMP may be caused by release of mast cell histamine, which induces smooth muscle contraction. Aim of the study: To evaluate whether mast cell numbers in airway smooth

Smooth time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve estimators.

Science.gov (United States)

Martínez-Camblor, Pablo; Pardo-Fernández, Juan Carlos

2018-03-01

The receiver operating characteristic curve is a popular graphical method often used to study the diagnostic capacity of continuous (bio)markers. When the considered outcome is a time-dependent variable, two main extensions have been proposed: the cumulative/dynamic receiver operating characteristic curve and the incident/dynamic receiver operating characteristic curve. In both cases, the main problem for developing appropriate estimators is the estimation of the joint distribution of the variables time-to-event and marker. As usual, different approximations lead to different estimators. In this article, the authors explore the use of a bivariate kernel density estimator which accounts for censored observations in the sample and produces smooth estimators of the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curves. The performance of the resulting cumulative/dynamic and incident/dynamic receiver operating characteristic curves is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. Additionally, the influence of the choice of the required smoothing parameters is explored. Finally, two real-applications are considered. An R package is also provided as a complement to this article.

Synthetic smooth muscle in the outer blood plexus of the rhinarium skin of Lemur catta L.

Science.gov (United States)

Elofsson, Rolf; Kröger, Ronald H H

2017-01-01

The skin of the lemur nose tip (rhinarium) has arterioles in the outer vascular plexus that are endowed with an unusual coat of smooth muscle cells. Comparison with the arterioles of the same area in a number of unrelated mammalians shows that the lemur pattern is unique. The vascular smooth muscle cells belong to the synthetic type. The function of synthetic smooth muscles around the terminal vessels in the lemur rhinarium is unclear but may have additional functions beyond regulation of vessel diameter.

Effect of gamma rays on electrically evoked contractions of non-vascular smooth muscles (rat vas deferens)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Azroony, R.; Ksies, F.; Alya, G.

2002-10-01

We have tried, in this experiment, to study the modifications of non-vascular smooth muscles contraction induced via gamma rays. Smooth muscular fibers were isolated from the vas deferens of an adult rat and contractions were electrically evoked. Our results show that irradiation activates the VOC (Voltage Operated Channel) type of ionic channels which causes an increasing in the inward flux of Ca 2+ and then causes an increasing in the inner calcium concentration [Ca 2] i, the matter which means an increasing in the force of muscular contraction. Concerning to the response of vas deferens smooth muscles to the activation of membrane receptors, we have tried to study the effects of gamma rays on activating adrenergic and cholinergic receptors, also, we have tried to show the effects of different doses of gamma rays (1, 3, 5, 7 Gy) on regulating the contractile response of this type of smooth muscles. And results show that: - Irradiation increases contraction force, mediated by adrenergic and cholinergic receptors, in a dose dependent manner, with E m ax 1 Gy m axc 3 Gy m ax 5 Gy m ax 7 Gy. There is an important shift on irradiated rats (3, 5, 7 Gy) where the maximum effect of Acetylcholine (E m ax) can be obtained in lower concentrations of Acetylcholine. These results mean that irradiation activates the inward flux of Ca 2+ through the ROC (Receptors Operated Channels) type of ionic channels, which rely, in their activation, on activating the membrane receptors. By comparing these results with the effects of gamma rays on activating vascular adrenergic and cholinergic receptors, we concluded that: Non-vascular smooth muscles (vas deferens) are less sensitive to irradiation in comparing with vascular smooth muscles (venae portal hepatica), and irradiation increases the sensitivity of cholinergic receptors to acetylcholine in the smooth muscular fibers of vas deferens while; if decreases this sensitivity in the smooth muscular fibers of venae portal hepatica

Smooth Rényi Entropy of Ergodic Quantum Information Sources

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schoenmakers, Berry; Tjoelker, Jilles; Tuyls, Pim; Verbitskiy, Evgeny

2007-01-01

We investigate the recently introduced notion of smooth Rényi entropy for the case of ergodic information sources, thereby generalizing previous work which concentrated mainly on i.i.d. information sources. We will actually consider ergodic quantum information sources, of which ergodic classical

Smooth Rényi entropy of ergodic quantum information sources

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schoenmakers, B.; Tjoelker, J.; Tuyls, P.T.; Verbitskiy, E.A.

2007-01-01

We investigate the recently introduced notion of smooth Rényi entropy for the case of ergodic information sources, thereby generalizing previous work which concentrated mainly on i.i.d. information sources. We will actually consider ergodic quantum information sources, of which ergodic classical

Design of a TDOA location engine and development of a location system based on chirp spread spectrum.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Rui-Rong; Yu, Xiao-Qing; Zheng, Shu-Wang; Ye, Yang

2016-01-01

Location based services (LBS) provided by wireless sensor networks have garnered a great deal of attention from researchers and developers in recent years. Chirp spread spectrum (CSS) signaling formatting with time difference of arrival (TDOA) ranging technology is an effective LBS technique in regards to positioning accuracy, cost, and power consumption. The design and implementation of the location engine and location management based on TDOA location algorithms were the focus of this study; as the core of the system, the location engine was designed as a series of location algorithms and smoothing algorithms. To enhance the location accuracy, a Kalman filter algorithm and moving weighted average technique were respectively applied to smooth the TDOA range measurements and location results, which are calculated by the cooperation of a Kalman TDOA algorithm and a Taylor TDOA algorithm. The location management server, the information center of the system, was designed with Data Server and Mclient. To evaluate the performance of the location algorithms and the stability of the system software, we used a Nanotron nanoLOC Development Kit 3.0 to conduct indoor and outdoor location experiments. The results indicated that the location system runs stably with high accuracy at absolute error below 0.6 m.

Computational experience with a parallel algorithm for tetrangle inequality bound smoothing.

Science.gov (United States)

Rajan, K; Deo, N

1999-09-01

Determining molecular structure from interatomic distances is an important and challenging problem. Given a molecule with n atoms, lower and upper bounds on interatomic distances can usually be obtained only for a small subset of the 2(n(n-1)) atom pairs, using NMR. Given the bounds so obtained on the distances between some of the atom pairs, it is often useful to compute tighter bounds on all the 2(n(n-1)) pairwise distances. This process is referred to as bound smoothing. The initial lower and upper bounds for the pairwise distances not measured are usually assumed to be 0 and infinity. One method for bound smoothing is to use the limits imposed by the triangle inequality. The distance bounds so obtained can often be tightened further by applying the tetrangle inequality--the limits imposed on the six pairwise distances among a set of four atoms (instead of three for the triangle inequalities). The tetrangle inequality is expressed by the Cayley-Menger determinants. For every quadruple of atoms, each pass of the tetrangle inequality bound smoothing procedure finds upper and lower limits on each of the six distances in the quadruple. Applying the tetrangle inequalities to each of the (4n) quadruples requires O(n4) time. Here, we propose a parallel algorithm for bound smoothing employing the tetrangle inequality. Each pass of our algorithm requires O(n3 log n) time on a REW PRAM (Concurrent Read Exclusive Write Parallel Random Access Machine) with O(log(n)n) processors. An implementation of this parallel algorithm on the Intel Paragon XP/S and its performance are also discussed.

Raman spectroscopy denoising based on smoothing filter combined with EEMD algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Dayong; Lv, Xiaoyi; Mo, Jiaqing; Chen, Chen

2018-02-01

In the extraction of Raman spectra, the signal will be affected by a variety of background noises, and then the effective information of Raman spectra is weakened or even submerged in noises, so the spectral analysis and denoising processing is very important. The traditional ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) method is to remove the noises by removing the IMF components that mainly contain the noises. However, it will lose some details of the Raman signal. For the problem of EEMD algorithm, the denoising method of smoothing filter combined with EEMD is proposed in this paper. First, EEMD is used to decompose the Raman noise signal into several IMF components. Then, the components mainly containing noises are selected using the self-correlation function, and the smoothing filter is used to remove the noises of the components. Finally, the sum of the denoised components is added with the remaining components to obtain the final denoised signal. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional denoising algorithm, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the root mean square error (RMSE) and the correlation coefficient are significantly improved by using the proposed smoothing filter combined with EEMD.

