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Sample records for suppression method based

  1. Improved olefinic fat suppression in skeletal muscle DTI using a magnitude-based dixon method.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burakiewicz, Jedrzej; Hooijmans, Melissa T; Webb, Andrew G; Verschuuren, Jan J G M; Niks, Erik H; Kan, Hermien E

    2018-01-01

    To develop a method of suppressing the multi-resonance fat signal in diffusion-weighted imaging of skeletal muscle. This is particularly important when imaging patients with muscular dystrophies, a group of diseases which cause gradual replacement of muscle tissue by fat. The signal from the olefinic fat peak at 5.3 ppm can significantly confound diffusion-tensor imaging measurements. Dixon olefinic fat suppression (DOFS), a magnitude-based chemical-shift-based method of suppressing the olefinic peak, is proposed. It is verified in vivo by performing diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based quantification in the lower leg of seven healthy volunteers, and compared to two previously described fat-suppression techniques in regions with and without fat contamination. In the region without fat contamination, DOFS produces similar results to existing techniques, whereas in muscle contaminated by subcutaneous fat signal moved due to the chemical shift artefact, it consistently showed significantly higher (P = 0.018) mean diffusivity (MD). Because fat presence lowers MD, this suggests improved fat suppression. DOFS offers superior fat suppression and enhances quantitative measurements in the muscle in the presence of fat. DOFS is an alternative to spectral olefinic fat suppression. Magn Reson Med 79:152-159, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

  2. Thought Suppression Research Methods: Paradigms, Theories, Methodological Concerns

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Niczyporuk Aneta

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available It is hard to provide an unequivocal answer to the question of whether or not thought suppression is effective. Two thought suppression paradigms - the “white bear” paradigm and the think/no-think paradigm - give mixed results. Generally, “white bear” experiments indicate that thought suppression is counterproductive, while experiments in the think/no-think paradigm suggest that it is possible to effectively suppress a thought. There are also alternative methods used to study thought suppression, for instance the directed forgetting paradigm or the Stroop task. In the article, I describe the research methods used to explore thought suppression efficacy. I focus on the “white bear” and the think/no-think paradigms and discuss theories proposed to explain the results obtained. I also consider the internal and external validity of the methods used.

  3. New EDTA determination method based on ion chromatography with suppressed conductimetric detection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gyoergy Patzay; Yahya Ramadan; Csilla Tonko

    2014-01-01

    A novel direct method for the determination of EDTA in alkaline radioactive evaporator residue solution was developed and validated based on ion chromatography with suppressed conductimetric detection and anion exchange columns (A Supp 4, 4 mm × 250 mm and A Supp 5, 4 mm × 150 mm). The yttrium-EDTA complex resulted one single chromatographic peak in the eluent and allowed the correct determination of EDTA in an alkaline, high concentration radioactive waste water. Depending on coexisting substances, suitable eluent is 10.0 mM carbonate buffer/pH 10.6 or 10.75 (t R ,Y-EDTA = 7.01 and 6.4 min, respectively). For 10.0 mM carbonate buffer/pH 10.6 and isocratic flow rate of 1.0 cm 3 /min, a linear calibration curve was obtained from 5 to 40 mg/dm 3 (r > 0.999) EDTA. Good resolution was achieved from commonly coexisting anions (chloride, nitrite, nitrate, sulphate, phosphate, bromide and citrate). The developed simple ion chromatographic method was applied for the assay of EDTA in various radioactive alkaline solutions. (author)

  4. A Novel Hybrid Error Criterion-Based Active Control Method for on-Line Milling Vibration Suppression with Piezoelectric Actuators and Sensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xingwu Zhang

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Milling vibration is one of the most serious factors affecting machining quality and precision. In this paper a novel hybrid error criterion-based frequency-domain LMS active control method is constructed and used for vibration suppression of milling processes by piezoelectric actuators and sensors, in which only one Fast Fourier Transform (FFT is used and no Inverse Fast Fourier Transform (IFFT is involved. The correction formulas are derived by a steepest descent procedure and the control parameters are analyzed and optimized. Then, a novel hybrid error criterion is constructed to improve the adaptability, reliability and anti-interference ability of the constructed control algorithm. Finally, based on piezoelectric actuators and acceleration sensors, a simulation of a spindle and a milling process experiment are presented to verify the proposed method. Besides, a protection program is added in the control flow to enhance the reliability of the control method in applications. The simulation and experiment results indicate that the proposed method is an effective and reliable way for on-line vibration suppression, and the machining quality can be obviously improved.

  5. Resolution Enhancement Algorithm for Spaceborn SAR Based on Hanning Function Weighted Sidelobe Suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, C.; Zhou, X.; Tang, D.; Zhu, Z.

    2018-04-01

    Resolution and sidelobe are mutual restrict for SAR image. Usually sidelobe suppression is based on resolution reduction. This paper provide a method for resolution enchancement using sidelobe opposition speciality of hanning window and SAR image. The method can keep high resolution on the condition of sidelobe suppression. Compare to traditional method, this method can enchance 50 % resolution when sidelobe is -30dB.

  6. RESOLUTION ENHANCEMENT ALGORITHM FOR SPACEBORN SAR BASED ON HANNING FUNCTION WEIGHTED SIDELOBE SUPPRESSION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. Li

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Resolution and sidelobe are mutual restrict for SAR image. Usually sidelobe suppression is based on resolution reduction. This paper provide a method for resolution enchancement using sidelobe opposition speciality of hanning window and SAR image. The method can keep high resolution on the condition of sidelobe suppression. Compare to traditional method, this method can enchance 50 % resolution when sidelobe is −30dB.

  7. Space-polarization Collaborative Suppression Method for Ionospheric Clutter in HFSWR

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yang Yunlong

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR is able to receive surface target and low-flying aircraft echoes at a long-distance, but it suffers severely from ionospheric clutter. In this paper, a spacepolarization collaborative-based filter is introduced to mitigate ionospheric clutter. For parameter estimation on ionospheric clutter used for filters, a spatial parameter estimation algorithm based on compressive sensing is introduced to the DOA estimation of ionospheric clutter. In addition, a polarized parameter estimation algorithm based on statistical characteristics is proposed for ionospheric clutter in the range-Doppler spectrum. Higher estimation accuracy is achieved as a result of the range-Doppler spectrum; therefore, these two estimation algorithms enhance the performance of the space-polarization collaborative suppression method for ionospheric clutter. Experimental results of practical dual-polarized HFSWR data show the effectiveness of the two algorithms and the above mentioned filter for ionospheric clutter suppression.

  8. METHOD OF SUPPRESSING GASTROINTESTINAL UREASE ACTIVITY

    Science.gov (United States)

    Visek, W.J.

    1963-04-23

    This patent shows a method of increasing the growth rate of chicks. Certain diacyl substituted ureas such as alloxan, murexide, and barbituric acid are added to their feed, thereby suppressing gastrointestinal urease activity and thus promoting growth. (AEC)

  9. An Improved Clutter Suppression Method for Weather Radars Using Multiple Pulse Repetition Time Technique

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yingjie Yu

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper describes the implementation of an improved clutter suppression method for the multiple pulse repetition time (PRT technique based on simulated radar data. The suppression method is constructed using maximum likelihood methodology in time domain and is called parametric time domain method (PTDM. The procedure relies on the assumption that precipitation and clutter signal spectra follow a Gaussian functional form. The multiple interleaved pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs that are used in this work are set to four PRFs (952, 833, 667, and 513 Hz. Based on radar simulation, it is shown that the new method can provide accurate retrieval of Doppler velocity even in the case of strong clutter contamination. The obtained velocity is nearly unbiased for all the range of Nyquist velocity interval. Also, the performance of the method is illustrated on simulated radar data for plan position indicator (PPI scan. Compared with staggered 2-PRT transmission schemes with PTDM, the proposed method presents better estimation accuracy under certain clutter situations.

  10. Cross-Circulating Current Suppression Method for Parallel Three-Phase Two-Level Inverters

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wei, Baoze; Guerrero, Josep M.; Guo, Xiaoqiang

    2015-01-01

    The parallel architecture is very popular for power inverters to increase the power level. This paper presents a method for the parallel operation of inverters in an ac-distributed system, to suppress the cross-circulating current based on virtual impedance without current-sharing bus...

  11. Initial Investigation of Software-Based Bone-Suppressed Imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Eunpyeong; Youn, Hanbean; Kim, Ho Kyung

    2015-01-01

    Chest radiography is the most widely used imaging modality in medicine. However, the diagnostic performance of chest radiography is deteriorated by the anatomical background of the patient. So, dual energy imaging (DEI) has recently been emerged and demonstrated an improved. However, the typical DEI requires more than two projections, hence causing additional patient dose. The motion artifact is another concern in the DEI. In this study, we investigate DEI-like bone-suppressed imaging based on the post processing of a single radiograph. To obtain bone-only images, we use the artificial neural network (ANN) method with the error backpropagation-based machine learning approach. The computational load of learning process of the ANN is too heavy for a practical implementation because we use the gradient descent method for the error backpropagation. We will use a more advanced error propagation method for the learning process

  12. Volatile suppressing method for radioactive iodine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ohara, Atsushi; Haruguchi, Keiko.

    1997-01-01

    In the present invention, a metal plate is disposed above the pool water surface of a suppression chamber disposed to a reactor container in order to reduce evaporation of radioactive iodine released from a suppression pool. A metal plate is disposed above the pool water surface of the suppression chamber disposed to the reactor container. In addition, a metal plate is disposed around the space connecting a bent tube extending from a dry well to underwater of suppression pool water and a gas bent tube extending from the suppression chamber to an emergency gas processing system. Spray water is supplied for cooling the suppression chamber d as a means for cooling the metal plate. Then, among iodine released to the suppression chamber, elemental iodine liberated from the pool water is deposited on the surface of the metal plate, and the amount of iodine to be flown into and processed by an emergency gas processing system or a filter bent system can be reduced. (T.M.)

  13. Burst suppression probability algorithms: state-space methods for tracking EEG burst suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chemali, Jessica; Ching, ShiNung; Purdon, Patrick L.; Solt, Ken; Brown, Emery N.

    2013-10-01

    Objective. Burst suppression is an electroencephalogram pattern in which bursts of electrical activity alternate with an isoelectric state. This pattern is commonly seen in states of severely reduced brain activity such as profound general anesthesia, anoxic brain injuries, hypothermia and certain developmental disorders. Devising accurate, reliable ways to quantify burst suppression is an important clinical and research problem. Although thresholding and segmentation algorithms readily identify burst suppression periods, analysis algorithms require long intervals of data to characterize burst suppression at a given time and provide no framework for statistical inference. Approach. We introduce the concept of the burst suppression probability (BSP) to define the brain's instantaneous propensity of being in the suppressed state. To conduct dynamic analyses of burst suppression we propose a state-space model in which the observation process is a binomial model and the state equation is a Gaussian random walk. We estimate the model using an approximate expectation maximization algorithm and illustrate its application in the analysis of rodent burst suppression recordings under general anesthesia and a patient during induction of controlled hypothermia. Main result. The BSP algorithms track burst suppression on a second-to-second time scale, and make possible formal statistical comparisons of burst suppression at different times. Significance. The state-space approach suggests a principled and informative way to analyze burst suppression that can be used to monitor, and eventually to control, the brain states of patients in the operating room and in the intensive care unit.

  14. Evaluation of Circulating Current Suppression Methods for Parallel Interleaved Inverters

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gohil, Ghanshyamsinh Vijaysinh; Bede, Lorand; Teodorescu, Remus

    2016-01-01

    Two-level Voltage Source Converters (VSCs) are often connected in parallel to achieve desired current rating in multi-megawatt Wind Energy Conversion System (WECS). A multi-level converter can be realized by interleaving the carrier signals of the parallel VSCs. As a result, the harmonic perfor......-mance of the WECS can be significantly improved. However, the interleaving of the carrier signals may lead to the flow of circulating current between parallel VSCs and it is highly desirable to avoid/suppress this unwanted circulating current. A comparative evaluation of the different methods to avoid....../suppress the circulating current between the parallel interleaved VSCs is presented in this paper. The losses and the volume of the inductive components and the semiconductor losses are evaluated for the WECS with different circulating current suppression methods. Multi-objective optimizations of the inductive components...

  15. Oblique Projection Polarization Filtering-Based Interference Suppressions for Radar Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cao Bin

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The interferences coming from the radar members degrade the detection and recognition performance of the radar sensor networks (RSNs if the waveforms of the radar members are nonorthogonal. In this paper, we analyze the interferences by exploring the polarization information of the electromagnetic (EM waves. Then, we propose the oblique projection polarization filtering- (OPPF- based scheme to suppress the interferences while keeping the amplitude and phase of its own return in RSNs, even if the polarized states of the radar members are not orthogonal. We consider the cooperative RSNs environment where the polarization information of each radar member is known to all. The proposed method uses all radar members' polarization information to establish the corresponding filtering operator. The Doppler-shift and its uncertainty are independent of the polarization information, which contributes that the interferences can be suppressed without the utilization of the spatial, the temporal, the frequency, the time-delay and the Doppler-shift information. Theoretical analysis and the mathematical deduction show that the proposed scheme is a valid and simple implementation. Simulation results also demonstrate that this method can obtain a good filtering performance when dealing with the problem of interference suppressions for RSNs.

  16. Regularized Adaptive Notch Filters for Acoustic Howling Suppression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gil-Cacho, Pepe; van Waterschoot, Toon; Moonen, Marc

    2009-01-01

    In this paper, a method for the suppression of acoustic howling is developed, based on adaptive notch filters (ANF) with regularization (RANF). The method features three RANFs working in parallel to achieve frequency tracking, howling detection and suppression. The ANF-based approach to howling...

  17. Background suppression of infrared small target image based on inter-frame registration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ye, Xiubo; Xue, Bindang

    2018-04-01

    We propose a multi-frame background suppression method for remote infrared small target detection. Inter-frame information is necessary when the heavy background clutters make it difficult to distinguish real targets and false alarms. A registration procedure based on points matching in image patches is used to compensate the local deformation of background. Then the target can be separated by background subtraction. Experiments show our method serves as an effective preliminary of target detection.

  18. Compton suppression gamma ray spectrometry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Landsberger, S.; Iskander, F.Y.; Niset, M.; Heydorn, K.

    2002-01-01

    In the past decade there have been many studies to use Compton suppression methods in routine neutron activation analysis as well as in the traditional role of low level gamma ray counting of environmental samples. On a separate path there have been many new PC based software packages that have been developed to enhance photopeak fitting. Although the newer PC based algorithms have had significant improvements, they still suffer from being effectively used in weak gamma ray lines in natural samples or in neutron activated samples that have very high Compton backgrounds. We have completed a series of experiments to show the usefulness of Compton suppression. As well we have shown the pitfalls when using Compton suppression methods for high counting deadtimes as in the case of neutron activated samples. We have also investigated if counting statistics are the same both suppressed and normal modes. Results are presented in four separate experiments. (author)

  19. A new method to evaluate the weed-suppressing effect of mulches

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Arentoft, B. W.; Ali, A.; Streibig, Jens Carl

    2013-01-01

    To suppress weeds in an apple (Malus sp.) orchard, we placed spruce (Picea spp.) bark mulch and cocoa (Theobroma cacao) husk mulch for 3 months in thicknesses of 0, 2.5, 5, 10 and 15 cm. To assess the development of weed cover, an innovative use of log-logistic dose–response models was applied...... (ED50 and ED90) differed significantly within and between mulch types. In all except one instance, the cocoa mulch was superior in suppressing weeds. This method was useful for the evaluation, but further research is needed to give a more general conclusion about the suppression ability of the two...

  20. Interocular suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tuna, Ana Rita; Almeida Neves Carrega, Filipa; Nunes, Amélia Fernandes

    2017-08-01

    The objective of this work is to quantify the suppressive imbalance, based on the manipulation of ocular luminance, between a group of subjects with normal binocular vision and a group of subjects with amblyopia. The result reveals that there are statistically significant differences in interocular dominance between two groups, evidencing a greater suppressive imbalance in amblyopic subjects. The technique used, proved to be a simple, easy to apply and economic method, for quantified ocular dominance. It is presented as a technique with the potential to accompany subjects with a marked dominance in one of the eyes that makes fusion difficult.

  1. Robust suppression of nonstationary power-line interference in electrocardiogram signals

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Guojun; Zeng, Xiaopin; Zhou, Yu; Liu, Guojin; Zhou, Xichuan; Zhou, Xiaona

    2012-01-01

    It is a challenge to suppress time-varying power-line interference (PLI) with various levels in electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Most previous attempts of tracking and suppressing the nonstationary PLI signal are based on the least-squares (LS) algorithm. This makes these methods susceptible to QRS complex in suppressing a low-level PLI signal which is frequently coupled in battery-operated ECG equipment. To address the limitation of LS-based methods, this study presents a robust PLI suppression system based on a robust extension of the Kalman filter. In addition, we used an improved version of empirical mode decomposition to further attenuate the QRS complex. Experiments show that our system could effectively suppress the PLI while preserving meaningful ECG components at various interference levels. (paper)

  2. A compact clinical instrument for quantifying suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Black, Joanne M; Thompson, Benjamin; Maehara, Goro; Hess, Robert F

    2011-02-01

    We describe a compact and convenient clinical apparatus for the measurement of suppression based on a previously reported laboratory-based approach. In addition, we report and validate a novel, rapid psychophysical method for measuring suppression using this apparatus, which makes the technique more applicable to clinical practice. By using a Z800 dual pro head-mounted display driven by a MAC laptop, we provide dichoptic stimulation. Global motion stimuli composed of arrays of moving dots are presented to each eye. One set of dots move in a coherent direction (termed signal) whereas another set of dots move in a random direction (termed noise). To quantify performance, we measure the signal/noise ratio corresponding to a direction-discrimination threshold. Suppression is quantified by assessing the extent to which it matters which eye sees the signal and which eye sees the noise. A space-saving, head-mounted display using current video technology offers an ideal solution for clinical practice. In addition, our optimized psychophysical method provided results that were in agreement with those produced using the original technique. We made measures of suppression on a group of nine adult amblyopic participants using this apparatus with both the original and new psychophysical paradigms. All participants had measurable suppression ranging from mild to severe. The two different psychophysical methods gave a strong correlation for the strength of suppression (rho = -0.83, p = 0.006). Combining the new apparatus and new psychophysical method creates a convenient and rapid technique for parametric measurement of interocular suppression. In addition, this apparatus constitutes the ideal platform for suppressors to combine information between their eyes in a similar way to binocularly normal people. This provides a convenient way for clinicians to implement the newly proposed binocular treatment of amblyopia that is based on antisuppression training.

  3. Wavelet-based unsupervised learning method for electrocardiogram suppression in surface electromyograms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Niegowski, Maciej; Zivanovic, Miroslav

    2016-03-01

    We present a novel approach aimed at removing electrocardiogram (ECG) perturbation from single-channel surface electromyogram (EMG) recordings by means of unsupervised learning of wavelet-based intensity images. The general idea is to combine the suitability of certain wavelet decomposition bases which provide sparse electrocardiogram time-frequency representations, with the capacity of non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) for extracting patterns from images. In order to overcome convergence problems which often arise in NMF-related applications, we design a novel robust initialization strategy which ensures proper signal decomposition in a wide range of ECG contamination levels. Moreover, the method can be readily used because no a priori knowledge or parameter adjustment is needed. The proposed method was evaluated on real surface EMG signals against two state-of-the-art unsupervised learning algorithms and a singular spectrum analysis based method. The results, expressed in terms of high-to-low energy ratio, normalized median frequency, spectral power difference and normalized average rectified value, suggest that the proposed method enables better ECG-EMG separation quality than the reference methods. Copyright © 2015 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Jammer Suppression in DS-CDMA Communications using Parafac-based Blind Separation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xu Lingyun

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we propose to apply parafac-based source separation techniques for jammer suppression in direct spread spectrum communication systems. The jammer excision is formulated as an optimization problem and a new algorithm is presented which is based on the parafac tri-iterative least square algorithm. By jointly diagonalizing the time delay correlation matrix of the observed signals and using the new proposed method, a better solution is achieved. The proposed algorithm can successfully separate communication signals and jamming signals. Simulation results reveal that our proposed algorithm has the better blind signal separation performance than joint diagonalization method. Our proposed algorithm doesn’t require whitening processing. Moreover our proposed algorithm works well in the underdetermined condition, where the number of sources exceeds than the number of antennas.

  5. A Novel Crosstalk Suppression Method of the 2-D Networked Resistive Sensor Array

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jianfeng Wu

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available The 2-D resistive sensor array in the row–column fashion suffered from the crosstalk problem for parasitic parallel paths. Firstly, we proposed an Improved Isolated Drive Feedback Circuit with Compensation (IIDFCC based on the voltage feedback method to suppress the crosstalk. In this method, a compensated resistor was specially used to reduce the crosstalk caused by the column multiplexer resistors and the adjacent row elements. Then, a mathematical equivalent resistance expression of the element being tested (EBT of this circuit was analytically derived and verified by the circuit simulations. The simulation results show that the measurement method can greatly reduce the influence on the EBT caused by parasitic parallel paths for the multiplexers’ channel resistor and the adjacent elements.