Contrast and assimilation in motion perception and smooth pursuit eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2007-09-01

The analysis of visual motion serves many different functions ranging from object motion perception to the control of self-motion. The perception of visual motion and the oculomotor tracking of a moving object are known to be closely related and are assumed to be controlled by shared brain areas. We compared perceived velocity and the velocity of smooth pursuit eye movements in human observers in a paradigm that required the segmentation of target object motion from context motion. In each trial, a pursuit target and a visual context were independently perturbed simultaneously to briefly increase or decrease in speed. Observers had to accurately track the target and estimate target speed during the perturbation interval. Here we show that the same motion signals are processed in fundamentally different ways for perception and steady-state smooth pursuit eye movements. For the computation of perceived velocity, motion of the context was subtracted from target motion (motion contrast), whereas pursuit velocity was determined by the motion average (motion assimilation). We conclude that the human motion system uses these computations to optimally accomplish different functions: image segmentation for object motion perception and velocity estimation for the control of smooth pursuit eye movements.

Contextual effects on smooth-pursuit eye movements.

Science.gov (United States)

Spering, Miriam; Gegenfurtner, Karl R

2007-02-01

Segregating a moving object from its visual context is particularly relevant for the control of smooth-pursuit eye movements. We examined the interaction between a moving object and a stationary or moving visual context to determine the role of the context motion signal in driving pursuit. Eye movements were recorded from human observers to a medium-contrast Gaussian dot that moved horizontally at constant velocity. A peripheral context consisted of two vertically oriented sinusoidal gratings, one above and one below the stimulus trajectory, that were either stationary or drifted into the same or opposite direction as that of the target at different velocities. We found that a stationary context impaired pursuit acceleration and velocity and prolonged pursuit latency. A drifting context enhanced pursuit performance, irrespective of its motion direction. This effect was modulated by context contrast and orientation. When a context was briefly perturbed to move faster or slower eye velocity changed accordingly, but only when the context was drifting along with the target. Perturbing a context into the direction orthogonal to target motion evoked a deviation of the eye opposite to the perturbation direction. We therefore provide evidence for the use of absolute and relative motion cues, or motion assimilation and motion contrast, for the control of smooth-pursuit eye movements.

DAWN GRAND MAP CERES SMOOTHED HYDROGEN MAP V1.0

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — A smoothed, global map of the concentration of hydrogen within the regolith of asteroid 1 Ceres on two-degree equal-angle pixels is provided. Hydrogen concentrations...

Derivatives of Multivariate Bernstein Operators and Smoothness with Jacobi Weights

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jianjun Wang

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Using the modulus of smoothness, directional derivatives of multivariate Bernstein operators with weights are characterized. The obtained results partly generalize the corresponding ones for multivariate Bernstein operators without weights.

A remark on smooth images of Banach spaces

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Hájek, Petr Pavel; Johanis, M.

2018-01-01

Roč. 458, č. 2 (2018), s. 1307-1313 ISSN 0022-247X R&D Projects: GA ČR GA16-07378S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : smooth surjections Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics Impact factor: 1.064, year: 2016 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ article /pii/S0022247X17309186?via%3Dihub

A remark on smooth images of Banach spaces

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Hájek, Petr Pavel; Johanis, M.

2018-01-01

Roč. 458, č. 2 (2018), s. 1307-1313 ISSN 0022-247X R&D Projects: GA ČR GA16-07378S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : smooth surjections Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics OBOR OECD: Pure mathematics Impact factor: 1.064, year: 2016 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022247X17309186?via%3Dihub

Methods and energy storage devices utilizing electrolytes having surface-smoothing additives

Science.gov (United States)

Xu, Wu; Zhang, Jiguang; Graff, Gordon L; Chen, Xilin; Ding, Fei

2015-11-12

Electrodeposition and energy storage devices utilizing an electrolyte having a surface-smoothing additive can result in self-healing, instead of self-amplification, of initial protuberant tips that give rise to roughness and/or dendrite formation on the substrate and anode surface. For electrodeposition of a first metal (M1) on a substrate or anode from one or more cations of M1 in an electrolyte solution, the electrolyte solution is characterized by a surface-smoothing additive containing cations of a second metal (M2), wherein cations of M2 have an effective electrochemical reduction potential in the solution lower than that of the cations of M1.

Smooth extrapolation of unknown anatomy via statistical shape models

Science.gov (United States)

Grupp, R. B.; Chiang, H.; Otake, Y.; Murphy, R. J.; Gordon, C. R.; Armand, M.; Taylor, R. H.

2015-03-01

Several methods to perform extrapolation of unknown anatomy were evaluated. The primary application is to enhance surgical procedures that may use partial medical images or medical images of incomplete anatomy. Le Fort-based, face-jaw-teeth transplant is one such procedure. From CT data of 36 skulls and 21 mandibles separate Statistical Shape Models of the anatomical surfaces were created. Using the Statistical Shape Models, incomplete surfaces were projected to obtain complete surface estimates. The surface estimates exhibit non-zero error in regions where the true surface is known; it is desirable to keep the true surface and seamlessly merge the estimated unknown surface. Existing extrapolation techniques produce non-smooth transitions from the true surface to the estimated surface, resulting in additional error and a less aesthetically pleasing result. The three extrapolation techniques evaluated were: copying and pasting of the surface estimate (non-smooth baseline), a feathering between the patient surface and surface estimate, and an estimate generated via a Thin Plate Spline trained from displacements between the surface estimate and corresponding vertices of the known patient surface. Feathering and Thin Plate Spline approaches both yielded smooth transitions. However, feathering corrupted known vertex values. Leave-one-out analyses were conducted, with 5% to 50% of known anatomy removed from the left-out patient and estimated via the proposed approaches. The Thin Plate Spline approach yielded smaller errors than the other two approaches, with an average vertex error improvement of 1.46 mm and 1.38 mm for the skull and mandible respectively, over the baseline approach.

The structure and spectrum of the accretion shock in the atmospheres of young stars

Science.gov (United States)

Dodin, Alexandr

2018-04-01

The structure and spectrum of the accretion shock have been self-consistently simulated for a wide range of parameters typical for Classical T Tauri Stars (CTTS). Radiative cooling of the shocked gas was calculated, taking into account the self-absorption and non-equilibrium (time-dependent) effects in the level populations. These effects modify the standard cooling curve for an optically thin plasma in coronal equilibrium, however the shape of high-temperature (T > 3 × 105 K) part of the curve remains unchanged. The applied methods allow us to smoothly describe the transition from the cooling flow to the hydrostatic stellar atmosphere. Thanks to this approach, it has been found that the narrow component of He II lines is formed predominantly in the irradiated stationary atmosphere (hotspot), i.e. at velocities of the settling gas law via the full energy flux.

A new paradigm for the role of smooth muscle cells in the human cervix.

Science.gov (United States)

Vink, Joy Y; Qin, Sisi; Brock, Clifton O; Zork, Noelia M; Feltovich, Helen M; Chen, Xiaowei; Urie, Paul; Myers, Kristin M; Hall, Timothy J; Wapner, Ronald; Kitajewski, Jan K; Shawber, Carrie J; Gallos, George

2016-10-01

Premature cervical remodeling resulting in spontaneous preterm birth may begin with premature failure or relaxation at the internal os (termed "funneling"). To date, we do not understand why the internal os fails or why funneling occurs in some cases of premature cervical remodeling. Although the human cervix is thought to be mostly collagen with minimal cellular content, cervical smooth muscle cells are present in the cervix and can cause cervical tissue contractility. To understand why the internal os relaxes or why funneling occurs in some cases of premature cervical remodeling, we sought to evaluate cervical smooth muscle cell content and distribution throughout human cervix and correlate if cervical smooth muscle organization influences regional cervical tissue contractility. Using institutional review board-approved protocols, nonpregnant women cervix, whole cervical slices were obtained from the internal os, midcervix, and external os and immunostained with smooth muscle actin. To correlate tissue structure with function, whole slices from the internal and external os were stimulated to contract with 1 μmol/L of oxytocin in organ baths. In separate samples, we tested if the cervix responds to a common tocolytic, nifedipine. Cervical slices from the internal os were treated with oxytocin alone or oxytocin + increasing doses of nifedipine to generate a dose response and half maximal inhibitory concentration. Student t test was used where appropriate. Cervical tissue was collected from 41 women. Immunohistochemistry showed cervical smooth muscle cells at the internal and external os expressed mature smooth muscle cell markers and contraction-associated proteins. The cervix exhibited a gradient of cervical smooth muscle cells. The area of the internal os contained 50-60% cervical smooth muscle cells that were circumferentially organized in the periphery of the stroma, which may resemble a sphincter-like pattern. The external os contained approximately 10

GenBank blastx search result: AK060750 [KOME

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available n 6, a glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1) pseudogene and the 3' end of the DCX gene for doublecortex; lissencephaly, X-linked (doublecortin), complete sequence.|PRI PRI 2e-12 +2 ...

GenBank blastx search result: AK242766 [KOME

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available r calpain 6, a glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1) pseudogene and the 3' end of the DCX gene for doublecortex; lissencephaly, X-linked (doublecortin), complete sequence. PRI 2e-33 1 ...

GenBank blastx search result: AK242717 [KOME

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available r calpain 6, a glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1) pseudogene and the 3' end of the DCX gene for doublecortex; lissencephaly, X-linked (doublecortin), complete sequence. PRI 2e-37 1 ...

GenBank blastx search result: AK058518 [KOME

Lifescience Database Archive (English)

Full Text Available n 6, a glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1) pseudogene and the 3' end of the DCX gene for doublecortex; lissencephaly, X-linked (doublecortin), complete sequence.|PRI PRI 1e-24 +2 ...

Aortic smooth muscle cell proteoglycan synthesis in relation to atherosclerosis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Edwards, I.J.

1989-01-01

Proteoglycans (PG) are implicated in atherogenesis by their effects on tissue permeability and cell proliferation and their interaction with plasma low density lipoproteins. Using the pigeon model in which an atherosclerosis-susceptible (WC) and -resistant (SR) breed can be compared, PG synthesis by cultured aortic smooth muscle cells was examined by the use of [ 35 S]-sodium sulfate and [ 3 H]-serine or [ 3 H]-glucosamine as labeling precursors. In both SR and WC cells, the majority of newly synthesized PG were secreted into the media. Chondroitin sulfate (CS) PG and dermatan sulfate (DS) PG were the major PG produced. Total PG production was consistently lower in WC compared to SR cultures due in part to reduce PG synthesis but also to degradation of newly synthesized PG. Since increased DS-PG accompanines atherosclerosis progression, experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that macrophages modulate smooth muscle cell metabolism to cause increase DS-PG production. Cultured WC aortic smooth muscle cells were exposed to the media of cholesteryl ester-loaded pigeon peritoneal macrophages or a macrophage cell line P388D1 and the production of PG examined. Increasing concentration of conditioned media from both types of macrophages caused increased incorporation of 35 S-sulfate into secreted PG, but no change in cell-associated PG. Lipopolysaccharide activation of P388D1 cells enhanced the effect

Cholesterol is necessary both for the toxic effect of Abeta peptides on vascular smooth muscle cells and for Abeta binding to vascular smooth muscle cell membranes.

Science.gov (United States)

Subasinghe, Supundi; Unabia, Sharon; Barrow, Colin J; Mok, Su San; Aguilar, Marie-Isabel; Small, David H

2003-02-01

Accumulation of beta amyloid (Abeta) in the brain is central to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease. Abeta can bind to membrane lipids and this binding may have detrimental effects on cell function. In this study, surface plasmon resonance technology was used to study Abeta binding to membranes. Abeta peptides bound to synthetic lipid mixtures and to an intact plasma membrane preparation isolated from vascular smooth muscle cells. Abeta peptides were also toxic to vascular smooth muscle cells. There was a good correlation between the toxic effect of Abeta peptides and their membrane binding. 'Ageing' the Abeta peptides by incubation for 5 days increased the proportion of oligomeric species, and also increased toxicity and the amount of binding to lipids. The toxicities of various Abeta analogs correlated with their lipid binding. Significantly, binding was influenced by the concentration of cholesterol in the lipid mixture. Reduction of cholesterol in vascular smooth muscle cells not only reduced the binding of Abeta to purified plasma membrane preparations but also reduced Abeta toxicity. The results support the view that Abeta toxicity is a direct consequence of binding to lipids in the membrane. Reduction of membrane cholesterol using cholesterol-lowering drugs may be of therapeutic benefit because it reduces Abeta-membrane binding.

THE EFFECTS OF SPATIAL SMOOTHING ON SOLAR MAGNETIC HELICITY PARAMETERS AND THE HEMISPHERIC HELICITY SIGN RULE

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ocker, Stella Koch [Department of Physics, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH 44074 (United States); Petrie, Gordon, E-mail: socker@oberlin.edu, E-mail: gpetrie@nso.edu [National Solar Observatory, Boulder, CO 80303 (United States)

2016-12-01

The hemispheric preference for negative/positive helicity to occur in the northern/southern solar hemisphere provides clues to the causes of twisted, flaring magnetic fields. Previous studies on the hemisphere rule may have been affected by seeing from atmospheric turbulence. Using Hinode /SOT-SP data spanning 2006–2013, we studied the effects of two spatial smoothing tests that imitate atmospheric seeing: noise reduction by ignoring pixel values weaker than the estimated noise threshold, and Gaussian spatial smoothing. We studied in detail the effects of atmospheric seeing on the helicity distributions across various field strengths for active regions (ARs) NOAA 11158 and NOAA 11243, in addition to studying the average helicities of 179 ARs with and without smoothing. We found that, rather than changing trends in the helicity distributions, spatial smoothing modified existing trends by reducing random noise and by regressing outliers toward the mean, or removing them altogether. Furthermore, the average helicity parameter values of the 179 ARs did not conform to the hemisphere rule: independent of smoothing, the weak-vertical-field values tended to be negative in both hemispheres, and the strong-vertical-field values tended to be positive, especially in the south. We conclude that spatial smoothing does not significantly affect the overall statistics for space-based data, and thus seeing from atmospheric turbulence seems not to have significantly affected previous studies’ ground-based results on the hemisphere rule.

A three critical point theorem for non-smooth functionals with ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

1Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics Sciences, ... In many applications, we encounter problems with non-smooth energy functionals. These .... The next lemma shows that a locally Lipschitz functional with a compact gradient, is.