  6. An Evaluation Method for the Suppression of Pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum by Soil Microorganisms Using the Dilution Plate Technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitsuboshi, Masahiro; Kioka, Yuuzou; Noguchi, Katsunori; Asakawa, Susumu

    2016-09-29

    Soil-borne diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms are one of the main factors responsible for the decline in crop yields in farmlands. Pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum causes serious damage to various crops, and, thus, a feasible diagnostic method for soil-borne diseases is required. We herein examined a simple method to evaluate the suppressiveness of soil microorganisms against a pathogen by co-cultivating indigenous soil microorganisms and a pathogenic fungus (F. oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae). We inoculated F. oxysporum onto the center of agar medium plates mixed with a dilution series of a suspension of organic fertilizers or soil. After an approximately one-week cultivation, the growth degree of F. oxysporum was estimated based on the size of the colonies that formed on the plates. The growth degree of F. oxysporum significantly differed among the organic fertilizers tested, indicating the usefulness of the method for evaluating suppressiveness by organic fertilizers. Differences in the growth degrees of F. oxysporum were associated with the incidence of disease in spinach on soil treated with organic fertilizers and inoculated with a pathogenic F. oxysporum strain. These results suggested that this method provides some useful information on the suppressiveness of organic fertilizers and soil against Fusarium wilt.

  7. Seeding method and rate influence on weed suppression in aerobic ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    High weed pressure is amongst the major constraints to the extensive adoption of aerobic rice system as a water-wise technique. Towards developing a sustainable weed management strategy, seeding method and rate may substantially contribute to weed suppression and reduce herbicide use and weeding cost. A trough ...

  8. A new stationary gridline artifact suppression method based on the 2D discrete wavelet transform

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tang, Hui; Tong, Dan; Dong Bao, Xu; Dillenseger, Jean-Louis

    2015-01-01

    Purpose: In digital x-ray radiography, an antiscatter grid is inserted between the patient and the image receptor to reduce scattered radiation. If the antiscatter grid is used in a stationary way, gridline artifacts will appear in the final image. In most of the gridline removal image processing methods, the useful information with spatial frequencies close to that of the gridline is usually lost or degraded. In this study, a new stationary gridline suppression method is designed to preserve more of the useful information. Methods: The method is as follows. The input image is first recursively decomposed into several smaller subimages using a multiscale 2D discrete wavelet transform. The decomposition process stops when the gridline signal is found to be greater than a threshold in one or several of these subimages using a gridline detection module. An automatic Gaussian band-stop filter is then applied to the detected subimages to remove the gridline signal. Finally, the restored image is achieved using the corresponding 2D inverse discrete wavelet transform. Results: The processed images show that the proposed method can remove the gridline signal efficiently while maintaining the image details. The spectra of a 1D Fourier transform of the processed images demonstrate that, compared with some existing gridline removal methods, the proposed method has better information preservation after the removal of the gridline artifacts. Additionally, the performance speed is relatively high. Conclusions: The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method. Compared with some existing gridline removal methods, the proposed method can preserve more information within an acceptable execution time

  9. A new stationary gridline artifact suppression method based on the 2D discrete wavelet transform

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tang, Hui, E-mail: corinna@seu.edu.cn [Laboratory of Image Science and Technology, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China); Key Laboratory of Computer Network and Information Integration (Southeast University), Ministry of Education, Nanjing 210000 (China); Centre de Recherche en Information Biomédicale sino-français, Laboratoire International Associé, Inserm, Université de Rennes 1, Rennes 35000 (France); Southeast University, Nanjing 210000 (China); Tong, Dan; Dong Bao, Xu [Laboratory of Image Science and Technology, School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096 (China); Dillenseger, Jean-Louis [INSERM, U1099, Rennes F-35000 (France); Université de Rennes 1, LTSI, Rennes F-35000 (France); Centre de Recherche en Information Biomédicale sino-français, Laboratoire International Associé, Inserm, Université de Rennes 1, Rennes 35000 (France); Southeast University, Nanjing 210000 (China)

    2015-04-15

    Purpose: In digital x-ray radiography, an antiscatter grid is inserted between the patient and the image receptor to reduce scattered radiation. If the antiscatter grid is used in a stationary way, gridline artifacts will appear in the final image. In most of the gridline removal image processing methods, the useful information with spatial frequencies close to that of the gridline is usually lost or degraded. In this study, a new stationary gridline suppression method is designed to preserve more of the useful information. Methods: The method is as follows. The input image is first recursively decomposed into several smaller subimages using a multiscale 2D discrete wavelet transform. The decomposition process stops when the gridline signal is found to be greater than a threshold in one or several of these subimages using a gridline detection module. An automatic Gaussian band-stop filter is then applied to the detected subimages to remove the gridline signal. Finally, the restored image is achieved using the corresponding 2D inverse discrete wavelet transform. Results: The processed images show that the proposed method can remove the gridline signal efficiently while maintaining the image details. The spectra of a 1D Fourier transform of the processed images demonstrate that, compared with some existing gridline removal methods, the proposed method has better information preservation after the removal of the gridline artifacts. Additionally, the performance speed is relatively high. Conclusions: The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method. Compared with some existing gridline removal methods, the proposed method can preserve more information within an acceptable execution time.

  10. 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

  11. 40 CFR Appendix A to Subpart Wwww... - Test Method for Determining Vapor Suppressant Effectiveness

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... premise of this method is to compare laminate samples made with vapor suppressant additive and made... additives. The effectiveness of a specific vapor suppressant and resin mixture is determined by comparing... ±.01g with digital output, such as an RS-232 bi-directional interface 13 for use with automatic data...

  12. Method for suppressing aliasing artifacts in R/R-type CT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mori, Issei; Igarashi, Narumi; Kazama, Masahiro; Taguchi, Katsuyuki

    2003-01-01

    The Quarter-Quarter (QQ) offset method is a well-established technique for suppressing aliasing artifacts in R/R-type CT. However, the perfect alignment required for the QQ offset is generally difficult to achieve in practice. Depending on the scanner design, it may even be impossible to achieve. Because of this imperfection, the images contain some aliasing artifacts. This problem is becoming more serious with the spread of multislice CT and the increasingly common use of thin-slice imaging, in which aliasing is inherently stronger. We propose a simple method that suppresses such aliasing artifacts effectively while minimizing degradation in the spatial resolution. We exploit the fact that the frequency transfer functions are different for the main spectrum and the aliasing spectrum when the back-projection offset is not identical to the sampling offset. The selection of an appropriate back-projection offset results in an effective notch filter against the aliasing spectrum and a wide-band filter for the main spectrum. The results of simulation experiments support our theory, and experiments using an actual machine have shown that the image quality obtained by our method is comparable to that of perfect QQ even when the QQ alignment conditions are severely violated. (author)

  13. Ion energy recovery experiment based on magnetic electro suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, J.; Stirling, W.L.; Dagenhart, W.K.; Barber, G.C.; Ponte, N.S.

    1980-05-01

    A proof-of-principle experiment on direct recovery of residual hydrogen ions based on a magnetic electron suppression scheme is described. Ions extracted from a source plasma a few kilovolts above the ground potential (approx. 20 A) are accelerated to 40 keV by a negative potential maintained on a neutralizer gas cell. As the residual ions exit the gas cell, they are deflected from the neutral beam by a magnetic field that also suppresses gas cell electrons and then recovered on a ground-potential surface. Under optimum conditions, a recovery efficiency (the ratio of the net recovered current to the available full-energy ion current) of 80% +- 20% has been obtained. Magnetic suppression of the beam plasma electrons was rather easily achieved; however, handling the fractional-energy ions originating from molecular species (H 2 + and H 3 + ) proved to be extremely important to recovery efficiency

  14. The Study of Object-Oriented Motor Imagery Based on EEG Suppression.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lili Li

    Full Text Available Motor imagery is a conventional method for brain computer interface and motor learning. To avoid the great individual difference of the motor imagery ability, object-oriented motor imagery was applied, and the effects were studied. Kinesthetic motor imagery and visual observation were administered to 15 healthy volunteers. The EEG during cue-based simple imagery (SI, object-oriented motor imagery (OI, non-object-oriented motor imagery (NI and visual observation (VO was recorded. Study results showed that OI and NI presented significant contralateral suppression in mu rhythm (p 0.05. Compared with NI, OI showed significant difference (p < 0.05 in mu rhythm and weak significant difference (p = 0.0612 in beta rhythm over the contralateral hemisphere. The ability of motor imagery can be reflected by the suppression degree of mu and beta frequencies which are the motor related rhythms. Thus, greater enhancement of activation in mirror neuron system is involved in response to object-oriented motor imagery. The object-oriented motor imagery is favorable for improvement of motor imagery ability.

  15. Fire Source Accessibility of Water Mist Fire Suppression Improvement through Flow Method Control

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jung, Jun Ho; Kim, Hyeong Taek; Kim, Yun Jung; Park, Mun Hee [KHNP CRI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2013-10-15

    Recently, nuclear power plants set CO{sub 2} fire suppression system. However it is hard to establish and to maintain and it also has difficulties performing function test. Therefore, it needs to develop a new fire suppression system to replace the existing CO{sub 2} fire suppression systems in nuclear power plant. In fact, already, there exist alternatives - gas fire suppression system or clean fire extinguishing agent, but it is hard to apply because it requires a highly complicated plan. However, water mist fire suppression system which has both water system and gas system uses small amount of water and droplet, so it is excellent at oxygen displacement and more suitable for nuclear power plant because it can avoid second damage caused by fire fighting water. This paper explains about enclosure effect of water mist fire suppression. And it suggests a study direction about water mist fire source approach improvement and enclosure effect improvement, using flow method control of ventilation system. Water mist fire suppression can be influenced by various variable. And flow and direction of ventilation system are important variable. Expectations of the plan for more fire source ventilation system is as in the following. It enhances enclosure effects of water mists, so it improves extinguish performance. Also the same effect as a inert gas injection causes can be achieved. Lastly, it is considered that combustible accessibility of water mists will increase because of descending air currents.

  16. Evaluation of Suppressiveness of Soils Exhibiting Soil-Borne Disease Suppression after Long-Term Application of Organic Amendments by the Co-cultivation Method of Pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum and Indigenous Soil Microorganisms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mitsuboshi, Masahiro; Kioka, Yuuzou; Noguchi, Katsunori; Asakawa, Susumu

    2018-03-29

    Preventive measures against soil-borne diseases need to be implemented before cultivation because very few countermeasures are available after the development of diseases. Some soils suppress soil-borne diseases despite the presence of a high population density of pathogens. If the suppressiveness of soil against soil-borne diseases may be predicted and diagnosed for crop fields, it may be possible to reduce the labor and cost associated with excessive disinfection practices. We herein evaluated the suppressiveness of soils in fields with the long-term application of organic amendments by examining the growth of pathogenic Fusarium oxysporum co-cultivated with indigenous soil microorganisms on agar plates. Soils treated with coffee residue compost or rapeseed meal showed suppressiveness against spinach wilt disease by F. oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae or spinach wilt and lettuce root rot diseases by F. oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae and F. oxysporum f. sp. lactucae, respectively, and the growth of pathogenic Fusarium spp. on agar plates was suppressed when co-cultured with microorganisms in a suspension from these soils before crop cultivation. These results indicate the potential of the growth degree of pathogenic F. oxysporum estimated by this method as a diagnostic indicator of the suppressiveness of soil associated with the inhabiting microorganisms. A correlation was found between the incidence of spinach wilt disease in spinach and the growth degree of F. oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae by this co-cultivation method, indicating that suppressiveness induced by organic amendment applications against F. oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae is evaluable by this method. The co-cultivation method may be useful for predicting and diagnosing suppressiveness against soil-borne diseases.

  17. Chaos suppression via observer based active control scheme: Application to Duffing's oscillator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aguilar-Lopez, Ricardo; Martinez-Guerra, Rafael

    2007-01-01

    The aim of this paper is the synthesis of a robust control law for chaos suppression of a class of non-linear oscillator with affine control input. A robust state observer based active controller, which provides robustness against model uncertainties and noisy output measurements is proposed. The closed-loop stability for the underlying closed-loop system is done via the regulation and estimation errors dynamics. The performance of the proposed control law is illustrated with numerical simulations. The method is general and can be applied to various non-linear systems which satisfy the conditions required

  18. Research on the range side lobe suppression method for modulated stepped frequency radar signals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yinkai; Shan, Tao; Feng, Yuan

    2018-05-01

    The magnitude of time-domain range sidelobe of modulated stepped frequency radar affects the imaging quality of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR). In this paper, the cause of high sidelobe in modulated stepped frequency radar imaging is analyzed first in real environment. Then, the chaos particle swarm optimization (CPSO) is used to select the amplitude and phase compensation factors according to the minimum sidelobe criterion. Finally, the compensated one-dimensional range images are obtained. Experimental results show that the amplitude-phase compensation method based on CPSO algorithm can effectively reduce the sidelobe peak value of one-dimensional range images, which outperforms the common sidelobe suppression methods and avoids the coverage of weak scattering points by strong scattering points due to the high sidelobes.

  19. Chaos suppression based on adaptive observer for a P-class of chaotic systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rodriguez, Angel; Leon, Jesus de; Femat, Ricardo

    2007-01-01

    A feedback approach is presented to suppress chaos in a P-class of chaotic system. The approach is based on an adaptive observer; which provides estimated values of both the unmeasured states and the uncertain model parameters. A continuous-time feedback law is taken as suppressing force. The feedback law attains chaos suppression as the observer provides estimated values close to the actual state/parameter values along time. The proposed scheme is robust in the sense that suppression is achieved despite only some states are measured and uncertainties in parameters are compensated. Results are corroborated experimentally by implementation in chaotic circuits

  20. Chaos suppression based on adaptive observer for a P-class of chaotic systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rodriguez, Angel [Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Ingenieria Mecanica y Electrica, Av. Pedro de Alba s/n Cd. Universitaria, CP 66450 San Nicolas de los Garza, NL (Mexico); Leon, Jesus de [Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon, Facultad de Ingenieria Mecanica y Electrica, Av. Pedro de Alba s/n Cd. Universitaria, CP 66450 San Nicolas de los Garza, NL (Mexico); Femat, Ricardo [Division de Matematicas Aplicadas y Sistemas Computacionales, IPICyT, Camino a la Presa San Jose 2055 Col. Lomas 4a. Secc. CP 78216 San Luis Potosi, SLP (Mexico)]. E-mail: rfemat@ipicyt.edu.mx

    2007-05-15

    A feedback approach is presented to suppress chaos in a P-class of chaotic system. The approach is based on an adaptive observer; which provides estimated values of both the unmeasured states and the uncertain model parameters. A continuous-time feedback law is taken as suppressing force. The feedback law attains chaos suppression as the observer provides estimated values close to the actual state/parameter values along time. The proposed scheme is robust in the sense that suppression is achieved despite only some states are measured and uncertainties in parameters are compensated. Results are corroborated experimentally by implementation in chaotic circuits.

  1. Robust Grid-Current-Feedback Resonance Suppression Method for LCL-Type Grid-Connected Inverter Connected to Weak Grid

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhou, Xiaoping; Zhou, Leming; Chen, Yandong

    2018-01-01

    In this paper, a robust grid-current-feedback reso-nance suppression (GCFRS) method for LCL-type grid-connected inverter is proposed to enhance the system damping without introducing the switching noise and eliminate the impact of control delay on system robustness against grid-impedance variation....... It is composed of GCFRS method, the full duty-ratio and zero-beat-lag PWM method, and the lead-grid-current-feedback-resonance-suppression (LGCFRS) method. Firstly, the GCFRS is used to suppress the LCL-resonant peak well and avoid introducing the switching noise. Secondly, the proposed full duty-ratio and zero......-beat-lag PWM method is used to elimi-nate the one-beat-lag computation delay without introducing duty cycle limitations. Moreover, it can also realize the smooth switching from positive to negative half-wave of the grid current and improve the waveform quality. Thirdly, the proposed LGCFRS is used to further...

  2. Suppression of phase synchronisation in network based on cat's brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lameu, Ewandson L; Borges, Fernando S; Borges, Rafael R; Iarosz, Kelly C; Caldas, Iberê L; Batista, Antonio M; Viana, Ricardo L; Kurths, Jürgen

    2016-04-01

    We have studied the effects of perturbations on the cat's cerebral cortex. According to the literature, this cortex structure can be described by a clustered network. This way, we construct a clustered network with the same number of areas as in the cat matrix, where each area is described as a sub-network with a small-world property. We focus on the suppression of neuronal phase synchronisation considering different kinds of perturbations. Among the various controlling interventions, we choose three methods: delayed feedback control, external time-periodic driving, and activation of selected neurons. We simulate these interventions to provide a procedure to suppress undesired and pathological abnormal rhythms that can be associated with many forms of synchronisation. In our simulations, we have verified that the efficiency of synchronisation suppression by delayed feedback control is higher than external time-periodic driving and activation of selected neurons of the cat's cerebral cortex with the same coupling strengths.

  3. Chatter suppression methods of a robot machine for ITER vacuum vessel assembly and maintenance

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu, Huapeng; Wang, Yongbo; Li, Ming; Al-Saedi, Mazin; Handroos, Heikki

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: •A redundant 10-DOF serial-parallel hybrid robot for ITER assembly and maintains is presented. •A dynamic model of the robot is developed. •A feedback and feedforward controller is presented to suppress machining vibration of the robot. -- Abstract: In the process of assembly and maintenance of ITER vacuum vessel (ITER VV), various machining tasks including threading, milling, welding-defects cutting and flexible hose boring are required to be performed from inside of ITER VV by on-site machining tools. Robot machine is a promising option for these tasks, but great chatter (machine vibration) would happen in the machining process. The chatter vibration will deteriorate the robot accuracy and surface quality, and even cause some damages on the end-effector tools and the robot structure itself. This paper introduces two vibration control methods, one is passive and another is active vibration control. For the passive vibration control, a parallel mechanism is presented to increase the stiffness of robot machine; for the active vibration control, a hybrid control method combining feedforward controller and nonlinear feedback controller is introduced for chatter suppression. A dynamic model and its chatter vibration phenomena of a hybrid robot is demonstrated. Simulation results are given based on the proposed hybrid robot machine which is developed for the ITER VV assembly and maintenance

  4. Chatter suppression methods of a robot machine for ITER vacuum vessel assembly and maintenance

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wu, Huapeng; Wang, Yongbo, E-mail: yongbo.wang@lut.fi; Li, Ming; Al-Saedi, Mazin; Handroos, Heikki

    2014-10-15

    Highlights: •A redundant 10-DOF serial-parallel hybrid robot for ITER assembly and maintains is presented. •A dynamic model of the robot is developed. •A feedback and feedforward controller is presented to suppress machining vibration of the robot. -- Abstract: In the process of assembly and maintenance of ITER vacuum vessel (ITER VV), various machining tasks including threading, milling, welding-defects cutting and flexible hose boring are required to be performed from inside of ITER VV by on-site machining tools. Robot machine is a promising option for these tasks, but great chatter (machine vibration) would happen in the machining process. The chatter vibration will deteriorate the robot accuracy and surface quality, and even cause some damages on the end-effector tools and the robot structure itself. This paper introduces two vibration control methods, one is passive and another is active vibration control. For the passive vibration control, a parallel mechanism is presented to increase the stiffness of robot machine; for the active vibration control, a hybrid control method combining feedforward controller and nonlinear feedback controller is introduced for chatter suppression. A dynamic model and its chatter vibration phenomena of a hybrid robot is demonstrated. Simulation results are given based on the proposed hybrid robot machine which is developed for the ITER VV assembly and maintenance.

  5. An Exploitability Analysis Technique for Binary Vulnerability Based on Automatic Exception Suppression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhiyuan Jiang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available To quickly verify and fix vulnerabilities, it is necessary to judge the exploitability of the massive crash generated by the automated vulnerability mining tool. While the current manual analysis of the crash process is inefficient and time-consuming, the existing automated tools can only handle execute exceptions and some write exceptions but cannot handle common read exceptions. To address this problem, we propose a method of determining the exploitability based on the exception type suppression. This method enables the program to continue to execute until an exploitable exception is triggered. The method performs a symbolic replay of the crash sample, constructing and reusing data gadget, to bypass the complex exception, thereby improving the efficiency and accuracy of vulnerability exploitability analysis. The testing of typical CGC/RHG binary software shows that this method can automatically convert a crash that cannot be judged by existing analysis tools into a different crash type and judge the exploitability successfully.

  6. A Method for Suppressing Superconductivity of Thin Films

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suppula, Tarmo; Pekola, Jukka; Kauppinen, Juha

    2003-03-01

    We have developed a method for suppressing superconductivity of thin films. Thin stripes of cobalt grown by e-gun evaporation and patterned by e-beam lithography were placed in the vicinity of aluminium thin film structures. The cobalt stripes were magnetized at 4.2 K with a superconducting coil and the remanence suppressed superconductivity of the Al stripe at temperatures down to 50 mK at least. The magnetization remained in thermal cycling and in a longer storage at room temperature. Motivation for this work is the Coulomb Blockade Thermometer(CBT)^1 which has to be in a normal state to operate. The CBT sensor contains aluminium which is superconducting at temperatures below 1.4 K. An external magnetic field is not always available or acceptable in cryostats. A small grain of permanent magnet mounted to the sensor is another solution, but suspicious if the sensor is put in strong magnetic fields or if "zero field" environment is required. We have shown that suitably patterned and magnetized Co stripes in the vicinity of tunnel junctions of the CBT can solve this problem. The amount of magnetic material in the sensor, as well as the stray field, is very small. This technique may be useful in other low temperature thin film devices also. 1) Product of Nanoway Ltd.