Microtissues Enhance Smooth Muscle Differentiation and Cell Viability of hADSCs for Three Dimensional Bioprinting

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jin Yipeng

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Smooth muscle differentiated human adipose derived stem cells (hADSCs provide a crucial stem cell source for urinary tissue engineering, but the induction of hADSCs for smooth muscle differentiation still has several issues to overcome, including a relatively long induction time and equipment dependence, which limits access to abundant stem cells within a short period of time for further application. Three-dimensional (3D bioprinting holds great promise in regenerative medicine due to its controllable construction of a designed 3D structure. When evenly mixed with bioink, stem cells can be spatially distributed within a bioprinted 3D structure, thus avoiding drawbacks such as, stem cell detachment in a conventional cell-scaffold strategy. Notwithstanding the advantages mentioned above, cell viability is often compromised during 3D bioprinting, which is often due to pressure during the bioprinting process. The objective of our study was to improve the efficiency of hADSC smooth muscle differentiation and cell viability of a 3D bioprinted structure. Here, we employed the hanging-drop method to generate hADSC microtissues in a smooth muscle inductive medium containing human transforming growth factor β1 and bioprinted the induced microtissues onto a 3D structure. After 3 days of smooth muscle induction, the expression of α-smooth muscle actin and smoothelin was higher in microtissues than in their counterpart monolayer cultured hADSCs, as confirmed by immunofluorescence and western blotting analysis. The semi-quantitative assay showed that the expression of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA was 0.218 ± 0.077 in MTs and 0.082 ± 0.007 in Controls; smoothelin expression was 0.319 ± 0.02 in MTs and 0.178 ± 0.06 in Controls. Induced MTs maintained their phenotype after the bioprinting process. Live/dead and cell count kit 8 assays showed that cell viability and cell proliferation in the 3D structure printed with microtissues were higher at all time

Families of Smooth Rational Curves of Small Degree on the Fano Variety of Degree 5 of Main Series

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. S. Omelkova

2013-01-01

Full Text Available In this paper we consider some families of smooth rational curves of degree 2, 3 and 4 on a smooth Fano threefold X which is a linear section of the Grassmanian G(1, 4 under the Pl¨ucker embedding. We prove that these families are irreducible. The proof of the irreducibility of the families of curves of degree d is based on the study of degeneration of a rational curve of degree d into a curve which decomposes into an irreducible rational curve of degree d−1 and a projective line intersecting transversally at a point. We prove that the Hilbert scheme of curves of degree d on X is smooth at the point corresponding to such a reducible curve. Then calculations in the framework of deformation theory show that such a curve varies into a smooth rational curve of degree d. Thus, the set of reducible curves of degree d of the above type lies in the closure of a unique component of the Hilbert scheme of smooth rational curves of degree d on X. From this fact and the irreducibility of the Hilbert scheme of smooth rational curves of degree d on the Grassmannian G(1, 4 one deduces the irreducibility of the Hilbert scheme of smooth rational curves of degree d on a general Fano threefold X.

Modelling conditional correlations of asset returns: A smooth transition approach

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Silvennoinen, Annastiina; Teräsvirta, Timo

In this paper we propose a new multivariate GARCH model with time-varying conditional correlation structure. The time-varying conditional correlations change smoothly between two extreme states of constant correlations according to a predetermined or exogenous transition variable. An LM-test is d......In this paper we propose a new multivariate GARCH model with time-varying conditional correlation structure. The time-varying conditional correlations change smoothly between two extreme states of constant correlations according to a predetermined or exogenous transition variable. An LM......-test is derived to test the constancy of correlations and LM- and Wald tests to test the hypothesis of partially constant correlations. Analytical expressions for the test statistics and the required derivatives are provided to make computations feasible. An empirical example based on daily return series of ve...

Modelling Conditional and Unconditional Heteroskedasticity with Smoothly Time-Varying Structure

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Amado, Christina; Teräsvirta, Timo

multiplier type misspecification tests. Finite-sample properties of these procedures and tests are examined by simulation. An empirical application to daily stock returns and another one to daily exchange rate returns illustrate the functioning and properties of our modelling strategy in practice......In this paper, we propose two parametric alternatives to the standard GARCH model. They allow the conditional variance to have a smooth time-varying structure of either ad- ditive or multiplicative type. The suggested parameterizations describe both nonlinearity and structural change...... in the conditional and unconditional variances where the transition between regimes over time is smooth. A modelling strategy for these new time-varying parameter GARCH models is developed. It relies on a sequence of Lagrange multiplier tests, and the adequacy of the estimated models is investigated by Lagrange...

Adaptive estimation of a time-varying phase with coherent states: Smoothing can give an unbounded improvement over filtering

Science.gov (United States)

Laverick, Kiarn T.; Wiseman, Howard M.; Dinani, Hossein T.; Berry, Dominic W.

2018-04-01

The problem of measuring a time-varying phase, even when the statistics of the variation is known, is considerably harder than that of measuring a constant phase. In particular, the usual bounds on accuracy, such as the 1 /(4 n ¯) standard quantum limit with coherent states, do not apply. Here, by restricting to coherent states, we are able to analytically obtain the achievable accuracy, the equivalent of the standard quantum limit, for a wide class of phase variation. In particular, we consider the case where the phase has Gaussian statistics and a power-law spectrum equal to κp -1/|ω| p for large ω , for some p >1 . For coherent states with mean photon flux N , we give the quantum Cramér-Rao bound on the mean-square phase error as [psin(π /p ) ] -1(4N /κ ) -(p -1 )/p . Next, we consider whether the bound can be achieved by an adaptive homodyne measurement in the limit N /κ ≫1 , which allows the photocurrent to be linearized. Applying the optimal filtering for the resultant linear Gaussian system, we find the same scaling with N , but with a prefactor larger by a factor of p . By contrast, if we employ optimal smoothing we can exactly obtain the quantum Cramér-Rao bound. That is, contrary to previously considered (p =2 ) cases of phase estimation, here the improvement offered by smoothing over filtering is not limited to a factor of 2 but rather can be unbounded by a factor of p . We also study numerically the performance of these estimators for an adaptive measurement in the limit where N /κ is not large and find a more complicated picture.

Evidence Supports Tradition: The in Vitro Effects of Roman Chamomile on Smooth Muscles

OpenAIRE

Zsolt Sándor; Javad Mottaghipisheh; Katalin Veres; Judit Hohmann; Tímea Bencsik; Attila Horváth; Dezső Kelemen; Róbert Papp; Loránd Barthó; Dezső Csupor; Dezső Csupor

2018-01-01

The dried flowers of Chamaemelum nobile (L.) All. have been used in traditional medicine for different conditions related to the spasm of the gastrointestinal system. However, there have been no experimental studies to support the smooth muscle relaxant effect of this plant. The aim of our research was to assess the effects of the hydroethanolic extract of Roman chamomile, its fractions, four of its flavonoids (apigenin, luteolin, hispidulin, and eupafolin), and its essential oil on smooth mu...

A three-level support method for smooth switching of the micro-grid operation model

Science.gov (United States)

Zong, Yuanyang; Gong, Dongliang; Zhang, Jianzhou; Liu, Bin; Wang, Yun

2018-01-01

Smooth switching of micro-grid between the grid-connected operation mode and off-grid operation mode is one of the key technologies to ensure it runs flexible and efficiently. The basic control strategy and the switching principle of micro-grid are analyzed in this paper. The reasons for the fluctuations of the voltage and the frequency in the switching process are analyzed from views of power balance and control strategy, and the operation mode switching strategy has been improved targeted. From the three aspects of controller’s current inner loop reference signal, voltage outer loop control strategy optimization and micro-grid energy balance management, a three-level security strategy for smooth switching of micro-grid operation mode is proposed. From the three aspects of controller’s current inner loop reference signal tracking, voltage outer loop control strategy optimization and micro-grid energy balance management, a three-level strategy for smooth switching of micro-grid operation mode is proposed. At last, it is proved by simulation that the proposed control strategy can make the switching process smooth and stable, the fluctuation problem of the voltage and frequency has been effectively improved.

Hydroxyapatite and Calcified Elastin Induce Osteoblast-like Differentiation in Rat Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells

Science.gov (United States)

Lei, Yang; Sinha, Aditi; Nosoudi, Nasim; Grover, Ankit; Vyavahare, Naren

2014-01-01

Vascular calcification can be categorized into two different types. Intimal calcification related to atherosclerosis and elastin-specific medial arterial calcification (MAC). Osteoblast-like differentiation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) has been shown in both types; however, how this relates to initiation of vascular calcification is unclear. We hypothesize that the initial deposition of hydroxyapatite-like mineral in MAC occurs on degraded elastin first and that causes osteogenic transformation of VSMCs. To test this, rat aortic smooth muscle cells (RASMCs) were cultured on hydroxyapatite crystals and calcified aortic elastin. Using RT-PCR and specific protein assays, we demonstrate that RASMCs lose their smooth muscle lineage markers like alpha smooth muscle actin (SMA) and myosin heavy chain (MHC) and undergo chondrogenic/osteogenic transformation. This is indicated by an increase in the expression of typical chondrogenic proteins such as aggrecan, collagen type II alpha 1(Col2a1) and bone proteins such as runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX2), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and osteocalcin (OCN). Furthermore, when calcified conditions are removed, cells return to their original phenotype. Our data supports the hypothesis that elastin degradation and calcification precedes VSMCs' osteoblast-like differentiation. PMID:24447384

A Smoothing-Type Algorithm for Solving Linear Complementarity Problems with Strong Convergence Properties

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang Zhenghai; Gu Weizhe

2008-01-01

In this paper, we construct an augmented system of the standard monotone linear complementarity problem (LCP), and establish the relations between the augmented system and the LCP. We present a smoothing-type algorithm for solving the augmented system. The algorithm is shown to be globally convergent without assuming any prior knowledge of feasibility/infeasibility of the problem. In particular, if the LCP has a solution, then the algorithm either generates a maximal complementary solution of the LCP or detects correctly solvability of the LCP, and in the latter case, an existing smoothing-type algorithm can be directly applied to solve the LCP without any additional assumption and it generates a maximal complementary solution of the LCP; and that if the LCP is infeasible, then the algorithm detect correctly infeasibility of the LCP. To the best of our knowledge, such properties have not appeared in the existing literature for smoothing-type algorithms

Smooth bifurcation for a Signorini problem on a rectangle

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Eisner, J.; Kučera, Milan; Recke, L.

2012-01-01

Roč. 137, č. 2 (2012), s. 131-138 ISSN 0862-7959 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR IAA100190805 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : Signorini problem * smooth bifurcation * variational inequality Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics http://dml.cz/dmlcz/142859

Establishment of artery smooth muscle cell proliferation model after subarachnoid hemorrhage in rats

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-jie CHEN

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Objective The current paper aims to simulate the effects of hemolytic products on intracranial vascular smooth muscle cell after subarachnoid hemorrhage(SAH,and probe into the molecular mechanism and strategy for the prevention and cure of vascular proliferation after SAH.Methods Thirty Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into three groups,including sham-operated,24 h after SAH,and 72 h after SAH groups.The artificial hemorrhage model around the common carotid artery was established for the latter two groups.The animals were put to death after 24 h and 72 h to take the common carotid artery,and to measure the expression level of PCNA,SM-α-actin protein,and mRNA in the smooth muscle cell.Results The PCNA mRNA expression was significantly up-regulated in the 24-h group(P < 0.01.The expression in the 72-h group was lower than that of the 24-h group(P < 0.01,whereas it was still remarkably higher than that of the sham group(P < 0.01.The SM-α-actin mRNA expression in the smooth muscle cell in the 24-h and 72-h groups decreased compared with that of the Sham group(P < 0.05,whereas the 72-h group was significantly lower than that of the 24-h group(P < 0.05.The protein expression of PCNA and SM-α-actin showed a similar trend.Conclusion The current experiment simulates better effects of the hemolytic products on vascular smooth muscle cell after SAH.It also shows that artificial hemorrhage around the common carotid artery could stimulate vascular smooth muscle cell to change from contractile phenotype into synthetic phenotype,and improve it to proliferate.

Control Strategies for Smoothing of Output Power of Wind Energy Conversion Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Pratap, Alok; Urasaki, Naomitsu; Senju, Tomonobu

2013-10-01

This article presents a control method for output power smoothing of a wind energy conversion system (WECS) with a permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) using the inertia of wind turbine and the pitch control. The WECS used in this article adopts an AC-DC-AC converter system. The generator-side converter controls the torque of the PMSG, while the grid-side inverter controls the DC-link and grid voltages. For the generator-side converter, the torque command is determined by using the fuzzy logic. The inputs of the fuzzy logic are the operating point of the rotational speed of the PMSG and the difference between the wind turbine torque and the generator torque. By means of the proposed method, the generator torque is smoothed, and the kinetic energy stored by the inertia of the wind turbine can be utilized to smooth the output power fluctuations of the PMSG. In addition, the wind turbines shaft stress is mitigated compared to a conventional maximum power point tracking control. Effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the numerical simulations.

Augmented vascular smooth muscle cell stiffness and adhesion when hypertension is superimposed on aging.

Science.gov (United States)

Sehgel, Nancy L; Sun, Zhe; Hong, Zhongkui; Hunter, William C; Hill, Michael A; Vatner, Dorothy E; Vatner, Stephen F; Meininger, Gerald A

2015-02-01

Hypertension and aging are both recognized to increase aortic stiffness, but their interactions are not completely understood. Most previous studies have attributed increased aortic stiffness to changes in extracellular matrix proteins that alter the mechanical properties of the vascular wall. Alternatively, we hypothesized that a significant component of increased vascular stiffness in hypertension is due to changes in the mechanical and adhesive properties of vascular smooth muscle cells, and that aging would augment the contribution from vascular smooth muscle cells when compared with the extracellular matrix. Accordingly, we studied aortic stiffness in young (16-week-old) and old (64-week-old) spontaneously hypertensive rats and Wistar-Kyoto wild-type controls. Systolic and pulse pressures were significantly increased in young spontaneously hypertensive rats when compared with young Wistar-Kyoto rats, and these continued to rise in old spontaneously hypertensive rats when compared with age-matched controls. Excised aortic ring segments exhibited significantly greater elastic moduli in both young and old spontaneously hypertensive rats versus Wistar-Kyoto rats. were isolated from the thoracic aorta, and stiffness and adhesion to fibronectin were measured by atomic force microscopy. Hypertension increased both vascular smooth muscle cell stiffness and vascular smooth muscle cell adhesion, and these increases were both augmented with aging. By contrast, hypertension did not affect histological measures of aortic collagen and elastin, which were predominantly changed by aging. These findings support the concept that stiffness and adhesive properties of vascular smooth muscle cells are novel mechanisms contributing to the increased aortic stiffness occurring with hypertension superimposed on aging. © 2014 American Heart Association, Inc.