  7. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depressed individuals improves suppression of irrelevant mental-sets.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greenberg, Jonathan; Shapero, Benjamin G; Mischoulon, David; Lazar, Sara W

    2017-04-01

    An impaired ability to suppress currently irrelevant mental-sets is a key cognitive deficit in depression. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) was specifically designed to help depressed individuals avoid getting caught in such irrelevant mental-sets. In the current study, a group assigned to MBCT plus treatment-as-usual (n = 22) exhibited significantly lower depression scores and greater improvements in irrelevant mental-set suppression compared to a wait-list plus treatment-as-usual (n = 18) group. Improvements in mental-set-suppression were associated with improvements in depression scores. Results provide the first evidence that MBCT can improve suppression of irrelevant mental-sets and that such improvements are associated with depressive alleviation.

  8. A Range Ambiguity Suppression Processing Method for Spaceborne SAR with Up and Down Chirp Modulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wen, Xuejiao; Qiu, Xiaolan; Han, Bing; Ding, Chibiao; Lei, Bin; Chen, Qi

    2018-05-07

    Range ambiguity is one of the factors which affect the SAR image quality. Alternately transmitting up and down chirp modulation pulses is one of the methods used to suppress the range ambiguity. However, the defocusing range ambiguous signal can still hold the stronger backscattering intensity than the mainlobe imaging area in some case, which has a severe impact on visual effects and subsequent applications. In this paper, a novel hybrid range ambiguity suppression method for up and down chirp modulation is proposed. The method can obtain the ambiguity area image and reduce the ambiguity signal power appropriately, by applying pulse compression using a contrary modulation rate and CFAR detecting method. The effectiveness and correctness of the approach is demonstrated by processing the archive images acquired by Chinese Gaofen-3 SAR sensor in full-polarization mode.

  9. Fingerprinting Localization Method Based on TOA and Particle Filtering for Mines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Boming Song

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Accurate target localization technology plays a very important role in ensuring mine safety production and higher production efficiency. The localization accuracy of a mine localization system is influenced by many factors. The most significant factor is the non-line of sight (NLOS propagation error of the localization signal between the access point (AP and the target node (Tag. In order to improve positioning accuracy, the NLOS error must be suppressed by an optimization algorithm. However, the traditional optimization algorithms are complex and exhibit poor optimization performance. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a new method for mine time of arrival (TOA localization based on the idea of comprehensive optimization. The proposed method utilizes particle filtering to reduce the TOA data error, and the positioning results are further optimized with fingerprinting based on the Manhattan distance. This proposed method combines the advantages of particle filtering and fingerprinting localization. It reduces algorithm complexity and has better error suppression performance. The experimental results demonstrate that, as compared to the symmetric double-sided two-way ranging (SDS-TWR method or received signal strength indication (RSSI based fingerprinting method, the proposed method has a significantly improved localization performance, and the environment adaptability is enhanced.

  10. A Range Ambiguity Suppression Processing Method for Spaceborne SAR with Up and Down Chirp Modulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xuejiao Wen

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available Range ambiguity is one of the factors which affect the SAR image quality. Alternately transmitting up and down chirp modulation pulses is one of the methods used to suppress the range ambiguity. However, the defocusing range ambiguous signal can still hold the stronger backscattering intensity than the mainlobe imaging area in some case, which has a severe impact on visual effects and subsequent applications. In this paper, a novel hybrid range ambiguity suppression method for up and down chirp modulation is proposed. The method can obtain the ambiguity area image and reduce the ambiguity signal power appropriately, by applying pulse compression using a contrary modulation rate and CFAR detecting method. The effectiveness and correctness of the approach is demonstrated by processing the archive images acquired by Chinese Gaofen-3 SAR sensor in full-polarization mode.

  11. A sample preparation method for recovering suppressed analyte ions in MALDI TOF MS

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lou, X.; Waal, de B.F.M.; Milroy, L.G.; Dongen, van J.L.J.

    2015-01-01

    In matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI TOF MS), analyte signals can be substantially suppressed by other compounds in the sample. In this technical note, we describe a modified thin-layer sample preparation method that significantly reduces the analyte

  12. Chaos suppression via observer based active control scheme: Application to Duffing's oscillator

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Aguilar-Lopez, Ricardo [Departamento de Energia, Universidad Autonoma Metropolita-Azcapotzalco, Av. San Pablo No. 180, Reynosa-Tamaulipas, Azcapotzalco 02200, Mexico DF (Mexico)]. E-mail: raguilar@correo.azc.uam.mx; Martinez-Guerra, Rafael [Departamento de Control Automatico, CINVESTAV-IPN, C.P. 07360 Mexico DF (Mexico)

    2007-06-15

    The aim of this paper is the synthesis of a robust control law for chaos suppression of a class of non-linear oscillator with affine control input. A robust state observer based active controller, which provides robustness against model uncertainties and noisy output measurements is proposed. The closed-loop stability for the underlying closed-loop system is done via the regulation and estimation errors dynamics. The performance of the proposed control law is illustrated with numerical simulations. The method is general and can be applied to various non-linear systems which satisfy the conditions required.

  13. Inverter-Current-Feedback Resonance-Suppression Method for LCL-Type DG System to Reduce Resonance-Frequency Offset and Grid-Inductance Effect

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhou, Leming; Zhou, Xiaoping; Chen, Yandong

    2018-01-01

    For the LCL-type grid-connected distributed generation system, the grid-current-feedback active damping (GCFAD) methods have a conflict between the resonance-suppression ability and harmonic-currents amplification. For this, an inverter-current-feedback reso-nance-suppression (ICFRS) method without...... additional sensors is proposed to reduce resonance-frequency offset and grid-inductance effect due to its unattenuated damping characteristic under high-frequency bandwidth. By analyzing two types of equivalent impedance models of ICFRS and GCFAD with a high-pass filter (HPF), GCFAD can suppress...

  14. A sensorless control method for capacitor voltage balance and circulating current suppression of modular multilevel converter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Liu, Hui; Ma, Ke; Loh, Poh Chiang

    2015-01-01

    There are several problems in the Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC), such as the appearance of circulating current, capacitor voltage unbalance and the requirement for a high number of sensors. All these problems will decrease the reliability and raise the cost/uncertainty of using MMC solutions....... As a result, a sensorless control method is proposed in this paper, which targets to improve the performances of MMC in respect to the above mentioned disadvantages: To decrease the cost and simplify the physical implementation, a state observer is proposed and designed to estimate both the capacitor voltages...... and the circulating currents in order to replace the high numbers of sensors. Furthermore, a control method combining the circulating current suppression and the capacitor voltage balancing is conducted based on the proposed state observer. It is concluded that the proposed state observer and control method can...

  15. Development of a suppression method for deposition of radioactive cobalt after chemical decontamination: Confirmation of the Suppression Mechanism with Preoxidized Ferrite Film for Deposition of Radioactive Cobalt

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ito, Tsuyoshi; Hosokawa, Hideyuki; Nagase, Makoto; Aizawa, Motohiro; Fuse, Motomasa

    2012-09-01

    Recently, chemical decontamination at the beginning of a periodical inspection is applied to many Japanese boiling water reactor (BWR) plants in order to reduce radiation exposure. In the chemical decontamination, the oxides that have incorporated 60 Co are dissolved using reductive and oxidative chemical reagents. Some of the piping stainless steel (SS) base metal is exposed to the reactor water after this decontamination. The oxide film growth rate of the piping during plant operation just after the decontamination is higher than that just before it. Therefore, there is a possibility that the deposition amount of 60 Co on the piping just after decontamination is higher than that just before the chemical decontamination. The Hi-F Coat (Hitachi ferrite coating) process has been developed to lower recontamination after the chemical decontamination. In this process, a fine Fe 3 O 4 coating film is formed on the piping SS base metal in aqueous solution at 363 K using three chemical reagents: ferrous ion, oxidant, and pH adjuster. The growth rate of the corrosion oxide film that incorporated 60 Co on the piping during plant operation is suppressed by the fine ferrite film that blocks both diffusion of oxidant in the reactor water to the SS base metal and metal ions in the oxide film to the reactor water. As a result, the amount of 60 Co deposition is suppressed by the Hi-F coating film. In a previous report, we found that the Hi-F Coat process lowered the amount of 60 Co to 1/3 that for non-coated specimens. To improve the suppression of 60 Co deposition further, we combined the Hi-F Coat process with a pre-oxidation step which we named the pre-oxidized Hi-F Coat process. In laboratory experiments, using the pre-oxidized Hi-F Coat process we found the deposited amount of 60 Co was 1/10 that for non-coated specimens. By combining the Hi-F Coat process with the pre-oxidation step, the suppression effect of 60 Co deposition was three times higher than that of the Hi

  16. Fat suppression at 2D MR imaging of the hands: Dixon method versus CHESS technique and STIR sequence

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kirchgesner, Thomas; Perlepe, Vasiliki; Michoux, Nicolas; Larbi, Ahmed; Vande Berg, Bruno

    2017-01-01

    Highlights: • Dixon yields effective fat suppression at 2D MRI of the hands. • CHESS fat suppression is less effective especially in the coronal plane. • SNR is higher with Dixon than with CHESS at T1-weighted MR imaging. • SNR is higher with CHESS than with Dixon and STIR at T2-weighted MR imaging. - Abstract: Objective: To compare the effectiveness of fat suppression and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the Dixon method with those of the CHESS (Chemical Shift-Selective) technique and STIR (Short Tau Inversion Recovery) sequence in hands of normal subjects at 2D MR imaging. Material and methods: 14 healthy volunteers (mean age of 29.4 years) consented to have both hands prospectively imaged with SE T1 Dixon, T1 CHESS, T2 Dixon, T2 CHESS and STIR sequences in a 1.5T MR scanner. Three radiologists scored the effectiveness of fat suppression in bone marrow (EFS BM ) and soft tissues (EFS ST ) in 20 joints per subject. One radiologist measured the SNR in 10 bones per subject. Statistical analysis used two-way ANOVA with random effects, paired t-test and observed agreement to assess differences in effectiveness of fat suppression, differences in SNR and inter-observer agreement. Results: EFS BM was statistically significantly higher for T1 Dixon than for T1 CHESS and for T2 Dixon than for T2 CHESS (p < 0.0001). EFS BM was significantly higher for T2 Dixon than for STIR in the coronal plane (p = 0.0020). The SNR was significantly higher for T1 Dixon than for T1 CHESS and for T2 Dixon than for STIR (p < 0.0001). The SNR was significantly lower for T2 Dixon than for T2 CHESS (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: The Dixon method yields more effective fat suppression and higher SNR than the CHESS technique at 2D T1-weighted MR imaging of the hands. At T2-weighted MR imaging, fat suppression is more effective with the Dixon method while SNR is higher with the CHESS technique.

  17. Fat suppression at 2D MR imaging of the hands: Dixon method versus CHESS technique and STIR sequence

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kirchgesner, Thomas, E-mail: Thomas.Kirchgesner@uclouvain.be; Perlepe, Vasiliki, E-mail: Vasiliki.Perlepe@uclouvain.be; Michoux, Nicolas, E-mail: Nicolas.Michoux@uclouvain.be; Larbi, Ahmed, E-mail: Ahmed.Larbi@chu-nimes.fr; Vande Berg, Bruno, E-mail: Bruno.VandeBerg@uclouvain.be

    2017-04-15

    Highlights: • Dixon yields effective fat suppression at 2D MRI of the hands. • CHESS fat suppression is less effective especially in the coronal plane. • SNR is higher with Dixon than with CHESS at T1-weighted MR imaging. • SNR is higher with CHESS than with Dixon and STIR at T2-weighted MR imaging. - Abstract: Objective: To compare the effectiveness of fat suppression and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the Dixon method with those of the CHESS (Chemical Shift-Selective) technique and STIR (Short Tau Inversion Recovery) sequence in hands of normal subjects at 2D MR imaging. Material and methods: 14 healthy volunteers (mean age of 29.4 years) consented to have both hands prospectively imaged with SE T1 Dixon, T1 CHESS, T2 Dixon, T2 CHESS and STIR sequences in a 1.5T MR scanner. Three radiologists scored the effectiveness of fat suppression in bone marrow (EFS{sup BM}) and soft tissues (EFS{sup ST}) in 20 joints per subject. One radiologist measured the SNR in 10 bones per subject. Statistical analysis used two-way ANOVA with random effects, paired t-test and observed agreement to assess differences in effectiveness of fat suppression, differences in SNR and inter-observer agreement. Results: EFS{sup BM} was statistically significantly higher for T1 Dixon than for T1 CHESS and for T2 Dixon than for T2 CHESS (p < 0.0001). EFS{sup BM} was significantly higher for T2 Dixon than for STIR in the coronal plane (p = 0.0020). The SNR was significantly higher for T1 Dixon than for T1 CHESS and for T2 Dixon than for STIR (p < 0.0001). The SNR was significantly lower for T2 Dixon than for T2 CHESS (p < 0.0001). Conclusion: The Dixon method yields more effective fat suppression and higher SNR than the CHESS technique at 2D T1-weighted MR imaging of the hands. At T2-weighted MR imaging, fat suppression is more effective with the Dixon method while SNR is higher with the CHESS technique.

  18. New Passive Filter Design Method for Overvoltage Suppression and Bearing Currents Mitigation in a Long Cable Based PWM Inverter-Fed Motor Drive System

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jiang, Yanmin; Wu, Weimin; He, Yuanbin

    2017-01-01

    would cause serious deterioration of the motor and cable. A passive overvoltage suppression technique of low-loss 'RL-plus-C' filter was proposed recently. It has not only some merits of simple structure, low cost, and good robustness, but also a significant merit of low power dissipation. In order...... to further mitigate the bearing currents, this paper proposes two new power filters and their design method. The theoretical analysis and the design method are introduced in detail. Experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis....

  19. Development and application of a probabilistic method for wildfire suppression cost modeling

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matthew P. Thompson; Jessica R. Haas; Mark A. Finney; David E. Calkin; Michael S. Hand; Mark J. Browne; Martin Halek; Karen C. Short; Isaac C. Grenfell

    2015-01-01

    Wildfire activity and escalating suppression costs continue to threaten the financial health of federal land management agencies. In order to minimize and effectively manage the cost of financial risk, agencies need the ability to quantify that risk. A fundamental aim of this research effort, therefore, is to develop a process for generating risk-based metrics for...

  20. An improved AE detection method of rail defect based on multi-level ANC with VSS-LMS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Xin; Cui, Yiming; Wang, Yan; Sun, Mingjian; Hu, Hengshan

    2018-01-01

    In order to ensure the safety and reliability of railway system, Acoustic Emission (AE) method is employed to investigate rail defect detection. However, little attention has been paid to the defect detection at high speed, especially for noise interference suppression. Based on AE technology, this paper presents an improved rail defect detection method by multi-level ANC with VSS-LMS. Multi-level noise cancellation based on SANC and ANC is utilized to eliminate complex noises at high speed, and tongue-shaped curve with index adjustment factor is proposed to enhance the performance of variable step-size algorithm. Defect signals and reference signals are acquired by the rail-wheel test rig. The features of noise signals and defect signals are analyzed for effective detection. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing with the previous study, and different filter lengths are investigated to obtain a better noise suppression performance. Meanwhile, the detection ability of the proposed method is verified at the top speed of the test rig. The results clearly illustrate that the proposed method is effective in detecting rail defects at high speed, especially for noise interference suppression.

  1. Initialization bias suppression in iterative Monte Carlo calculations: benchmarks on criticality calculation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Richet, Y.; Jacquet, O.; Bay, X.

    2005-01-01

    The accuracy of an Iterative Monte Carlo calculation requires the convergence of the simulation output process. The present paper deals with a post processing algorithm to suppress the transient due to initialization applied on criticality calculations. It should be noticed that this initial transient suppression aims only at obtaining a stationary output series, then the convergence of the calculation needs to be guaranteed independently. The transient suppression algorithm consists in a repeated truncation of the first observations of the output process. The truncation of the first observations is performed as long as a steadiness test based on Brownian bridge theory is negative. This transient suppression method was previously tuned for a simplified model of criticality calculations, although this paper focuses on the efficiency on real criticality calculations. The efficiency test is based on four benchmarks with strong source convergence problems: 1) a checkerboard storage of fuel assemblies, 2) a pin cell array with irradiated fuel, 3) 3 one-dimensional thick slabs, and 4) an array of interacting fuel spheres. It appears that the transient suppression method needs to be more widely validated on real criticality calculations before any blind using as a post processing in criticality codes

  2. Development of gamma-ray-suppression type of small-sized neutron detector based on a 6Li-glass scintillator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matsumoto, T.; Harano, H.; Shimoyama, T.; Kudo, K.; Uritani, A.

    2005-01-01

    A small-sized thermal neutron detector based on a 6 Li-glass scintillator and a plastic optical fiber was developed for measurement of a dose distribution of thermal neutrons in a thermal neutron standard field. A contribution of gamma rays can not be neglected in the neutron measurement with this detector, although the 6 Li-glass scintillator can be distinguishable for the neutrons and the gamma rays by difference of each pulse height. Moreover, to reduce an uncertainty of neutron counts caused by the gamma ray background around a discrimination level, we suggested a gamma-ray-suppression type of small-sized thermal neutron detector with a 6 Li-glass scintillator, a hollow CsI(Tl) scintillator and plastic optical fibers. The detector can reject signals due to the gamma rays with an anti-coincidence method. In the present paper, we evaluated an ability of a gamma-ray suppression of the detector using the EGS4 electron-photon transport Monte-Carlo code with the PRESTA routine. As the results, the sufficient gamma-ray suppression effect was shown. (author)

  3. Selective suppression of high-order harmonics within phase-matched spectral regions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lerner, Gavriel; Diskin, Tzvi; Neufeld, Ofer; Kfir, Ofer; Cohen, Oren

    2017-04-01

    Phase matching in high-harmonic generation leads to enhancement of multiple harmonics. It is sometimes desired to control the spectral structure within the phase-matched spectral region. We propose a scheme for selective suppression of high-order harmonics within the phase-matched spectral region while weakly influencing the other harmonics. The method is based on addition of phase-mismatched segments within a phase-matched medium. We demonstrate the method numerically in two examples. First, we show that one phase-mismatched segment can significantly suppress harmonic orders 9, 15, and 21. Second, we show that two phase-mismatched segments can efficiently suppress circularly polarized harmonics with one helicity over the other when driven by a bi-circular field. The new method may be useful for various applications, including the generation of highly helical bright attosecond pulses.

  4. Suppression/reducing method for total organic carbon in feedwater/condensate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maeda, Katsuharu.

    1993-01-01

    The present invention suppresses/reduces the concentration of the total organic carbon before the startup of a reactor, to decrease (TOC) which is brought into the reactor upon startup of the operation and suppress/moderate degradation of water quality of reactor water. That is, in-service period of a condensate desalting tower is shortened, to avoid concentration increase of TOC in feed water/condensate which is leached out from the condensate desalting tower. The condensate desalting towers are put to in-service for the entire towers after increasing the vacuum degree of the condensator, to suppress leaching of TOC from the condensate desalting tower. Further, upon startup of a nuclear power plant, when the condensate desalting tower is put to in-service, condensate filters of the entire towers are previously back-washed and regenerated to remove TOC efficiently. By these procedures, TOC brought from a water supply system upon startup of the plant is thermally decomposed or radiolyzed in the reactor, thereby enabling to suppress/avoid worsening of water quality of reactor water caused by generated ion impurities. (I.S.)

  5. Supersonic flutter suppression of electrorheological fluid-based adaptive panels resting on elastic foundations using sliding mode control

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hasheminejad, Seyyed M; Nezami, M; Aryaee Panah, M E

    2012-01-01

    Brief reviews on suppressing panel flutter vibrations by various active control strategies as well as utilization tunable electrorheological fluids (ERFs) for vibration control of structural systems are presented. Active suppression of the supersonic flutter motion of a simply supported sandwich panel with a tunable ERF interlayer, and coupled to an elastic foundation, is subsequently investigated. The structural formulation is based on the classical beam theory along with the Winkler–Pasternak foundation model, the ER fluid core is modeled as a first-order Kelvin–Voigt material, and the quasi-steady first-order supersonic piston theory is employed to describe the aerodynamic loading. Hamilton’s principle is used to derive a set of fully coupled dynamic equations of motion. The generalized Fourier expansions in conjunction with the Galerkin method are then employed to formulate the governing equations in the state space domain. The critical dynamic pressures at which unstable panel oscillations (coalescence of eigenvalues) occur are obtained via the p-method for selected applied electric field strengths (E = 0,2,4 kV mm −1 ). The classical Runge–Kutta time integration algorithm is subsequently used to calculate the open-loop aeroelastic response of the system in various basic loading configurations (i.e. uniformly distributed blast, gust, sonic boom, and step loads), with or without an interacting soft/stiff elastic foundation. Finally, a sliding mode control synthesis (SMC) involving the first six natural modes of the structural system is set up to actively suppress the closed-loop system response in supersonic flight conditions and under the imposed excitations. Simulation results demonstrate performance, effectiveness, and insensitivity with respect to the spillover of the proposed SMC-based control system. Limiting cases are considered and good agreements with the data available in the literature as well as with the computations made by using the

  6. Edge enhancement and noise suppression for infrared image based on feature analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Meng

    2018-06-01

    Infrared images are often suffering from background noise, blurred edges, few details and low signal-to-noise ratios. To improve infrared image quality, it is essential to suppress noise and enhance edges simultaneously. To realize it in this paper, we propose a novel algorithm based on feature analysis in shearlet domain. Firstly, as one of multi-scale geometric analysis (MGA), we introduce the theory and superiority of shearlet transform. Secondly, after analyzing the defects of traditional thresholding technique to suppress noise, we propose a novel feature extraction distinguishing image structures from noise well and use it to improve the traditional thresholding technique. Thirdly, with computing the correlations between neighboring shearlet coefficients, the feature attribute maps identifying the weak detail and strong edges are completed to improve the generalized unsharped masking (GUM). At last, experiment results with infrared images captured in different scenes demonstrate that the proposed algorithm suppresses noise efficiently and enhances image edges adaptively.