Role of SM22 in the differential regulation of phasic vs. tonic smooth muscle

Science.gov (United States)

Ali, Mehboob

2015-01-01

Preliminary proteomics studies between tonic vs. phasic smooth muscles identified three distinct protein spots identified to be those of transgelin (SM22). The latter was found to be distinctly downregulated in the internal anal sphincter (IAS) vs. rectal smooth muscle (RSM) SMC. The major focus of the present studies was to examine the differential molecular control mechanisms by SM22 in the functionality of truly tonic smooth muscle of the IAS vs. the adjoining phasic smooth muscle of the RSM. We monitored SMC lengths before and after incubation with pFLAG-SM22 (for SM22 overexpression), and SM22 small-interfering RNA. pFLAG-SM22 caused concentration-dependent and significantly greater relaxation in the IAS vs. the RSM SMCs. Conversely, temporary silencing of SM22 caused contraction in both types of the SMCs. Further studies revealed a significant reverse relationship between the levels of SM22 phosphorylation and the amount of SM22-actin binding in the IAS and RSM SMC. Data showed higher phospho-SM22 levels and decreased SM22-actin binding in the IAS, and reverse to be the case in the RSM SMCs. Experiments determining the mechanism for SM22 phosphorylation in these smooth muscles revealed that Y-27632 (Rho kinase inhibitor) but not Gö-6850 (protein kinase C inhibitor) caused concentration-dependent decreased phosphorylation of SM22. We speculate that SM22 plays an important role in the regulation of basal tone via Rho kinase-induced phosphorylation of SM22. PMID:25617350

On spaces of functions of smoothness zero

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Besov, Oleg V

2012-01-01

The paper is concerned with the new spaces B-bar p,q 0 of functions of smoothness zero defined on the n-dimensional Euclidean space R n or on a subdomain G of R n . These spaces are compared with the spaces B p,q 0 (R n ) and bmo(R n ). The embedding theorems for Sobolev spaces are refined in terms of the space B-bar p,q 0 with the limiting exponent. Bibliography: 8 titles.

Laboratory practical to study the differential innervation pathways of urinary tract smooth muscle.

Science.gov (United States)

Rembetski, Benjamin E; Cobine, Caroline A; Drumm, Bernard T

2018-06-01

In the mammalian lower urinary tract, there is a reciprocal relationship between the contractile state of the bladder and urethra. As the bladder fills with urine, it remains relaxed to accommodate increases in volume, while the urethra remains contracted to prevent leakage of urine from the bladder to the exterior. Disruptions to the normal contractile state of the bladder and urethra can lead to abnormal micturition patterns and urinary incontinence. While both the bladder and urethra are smooth-muscle organs, they are differentially contracted by input from cholinergic and sympathetic nerves, respectively. The laboratory practical described here provides an experiential approach to understanding the anatomy of the lower urinary tract. Several key factors in urinary tract physiology are outlined, e.g., the bladder is contracted by activation of the parasympathetic pathway via cholinergic stimulation on muscarinic receptors, whereas the urethra is contracted by activation of the sympathetic pathway via adrenergic stimulation on α 1 -adrenoceptors. This is achieved by measuring the force generated by bladder and urethra smooth muscle to demonstrate that acetylcholine contracts the smooth muscle of the bladder, whereas adrenergic agonists contract the urethral smooth muscle. An inhibition of these effects is also demonstrated by application of the muscarinic receptor antagonist atropine and the α 1 -adrenergic receptor blocker phentolamine. A list of suggested techniques and exam questions to evaluate student understanding on this topic is also provided.

ADAMTS9-Regulated Pericellular Matrix Dynamics Governs Focal Adhesion-Dependent Smooth Muscle Differentiation

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Timothy J. Mead

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Summary: Focal adhesions anchor cells to extracellular matrix (ECM and direct assembly of a pre-stressed actin cytoskeleton. They act as a cellular sensor and regulator, linking ECM to the nucleus. Here, we identify proteolytic turnover of the anti-adhesive proteoglycan versican as a requirement for maintenance of smooth muscle cell (SMC focal adhesions. Using conditional deletion in mice, we show that ADAMTS9, a secreted metalloprotease, is required for myometrial activation during late gestation and for parturition. Through knockdown of ADAMTS9 in uterine SMC, and manipulation of pericellular versican via knockdown or proteolysis, we demonstrate that regulated pericellular matrix dynamics is essential for focal adhesion maintenance. By influencing focal adhesion formation, pericellular versican acts upstream of cytoskeletal assembly and SMC differentiation. Thus, pericellular versican proteolysis by ADAMTS9 balances pro- and anti-adhesive forces to maintain an SMC phenotype, providing a concrete example of the dynamic reciprocity of cells and their ECM. : Mead et al. identify a proteolytic mechanism that actively maintains a pericellular microenvironment conducive to uterine smooth muscle activation prior to parturition. They show that pericellular matrix proteolysis by the secreted metalloprotease ADAMTS9 is crucial for maintenance of focal adhesions in uterine smooth muscle cells, and its absence impairs parturition. Keywords: metalloprotease, extracellular matrix, smooth muscle, proteoglycan, myometrium, parturition, uterus, focal adhesion, proteolysis, interference reflection microscopy

KCl cotransport regulation and protein kinase G in cultured vascular smooth muscle cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Adragna, N C; Zhang, J; Di Fulvio, M; Lincoln, T M; Lauf, P K

2002-05-15

K-Cl cotransport is activated by vasodilators in erythrocytes and vascular smooth muscle cells and its regulation involves putative kinase/phosphatase cascades. N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) activates the system presumably by inhibiting a protein kinase. Nitrovasodilators relax smooth muscle via cGMP-dependent activation of protein kinase G (PKG), a regulator of membrane channels and transporters. We investigated whether PKG regulates K-Cl cotransport activity or mRNA expression in normal, PKG-deficient-vector-only-transfected (PKG-) and PKG-catalytic-domain-transfected (PKG+) rat aortic smooth muscle cells. K-Cl cotransport was calculated as the Cl-dependent Rb influx, and mRNA was determined by semiquantitative RT-PCR. Baseline K-Cl cotransport was higher in PKG+ than in PKG- cells (p <0.01). At 0.5 mM, NEM stimulated K-Cl cotransport by 5-fold in PKG- but not in PKG+ cells. However, NEM was more potent although less effective to activate K-Cl cotransport in normal (passage 1-3) and PKG+ than in PKG- cells. In PKG- cells, [(dihydroindenyl) oxy] alkanoic acid (300 mM) but not furosemide (1 mM) inhibited K-Cl cotransport. Furthermore, no difference in K-Cl cotransport mRNA expression was observed between these cells. In conclusion, this study shows that manipulation of PKG expression in vascular smooth muscle cells affects K-Cl cotransport activity and its activation by NEM.

Superfluorescent highly doped neodymium materials as smooth sources for fusion lasers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Husson, D.; Gouedard, C.; Sauteret, C.; Migus, A.; Auzel, F.

1991-01-01

Obtaining uniform laser energy deposition on target is one of the main issue in laser driven inertial confinement fusion. Efforts to directly generate laser smooth emission have been unsuccessful up to now. Therefore different methods of laser smoothing have been developed, consisting of tentatives to destroy the spatial and temporal coherence of the emission which are at the origin on the non-uniformity. We may however wonder whether a laser is really needed for this application. In this work we have developed mirrorless light generator based on highly concentrated Nd-doped crystals or powders pumped by laser. We obtain emission showing characteristics of coherence but still compatible with amplification in existing large Nd-glass installation

Illumination uniformity requirements for direct drive inertial confinement fusion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rothenberg, J.E.; Eimerl, D.; Key, M.H.; Weber, S.V.

1995-01-01

The requirements for laser uniformity are discussed in terms of the ell-mode spectrum. It is shown that the choice of smoothing methods can significantly alter this spectrum and that this choice should be made in the context of the target physics. Although two dimensional smoothing by spectral dispersion yields a high quality near field beam profile, it results in poor smoothing for low spatial frequency. The partially coherent light method (fiber smoothing) leads to superior smoothing at low spatial frequencies, but has very poor near field beam quality. As a result, it may be desirable to use partially coherent light during the driver pulse foot (at low intensity and when minimizing the laser imprint is critical) and smoothing by spectral dispersion during the main pulse

Pulsar Emission Spectrum

OpenAIRE

Gruzinov, Andrei

2013-01-01

Emission spectrum is calculated for a weak axisymmetric pulsar. Also calculated are the observed spectrum, efficiency, and the observed efficiency. The underlying flow of electrons and positrons turns out to be curiously intricate.

Effects of nifedipine on anorectal smooth muscle in vitro.