  7. A Compton suppressed detector multiplicity trigger based digital DAQ for gamma-ray spectroscopy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Das, S.; Samanta, S.; Banik, R.; Bhattacharjee, R.; Basu, K.; Raut, R.; Ghugre, S. S.; Sinha, A. K.; Bhattacharya, S.; Imran, S.; Mukherjee, G.; Bhattacharyya, S.; Goswami, A.; Palit, R.; Tan, H.

    2018-06-01

    The development of a digitizer based pulse processing and data acquisition system for γ-ray spectroscopy with large detector arrays is presented. The system is based on 250 MHz 12-bit digitizers, and is triggered by a user chosen multiplicity of Compton suppressed detectors. The logic for trigger generation is similar to the one practised for analog (NIM/CAMAC) pulse processing electronics, while retaining the fast processing merits of the digitizer system. Codes for reduction of data acquired from the system have also been developed. The system has been tested with offline studies using radioactive sources as well as in the in-beam experiments with an array of Compton suppressed Clover detectors. The results obtained therefrom validate its use in spectroscopic efforts for nuclear structure investigations.

  8. Suppression of panel flutter of near-space aircraft based on non-probabilistic reliability theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ye-Wei Zhang

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available The vibration active control of the composite panels with the uncertain parameters in the hypersonic flow is studied using the non-probabilistic reliability theory. Using the piezoelectric patches as active control actuators, dynamic equations of panel are established by finite element method and Hamilton’s principle. And the control model of panel with uncertain parameters is obtained. According to the non-probabilistic reliability index, and besides being based on H∞ robust control theory and non-probabilistic reliability theory, the non-probabilistic reliability performance function is given. Moreover, the relationships between the robust controller and H∞ performance index and reliability are established. Numerical results show that the control method under the influence of reliability, H∞ performance index, and approaching velocity is effective to the vibration suppression of panel in the whole interval of uncertain parameters.

  9. Foam suppression in overloaded manure-based biogas reactors using antifoaming agents

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kougias, Panagiotis; Boe, Kanokwan; Tsapekos, Panagiotis

    2014-01-01

    Foam control is an imperative need in biogas plants, as foaming is a major operational problem. In the present study, the effect of oils (rapeseed oil, oleic acid, and octanoic acid) and tributylphosphate on foam reduction and process performance in batch and continuous manure-based biogas reactors...... was investigated. The compounds were tested in dosages of 0.05%, 0.1% and 0.5% v/vfeed. The results showed that rapeseed oil was most efficient to suppress foam at the dosage of 0.05% and 0.1% v/vfeed, while octanoic acid was most efficient to suppress foam at dosage of 0.5% v/vfeed. Moreover, the addition...... of rapeseed oil also increased methane yield. In contrast, tributylphosphate, which was very efficient antifoam, was found to be inhibitory to the biogas process. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd....

  10. A Novel Method for Vertical Acceleration Noise Suppression of a Thrust-Vectored VTOL UAV.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Huanyu; Wu, Linfeng; Li, Yingjie; Li, Chunwen; Li, Hangyu

    2016-12-02

    Acceleration is of great importance in motion control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), especially during the takeoff and landing stages. However, the measured acceleration is inevitably polluted by severe noise. Therefore, a proper noise suppression procedure is required. This paper presents a novel method to reduce the noise in the measured vertical acceleration for a thrust-vectored tail-sitter vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) UAV. In the new procedure, a Kalman filter is first applied to estimate the UAV mass by using the information in the vertical thrust and measured acceleration. The UAV mass is then used to compute an estimate of UAV vertical acceleration. The estimated acceleration is finally fused with the measured acceleration to obtain the minimum variance estimate of vertical acceleration. By doing this, the new approach incorporates the thrust information into the acceleration estimate. The method is applied to the data measured in a VTOL UAV takeoff experiment. Two other denoising approaches developed by former researchers are also tested for comparison. The results demonstrate that the new method is able to suppress the acceleration noise substantially. It also maintains the real-time performance in the final estimated acceleration, which is not seen in the former denoising approaches. The acceleration treated with the new method can be readily used in the motion control applications for UAVs to achieve improved accuracy.

  11. A Novel Method for Vertical Acceleration Noise Suppression of a Thrust-Vectored VTOL UAV

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huanyu Li

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Acceleration is of great importance in motion control for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, especially during the takeoff and landing stages. However, the measured acceleration is inevitably polluted by severe noise. Therefore, a proper noise suppression procedure is required. This paper presents a novel method to reduce the noise in the measured vertical acceleration for a thrust-vectored tail-sitter vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL UAV. In the new procedure, a Kalman filter is first applied to estimate the UAV mass by using the information in the vertical thrust and measured acceleration. The UAV mass is then used to compute an estimate of UAV vertical acceleration. The estimated acceleration is finally fused with the measured acceleration to obtain the minimum variance estimate of vertical acceleration. By doing this, the new approach incorporates the thrust information into the acceleration estimate. The method is applied to the data measured in a VTOL UAV takeoff experiment. Two other denoising approaches developed by former researchers are also tested for comparison. The results demonstrate that the new method is able to suppress the acceleration noise substantially. It also maintains the real-time performance in the final estimated acceleration, which is not seen in the former denoising approaches. The acceleration treated with the new method can be readily used in the motion control applications for UAVs to achieve improved accuracy.

  12. The Motion Planning of Overhead Crane Based on Suppressing Payload Residual Swing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liu Hua-sen

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Since the overhead crane system is subject to under actuation system due to that overhead crane and payload are connected by flexibility wire rope. The payload generates residual swing when the overhead crane is accelerating/ decelerating the motions. This may cause trouble for the payload precise positioning and motion planning. Hence, an optimization input shaping control method is presented to reduce the under actuated overhead crane’s payload swing caused via the inertia force. The dynamic model of the overhead crane is proposed according to the physics structure of the crane. The input shaper based on the motion planning of the crane is used as the feed forward input to suppress payload residual swing. Simulation and experiment results indicate that the ZV input shaper and ZVD input shaper can reduce the payload swing of the overhead crane.

  13. Suppressing carrier removal error in the Fourier transform method for interferogram analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fan, Qi; Yang, Hongru; Li, Gaoping; Zhao, Jianlin

    2010-01-01

    A new carrier removal method for interferogram analysis using the Fourier transform is presented. The proposed method can be used to suppress the carrier removal error as well as the spectral leakage error. First, the carrier frequencies are estimated with the spectral centroid of the up sidelobe of the apodized interferogram, and then the up sidelobe can be shifted to the origin in the frequency domain by multiplying the original interferogram by a constructed plane reference wave. The influence of the carrier frequencies without an integer multiple of the frequency interval and the window function for apodization of the interferogram can be avoided in our work. The simulation and experimental results show that this method is effective for phase measurement with a high accuracy from a single interferogram

  14. Phase difference estimation method based on data extension and Hilbert transform

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shen, Yan-lin; Tu, Ya-qing; Chen, Lin-jun; Shen, Ting-ao

    2015-01-01

    To improve the precision and anti-interference performance of phase difference estimation for non-integer periods of sampling signals, a phase difference estimation method based on data extension and Hilbert transform is proposed. Estimated phase difference is obtained by means of data extension, Hilbert transform, cross-correlation, auto-correlation, and weighted phase average. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed method suppresses the end effects of Hilbert transform effectively. The results of simulations and field experiments demonstrate that the proposed method improves the anti-interference performance of phase difference estimation and has better performance of phase difference estimation than the correlation, Hilbert transform, and data extension-based correlation methods, which contribute to improving the measurement precision of the Coriolis mass flowmeter. (paper)

  15. The impact of nevirapine- versus protease inhibitor-based regimens on virological markers of HIV-1 persistence during seemingly suppressive ART.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiselinova, Maja; Anna, Maria; Malatinkova, Eva; Vervish, Karen; Beloukas, Apostolos; Messiaen, Peter; Bonczkowski, Pawel; Trypsteen, Wim; Callens, Steven; Verhofstede, Chris; De Spiegelaere, Ward; Vandekerckhove, Linos

    2014-01-01

    The source and significance of residual plasma HIV-1 RNA detection during suppressive ART remain controversial. It has been proposed that nevirapine (NVP)-based regimens achieve a greater HIV-1 RNA suppression than regimens containing a protease inhibitor (PI). The aim of this study was to compare the effect of receiving NVP- vs PI-based ART on the virological markers of HIV persistence in peripheral blood. The study population comprised 161 HIV-1 infected patients receiving either NVP-based (n=81) or PI-based (n=80) ART and showing a HIV-1 RNA load stably suppressed ART, with median (IQR) levels of 5 (3-6) and 5 (3-8) copies/mL, respectively. HIV-1 RNA detection was associated with shorter duration of suppressive ART regardless of treatment arm (p=0.007), and lower CD4 nadir (p=0.015). HIV-1 DNA levels were median 282 (120-484) and 213 (87-494) copies/106 PBMCs in the two groups respectively, and were lowest (ART HIV-1 RNA load (p=0.0001). In this comprehensive characterization of patients on long-term suppressive ART, we did not observe evidence for a greater suppressive activity of NVP-based over PI-based therapy on plasma and intracellular markers of virus persistence. Overall excellent correlation was observed between the markers, allowing the identification of a subset of treated patients with low HIV-1 expression as an important cohort for future HIV cure studies.

  16. Comparing model-based and model-free analysis methods for QUASAR arterial spin labeling perfusion quantification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chappell, Michael A; Woolrich, Mark W; Petersen, Esben T; Golay, Xavier; Payne, Stephen J

    2013-05-01

    Amongst the various implementations of arterial spin labeling MRI methods for quantifying cerebral perfusion, the QUASAR method is unique. By using a combination of labeling with and without flow suppression gradients, the QUASAR method offers the separation of macrovascular and tissue signals. This permits local arterial input functions to be defined and "model-free" analysis, using numerical deconvolution, to be used. However, it remains unclear whether arterial spin labeling data are best treated using model-free or model-based analysis. This work provides a critical comparison of these two approaches for QUASAR arterial spin labeling in the healthy brain. An existing two-component (arterial and tissue) model was extended to the mixed flow suppression scheme of QUASAR to provide an optimal model-based analysis. The model-based analysis was extended to incorporate dispersion of the labeled bolus, generally regarded as the major source of discrepancy between the two analysis approaches. Model-free and model-based analyses were compared for perfusion quantification including absolute measurements, uncertainty estimation, and spatial variation in cerebral blood flow estimates. Major sources of discrepancies between model-free and model-based analysis were attributed to the effects of dispersion and the degree to which the two methods can separate macrovascular and tissue signal. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  17. Comparative Metatranscriptomics of Wheat Rhizosphere Microbiomes in Disease Suppressive and Non-suppressive Soils for Rhizoctonia solani AG8

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Helen L. Hayden

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The soilborne fungus Rhizoctonia solani anastomosis group (AG 8 is a major pathogen of grain crops resulting in substantial production losses. In the absence of resistant cultivars of wheat or barley, a sustainable and enduring method for disease control may lie in the enhancement of biological disease suppression. Evidence of effective biological control of R. solani AG8 through disease suppression has been well documented at our study site in Avon, South Australia. A comparative metatranscriptomic approach was applied to assess the taxonomic and functional characteristics of the rhizosphere microbiome of wheat plants grown in adjacent fields which are suppressive and non-suppressive to the plant pathogen R. solani AG8. Analysis of 12 rhizosphere metatranscriptomes (six per field was undertaken using two bioinformatic approaches involving unassembled and assembled reads. Differential expression analysis showed the dominant taxa in the rhizosphere based on mRNA annotation were Arthrobacter spp. and Pseudomonas spp. for non-suppressive samples and Stenotrophomonas spp. and Buttiauxella spp. for the suppressive samples. The assembled metatranscriptome analysis identified more differentially expressed genes than the unassembled analysis in the comparison of suppressive and non-suppressive samples. Suppressive samples showed greater expression of a polyketide cyclase, a terpenoid biosynthesis backbone gene (dxs and many cold shock proteins (csp. Non-suppressive samples were characterised by greater expression of antibiotic genes such as non-heme chloroperoxidase (cpo which is involved in pyrrolnitrin synthesis, and phenazine biosynthesis family protein F (phzF and its transcriptional activator protein (phzR. A large number of genes involved in detoxifying reactive oxygen species (ROS and superoxide radicals (sod, cat, ahp, bcp, gpx1, trx were also expressed in the non-suppressive rhizosphere samples most likely in response to the infection of wheat

  18. System and method that suppresses intensity fluctuations for free space high-speed optical communication

    Science.gov (United States)

    Berman, Gennady P [Los Alamos, NM; Bishop, Alan R [Los Alamos, NM; Nguyen, Dinh C [Los Alamos, NM; Chernobrod, Boris M [Santa Fe, NM; Gorshkov, Vacheslav N [Kiev, UA

    2009-10-13

    A high-speed (Gbps), free space optical communication system is based on spectral encoding of radiation from a wide band light source, such as a laser. By using partially coherent laser beams in combination with a relatively slow photosensor, scintillations can be suppressed by orders of magnitude for distances of more than 10 km. To suppress the intensity fluctuations due to atmospheric turbulence, a source with partial transverse coherence in combination with slow response time photodetector is used. Information is encoded in the spectral domain of a wideband optical source by modulation of spectral amplitudes. A non-coherent light source with wide spectrum (an LED, for example) may be used for high-speed communication over short (less than about a mile) distances.

  19. A separate-effect-based new appraisal of convective boiling and its suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Aounallah, Yacine

    2008-01-01

    The development of convective boiling heat transfer correlations and analytical models has been based almost exclusively on the knowledge of global heat transfer coefficients, while the predictive capabilities of the correlation constituting components (typically additive convection and boiling) have remained usually elusive. This becomes important when, for example, developing a mechanistic subcooled void model based on wall heat flux partitioning, or when applying a correlation beyond its developmental range. In the latter case, the preponderance of the individual heat transfer mechanisms, through the phenomenon of boiling suppression, can become significantly different, thus leading to uncharted uncertainty extrapolations. An examination of existing experimental data, obtained under fixed hydrodynamic conditions, has allowed the isolation of the boiling heat transfer contribution over a broad range of thermodynamic qualities (0 to 0.8) and mass fluxes (1,100 to 3,900 kg/(m 2 ·s)) for water at 7.2 MPa. Boiling suppression has been quantified, thus providing valuable new insights on the basic functional relationships of boiling in convective flows. This work has allowed a new interpretation and representation of the standard flow 'boiling map' (Collier's) to be developed. The convection enhancement and boiling suppression components (F and S) of the well-known Chen's correlation - an important constitutive relationship implemented in several best-estimate (realistic) thermal-hydraulics codes - have been individually determined, showing the pitfall of splitting the correlation for mechanistic boiling heat transfer modelling, and the important role of compensating errors in uncertainty extrapolation. An initial attempt to formulate a new correlation, based for the first time on segregated heat transfer components, is also included. (author)

  20. Halogen determination in Arctic aerosols by neutron activation analysis with Compton suppression methods

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Landsberger, S.; Basunia, M.S.; Iskander, F.

    2001-01-01

    The study of halogens particularly bromine and chlorine in Arctic aerosols has received a great deal of attention in the past decade in ozone depletion during polar sunrise studies. Iodine has also been studied as part of geochemical cycling. It was shown that all three of the above elements can be determined simultaneously with very low detection limits using epithermal NAA in conjunction with Compton suppression methods. Besides lowering the background considerably, Compton suppression can eliminate or minimize the overlapping peak of the 620 keV photopeak arising form the 1642 keV double escape peak of 38 Cl interfering with the 616.9 keV photopeak of 79 Br(n,γ) 80 Br reaction. Iodine is ideally determined by epithermal NAA because of its very good resonance integral cross-section. Although chlorine is usually determined using thermal neutrons via the 37 Cl(n,γ) 38 Cl reactions, epithermal NAA is still feasible for the Arctic aerosol, since it has a major sea-salt component. (author)

  1. Second Ripple Current Suppression by Two Bandpass Filters and Current Sharing Method for Energy Storage Converters in DC Microgrid

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yang, Ling; Chen, Yandong; Luo, An

    2017-01-01

    With the increasing of AC loads injected into DC microgird (MG) through the inverters, the second ripple current (SRC) in the front-end energy storage converter (ESC) and circulating current among the ESCs in DC MG become more and more serious. In this paper, the SRC suppression method by introdu......With the increasing of AC loads injected into DC microgird (MG) through the inverters, the second ripple current (SRC) in the front-end energy storage converter (ESC) and circulating current among the ESCs in DC MG become more and more serious. In this paper, the SRC suppression method...

  2. Infrared dim small target segmentation method based on ALI-PCNN model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Shangnan; Song, Yong; Zhao, Yufei; Li, Yun; Li, Xu; Jiang, Yurong; Li, Lin

    2017-10-01

    Pulse Coupled Neural Network (PCNN) is improved by Adaptive Lateral Inhibition (ALI), while a method of infrared (IR) dim small target segmentation based on ALI-PCNN model is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the feeding input signal is modulated by lateral inhibition network to suppress background. Then, the linking input is modulated by ALI, and linking weight matrix is generated adaptively by calculating ALI coefficient of each pixel. Finally, the binary image is generated through the nonlinear modulation and the pulse generator in PCNN. The experimental results show that the segmentation effect as well as the values of contrast across region and uniformity across region of the proposed method are better than the OTSU method, maximum entropy method, the methods based on conventional PCNN and visual attention, and the proposed method has excellent performance in extracting IR dim small target from complex background.

  3. A Novel Adaptive Observer-Based Control Scheme for Synchronization and Suppression of a Class of Uncertain Chaotic Systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jing, Wang; Zhen-Yu, Tan; Xi-Kui, Ma; Jin-Feng, Gao

    2009-01-01

    A novel adaptive observer-based control scheme is presented for synchronization and suppression of a class of uncertain chaotic system. First, an adaptive observer based on an orthogonal neural network is designed. Subsequently, the sliding mode controllers via the proposed adaptive observer are proposed for synchronization and suppression of the uncertain chaotic systems. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulation show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. (general)

  4. Fat suppression at 2D MR imaging of the hands: Dixon method versus CHESS technique and STIR sequence.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirchgesner, Thomas; Perlepe, Vasiliki; Michoux, Nicolas; Larbi, Ahmed; Vande Berg, Bruno

    2017-04-01

    To compare the effectiveness of fat suppression and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the Dixon method with those of the CHESS (Chemical Shift-Selective) technique and STIR (Short Tau Inversion Recovery) sequence in hands of normal subjects at 2D MR imaging. 14 healthy volunteers (mean age of 29.4 years) consented to have both hands prospectively imaged with SE T1 Dixon, T1 CHESS, T2 Dixon, T2 CHESS and STIR sequences in a 1.5T MR scanner. Three radiologists scored the effectiveness of fat suppression in bone marrow (EFS BM ) and soft tissues (EFS ST ) in 20 joints per subject. One radiologist measured the SNR in 10 bones per subject. Statistical analysis used two-way ANOVA with random effects, paired t-test and observed agreement to assess differences in effectiveness of fat suppression, differences in SNR and inter-observer agreement. EFS BM was statistically significantly higher for T1 Dixon than for T1 CHESS and for T2 Dixon than for T2 CHESS (pCHESS and for T2 Dixon than for STIR (pCHESS (pCHESS technique at 2D T1-weighted MR imaging of the hands. At T2-weighted MR imaging, fat suppression is more effective with the Dixon method while SNR is higher with the CHESS technique. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  5. Infrared video based gas leak detection method using modified FAST features

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Min; Hong, Hanyu; Huang, Likun

    2018-03-01

    In order to detect the invisible leaking gas that is usually dangerous and easily leads to fire or explosion in time, many new technologies have arisen in the recent years, among which the infrared video based gas leak detection is widely recognized as a viable tool. However, all the moving regions of a video frame can be detected as leaking gas regions by the existing infrared video based gas leak detection methods, without discriminating the property of each detected region, e.g., a walking person in a video frame may be also detected as gas by the current gas leak detection methods.To solve this problem, we propose a novel infrared video based gas leak detection method in this paper, which is able to effectively suppress strong motion disturbances.Firstly, the Gaussian mixture model(GMM) is used to establish the background model.Then due to the observation that the shapes of gas regions are different from most rigid moving objects, we modify the Features From Accelerated Segment Test (FAST) algorithm and use the modified FAST (mFAST) features to describe each connected component. In view of the fact that the statistical property of the mFAST features extracted from gas regions is different from that of other motion regions, we propose the Pixel-Per-Points (PPP) condition to further select candidate connected components.Experimental results show that the algorithm is able to effectively suppress most strong motion disturbances and achieve real-time leaking gas detection.