Science.gov (United States)

Cook, T A; Brading, A F; Mortensen, N J

1999-06-01

Glyceryl trinitrate reduces anal resting pressure and aids the healing of anal fissures. However, some patients develop tachyphylaxis and the fissure fails to heal, suggesting that other agents are needed. This study assesses the effects of nifedipine (a calcium channel antagonist) in modulating resting tone and agonist-induced contractions in human internal anal sphincter (IAS) and rectal circular muscle. Smooth muscle strips from the IAS and rectal circular muscle from ten patients undergoing surgical resection were mounted for isometric tension recording in a superfusion organ bath. The effects of noradrenaline and carbachol were assessed in the presence of various perfusates. LAS strips developed tone and spontaneous activity. Noradrenaline produced dose-dependent contractions. In calcium-free Krebs solution, tone and activity were abolished and no contractions were elicited in response to noradrenaline. Nifedipine also abolished tone and spontaneous activity, but contractions to noradrenaline were only slightly attenuated. In contrast, rectal smooth muscle strips developed spontaneous activity but no resting tone and contracted in response to carbachol. In calcium-free Krebs solution, the spontaneous activity and carbachol contractions were abolished. Addition of nifedipine to the perfusate abolished spontaneous activity and greatly reduced contractions. These data suggest that spontaneous activity and resting tone are dependent on extracellular calcium and flux across the cells. Agonist-induced contraction in the IAS is attributable mainly to the release of calcium from intracellular stores, whereas rectal circular smooth muscle depends principally on extracellular calcium entering the cell for contraction. The attenuation of contractions in both tissues and the abolition of resting tone in the IAS suggest that nifedipine may be useful in the management of patients with anorectal disorders.

Smooth Muscle Endothelin B Receptors Regulate Blood Pressure but Not Vascular Function or Neointimal Remodeling.

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, Eileen; Czopek, Alicja; Duthie, Karolina M; Kirkby, Nicholas S; van de Putte, Elisabeth E Fransen; Christen, Sibylle; Kimmitt, Robert A; Moorhouse, Rebecca; Castellan, Raphael F P; Kotelevtsev, Yuri V; Kuc, Rhoda E; Davenport, Anthony P; Dhaun, Neeraj; Webb, David J; Hadoke, Patrick W F

2017-02-01

The role of smooth muscle endothelin B (ET B ) receptors in regulating vascular function, blood pressure (BP), and neointimal remodeling has not been established. Selective knockout mice were generated to address the hypothesis that loss of smooth muscle ET B receptors would reduce BP, alter vascular contractility, and inhibit neointimal remodeling. ET B receptors were selectively deleted from smooth muscle by crossing floxed ET B mice with those expressing cre-recombinase controlled by the transgelin promoter. Functional consequences of ET B deletion were assessed using myography. BP was measured by telemetry, and neointimal lesion formation induced by femoral artery injury. Lesion size and composition (day 28) were analyzed using optical projection tomography, histology, and immunohistochemistry. Selective deletion of ET B was confirmed by genotyping, autoradiography, polymerase chain reaction, and immunohistochemistry. ET B -mediated contraction was reduced in trachea, but abolished from mesenteric veins, of knockout mice. Induction of ET B -mediated contraction in mesenteric arteries was also abolished in these mice. Femoral artery function was unaltered, and baseline BP modestly elevated in smooth muscle ET B knockout compared with controls (+4.2±0.2 mm Hg; P<0.0001), but salt-induced and ET B blockade-mediated hypertension were unaltered. Circulating endothelin-1 was not altered in knockout mice. ET B -mediated contraction was not induced in femoral arteries by incubation in culture medium or lesion formation, and lesion size was not altered in smooth muscle ET B knockout mice. In the absence of other pathology, ET B receptors in vascular smooth muscle make a small but significant contribution to ET B -dependent regulation of BP. These ET B receptors have no effect on vascular contraction or neointimal remodeling. © 2016 The Authors.

Genetics Home Reference: isolated lissencephaly sequence

Science.gov (United States)

... than normal ( microcephaly ). This underdevelopment of the brain causes severe intellectual disability, delayed development, and recurrent seizures (epilepsy) in individuals with ILS. More than 90 percent ...

Pseudo-Random Sequences Generated by a Class of One-Dimensional Smooth Map

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xing-Yuan; Qin, Xue; Xie, Yi-Xin

2011-08-01

We extend a class of a one-dimensional smooth map. We make sure that for each desired interval of the parameter the map's Lyapunov exponent is positive. Then we propose a novel parameter perturbation method based on the good property of the extended one-dimensional smooth map. We perturb the parameter r in each iteration by the real number xi generated by the iteration. The auto-correlation function and NIST statistical test suite are taken to illustrate the method's randomness finally. We provide an application of this method in image encryption. Experiments show that the pseudo-random sequences are suitable for this application.

β-adrenergic relaxation of smooth muscle: differences between cells and tissues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Scheid, C.R.

1987-01-01

The present studies were carried out in an attempt to resolve the controversy about the Na + dependence of β-adrenergic relaxation in smooth muscle. Previous studies on isolated smooth muscle cells from the toad stomach had suggested that at least some of the actions of β-adrenergic agents, including a stimulatory effect on 45 Ca efflux, were dependent on the presence of a normal transmembrane Na + gradient. Studies by other investigators using tissues derived from mammalian sources had suggested that the relaxing effect of β-adrenergic agents was Na + independent. Uncertainty remained as to whether these discrepancies reflected differences between cells and tissues or differences between species. Thus, in the present studies, the authors utilized both tissues and cells from the same source, the stomach muscle of the toad Bufo marinus, and assessed the Na + dependence of β-adrenergic relaxation. They found that elimination of a normal Na + gradient abolished β-adrenergic relaxation of isolated cells. In tissues, however, similar manipulations had no effect on relaxation. The reasons for this discrepancy are unclear but do not appear to be attributable to changes in smooth muscle function following enzymatic dispersion. Thus the controversy concerning the mechanisms of β-adrenergic relaxation may reflect inherent differences between tissues and cells

Dynamic spectrum auction in wireless communication

CERN Document Server

Chen, Yanjiao

2015-01-01

This brief explores current research on dynamic spectrum auctions, focusing on fundamental auction theory, characteristics of the spectrum market, spectrum auction architecture and possible auction mechanisms. The brief explains how dynamic spectrum auctions, which enable new users to gain spectrum access and existing spectrum owners to obtain financial benefits, can greatly improve spectrum efficiency by resolving the artificial spectrum shortage. It examines why operators and users face significant challenges due to specialty of the spectrum market and the related requirements imposed on the auction mechanism design. Concise and up-to-date, Dynamic Spectrum Auction in Wireless Communication is designed for researchers and professionals in computer science or electrical engineering. Students studying networking will also find this brief a valuable resource.

Income smoothing and use of derivatives instruments in non-financial companies listed on BM&FBovespa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Henrique Portulhak

2014-09-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to investigate whether income smoothing and use of derivative financial instruments are related as substitute or complementary practices regarding organizational policies to reduce the volatility of corporate earnings. In order to reach this goal, 214 non-financial companies listed on BM&FBOVESPA stock exchange between 2005 and 2011were analyzed and Eckel (1981 model was applied in order to gather which companies present income smoothing evidences during this period, besides qualitative analysis on explanatory notes to investigate which companies used derivatives in the final year. Chi-square test with Yates correction was employed in order to verify the existence of correlations between income smoothing and derivative instruments. Results indicated, considering the impossibility of rejecting the null hypothesis of the chi-square test with Yates correction, evidence for an inverse relationship between the aforementioned variables. Through the results of this test, it is suggested that organizational policies for use of income smoothing and derivatives can be acting as resource substitutes for non-financial enterprises stock dealers on BM&FBOVESPA, thus meeting individual findings in other international researches.