  6. A Circulating-Current Suppression Method for Parallel-Connected Voltage-Source Inverters With Common DC and AC Buses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wei, Baoze; Guerrero, Josep M.; Quintero, Juan Carlos Vasquez

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents a theoretical study with experimental validation of a circulating-current suppression method for parallel operation of three-phase voltage source inverters (VSI), which may be suitable for modular parallel uninterruptible power supply systems or hybrid AC/DC microgrid applicat......This paper presents a theoretical study with experimental validation of a circulating-current suppression method for parallel operation of three-phase voltage source inverters (VSI), which may be suitable for modular parallel uninterruptible power supply systems or hybrid AC/DC microgrid......, and added into the conventional droop plus virtual impedance control. In the control architecture, the reference voltages of the inverters are generated by the primary control loop which consists of a droop control and a virtual impedance. The secondary control is used to compensate the voltage drop...

  7. Speckle suppression via sparse representation for wide-field imaging through turbid media.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jang, Hwanchol; Yoon, Changhyeong; Chung, Euiheon; Choi, Wonshik; Lee, Heung-No

    2014-06-30

    Speckle suppression is one of the most important tasks in the image transmission through turbid media. Insufficient speckle suppression requires an additional procedure such as temporal ensemble averaging over multiple exposures. In this paper, we consider the image recovery process based on the so-called transmission matrix (TM) of turbid media for the image transmission through the media. We show that the speckle left unremoved in the TM-based image recovery can be suppressed effectively via sparse representation (SR). SR is a relatively new signal reconstruction framework which works well even for ill-conditioned problems. This is the first study to show the benefit of using the SR as compared to the phase conjugation (PC) a de facto standard method to date for TM-based imaging through turbid media including a live cell through tissue slice.

  8. The regional extent of suppression: strabismics versus nonstrabismics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babu, Raiju Jacob; Clavagnier, Simon R; Bobier, William; Thompson, Benjamin; Hess, Robert F

    2013-10-09

    Evidence is accumulating that suppression may be the cause of amblyopia rather than a secondary consequence of mismatched retinal images. For example, treatment interventions that target suppression may lead to better binocular and monocular outcomes. Furthermore, it has recently been demonstrated that the measurement of suppression may have prognostic value for patching therapy. For these reasons, the measurement of suppression in the clinic needs to be improved beyond the methods that are currently available, which provide a binary outcome. We describe a novel quantitative method for measuring the regional extent of suppression that is suitable for clinical use. The method involves a dichoptic perceptual matching procedure at multiple visual field locations. We compare a group of normal controls (mean age: 28 ± 5 years); a group with strabismic amblyopia (four with microesotropia, five with esotropia, and one with exotropia; mean age: 35 ± 10 years); and a group with nonstrabismic anisometropic amblyopia (mean age: 33 ± 12 years). The extent and magnitude of suppression was similar for observers with strabismic and nonstrabismic amblyopia. Suppression was strongest within the central field and extended throughout the 20° field that we measured. Suppression extends throughout the central visual field in both strabismic and anisometropic forms of amblyopia. The strongest suppression occurs within the region of the visual field corresponding to the fovea of the fixing eye.

  9. Deploying wildland fire suppression resources with a scenario-based standard response model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Robert G. Haight; Jeremy S. Fried

    2007-01-01

    Wildland fire managers deploy suppression resources to bases and dispatch them to fires to maximize the percentage of fires that are successfully contained before unacceptable costs and losses occur. Deployment is made with budget constraints and uncertainty about the daily number, location, and intensity of fires, all of which affect initial-attack success. To address...

  10. Comparison of methods for suppressing edge and aliasing artefacts in iterative x-ray CT reconstruction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zbijewski, Wojciech; Beekman, Freek J

    2006-01-01

    X-ray CT images obtained with iterative reconstruction (IR) can be hampered by the so-called edge and aliasing artefacts, which appear as interference patterns and severe overshoots in the areas of sharp intensity transitions. Previously, we have demonstrated that these artefacts are caused by discretization errors during the projection simulation step in IR. Although these errors are inherent to IR, they can be adequately suppressed by reconstruction on an image grid that is finer than that typically used for analytical methods such as filtered back-projection. Two other methods that may prevent edge artefacts are: (i) smoothing the projections prior to reconstruction or (ii) using an image representation different from voxels; spherically symmetric Kaiser-Bessel functions are a frequently employed example of such a representation. In this paper, we compare reconstruction on a fine grid with the two above-mentioned alternative strategies for edge artefact reduction. We show that the use of a fine grid results in a more adequate suppression of artefacts than the smoothing of projections or using the Kaiser-Bessel image representation

  11. Spin-echo based diagonal peak suppression in solid-state MAS NMR homonuclear chemical shift correlation spectra

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Kaiyu; Zhang, Zhiyong; Ding, Xiaoyan; Tian, Fang; Huang, Yuqing; Chen, Zhong; Fu, Riqiang

    2018-02-01

    The feasibility of using the spin-echo based diagonal peak suppression method in solid-state MAS NMR homonuclear chemical shift correlation experiments is demonstrated. A complete phase cycling is designed in such a way that in the indirect dimension only the spin diffused signals are evolved, while all signals not involved in polarization transfer are refocused for cancellation. A data processing procedure is further introduced to reconstruct this acquired spectrum into a conventional two-dimensional homonuclear chemical shift correlation spectrum. A uniformly 13C, 15N labeled Fmoc-valine sample and the transmembrane domain of a human protein, LR11 (sorLA), in native Escherichia coli membranes have been used to illustrate the capability of the proposed method in comparison with standard 13C-13C chemical shift correlation experiments.

  12. Design of Tank Velocity Based on Multi-Mode Natural Frequencies for Suppression of Sloshing

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sim, Taegwon; Kim, Dongjoo [Kumoh Nat’l Institute of Technology, Gumi (Korea, Republic of)

    2017-05-15

    Suppression of sloshing is essential to achieve fast transportation and stable maneuvering of tanks partially filled with liquid. In this study, numerical simulations are performed to investigate the effects of the acceleration magnitude and the acceleration duration of triangular velocity profiles on sloshing when a rectangular tank moves horizontally. We previously reported, based on only the first natural mode, that sloshing is significantly suppressed when the acceleration duration equals the first natural period of sloshing. On the other hand, the present CFD simulations find the best acceleration duration for minimum sloshing and explains the results considering higher modes as well as the first mode. We also perform the analysis using an equivalent model based on masses and springs, and evaluate its accuracy by comparing it with the CFD simulation results.

  13. Topological material layout in plates for vibration suppression and wave propagation control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Larsen, Anders Astrup; Laksafoss, B.; Jensen, Jakob Søndergaard

    2009-01-01

    We propose a topological material layout method to design elastic plates with optimized properties for vibration suppression and guided transport of vibration energy. The gradient-based optimization algorithm is based on a finite element model of the plate vibrations obtained using the Mindlin...

  14. Gamma camera scatter suppression unit WAM

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kishi, Haruo; Shibahara, Noriyuki; Hirose, Yoshiharu; Shimonishi, Yoshihiro; Oumura, Masahiro; Ikeda, Hozumi; Hamada, Kunio; Ochi, Hironobu; Itagane, Hiroshi.

    1990-01-01

    In gamma camera imaging, scattered radiation is one of big factors to decrease image contrast. Simply, scatter suppression makes signal to noise ratio larger, but it makes statistics error because of radionuclide injection limit to the human body. EWA is a new method that suppresses scattered radiation and improves image contrast. In this article, WAM which is commercialized EWA method by Siemens Gammasonics Inc. is presented. (author)

  15. An efficient modeling method for thermal stratification simulation in a BWR suppression pool

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Haihua Zhao; Ling Zou; Hongbin Zhang; Hua Li; Walter Villanueva; Pavel Kudinov

    2012-09-01

    The suppression pool in a BWR plant not only is the major heat sink within the containment system, but also provides major emergency cooling water for the reactor core. In several accident scenarios, such as LOCA and extended station blackout, thermal stratification tends to form in the pool after the initial rapid venting stage. Accurately predicting the pool stratification phenomenon is important because it affects the peak containment pressure; and the pool temperature distribution also affects the NPSHa (Available Net Positive Suction Head) and therefore the performance of the pump which draws cooling water back to the core. Current safety analysis codes use 0-D lumped parameter methods to calculate the energy and mass balance in the pool and therefore have large uncertainty in prediction of scenarios in which stratification and mixing are important. While 3-D CFD methods can be used to analyze realistic 3D configurations, these methods normally require very fine grid resolution to resolve thin substructures such as jets and wall boundaries, therefore long simulation time. For mixing in stably stratified large enclosures, the BMIX++ code has been developed to implement a highly efficient analysis method for stratification where the ambient fluid volume is represented by 1-D transient partial differential equations and substructures such as free or wall jets are modeled with 1-D integral models. This allows very large reductions in computational effort compared to 3-D CFD modeling. The POOLEX experiments at Finland, which was designed to study phenomena relevant to Nordic design BWR suppression pool including thermal stratification and mixing, are used for validation. GOTHIC lumped parameter models are used to obtain boundary conditions for BMIX++ code and CFD simulations. Comparison between the BMIX++, GOTHIC, and CFD calculations against the POOLEX experimental data is discussed in detail.

  16. Coupled fluid-structure method for pressure suppression analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    McMaster, W.H.; Norris, D.M. Jr.; Goudreau, G.L.

    1979-01-01

    We have coupled an incompressible Eulerian hydrodynamic algorithm to a Lagrangian finite-element shell algorithm for the analysis of pressure suppression in boiling water reactors. The computer program calculates loads and structural response from air and steam blowdown and the oscillating condensation of steam bubbles in a water pool. The fluid, structure, and coupling algorithms have been verified by the calculation of solved problems from the literature and from air and steam blowdown experiments. The foundation of the program is the semi-implicit, two-dimensional SOLA algorithm. The shell structure algorithm uses conventional thin-shell theory with transverse shear. The finite-element spatial discretization employs piecewise-linear interpolation functions and one-point quadrature applied to conical frustra. We use the Newmark implicit time-integration method implemented as a one-step module. The algorithms are strongly coupled in the iteration loop using the iterated pressure in the fluid to drive the structure. The coupling algorithm requires normal velocity compatibility at the fluid-structure interface and incompressibility of the computational Eulerian zone overlaid by the structure. This is accomplished by iterating on the pressure field which is applied to the structure during each iteration until both conditions are satisfied

  17. Sub-picosecond timing fluctuation suppression in laser-based atmospheric transfer of microwave signal using electronic phase compensation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Shijun; Sun, Fuyu; Bai, Qingsong; Chen, Dawei; Chen, Qiang; Hou, Dong

    2017-10-01

    We demonstrated a timing fluctuation suppression in outdoor laser-based atmospheric radio-frequency transfer over a 110 m one-way free-space link using an electronic phase compensation technique. Timing fluctuations and Allan Deviation are both measured to characterize the instability of transferred frequency incurred during the transfer process. With transferring a 1 GHz microwave signal over a timing fluctuation suppressed transmission link, the total root-mean-square (rms) timing fluctuation was measured to be 920 femtoseconds in 5000 s, with fractional frequency instability on the order of 1 × 10-12 at 1 s, and order of 2 × 10-16 at 1000 s. This atmospheric frequency transfer scheme with the timing fluctuation suppression technique can be used to fast build an atomic clock-based frequency free-space transmission link since its stability is superior to a commercial Cs and Rb clock.

  18. Sodium fire suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Malet, J.C.

    1979-01-01

    Ignition and combustion studies have provided valuable data and guidelines for sodium fire suppression research. The primary necessity is to isolate the oxidant from the fuel, rather than to attempt to cool the sodium below its ignition temperature. Work along these lines has led to the development of smothering tank systems and a dry extinguishing powder. Based on the results obtained, the implementation of these techniques is discussed with regard to sodium fire suppression in the Super-Phenix reactor. (author)

  19. Sodium fire suppression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Malet, J C [DSN/SESTR, Centre de Cadarache, Saint-Paul-lez-Durance (France)

    1979-03-01

    Ignition and combustion studies have provided valuable data and guidelines for sodium fire suppression research. The primary necessity is to isolate the oxidant from the fuel, rather than to attempt to cool the sodium below its ignition temperature. Work along these lines has led to the development of smothering tank systems and a dry extinguishing powder. Based on the results obtained, the implementation of these techniques is discussed with regard to sodium fire suppression in the Super-Phenix reactor. (author)

  20. Clean-up system for pool water in pressure suppression chamber and operation method therefor

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hirabayashi, Kentaro; Kinoshita, Shoichiro

    1996-09-17

    Pool water in a pressure suppression chamber of a BWR type reactor is sucked by a pump of an after-heat removing system. The pool water pressurized here is sent to the pressure suppression chamber by way of a heat exchanger and a test line backwarding pipeline to stir the pool water in the pressure suppression chamber. Further, the pool water pressurized by the pump is sent to the pressure suppression chamber by way of a filtration desalting device and an exit pipe to purify the pool water. Upon cleaning of pipelines before the start of a periodical test, the pool water sucked by the pump is sent to the filtration desalting device and recovered to the pressure suppression chamber. This can reduce the amount of impurities carried to the suppression chamber. After the cleaning of the pipelines, pool water is passed through the test line backwarding pipeline, so that the pool water can be stirred at the same time. (I.N.)

  1. Breaking continuous flash suppression: Competing for consciousness on the pre-semantic battlefield.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Surya eGayet

    2014-05-01

    Full Text Available Traditionally, interocular suppression is believed to disrupt high-level (i.e., semantic or conceptual processing of the suppressed visual input. The development of a new experimental paradigm, breaking continuous flash suppression (b-CFS, has caused a resurgence of studies demonstrating high-level processing of visual information in the absence of visual awareness. In this method the time it takes for interocularly suppressed stimuli to breach the threshold of visibility, is regarded as a measure of access to awareness. The aim of the current review is twofold. First, we provide an overview of the literature using this b-CFS method, while making a distinction between two types of studies: those in which suppression durations are compared between different stimulus classes (such as upright faces versus inverted faces, and those in which suppression durations are compared for stimuli that either match or mismatch concurrently available information (such as a colored target that either matches or mismatches a color retained in working memory. Second, we aim at dissociating high-level processing from low-level (i.e., crude visual processing of the suppressed stimuli. For this purpose, we include a thorough review of the control conditions that are used in these experiments. Additionally, we provide recommendations for proper control conditions that we deem crucial for disentangling high-level from low-level effects. Based on this review, we argue that crude visual processing suffices for explaining differences in breakthrough times reported using b-CFS. As such, we conclude that there is as yet no reason to assume that interocularly suppressed stimuli receive full semantic analysis.

  2. Earth's field NMR detection of oil under arctic ice-water suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conradi, Mark S.; Altobelli, Stephen A.; Sowko, Nicholas J.; Conradi, Susan H.; Fukushima, Eiichi

    2018-03-01

    Earth's field NMR has been developed to detect oil trapped under or in Arctic sea-ice. A large challenge, addressed here, is the suppression of the water signal that dominates the oil signal. Selective suppression of water is based on relaxation time T1 because of the negligible chemical shifts in the weak earth's magnetic field, making all proton signals overlap spectroscopically. The first approach is inversion-null recovery, modified for use with pre-polarization. The requirements for efficient inversion over a wide range of B1 and subsequent adiabatic reorientation of the magnetization to align with the static field are stressed. The second method acquires FIDs at two durations of pre-polarization and cancels the water component of the signal after the data are acquired. While less elegant, this technique imposes no stringent requirements. Similar water suppression is found in simulations for the two methods. Oil detection in the presence of water is demonstrated experimentally with both techniques.

  3. Low-frequency noise suppression of a fiber laser based on a round-trip EDFA power stabilizer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pan, Z Q; Zhou, J; Yang, F; Ye, Q; Cai, H W; Qu, R H; Fang, Z J

    2013-01-01

    We have designed a power stabilizer based on a round-trip erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) structure to suppress the low-frequency relative intensity noise (RIN) for a narrow linewidth fiber laser. The noise suppressor is analyzed theoretically and its feasibility is verified experimentally. For a short-cavity single-frequency fiber laser with this device, about 20 dB low-frequency RIN improvement is achieved (down to −120 dB Hz −1 at 10 Hz). The corresponding frequency noise is also reduced by a factor of 1.6. The proposed method is an effective solution to achieve a low-frequency low RIN laser source for highly coherent detection applications. (paper)

  4. Suppression of Repeat-Intensive False Targets Based on Temporal Pulse Diversity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Gang Lu

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper considers the problem of suppressing the repeat-intensive false targets produced by a deception electronic attack (EA system equipped with a Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM device. Different from a conventional repeat jammer, this type of jamming intensively retransmits the intercepted signal stored in a DRFM to the victim radar in a very short time-delay interval relative to a radar pulse wide. A multipeak matched-filtering output is then produced other than the merely expected true target. An electronic protection (EP algorithm based on the space time block code (STBC is proposed to suppress the adverse effects of this jammer. By transmitting a pulse sequence generated from the STBC in succession and the following cancellation process applied upon the received signal, this algorithm performs successfully in a single antenna system provided that the target models are nonfluctuating or slow fluctuating and the pulse repetition frequency (PRF is comparatively high. The performance in white and correlated Gaussian disturbance is evaluated by means of Monte Carlo simulations.

  5. [The advances of suppression in research of amblyopia].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, S; Liu, H

    2016-04-11

    Suppression that is the result of interocular competition is an important machanism of amblyopia. The imbalance of suppression may lead the consequence to amblyopia. In the early study, researchers had raised the theory of II. Quadratic Summation which had revealed the relationship of interocular interaction and suppression. In some basic researches, other studies had showed the most possible anatomic location of suppression. Recently, researchers found a new method to quantify the interocular suppression named the noise model. Further studies found a novel disinhibition therapy to treat amblyopia. We summarized the research advances in suppression and disinhibition treatment in amblyopia. (Chin J Ophthalmol, 2016, 52: 305-308).

  6. Complex-enhanced chaotic signals with time-delay signature suppression based on vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers subject to chaotic optical injection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Jianjun; Duan, Yingni; Zhong, Zhuqiang

    2018-03-01

    A chaotic system is constructed on the basis of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), where a slave VCSEL subject to chaotic optical injection (COI) from a master VCSEL with the external feedback. The complex degree (CD) and time-delay signature (TDS) of chaotic signals generated by this chaotic system are investigated numerically via permutation entropy (PE) and self-correlation function (SF) methods, respectively. The results show that, compared with master VCSEL subject to optical feedback, complex-enhanced chaotic signals with TDS suppression can be achieved for S-VCSEL subject to COI. Meanwhile, the influences of several controllable parameters on the evolution maps of CD of chaotic signals are carefully considered. It is shown that the CD of chaotic signals for S-VCSEL is always higher than that for M-VCSEL due to the CIO effect. The TDS of chaotic signals can be significantly suppressed by choosing the reasonable parameters in this system. Furthermore, TDS suppression and high CD chaos can be obtained simultaneously in the specific parameter ranges. The results confirm that this chaotic system may effectively improve the security of a chaos-based communication scheme.

  7. Investigation of the Flutter Suppression by Fuzzy Logic Control for Hypersonic Wing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Dongxu; Luo, Qing; Xu, Rui

    This paper presents a fundamental study of flutter characteristics and control performance of an aeroelastic system based on a two-dimensional double wedge wing in the hypersonic regime. Dynamic equations were established based on the modified third order nonlinear piston theory and some nonlinear structural effects are also included. A set of important parameters are observed. And then aeroelastic control law is designed to suppress the amplitude of the LCOs for the system in the sub/supercritical speed range by applying fuzzy logic control on the input of the deflection of the flap. The overall effects of the parameters on the aeroelastic system were outlined. Nonlinear aeroelastic responses in the open- and closed-loop system are obtained through numerical methods. The simulations show fuzzy logic control methods are effective in suppressing flutter and provide a smart approach for this complicated system.

  8. Charmonium formation and suppression in nuclear matter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xu Jiajun; Wang Jia; Zhuang Chao; Zhuang Pengfei

    2005-01-01

    The coupling Schroedinger equations describing the evolution of cc-bar states in nuclear matter are analytically and systematically solved via perturbation method, and the correlation between charmonium formation and nuclear absorption is investigated. After calculating J/Ψ and Ψ' suppression in nucleon-nucleus collisions and comparing with experiment data, it is found that the formation time effect plays an important rule in charmonium suppression, especially in Ψ' suppression. (authors)

  9. Thyroid suppression test with dextrothyroxine

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rosenthal, D.; Fridman, J.; Ribeiro, H.B.

    1978-01-01

    The classic thyroid suppression test with triiodothyronine (l-T 3 ) has been shown to be efficient as an auxiliary method in the diagnosis of thyroid diseases, but should not be performed on elderly patients or on those with heart disease or a tendency to tachycardia. Since these subjects seem able to support a short period of dextro-thyronine (d-T 4 ) feeding, we compared the effect of d-T 4 and l-T 3 on the 24 hours thyroid uptake in euthyroid and hyperthyroid subjects. After basal radio-iodine uptake determination, 99 patients without hyperthyroidism and 27 with Graves' disease were randomly divided in 2 groups; one received 100μg of l-T 3 per day and the other 4 mg of d-T 4 per day, both groups being treated for a period of 10 days. At the end of this suppression period the 24 hours radio-iodine uptake was measured again and the percentual suppression index (S.I.) calculated. Since the comparison of the two groups showed no difference between the suppressive effect of l-T 3 and d-T 4 in euthyroid subjects, while dextro-thyronine, as levo-triiodothyronine, did not suppress the 24 hours uptake of hyperthyroid patients, l-T 3 or d-T 4 can be used interchangeably to test thyroid suppressibility. In the euthyroid subjects the normal range for the post-suppression uptake was 0-17.1% and for the suppression index 54,7.100% [pt

  10. The Hilbert-Huang Transform-Based Denoising Method for the TEM Response of a PRBS Source Signal

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hai, Li; Guo-qiang, Xue; Pan, Zhao; Hua-sen, Zhong; Khan, Muhammad Younis

    2016-08-01

    The denoising process is critical in processing transient electromagnetic (TEM) sounding data. For the full waveform pseudo-random binary sequences (PRBS) response, an inadequate noise estimation may result in an erroneous interpretation. We consider the Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) and its application to suppress the noise in the PRBS response. The focus is on the thresholding scheme to suppress the noise and the analysis of the signal based on its Hilbert time-frequency representation. The method first decomposes the signal into the intrinsic mode function, and then, inspired by the thresholding scheme in wavelet analysis; an adaptive and interval thresholding is conducted to set to zero all the components in intrinsic mode function which are lower than a threshold related to the noise level. The algorithm is based on the characteristic of the PRBS response. The HHT-based denoising scheme is tested on the synthetic and field data with the different noise levels. The result shows that the proposed method has a good capability in denoising and detail preservation.

  11. An Experimental Test of a Biodynamic Method of Weed Suppression: The Biodynamic Seed Peppers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bruce Kenneth Kirchoff

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available An experimental test of a biodynamic agriculture method of weed suppression was carried out in growth chambers to establish the feasibility of the method as a preliminary to field trials. Four generations of Brassica rapa plants were used in a randomized block design. Treated flats received ashed seeds prepared according to biodynamic indications. Seed weight and counts were measured at the end of each generation, and germination of the control and experimental seed was investigated at the end of generation four. The biodynamic seed peppers, created and applied as described here, had no effect on seed production or viability, and did not effectively inhibit reproduction of the targeted species over the course of four consecutive treatments.

  12. Numerical twin image suppression by nonlinear segmentation mask in digital holography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, ChoongSang; Choi, ByeongHo; Kang, HoonJong; Lee, SangKeun

    2012-09-24

    The in-line holography has obvious advantages especially in wider spatial bandwidth over the off-axis holography. However, a direct current(DC)-noise and an unwanted twin image should be separated or eliminated in the in-line holography for a high quality reconstruction. An approach for suppressing the twin image is proposed by separating the real and twin image regions in the digital holography. Specifically, the initial region of real and twin images is obtained by a blind separation matrix, and the segmentation mask to suppress the twin image is calculated by nonlinear quantization from the segmented image. For the performance evaluation, the proposed method is compared with the existing approaches including the overlapping block variance and manual-based schemes. Experimental results showed that the proposed method has a better performance at the overlapped region of the real and twin images. Additionally, the proposed method causes less loss of real image than the overlapping block variance-based scheme. Therefore, we believe that the proposed scheme can be a useful tool for high quality reconstruction in the in-line holography.

  13. Sequential multi-nuclide emission rate estimation method based on gamma dose rate measurement for nuclear emergency management

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, Xiaole; Raskob, Wolfgang; Landman, Claudia; Trybushnyi, Dmytro; Li, Yu

    2017-01-01

    Highlights: • Sequentially reconstruct multi-nuclide emission using gamma dose rate measurements. • Incorporate a priori ratio of nuclides into the background error covariance matrix. • Sequentially augment and update the estimation and the background error covariance. • Suppress the generation of negative estimations for the sequential method. • Evaluate the new method with twin experiments based on the JRODOS system. - Abstract: In case of a nuclear accident, the source term is typically not known but extremely important for the assessment of the consequences to the affected population. Therefore the assessment of the potential source term is of uppermost importance for emergency response. A fully sequential method, derived from a regularized weighted least square problem, is proposed to reconstruct the emission and composition of a multiple-nuclide release using gamma dose rate measurement. The a priori nuclide ratios are incorporated into the background error covariance (BEC) matrix, which is dynamically augmented and sequentially updated. The negative estimations in the mathematical algorithm are suppressed by utilizing artificial zero-observations (with large uncertainties) to simultaneously update the state vector and BEC. The method is evaluated by twin experiments based on the JRodos system. The results indicate that the new method successfully reconstructs the emission and its uncertainties. Accurate a priori ratio accelerates the analysis process, which obtains satisfactory results with only limited number of measurements, otherwise it needs more measurements to generate reasonable estimations. The suppression of negative estimation effectively improves the performance, especially for the situation with poor a priori information, where it is more prone to the generation of negative values.

  14. Sequential multi-nuclide emission rate estimation method based on gamma dose rate measurement for nuclear emergency management

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Zhang, Xiaole, E-mail: zhangxiaole10@outlook.com [Institute for Nuclear and Energy Technologies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, D-76021 (Germany); Institute of Public Safety Research, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084 (China); Raskob, Wolfgang; Landman, Claudia; Trybushnyi, Dmytro; Li, Yu [Institute for Nuclear and Energy Technologies, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, D-76021 (Germany)

    2017-03-05

    Highlights: • Sequentially reconstruct multi-nuclide emission using gamma dose rate measurements. • Incorporate a priori ratio of nuclides into the background error covariance matrix. • Sequentially augment and update the estimation and the background error covariance. • Suppress the generation of negative estimations for the sequential method. • Evaluate the new method with twin experiments based on the JRODOS system. - Abstract: In case of a nuclear accident, the source term is typically not known but extremely important for the assessment of the consequences to the affected population. Therefore the assessment of the potential source term is of uppermost importance for emergency response. A fully sequential method, derived from a regularized weighted least square problem, is proposed to reconstruct the emission and composition of a multiple-nuclide release using gamma dose rate measurement. The a priori nuclide ratios are incorporated into the background error covariance (BEC) matrix, which is dynamically augmented and sequentially updated. The negative estimations in the mathematical algorithm are suppressed by utilizing artificial zero-observations (with large uncertainties) to simultaneously update the state vector and BEC. The method is evaluated by twin experiments based on the JRodos system. The results indicate that the new method successfully reconstructs the emission and its uncertainties. Accurate a priori ratio accelerates the analysis process, which obtains satisfactory results with only limited number of measurements, otherwise it needs more measurements to generate reasonable estimations. The suppression of negative estimation effectively improves the performance, especially for the situation with poor a priori information, where it is more prone to the generation of negative values.

  15. Chaotic Dynamics in Smart Grid and Suppression Scheme via Generalized Fuzzy Hyperbolic Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qiuye Sun

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a method to control chaotic behavior of a typical Smart Grid based on generalized fuzzy hyperbolic model (GFHM. As more and more distributed generations (DG are incorporated into the Smart Grid, the chaotic behavior occurs increasingly. To verify the behavior, a dynamic model which describes a power system with DG is presented firstly. Then, the simulation result shows that the power system can lead to chaos under certain initial conditions. Based on the universal approximation of GFHM, we confirm that the chaotic behavior could be suppressed by a new controller, which is designed by means of solving a linear matrix inequality (LMI. This approach could make a good application to suppress the chaos in Smart Grid. Finally, a numerical example is given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed chaotic suppression strategy.

  16. Fat suppression strategies in MR imaging of breast cancer at 3.0 T. Comparison of the two-point dixon technique and the frequency selective inversion method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kaneko Mikami, Wakako; Kazama, Toshiki; Sato, Hirotaka

    2013-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to compare two fat suppression methods in contrast-enhanced MR imaging of breast cancer at 3.0 T: the two-point Dixon method and the frequency selective inversion method. Forty female patients with breast cancer underwent contrast-enhanced three-dimensional T1-weighted MR imaging at 3.0 T. Both the two-point Dixon method and the frequency selective inversion method were applied. Quantitative analyses of the residual fat signal-to-noise ratio and the contrast noise ratio (CNR) of lesion-to-breast parenchyma, lesion-to-fat, and parenchyma-to-fat were performed. Qualitative analyses of the uniformity of fat suppression, image contrast, and the visibility of breast lesions and axillary metastatic adenopathy were performed. The signal-to-noise ratio was significantly lower in the two-point Dixon method (P<0.001). All CNR values were significantly higher in the two-point Dixon method (P<0.001 and P=0.001, respectively). According to qualitative analysis, both the uniformity of fat suppression and image contrast with the two-point Dixon method were significantly higher (P<0.001 and P=0.002, respectively). Visibility of breast lesions and metastatic adenopathy was significantly better in the two-point Dixon method (P<0.001 and P=0.03, respectively). The two-point Dixon method suppressed the fat signal more potently and improved contrast and visibility of the breast lesions and axillary adenopathy. (author)

  17. A magnetorheological damper-based prosthetic knee (MRPK) and sliding mode tracking control method for an MRPK-based lower limb prosthesis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fu, Qiang; Wang, Dai-Hua; Xu, Lei; Yuan, Gang

    2017-04-01

    Based on a two-bar linkage and a magnetorheological damper (MRD) with a double-ended structure and shearing operation mode of the magnetorheological fluid, an MRD-based prosthetic knee (MRPK) is realized. Utilizing the developed MRPK, an MRD-based lower limb prosthesis (MRLLP) is developed, modeled, and simulated in this paper, to analyse the effects of hysteresis of the integrated MRD on the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP. Based on this, a sliding mode tracking control (SMTC) method for controlling the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP is proposed to suppress hysteresis, along with a robustness analysis. Utilizing the SMTC method, co-simulations on controlling the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP are carried out in ADAMS and Simulink. The simulation results show that the root mean square error (RMSE) of the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP produced by the SMTC method is 80% less than that from the computed torque plus PD (CT+PD) control method. Therefore, the SMTC method is effective in suppressing hysteresis of the MRD. Furthermore, when the MRLLP is disturbed, the RMSE of the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP produced by the SMTC method is 67% less than that from the CT+PD control method. Therefore, the SMTC method has strong robustness to random disturbance. A rapid control prototype of the MRLLP system and a corresponding experimental test system are established. On the established experimental test system, experiments are carried out on control of the swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP via the SMTC method. The results are compared with those from the ON/OFF and the CT+PD control methods. The experimental results show that the MRPK has controllable joint torque, and can be used to imitate the natural swing of a human knee joint. Additionally, the RMSE of the controlled swing angle of the shank of the MRLLP produced by the SMTC method is 34% less than that produced by the CT+PD control method and is 37% less than that from the ON

  18. The Role of Thought Suppression, Meta-Cognitive Factors and Negative Emotions in Prediction of Substance Dependency Disorder

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Omid Saed

    2011-08-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: This study investigated the role of thought suppression, meta- cognitive factors, and negative emotions in predicting of substance dependency disorder. Method: Subjects were 70 patients with substance dependence disorder and 70 normal individuals (total 140. Substance dependants were selected of outpatient treatment centers and the normal sample was selected of the general population too. Sampling methods in both samples were convenience sampling. All people were assessed by MCQ-30, White Bear Suppression Inventory, and Beck’s Anxiety and Depression Questionnaires. For data analysis, discriminant analysis were used. Results: Negative meta-cognitive beliefs about worry, depression, and thought suppression were the most significant predictors of substance dependence disorder. Conclusion: Through meta-cognitive beliefs, thought suppression and negative emotion (especially depression, substance dependency disorder can be predicted. Based on this model can be used to take a substance dependency disorder prevention approach and psychotherapy approach (based on cognitive and meta-cognitive therapies. In addition, the findings of this research can be applied in clinical and counseling environments to help substance dependant clients.

  19. Proton density-weighted MR imaging of the knee: fat suppression versus without fat suppression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, So-Yeon; Kim, Sun Ki [Catholic University of Korea, Department of Radiology, Seoul St. Mary' s Hospital, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Jee, Won-Hee [Catholic University of Korea, Department of Radiology, Seoul St. Mary' s Hospital, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Catholic University of Korea, Diagnostic Radiology, Seoul St. Mary' s Hospital, School of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Jung-Man [Catholic University of Korea, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Seoul St. Mary' s Hospital, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

    2011-02-15

    To prospectively evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of proton density-weighted imaging with and without fat suppression for detecting meniscal tears. The study involved 48 patients who underwent arthroscopy less than 3 months after proton density-weighted imaging with and without fat suppression. Sagittal images were independently reviewed by two radiologists for the presence of meniscal tears. Medial and lateral menisci were separately analyzed in terms of anterior horn, body, and posterior horn. Interobserver agreement was assessed using {kappa} coefficients. The McNemar test was used to determine any differences between the two methods in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Arthroscopy findings were used as the diagnostic reference standard. Arthroscopy revealed 71 tears involving 85 meniscal segments: 34 medial meniscal segments and 51 lateral meniscal segments. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of each radiologist were 95% (81/85), 92% (186/203), and 93% (267/288), and 93% (79/85), 93% (189/203), and 93% (268/288) when using fat-suppressed proton density-weighted imaging, and 91% (77/85), 93% (189/203), and 92% (266/288), and 91% (77/85), 93% (188/203), and 92% (265/288) when using proton density-weighted imaging without fat suppression, respectively. Interobserver agreement for meniscal tears was very high with proton-weighted imaging with ({kappa} = 0.87) or without ({kappa} = 0.86) fat suppression. There were no significant differences for detection of medial meniscal tears when using proton density-weighted imaging with or without fat suppression for both readers (p > 0.05). Fat-suppressed proton density-weighted imaging can replace proton density-weighted imaging without fat suppression for the detection of meniscal tears. (orig.)

  20. Proton density-weighted MR imaging of the knee: fat suppression versus without fat suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, So-Yeon; Kim, Sun Ki; Jee, Won-Hee; Kim, Jung-Man

    2011-01-01

    To prospectively evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of proton density-weighted imaging with and without fat suppression for detecting meniscal tears. The study involved 48 patients who underwent arthroscopy less than 3 months after proton density-weighted imaging with and without fat suppression. Sagittal images were independently reviewed by two radiologists for the presence of meniscal tears. Medial and lateral menisci were separately analyzed in terms of anterior horn, body, and posterior horn. Interobserver agreement was assessed using κ coefficients. The McNemar test was used to determine any differences between the two methods in terms of sensitivity and specificity. Arthroscopy findings were used as the diagnostic reference standard. Arthroscopy revealed 71 tears involving 85 meniscal segments: 34 medial meniscal segments and 51 lateral meniscal segments. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of each radiologist were 95% (81/85), 92% (186/203), and 93% (267/288), and 93% (79/85), 93% (189/203), and 93% (268/288) when using fat-suppressed proton density-weighted imaging, and 91% (77/85), 93% (189/203), and 92% (266/288), and 91% (77/85), 93% (188/203), and 92% (265/288) when using proton density-weighted imaging without fat suppression, respectively. Interobserver agreement for meniscal tears was very high with proton-weighted imaging with (κ = 0.87) or without (κ = 0.86) fat suppression. There were no significant differences for detection of medial meniscal tears when using proton density-weighted imaging with or without fat suppression for both readers (p > 0.05). Fat-suppressed proton density-weighted imaging can replace proton density-weighted imaging without fat suppression for the detection of meniscal tears. (orig.)

  1. Noise suppression in surface microseismic data by τ-p transform

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forghani-Arani, Farnoush; Batzle, Mike; Behura, Jyoti; Willis, Mark; Haines, Seth; Davidson, Michael

    2013-01-01

    Surface passive seismic methods are receiving increased attention for monitoring changes in reservoirs during the production of unconventional oil and gas. However, in passive seismic data the strong cultural and ambient noise (mainly surface-waves) decreases the effectiveness of these techniques. Hence, suppression of surface-waves is a critical step in surface microseismic monitoring. We apply a noise suppression technique, based on the τ — p transform, to a surface passive seismic dataset recorded over a Barnett Shale reservoir undergoing a hydraulic fracturing process. This technique not only improves the signal-to-noise ratios of added synthetic microseismic events, but it also preserves the event waveforms.

  2. Suppression of work fluctuations by optimal control: An approach based on Jarzynski's equality

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiao, Gaoyang; Gong, Jiangbin

    2014-11-01

    Understanding and manipulating work fluctuations in microscale and nanoscale systems are of both fundamental and practical interest. For example, aspects of work fluctuations will be an important factor in designing nanoscale heat engines. In this work, an optimal control approach directly exploiting Jarzynski's equality is proposed to effectively suppress the fluctuations in the work statistics, for systems (initially at thermal equilibrium) subject to a work protocol but isolated from a bath during the protocol. The control strategy is to minimize the deviations of individual values of e-β W from their ensemble average given by e-β Δ F, where W is the work, β is the inverse temperature, and Δ F is the free energy difference between two equilibrium states. It is further shown that even when the system Hamiltonian is not fully known, it is still possible to suppress work fluctuations through a feedback loop, by refining the control target function on the fly through Jarzynski's equality itself. Numerical experiments are based on linear and nonlinear parametric oscillators. Optimal control results for linear parametric oscillators are also benchmarked with early results based on shortcuts to adiabaticity.

  3. A novel reutilization method for waste printed circuit boards as flame retardant and smoke suppressant for poly (vinyl chloride)

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Xiu, Fu-Rong, E-mail: xiu_chem@hotmail.com [College of Ecological Environment and Urban Construction, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou 350108 (China); Weng, Huiwei; Qi, Yingying; Yu, Gending; Zhang, Zhigang [College of Ecological Environment and Urban Construction, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou 350108 (China); Zhang, Fu-Shen [Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085 (China)

    2016-09-05

    Highlights: • We report a novel electronic waste-based flame retardant for PVC. • The SCWO-treated PCBs significantly improves the flame retardancy of PVC. • The flame retardant mechanism of SCWO-treated PCBs was studied. • Appropriate amount flame retardant does not degrade the mechanical property of PVC. - Abstract: In this study, a novel reutilization method for waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) as flame retardant and smoke suppressant for poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) was successfully testified. A supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) process was applied to treat waste PCBs before they could be used as flame retardants of PVC. The results indicated that SCWO conditions had a significant effect on the flame retarding and smoke suppressing properties of waste PCBs for PVC. Cu{sub 2}O, CuO, and SnO{sub 2} were the main active ingredients in waste PCBs-derived flame retardants. A conversion of Cu elements (Cu{sup 0} → Cu{sup +} → Cu{sup 2+}) during SCWO process with the increase of reaction temperature was found to be the key influence factor for the flame retarding properties of SCWO-treated PCBs. The experiment results also showed that there was a synergistic effect of flame retardancy between Cu{sup +} and Cu{sup 2+}. After the optimized SCWO treatment, SCWO-treated PCBs significantly improved the flame retardancy and smoke suppression of PVC. Limiting oxygen index (LOI) and char yield (CY) increased with increasing SCWO-treated PCBs content in PVC, while smoke density rating (SDR) and maximum smoke density (MSD) decreased markedly. The mechanical properties of PVC samples were influenced in different degree by adding different content SCWO-treated PCBs.

  4. A novel reutilization method for waste printed circuit boards as flame retardant and smoke suppressant for poly (vinyl chloride)

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xiu, Fu-Rong; Weng, Huiwei; Qi, Yingying; Yu, Gending; Zhang, Zhigang; Zhang, Fu-Shen

    2016-01-01

    Highlights: • We report a novel electronic waste-based flame retardant for PVC. • The SCWO-treated PCBs significantly improves the flame retardancy of PVC. • The flame retardant mechanism of SCWO-treated PCBs was studied. • Appropriate amount flame retardant does not degrade the mechanical property of PVC. - Abstract: In this study, a novel reutilization method for waste printed circuit boards (PCBs) as flame retardant and smoke suppressant for poly (vinyl chloride) (PVC) was successfully testified. A supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) process was applied to treat waste PCBs before they could be used as flame retardants of PVC. The results indicated that SCWO conditions had a significant effect on the flame retarding and smoke suppressing properties of waste PCBs for PVC. Cu_2O, CuO, and SnO_2 were the main active ingredients in waste PCBs-derived flame retardants. A conversion of Cu elements (Cu"0 → Cu"+ → Cu"2"+) during SCWO process with the increase of reaction temperature was found to be the key influence factor for the flame retarding properties of SCWO-treated PCBs. The experiment results also showed that there was a synergistic effect of flame retardancy between Cu"+ and Cu"2"+. After the optimized SCWO treatment, SCWO-treated PCBs significantly improved the flame retardancy and smoke suppression of PVC. Limiting oxygen index (LOI) and char yield (CY) increased with increasing SCWO-treated PCBs content in PVC, while smoke density rating (SDR) and maximum smoke density (MSD) decreased markedly. The mechanical properties of PVC samples were influenced in different degree by adding different content SCWO-treated PCBs.