MicroRNAs dynamically remodel gastrointestinal smooth muscle cells.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chanjae Park

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Smooth muscle cells (SMCs express a unique set of microRNAs (miRNAs which regulate and maintain the differentiation state of SMCs. The goal of this study was to investigate the role of miRNAs during the development of gastrointestinal (GI SMCs in a transgenic animal model. We generated SMC-specific Dicer null animals that express the reporter, green fluorescence protein, in a SMC-specific manner. SMC-specific knockout of Dicer prevented SMC miRNA biogenesis, causing dramatic changes in phenotype, function, and global gene expression in SMCs: the mutant mice developed severe dilation of the intestinal tract associated with the thinning and destruction of the smooth muscle (SM layers; contractile motility in the mutant intestine was dramatically decreased; and SM contractile genes and transcriptional regulators were extensively down-regulated in the mutant SMCs. Profiling and bioinformatic analyses showed that SMC phenotype is regulated by a complex network of positive and negative feedback by SMC miRNAs, serum response factor (SRF, and other transcriptional factors. Taken together, our data suggest that SMC miRNAs are required for the development and survival of SMCs in the GI tract.

Biophysical induction of vascular smooth muscle cell podosomes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Na Young Kim

Full Text Available Vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC migration and matrix degradation occurs with intimal hyperplasia associated with atherosclerosis, vascular injury, and restenosis. One proposed mechanism by which VSMCs degrade matrix is through the use of podosomes, transient actin-based structures that are thought to play a role in extracellular matrix degradation by creating localized sites of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP secretion. To date, podosomes in VSMCs have largely been studied by stimulating cells with phorbol esters, such as phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate (PDBu, however little is known about the physiological cues that drive podosome formation. We present the first evidence that physiological, physical stimuli mimicking cues present within the microenvironment of diseased arteries can induce podosome formation in VSMCs. Both microtopographical cues and imposed pressure mimicking stage II hypertension induce podosome formation in A7R5 rat aortic smooth muscle cells. Moreover, wounding using a scratch assay induces podosomes at the leading edge of VSMCs. Notably the effect of each of these biophysical stimuli on podosome stimulation can be inhibited using a Src inhibitor. Together, these data indicate that physical cues can induce podosome formation in VSMCs.

Intermediate neutron spectrum problems and the intermediate neutron spectrum experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jaegers, P.J.; Sanchez, R.G.

1996-01-01

Criticality benchmark data for intermediate energy spectrum systems does not exist. These systems are dominated by scattering and fission events induced by neutrons with energies between 1 eV and 1 MeV. Nuclear data uncertainties have been reported for such systems which can not be resolved without benchmark critical experiments. Intermediate energy spectrum systems have been proposed for the geological disposition of surplus fissile materials. Without the proper benchmarking of the nuclear data in the intermediate energy spectrum, adequate criticality safety margins can not be guaranteed. The Zeus critical experiment now under construction will provide this necessary benchmark data

Influence of non-smooth surface on tribological properties of glass fiber-epoxy resin composite sliding against stainless steel under natural seawater lubrication

Science.gov (United States)

Wu, Shaofeng; Gao, Dianrong; Liang, Yingna; Chen, Bo

2015-11-01

With the development of bionics, the bionic non-smooth surfaces are introduced to the field of tribology. Although non-smooth surface has been studied widely, the studies of non-smooth surface under the natural seawater lubrication are still very fewer, especially experimental research. The influences of smooth and non-smooth surface on the frictional properties of the glass fiber-epoxy resin composite (GF/EPR) coupled with stainless steel 316L are investigated under natural seawater lubrication in this paper. The tested non-smooth surfaces include the surfaces with semi-spherical pits, the conical pits, the cone-cylinder combined pits, the cylindrical pits and through holes. The friction and wear tests are performed using a ring-on-disc test rig under 60 N load and 1000 r/min rotational speed. The tests results show that GF/EPR with bionic non-smooth surface has quite lower friction coefficient and better wear resistance than GF/EPR with smooth surface without pits. The average friction coefficient of GF/EPR with semi-spherical pits is 0.088, which shows the largest reduction is approximately 63.18% of GF/EPR with smooth surface. In addition, the wear debris on the worn surfaces of GF/EPR are observed by a confocal scanning laser microscope. It is shown that the primary wear mechanism is the abrasive wear. The research results provide some design parameters for non-smooth surface, and the experiment results can serve as a beneficial supplement to non-smooth surface study.

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Science.gov (United States)

... Caregiver Education » Fact Sheets Autism Spectrum Disorder Fact Sheet What is autism spectrum disorder? What are some ... of mutations in individual genes but rather spontaneous coding mutations across many genes. De novo mutations may ...

Kinematics, structural mechanics, and design of origami structures with smooth folds

Science.gov (United States)

Peraza Hernandez, Edwin Alexander

Origami provides novel approaches to the fabrication, assembly, and functionality of engineering structures in various fields such as aerospace, robotics, etc. With the increase in complexity of the geometry and materials for origami structures that provide engineering utility, computational models and design methods for such structures have become essential. Currently available models and design methods for origami structures are generally limited to the idealization of the folds as creases of zeroth-order geometric continuity. Such an idealization is not proper for origami structures having non-negligible thickness or maximum curvature at the folds restricted by material limitations. Thus, for general structures, creased folds of merely zeroth-order geometric continuity are not appropriate representations of structural response and a new approach is needed. The first contribution of this dissertation is a model for the kinematics of origami structures having realistic folds of non-zero surface area and exhibiting higher-order geometric continuity, here termed smooth folds. The geometry of the smooth folds and the constraints on their associated kinematic variables are presented. A numerical implementation of the model allowing for kinematic simulation of structures having arbitrary fold patterns is also described. Examples illustrating the capability of the model to capture realistic structural folding response are provided. Subsequently, a method for solving the origami design problem of determining the geometry of a single planar sheet and its pattern of smooth folds that morphs into a given three-dimensional goal shape, discretized as a polygonal mesh, is presented. The design parameterization of the planar sheet and the constraints that allow for a valid pattern of smooth folds and approximation of the goal shape in a known folded configuration are presented. Various testing examples considering goal shapes of diverse geometries are provided. Afterwards, a

Immunohistochemical characterization of endometriosis-associated smooth muscle cells in human peritoneal endometriotic lesions.

Science.gov (United States)

Barcena de Arellano, Maria L; Gericke, Jessica; Reichelt, Uta; Okuducu, Ali Fuat; Ebert, Andreas D; Chiantera, Vito; Schneider, Achim; Mechsner, Sylvia

2011-10-01

Smooth muscle cells (SMC) are common components of endometriotic lesions. SMC have been characterized previously in peritoneal, ovarian and deep infiltrating endometriotic lesions and adenomyosis. The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the extent of differentiation in endometriosis-associated SMC (EMaSMC) in peritoneal endometriotic lesions. We obtained biopsies from peritoneal endometriotic lesions (n = 60) and peritoneal sites distant from the endometriotic lesion (n = 60), as well as healthy peritoneum from patients without endometriosis (control tissue, n = 10). These controls were hysterectomy specimens from patients without endometriosis or adenomyosis. Histopathological examination of peritoneal specimens using antibodies against oxytocin receptor (OTR), vasopressin receptor (VPR), smooth muscle myosin heavy chain (SM-MHC), estrogen receptor (ER) or progesterone receptor (PR) was performed. To identify SMC and their level of differentiation, antibodies for smooth muscle actin desmin and caldesmon were used. SMC were detected in all endometriotic lesions. SMC were more abundant in unaffected peritoneum of women with endometriosis (38%) compared with women without endometriosis (6%; P endometriosis.