  5. Improving Multi Access Interference Suppression in Optical CDMA by using all-Optical Signal Processing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    T. B. Osadola

    2013-06-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the study of a novel all-optical method for processing optical CDMA signals towards improving suppression of multi access interference. The main focus is on incoherent OCDMA systems using multiwavelength 2D-WH/TS codes generated using FBG based encoders and decoders. The MAI suppression capabilities based on its ability to eliminate selective wavelength pulse processing have been shown. A novel transmitter architecture that achieves up to 3dB power saving was also presented. As a result of hardware savings, processing cost will be significantly reduced and power budget improvement resulted in improved performance.

  6. A study on suppressing transmittance fluctuations for air-gapped Glan-type polarizing prisms

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Chuanfa; Li, Dailin; Zhu, Huafeng; Li, Chuanzhi; Jiao, Zhiyong; Wang, Ning; Xu, Zhaopeng; Wang, Xiumin; Song, Lianke

    2018-05-01

    Light intensity transmittance is a key parameter for the design of polarizing prisms, while sometimes its experimental curves based on spatial incident angle presents periodical fluctuations. Here, we propose a novel method for completely suppressing these fluctuations via setting a glued error angle in the air gap of Glan-Taylor prisms. The proposal consists of: an accurate formula of the intensity transmittance for Glan-Taylor prisms, a numerical simulation and a contrast experiment of Glan-Taylor prisms for analyzing the causes of the fluctuations, and a simple method for accurately measuring the glued error angle. The result indicates that when the setting glued error angle is larger than the critical angle for a certain polarizing prism, the fluctuations can be completely suppressed, and a smooth intensity transmittance curve can be obtained. Besides, the critical angle in the air gap for suppressing the fluctuations is decreased with the increase of beam spot size. This method has the advantage of having less demand for the prism position in optical systems.

  7. Chemical repair activity of free radical scavenger edaravone. Reduction reactions with dGMP hydroxyl radical adducts and suppression of base lesions and AP sites on irradiated plasmid DNA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hata, Kuniki; Katsumura, Yosuke; Urushibara, Ayumi; Yamashita, Shinichi; Lin Mingzhang; Muroya, Yusa; Shikazono, Naoya; Yokoya, Akinari; Fu Haiying

    2015-01-01

    Reactions of edaravone (3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one) with deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) hydroxyl radical adducts were investigated by pulse radiolysis technique. Edaravone was found to reduce the dGMP hydroxyl radical adducts through electron transfer reactions. The rate constants of the reactions were greater than 4 × 10 8 dm 3 mol -1 s -1 and similar to those of the reactions of ascorbic acid, which is a representative antioxidant. Yields of single-strand breaks, base lesions, and abasic sites produced in pUC18 plasmid DNA by gamma ray irradiation in the presence of low concentrations (10–1000 μmol dm -3 ) of edaravone were also quantified, and the chemical repair activity of edaravone was estimated by a method recently developed by the authors. By comparing suppression efficiencies to the induction of each DNA lesion, it was found that base lesions and abasic sites were suppressed by the chemical repair activity of edaravone, although the suppression of single-strand breaks was not very effective. This phenomenon was attributed to the chemical repair activity of edaravone toward base lesions and abasic sites. However, the chemical repair activity of edaravone for base lesions was lower than that of ascorbic acid. (author)

  8. METHOD 332.0: DETERMINATION OF PERCHLORATE IN DRINKING WATER BY ION CHROMATOGRAPHY WITH SUPPRESSED CONDUCTIVITY AND ELECTROSPRAY IONIZATION MASS SPECTROMETRY

    Science.gov (United States)

    This method is applicable to the identification and quantitation of perchlorate in raw and finished drinking waters. The approach used is ion chromatography with suppressed conductivity and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (IC-ESI/MS)

  9. Suppression of fixed pattern noise for infrared image system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Changhan; Han, Jungsoo; Bae, Kyung-Hoon

    2008-04-01

    In this paper, we propose suppression of fixed pattern noise (FPN) and compensation of soft defect for improvement of object tracking in cooled staring infrared focal plane array (IRFPA) imaging system. FPN appears an observable image which applies to non-uniformity compensation (NUC) by temperature. Soft defect appears glittering black and white point by characteristics of non-uniformity for IR detector by time. This problem is very important because it happen serious problem for object tracking as well as degradation for image quality. Signal processing architecture in cooled staring IRFPA imaging system consists of three tables: low, normal, high temperature for reference gain and offset values. Proposed method operates two offset tables for each table. This is method which operates six term of temperature on the whole. Proposed method of soft defect compensation consists of three stages: (1) separates sub-image for an image, (2) decides a motion distribution of object between each sub-image, (3) analyzes for statistical characteristic from each stationary fixed pixel. Based on experimental results, the proposed method shows an improved image which suppresses FPN by change of temperature distribution from an observational image in real-time.

  10. Simulation of Thermal Stratification in BWR Suppression Pools with One Dimensional Modeling Method

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Haihua Zhao; Ling Zou; Hongbin Zhang

    2014-01-01

    The suppression pool in a boiling water reactor (BWR) plant not only is the major heat sink within the containment system, but also provides the major emergency cooling water for the reactor core. In several accident scenarios, such as a loss-of-coolant accident and extended station blackout, thermal stratification tends to form in the pool after the initial rapid venting stage. Accurately predicting the pool stratification phenomenon is important because it affects the peak containment pressure; the pool temperature distribution also affects the NPSHa (available net positive suction head) and therefore the performance of the Emergency Core Cooling System and Reactor Core Isolation Cooling System pumps that draw cooling water back to the core. Current safety analysis codes use zero dimensional (0-D) lumped parameter models to calculate the energy and mass balance in the pool; therefore, they have large uncertainties in the prediction of scenarios in which stratification and mixing are important. While three-dimensional (3-D) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods can be used to analyze realistic 3-D configurations, these methods normally require very fine grid resolution to resolve thin substructures such as jets and wall boundaries, resulting in a long simulation time. For mixing in stably stratified large enclosures, the BMIX++ code (Berkeley mechanistic MIXing code in C++) has been developed to implement a highly efficient analysis method for stratification where the ambient fluid volume is represented by one-dimensional (1-D) transient partial differential equations and substructures (such as free or wall jets) are modeled with 1-D integral models. This allows very large reductions in computational effort compared to multi-dimensional CFD modeling. One heat-up experiment performed at the Finland POOLEX facility, which was designed to study phenomena relevant to Nordic design BWR suppression pool including thermal stratification and mixing, is used for

  11. Noise suppressed partial volume correction for cardiac SPECT/CT

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chan, Chung; Liu, Chi, E-mail: chi.liu@yale.edu [Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 (United States); Liu, Hui [Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 and Key Laboratory of Particle and Radiation Imaging (Tsinghua University), Ministry of Education, Beijing 100084 (China); Grobshtein, Yariv [GE Healthcare, Haifa 3910101 (Israel); Stacy, Mitchel R. [Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 (United States); Sinusas, Albert J. [Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 and Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 (United States)

    2016-09-15

    Purpose: Partial volume correction (PVC) methods typically improve quantification at the expense of increased image noise and reduced reproducibility. In this study, the authors developed a novel voxel-based PVC method that incorporates anatomical knowledge to improve quantification while suppressing noise for cardiac SPECT/CT imaging. Methods: In the proposed method, the SPECT images were first reconstructed using anatomical-based maximum a posteriori (AMAP) with Bowsher’s prior to penalize noise while preserving boundaries. A sequential voxel-by-voxel PVC approach (Yang’s method) was then applied on the AMAP reconstruction using a template response. This template response was obtained by forward projecting a template derived from a contrast-enhanced CT image, and then reconstructed using AMAP to model the partial volume effects (PVEs) introduced by both the system resolution and the smoothing applied during reconstruction. To evaluate the proposed noise suppressed PVC (NS-PVC), the authors first simulated two types of cardiac SPECT studies: a {sup 99m}Tc-tetrofosmin myocardial perfusion scan and a {sup 99m}Tc-labeled red blood cell (RBC) scan on a dedicated cardiac multiple pinhole SPECT/CT at both high and low count levels. The authors then applied the proposed method on a canine equilibrium blood pool study following injection with {sup 99m}Tc-RBCs at different count levels by rebinning the list-mode data into shorter acquisitions. The proposed method was compared to MLEM reconstruction without PVC, two conventional PVC methods, including Yang’s method and multitarget correction (MTC) applied on the MLEM reconstruction, and AMAP reconstruction without PVC. Results: The results showed that the Yang’s method improved quantification, however, yielded increased noise and reduced reproducibility in the regions with higher activity. MTC corrected for PVE on high count data with amplified noise, although yielded the worst performance among all the methods

  12. Suppressing my memories by listening to yours: The effect of socially triggered context-based prediction error on memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vlasceanu, Madalina; Drach, Rae; Coman, Alin

    2018-05-03

    The mind is a prediction machine. In most situations, it has expectations as to what might happen. But when predictions are invalidated by experience (i.e., prediction errors), the memories that generate these predictions are suppressed. Here, we explore the effect of prediction error on listeners' memories following social interaction. We find that listening to a speaker recounting experiences similar to one's own triggers prediction errors on the part of the listener that lead to the suppression of her memories. This effect, we show, is sensitive to a perspective-taking manipulation, such that individuals who are instructed to take the perspective of the speaker experience memory suppression, whereas individuals who undergo a low-perspective-taking manipulation fail to show a mnemonic suppression effect. We discuss the relevance of these findings for our understanding of the bidirectional influences between cognition and social contexts, as well as for the real-world situations that involve memory-based predictions.

  13. Evaluation of substrate noise suppression method to mitigate crosstalk among trough-silicon vias

    Science.gov (United States)

    Araga, Yuuki; Kikuchi, Katsuya; Aoyagi, Masahiro

    2018-04-01

    Substrate noise from a single through-silicon via (TSV) and the noise attenuation by a substrate tap and a guard ring are clarified. A CMOS test vehicle is designed, and 6-µm-diameter TSVs are manufactured on a 20-µm-thick silicon substrate by the via-last method. An on-chip waveform-capturing circuitry is embedded in the test vehicle to capture transient waveforms of substrate noise. The embedded waveform-capturing circuitry demonstrates small and local noise propagation. Experimental results show increased substrate noise level induced by TSVs and the effectiveness of the substrate tap and guard ring for mitigating the crosstalk among TSVs. An analytical model to explain substrate noise propagation is developed to validate experimental results. Results obtained using the substrate model with a multilayer mesh shows good consistency with experimental results, indicating that the model can be used for examination of noise suppression methods.

  14. Horizontal vibration suppression method suitable for super-high-speed elevators; Chokosoku elevator ni tekishita kago yokoshindo yokusei hoshiki

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Muto, N. [Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo (Japan); Kagomiya, K.; Kurosawa, T.; Konya, M> ; Ando, T. [Hitachi Building System Co. Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

    1998-03-01

    Horizontal vibrations of elevator cars mainly occur because a car swings as roller guides installed at corners of a car frame move on a winding guide rail at high speeds. Rider comfort in high speed elevators is worsened by these vibrations. Conventional active dampers suppressing horizontal vibrations using ac servo motors make cars heavier so driving power becomes larger, and they are not easily applied to existing elevators. An active damping control method suited to super-high-speed elevators is which can solve these problems. The method suppresses vibrations by generating only enough magnetic force needed to suppress them only when vibrations of the car franc are produced. The vibrations are detected using acceleration detectors and magnets installed on left and right sides of the car frame. A computer simulator was made to analyze phenomena of car vibrations and to verify effects of the proposed magnetic damping controller. It was found that the vibrations generated on the cabin floor were remarkably large when left and right sides at the upper and lower parts of the car frame were swung by sine waves with the same phase. The vibrations bad two resonant modes. Results obtained with the computer simulator and a full scale running simulator showed that the acceleration on the cabin floor, even at the resonant frequencies, could be reduced by the magnetic damping control to around 0.1m/s{sup 2} which would provide a comfortable ride. 10 refs., 14 figs.

  15. Fluorescence suppression using wavelength modulated Raman spectroscopy in fiber-probe-based tissue analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Praveen, Bavishna B; Ashok, Praveen C; Mazilu, Michael; Riches, Andrew; Herrington, Simon; Dholakia, Kishan

    2012-07-01

    In the field of biomedical optics, Raman spectroscopy is a powerful tool for probing the chemical composition of biological samples. In particular, fiber Raman probes play a crucial role for in vivo and ex vivo tissue analysis. However, the high-fluorescence background typically contributed by the auto fluorescence from both a tissue sample and the fiber-probe interferes strongly with the relatively weak Raman signal. Here we demonstrate the implementation of wavelength-modulated Raman spectroscopy (WMRS) to suppress the fluorescence background while analyzing tissues using fiber Raman probes. We have observed a significant signal-to-noise ratio enhancement in the Raman bands of bone tissue, which have a relatively high fluorescence background. Implementation of WMRS in fiber-probe-based bone tissue study yielded usable Raman spectra in a relatively short acquisition time (∼30  s), notably without any special sample preparation stage. Finally, we have validated its capability to suppress fluorescence on other tissue samples such as adipose tissue derived from four different species.

  16. FxLMS Method for Suppressing In-Wheel Switched Reluctance Motor Vertical Force Based on Vehicle Active Suspension System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yan-yang Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The vibration of SRM obtains less attention for in-wheel motor applications according to the present research works. In this paper, the vertical component of SRM unbalanced radial force, which is named as SRM vertical force, is taken into account in suspension performance for in-wheel motor driven electric vehicles (IWM-EV. The analysis results suggest that SRM vertical force has a great effect on suspension performance. The direct cause for this phenomenon is that SRM vertical force is directly exerted on the wheel, which will result in great variation in tyre dynamic load and the tyre will easily jump off the ground. Furthermore, the frequency of SRM vertical force is broad which covers the suspension resonance frequencies. So it is easy to arouse suspension resonance and greatly damage suspension performance. Aiming at the new problem, FxLMS (filtered-X least mean square controller is proposed to improve suspension performance. The FxLMS controller is based on active suspension system which can generate the controllable force to suppress the vibration caused by SRM vertical force. The conclusion shows that it is effective to take advantage of active suspensions to reduce the effect of SRM vertical force on suspension performance.

  17. A Circulating Current Suppression Method for Parallel Connected Voltage-Source-Inverters (VSI) with Common DC and AC Buses

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wei, Baoze; Guerrero, Josep M.; Quintero, Juan Carlos Vasquez

    2016-01-01

    This paper describes a theoretical with experiment study on a control strategy for the parallel operation of threephase voltage source inverters (VSI), to be applied to uninterruptible power systems (UPS). A circulating current suppression strategy for parallel VSIs is proposed in this paper based...... on circulating current control loops used to modify the reference currents by compensating the error currents among parallel inverters. Both of the cross and zero-sequence circulating currents are considered. The proposed method is coordinated together with droop and virtual impedance control. In this paper......, droop control is used to generate the reference voltage of each inverter, and the virtual impedance is used to fix the output impedance of the inverters. In addition, a secondary control is used in order to recover the voltage deviation caused by the virtual impedance. And the auxiliary current control...

  18. A Hybrid Wavelet-Based Method for the Peak Detection of Photoplethysmography Signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suyi Li

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The noninvasive peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2 and the pulse rate can be extracted from photoplethysmography (PPG signals. However, the accuracy of the extraction is directly affected by the quality of the signal obtained and the peak of the signal identified; therefore, a hybrid wavelet-based method is proposed in this study. Firstly, we suppressed the partial motion artifacts and corrected the baseline drift by using a wavelet method based on the principle of wavelet multiresolution. And then, we designed a quadratic spline wavelet modulus maximum algorithm to identify the PPG peaks automatically. To evaluate this hybrid method, a reflective pulse oximeter was used to acquire ten subjects’ PPG signals under sitting, raising hand, and gently walking postures, and the peak recognition results on the raw signal and on the corrected signal were compared, respectively. The results showed that the hybrid method not only corrected the morphologies of the signal well but also optimized the peaks identification quality, subsequently elevating the measurement accuracy of SpO2 and the pulse rate. As a result, our hybrid wavelet-based method profoundly optimized the evaluation of respiratory function and heart rate variability analysis.

  19. A Hybrid Wavelet-Based Method for the Peak Detection of Photoplethysmography Signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Suyi; Jiang, Shanqing; Jiang, Shan; Wu, Jiang; Xiong, Wenji; Diao, Shu

    2017-01-01

    The noninvasive peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO 2 ) and the pulse rate can be extracted from photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. However, the accuracy of the extraction is directly affected by the quality of the signal obtained and the peak of the signal identified; therefore, a hybrid wavelet-based method is proposed in this study. Firstly, we suppressed the partial motion artifacts and corrected the baseline drift by using a wavelet method based on the principle of wavelet multiresolution. And then, we designed a quadratic spline wavelet modulus maximum algorithm to identify the PPG peaks automatically. To evaluate this hybrid method, a reflective pulse oximeter was used to acquire ten subjects' PPG signals under sitting, raising hand, and gently walking postures, and the peak recognition results on the raw signal and on the corrected signal were compared, respectively. The results showed that the hybrid method not only corrected the morphologies of the signal well but also optimized the peaks identification quality, subsequently elevating the measurement accuracy of SpO 2 and the pulse rate. As a result, our hybrid wavelet-based method profoundly optimized the evaluation of respiratory function and heart rate variability analysis.

  20. A Hybrid Wavelet-Based Method for the Peak Detection of Photoplethysmography Signals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Shanqing; Jiang, Shan; Wu, Jiang; Xiong, Wenji

    2017-01-01

    The noninvasive peripheral oxygen saturation (SpO2) and the pulse rate can be extracted from photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. However, the accuracy of the extraction is directly affected by the quality of the signal obtained and the peak of the signal identified; therefore, a hybrid wavelet-based method is proposed in this study. Firstly, we suppressed the partial motion artifacts and corrected the baseline drift by using a wavelet method based on the principle of wavelet multiresolution. And then, we designed a quadratic spline wavelet modulus maximum algorithm to identify the PPG peaks automatically. To evaluate this hybrid method, a reflective pulse oximeter was used to acquire ten subjects' PPG signals under sitting, raising hand, and gently walking postures, and the peak recognition results on the raw signal and on the corrected signal were compared, respectively. The results showed that the hybrid method not only corrected the morphologies of the signal well but also optimized the peaks identification quality, subsequently elevating the measurement accuracy of SpO2 and the pulse rate. As a result, our hybrid wavelet-based method profoundly optimized the evaluation of respiratory function and heart rate variability analysis. PMID:29250135

  1. A PCR-Based Method to Construct Lentiviral Vector Expressing Double Tough Decoy for miRNA Inhibition.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huiling Qiu

    Full Text Available DNA vector-encoded Tough Decoy (TuD miRNA inhibitor is attracting increased attention due to its high efficiency in miRNA suppression. The current methods used to construct TuD vectors are based on synthesizing long oligonucleotides (~90 mer, which have been costly and problematic because of mutations during synthesis. In this study, we report a PCR-based method for the generation of double Tough Decoy (dTuD vector in which only two sets of shorter oligonucleotides (< 60 mer were used. Different approaches were employed to test the inhibitory potency of dTuDs. We demonstrated that dTuD is the most efficient method in miRNA inhibition in vitro and in vivo. Using this method, a mini dTuD library against 88 human miRNAs was constructed and used for a high-throughput screening (HTS of AP-1 pathway-related miRNAs. Seven miRNAs (miR-18b-5p, -101-3p, -148b-3p, -130b-3p, -186-3p, -187-3p and -1324 were identified as candidates involved in AP-1 pathway regulation. This novel method allows for an accurate and cost-effective generation of dTuD miRNA inhibitor, providing a powerful tool for efficient miRNA suppression in vitro and in vivo.

  2. The Technology of Suppressing Harmonics with Complex Neural Network is Applied to Microgrid

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jing; Li, Zhan-Ying; Wang, Yan-ping; Li, Yang; Zong, Ke-yong

    2018-03-01

    According to the traits of harmonics in microgrid, a new CANN controller which combines BP and RBF neural network is proposed to control APF to detect and suppress harmonics. This controller has the function of current prediction. By simulation in Matlab / Simulink, this design can shorten the delay time nearly 0.02s (a power supply current cycle) in comparison with the traditional controller based on ip-iq method. The new controller also has higher compensation accuracy and better dynamic tracking traits, it can greatly suppress the harmonics and improve the power quality.

  3. Psychopathology and Thought Suppression: A Quantitative Review

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magee, Joshua C.; Harden, K. Paige; Teachman, Bethany A.

    2012-01-01

    Recent theories of psychopathology have suggested that thought suppression intensifies the persistence of intrusive thoughts, and proposed that difficulty with thought suppression may differ between groups with and without psychopathology. The current meta-analytic review evaluates empirical evidence for difficulty with thought suppression as a function of the presence and specific type of psychopathology. Based on theoretical proposals from the psychopathology literature, diagnosed and analogue samples were expected to show greater recurrence of intrusive thoughts during thought suppression attempts than non-clinical samples. However, results showed no overall differences in the recurrence of thoughts due to thought suppression between groups with and without psychopathology. There was, nevertheless, variation in the recurrence of thoughts across different forms of psychopathology, including relatively less recurrence during thought suppression for samples with symptoms of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, compared to non-clinical samples. However, these differences were typically small and provided only mixed support for existing theories. Implications for cognitive theories of intrusive thoughts are discussed, including proposed mechanisms underlying thought suppression. PMID:22388007

  4. Principle and Control Design of Active Ground-Fault Arc Suppression Device for Full Compensation of Ground Current

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wang, Wen; Zeng, Xiangjun; Yan, Lingjie

    2017-01-01

    current into the neutral without any large-capacity reactors, and thus avoids the aforementioned overvoltage. It compensates all the active, reactive and harmonic components of the ground current to reliably extinguish the ground-fault arcs. A dual-loop voltage control method is proposed to realize arc...... suppression without capacitive current detection. Its time-based feature also brings the benefit of fast response on ground-fault arc suppression. The principle of full current compensation is analyzed, together with the controller design method of the proposed device. Experiment on a prototype was carried...

  5. Chemical repair activity of free radical scavenger edaravone: reduction reactions with dGMP hydroxyl radical adducts and suppression of base lesions and AP sites on irradiated plasmid DNA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hata, Kuniki; Urushibara, Ayumi; Yamashita, Shinichi; Lin, Mingzhang; Muroya, Yusa; Shikazono, Naoya; Yokoya, Akinari; Fu, Haiying; Katsumura, Yosuke

    2015-01-01

    Reactions of edaravone (3-methyl-1-phenyl-2-pyrazolin-5-one) with deoxyguanosine monophosphate (dGMP) hydroxyl radical adducts were investigated by pulse radiolysis technique. Edaravone was found to reduce the dGMP hydroxyl radical adducts through electron transfer reactions. The rate constants of the reactions were greater than 4 × 10(8) dm(3) mol(-1) s(-1) and similar to those of the reactions of ascorbic acid, which is a representative antioxidant. Yields of single-strand breaks, base lesions, and abasic sites produced in pUC18 plasmid DNA by gamma ray irradiation in the presence of low concentrations (10-1000 μmol dm(-3)) of edaravone were also quantified, and the chemical repair activity of edaravone was estimated by a method recently developed by the authors. By comparing suppression efficiencies to the induction of each DNA lesion, it was found that base lesions and abasic sites were suppressed by the chemical repair activity of edaravone, although the suppression of single-strand breaks was not very effective. This phenomenon was attributed to the chemical repair activity of edaravone toward base lesions and abasic sites. However, the chemical repair activity of edaravone for base lesions was lower than that of ascorbic acid. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Japan Radiation Research Society and Japanese Society for Radiation Oncology.

  6. Analysis of Harmonics Suppression by Active Damping Control on Multi Slim DC-link Drives

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yang, Feng; Máthé, Lászlo; Lu, Kaiyuan

    2016-01-01

    Compared with conventional dc-link drive, slim dc-link drive is expected to achieve lower cost and longer life time. However, harmonics distortion problem may occur in such drive systems. This paper proposes to use an active damping control method to suppress the harmonic distortion...... with the benefit of low cost and also low loss. A new analysis method, based on the frequency domain impedance model, is presented to explore the mechanism of harmonics suppression. Also, a general method is presented to build the impedance model of a PMSM drive system using Field Oriented Control (FOC) method....... Some design issues, including power levels, current control bandwidth and harmonic interaction, are discussed when the drive system is fed by a weak grid. Case studies on a two-drive system composed by two slim dc-link drive units are provided to verify the proposed analysis method....

  7. Nuclear material enrichment identification method based on cross-correlation and high order spectra

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang Fan; Wei Biao; Feng Peng; Mi Deling; Ren Yong

    2013-01-01

    In order to enhance the sensitivity of nuclear material identification system (NMIS) against the change of nuclear material enrichment, the principle of high order statistic feature is introduced and applied to traditional NMIS. We present a new enrichment identification method based on cross-correlation and high order spectrum algorithm. By applying the identification method to NMIS, the 3D graphs with nuclear material character are presented and can be used as new signatures to identify the enrichment of nuclear materials. The simulation result shows that the identification method could suppress the background noises, electronic system noises, and improve the sensitivity against enrichment change to exponential order with no system structure modification. (authors)

  8. Reactor water quality degradation suppressing method upon reactor start up

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maeda, Katsuharu.

    1993-01-01

    Preceding to reactor start-up, vacuum degree in a condenser is increased, and after the vacuum degree has been increased sufficiently, a desalting tower is inserted. Then, water feed to the reactor is started and the reactor is operated so that water is supplied gradually. Thus, dissolved oxygen in the feedwater and condensates is kept low and an entire organic carbon leaching rate from resins in the condensate desalting tower is reduced. Further, since feedwater is gradually supplied after the start-up, the entire organic carbon brought into the reactor is decomposed by heat and radiation and efficiently removed by a reactor coolant cleanup system. As a result, corrosion of stainless steel or the like is suppressed, as well as integrity of fuels can be maintained. Further, degradation of water quality can be suppressed effectively not by additionally putting the condensate desalting towers to in-service in accordance with the increase of the feedwater flow rate accompanying the power up but by previously putting the condensate desalting towers to in-service. (N.H.)

  9. Development of an improved high resolution mass spectrometry based multi-residue method for veterinary drugs in various food matrices.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaufmann, A; Butcher, P; Maden, K; Walker, S; Widmer, M

    2011-08-26

    Multi-residue methods for veterinary drugs or pesticides in food are increasingly often based on ultra performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Previous available time of flight (TOF) technologies, showing resolutions up to 15,000 full width at half maximum (FWHM), were not sufficiently selective for monitoring low residue concentrations in difficult matrices (e.g. hormones in tissue or antibiotics in honey). The approach proposed in this paper is based on a single stage Orbitrap mass spectrometer operated at 50,000 FWHM. Extracts (liver and kidney) which were produced according to a validated multi-residue method (time of flight detection based) could not be analyzed by Orbitrap because of extensive signal suppression. This required the improvement of established extraction and clean-up procedures. The introduced, more extensive deproteinzation steps and dedicated instrumental settings successfully eliminated these detrimental suppression effects. The reported method, covering more than 100 different veterinary dugs, was validated according to the EU Commission Decision 2002/657/EEC. Validated matrices include muscle, kidney, liver, fish and honey. Significantly better performance parameters (e.g. linearity, reproducibility and detection limits) were obtained when comparing the new method with the older, TOF based method. These improvements are attributed to the higher resolution (50,000 versus 12,000 FWHM) and the superior mass stability of the of the Orbitrap over the previously utilized TOF instrument. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  10. Noise suppression for dual-energy CT via penalized weighted least-square optimization with similarity-based regularization

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Harms, Joseph; Wang, Tonghe; Petrongolo, Michael; Zhu, Lei, E-mail: leizhu@gatech.edu [Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Programs, The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (United States); Niu, Tianye [Sir Run Run Shaw Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (China); Institute of Translational Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310016 (China)

    2016-05-15

    Purpose: Dual-energy CT (DECT) expands applications of CT imaging in its capability to decompose CT images into material images. However, decomposition via direct matrix inversion leads to large noise amplification and limits quantitative use of DECT. Their group has previously developed a noise suppression algorithm via penalized weighted least-square optimization with edge-preservation regularization (PWLS-EPR). In this paper, the authors improve method performance using the same framework of penalized weighted least-square optimization but with similarity-based regularization (PWLS-SBR), which substantially enhances the quality of decomposed images by retaining a more uniform noise power spectrum (NPS). Methods: The design of PWLS-SBR is based on the fact that averaging pixels of similar materials gives a low-noise image. For each pixel, the authors calculate the similarity to other pixels in its neighborhood by comparing CT values. Using an empirical Gaussian model, the authors assign high/low similarity value to one neighboring pixel if its CT value is close/far to the CT value of the pixel of interest. These similarity values are organized in matrix form, such that multiplication of the similarity matrix to the image vector reduces image noise. The similarity matrices are calculated on both high- and low-energy CT images and averaged. In PWLS-SBR, the authors include a regularization term to minimize the L-2 norm of the difference between the images without and with noise suppression via similarity matrix multiplication. By using all pixel information of the initial CT images rather than just those lying on or near edges, PWLS-SBR is superior to the previously developed PWLS-EPR, as supported by comparison studies on phantoms and a head-and-neck patient. Results: On the line-pair slice of the Catphan{sup ©}600 phantom, PWLS-SBR outperforms PWLS-EPR and retains spatial resolution of 8 lp/cm, comparable to the original CT images, even at 90% reduction in noise

  11. CONDITIONS FOR CSR MICROBUNCHING GAIN SUPPRESSION

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tsai, Cheng Ying [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Douglas, David R. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Li, Rui [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Tennant, Christopher D. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); di Mitri, Simone [Elettra–Sincrotrone Trieste, 34149 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy

    2016-05-01

    The coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) of a high brightness electron beam traversing a series of dipoles, such as transport arcs, may result in phase space degradation. On one hand, the CSR can perturb electron transverse motion in dispersive regions along the beamline, causing emittance growth. On the other hand, the CSR effect on the longitudinal beam dynamics could result in microbunching gain enhancement. For transport arcs, several schemes have been proposed* to suppress the CSR-induced emittance growth. Similarly, several scenarios have been introduced** to suppress CSR-induced microbunching gain, which however mostly aim for linac-based machines. In this paper we try to provide sufficient conditions for suppression of CSR-induced microbunching gain along a transport arc, analogous to*. Several example lattices are presented, with the relevant microbunching analyses carried out by our semi-analytical Vlasov solver***. The simulation results show that lattices satisfying the proposed conditions indeed have microbunching gain suppressed. We expect this analysis can shed light on lattice design approach that could suppress the CSR-induced microbunching gain.

  12. A novel method for fat suppression in RARE sequences

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Higuchi, Nobuya

    1999-01-01

    Rapid acquisition relaxation-enhanced (RARE) sequences utilize one or several Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) echo trains to sample a number of k-space lines each repetition time TR. The technique can rapidly generate multislice T2-weighted images which, as a rule, are strikingly similar in contrast to conventional T2-weighted spin-echo (SE) images. An exception to this rule is the appearance of very bright signal from fat in T2-weighted RARE images as compared to conventional T2-weighted SE images. To reduce this fat signal, we introduce a time delay, τc, between the 90 degrees x and first 180 degrees y pulse of each echo train such that a phase angle of pi/2 develops between fat and the reference (water) line at echo maxima. The technique leads to single-acquisition fat suppression without the use of frequency-selective saturation pulses and concomitant loss of slices per TR. A Bloch equation analysis is used to identify two major mechanisms contributing to suppression of off-resonance spins such that w τc =pi/2. Namely, the CPMG sequence becomes a CP sequence with no self-correction properties for imperfect 180 degrees pulses leading to enhanced signal decay, and the raw k-space data matrix become segmented into blocks alternately multiplied by +/- i, leading to signal dispersion following Fourier transformation. (K.H.)

  13. The polaroid suppression test in a pediatric population with ophthalmologic disorders

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pott, JWR; Kingma, C; Verhoeff, K; Grootendorst, RJ; de Faber, JTHN

    Purpose: The Polaroid suppression test (PST) is a new method for early detection of amblyogenic factors by screening for suppression. The apparatus can elicit suppression with the use of Polaroid filters. The aim of the present study was to examine a population of children with known ophthalmologic

  14. Quantum-mechanical suppression of bremsstrahlung

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Becker-Szendy, R.; Keller, L.; Niemi, G.; Perl, M.; Rochester, L. [Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Anthony, P. [Stanford Univ., CA (United States)]|[Lawrence Livermore National Lab., CA (United States); Bosted, P. [American Univ., Washington, DC (United States); Cavalli-Sforza, M.; Kelley, L.; Klein, S. [Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)] [and others

    1994-12-01

    The authors have studied quantum-mechanical suppression of bremsstrahlung of low-energy 1-500 MeV photons from high-energy 25 GeV electrons. They have measured the LPM effect, where multiple scattering of the radiating electron destroys coherence required for the emission of low-energy photons, and the dielectric effect, where the emitted photon traveling in the radiator medium interferes with itself. For the experiment, the collaboration developed a novel method of extracting a parasitic low-intensity high-energy electron beam into the fixed target area during normal SLC operation of the accelerator. The results agree quantitatively with Migdal`s calculation of the LPM effect. Surface effects, for which there is no satisfactory theoretical prediction, are visible at low photon energies. For very thin targets, the suppression disappears, as expected. Preliminary results on dielectric suppression of bremsstrahlung are in qualitative agreement with the expectation.

  15. A hybrid stimulation strategy for suppression of spiral waves in cardiac tissue

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Xu Binbin, E-mail: xubinbin@hotmail.fr [LE2I, CNRS UMR 5158, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon (France); Jacquir, Sabir, E-mail: sjacquir@u-bourgogne.fr [LE2I, CNRS UMR 5158, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon (France); Laurent, Gabriel; Bilbault, Jean-Marie [LE2I, CNRS UMR 5158, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon (France); Binczak, Stephane, E-mail: stbinc@u-bourgogne.fr [LE2I, CNRS UMR 5158, Universite de Bourgogne, Dijon (France)

    2011-08-15

    Highlights: > Simulation of a cardiac tissue by a modified 2D FitzHugh-Nagumo model. > Stimulation of monophasic impulsions from a grid of electrodes to the cardiac tissue. > Propose a method by modifying the tissue's sodium channels and electrical stimulation. > The method leading to suppress spiral waves without generating new ones. > Optimal parameters of a successful suppression of spiral waves are investigated. - Abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common cardiac arrhythmia whose mechanisms are thought to be mainly due to the self perpetuation of spiral waves (SW). To date, available treatment strategies (antiarrhythmic drugs, radiofrequency ablation of the substrate, electrical cardioversion) to restore and to maintain a normal sinus rhythm have limitations and are associated with AF recurrences. The aim of this study was to assess a way of suppressing SW by applying multifocal electrical stimulations in a simulated cardiac tissue using a 2D FitzHugh-Nagumo model specially convenient for AF investigations. We identified stimulation parameters for successful termination of SW. However, SW reinduction, following the electrical stimuli, leads us to develop a hybrid strategy based on sodium channel modification for the simulated tissue.

  16. Suppression secondary electrons from target surface under pulsed ion beams bombardment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang Zhen; Peng Yufei; Long Jidong; Lan Chaohui; Dong Pan; Shi Jinshui

    2012-01-01

    The producing mechanism of secondary electrons from target surface under ion beams bombardment is discussed. Several methods to suppress the secondary electrons in special vacuum devices and their advantages and disadvantages are introduced. The ways of using self-bias and curved surface target are proposed and verified in the experiment. The results show that the secondary electrons can be effectively suppressed when the self-bias is larger than 80 V. The secondary electron yield decreases by using curved surface target instead of flat target. The secondary electron yield calculated from the experimental data is about 0.67, which is slightly larger than the value (0.58) from the literature due to the impurities of the ion beam and target surface. The effect of suppressing the electron countercurrent by the self-bias method is analyzed. The result shows that the self-bias method can not only suppress the secondary electrons from target surface under ion beams bombardment, but also suppress the electron countercurrent resulting from the instability of the pulsed power source. (authors)

  17. A variable ordering heuristic for risk monitors based on zero-suppressed binary decision diagram

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang Jin; Wang Fang; Wang Jiaqun; Gu Xiaohui; Yuan Run; Li Yazhou; Hu Liqin; Wu Yican; Yin Yuan; FDS Team

    2010-01-01

    The probabilistic safety assessment model using for determining the instantaneous risk in a risk monitor are much more complex than the operational model using for determining the average risk. Therefore the development of a fast calculation engine is indispensable and challengeable. the scale of zero-suppressed binary decision diagram. In this paper an optimized method of variables ordering, which fully utilized that features of operational model, was proposed.Not only the theoretical demonstration but also the applications were also brought out. (authors)

  18. Phase-specific Surround suppression in Mouse Primary Visual Cortex Correlates with Figure Detection Behavior Based on Phase Discontinuity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Fengling; Jiang, Weiqian; Wang, Tian-Yi; Xie, Taorong; Yao, Haishan

    2018-05-21

    In the primary visual cortex (V1), neuronal responses to stimuli within the receptive field (RF) are modulated by stimuli in the RF surround. A common effect of surround modulation is surround suppression, which is dependent on the feature difference between stimuli within and surround the RF and is suggested to be involved in the perceptual phenomenon of figure-ground segregation. In this study, we examined the relationship between feature-specific surround suppression of V1 neurons and figure detection behavior based on figure-ground feature difference. We trained freely moving mice to perform a figure detection task using figure and ground gratings that differed in spatial phase. The performance of figure detection increased with the figure-ground phase difference, and was modulated by stimulus contrast. Electrophysiological recordings from V1 in head-fixed mice showed that the increase in phase difference between stimuli within and surround the RF caused a reduction in surround suppression, which was associated with an increase in V1 neural discrimination between stimuli with and without RF-surround phase difference. Consistent with the behavioral performance, the sensitivity of V1 neurons to RF-surround phase difference could be influenced by stimulus contrast. Furthermore, inhibiting V1 by optogenetically activating either parvalbumin (PV)- or somatostatin (SOM)-expressing inhibitory neurons both decreased the behavioral performance of figure detection. Thus, the phase-specific surround suppression in V1 represents a neural correlate of figure detection behavior based on figure-ground phase discontinuity. Copyright © 2018 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  19. Efficacy of alginate-based reflux suppressant and magnesium-aluminium antacid gel for treatment of heartburn in pregnancy: a randomized double-blind controlled trial

    OpenAIRE

    Pontip Meteerattanapipat; Vorapong Phupong

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this study was to compare the therapeutic efficacy of alginate-based reflux suppressant and magnesium-aluminium antacid gel for treatment of heartburn in pregnancy. A double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial was conducted. One hundred pregnant women at less than 36 weeks gestation with heartburn at least twice per week were randomized to either alginate-based reflux suppressant or to magnesium-aluminium antacid gel. Details of heartburn were recorded before beginning the treatm...

  20. Impedance Based Analysis of DFIG Stator Current Unbalance and Distortion Suppression Strategies

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Song, Yipeng; Zhou, Dao; Blaabjerg, Frede

    2016-01-01

    The control strategies of Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) system output current unbalance and distortion suppression have been well investigated in detail, with the implementation of two kinds of resonant regulators, i.e., conventional Resonance (R) regulator or Vector Proportional Integral...... reshaping though the introduction of R and VPI regulator. It is pointed out that, when implemented in the DFIG system output current unbalance and distortion suppression, the VPI regulator (equivalent to the combination of virtual positive inductor and virtual positive resistor) has two advantages over R...... regulator (equivalent to the combination of virtual positive resistor and virtual negative inductor), i.e., better high order harmonic distortion suppression. The theoretical analysis and MATLAB simulation results have validated the correctness of this conclusion....

  1. A novel transmitter IQ imbalance and phase noise suppression method utilizing pilots in PDM CO-OFDM system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Haoyuan; Ma, Xiurong; Li, Pengru

    2018-04-01

    In this paper, we develop a novel pilot structure to suppress transmitter in-phase and quadrature (Tx IQ) imbalance, phase noise and channel distortion for polarization division multiplexed (PDM) coherent optical orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (CO-OFDM) systems. Compared with the conventional approach, our method not only significantly improves the system tolerance of IQ imbalance as well as phase noise, but also provides higher transmission speed. Numerical simulations of PDM CO-OFDM system is used to validate the theoretical analysis under the simulation conditions: the amplitude mismatch 3 dB, the phase mismatch 15°, the transmission bit rate 100 Gb/s and 560 km standard signal-mode fiber transmission. Moreover, the proposed method is 63% less complex than the compared method.

  2. Patterns and Predictors of Tic Suppressibility in Youth With Tic Disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conelea, Christine A; Wellen, Brianna; Woods, Douglas W; Greene, Deanna J; Black, Kevin J; Specht, Matthew; Himle, Michael B; Lee, Han-Joo; Capriotti, Matthew

    2018-01-01

    Tic suppression is the primary target of tic disorder treatment, but factors that influence voluntary tic inhibition are not well understood. Several studies using the Tic Suppression Task have demonstrated significant inter-individual variability in tic suppressibility but have individually been underpowered to address correlates of tic suppression. The present study explored patterns and clinical correlates of reward-enhanced tic suppression in youth with tic disorders using a large, pooled dataset. Individual-level data from nine studies using the Tic Suppression Task were pooled, yielding a sample of 99 youth with tic disorders. Analyses examined patterns of tic suppressibility and the relationship between tic suppressibility and demographic and clinical characteristics. A large majority of youth demonstrated a high degree of tic suppression, but heterogeneous patterns of tic suppressibility were also observed. Better tic suppressibility was related to older age and more frequent tics but unrelated to other clinical variables, including presence of psychiatric comorbidity, psychotropic medication status, tic and premonitory urge severity, and self-rated tic suppressibility. The mechanisms underlying the observed heterogeneity in reward-enhanced tic suppressibility warrant further investigation. The Tic Suppression Task is a promising method for testing mechanistic hypotheses related to tic suppression.

  3. Forecasting the quality of water-suppressed 1 H MR spectra based on a single-shot water scan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kyathanahally, Sreenath P; Kreis, Roland

    2017-08-01

    To investigate whether an initial non-water-suppressed acquisition that provides information about the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and linewidth is enough to forecast the maximally achievable final spectral quality and thus inform the operator whether the foreseen number of averages and achieved field homogeneity is adequate. A large range of spectra with varying SNR and linewidth was simulated and fitted with popular fitting programs to determine the dependence of fitting errors on linewidth and SNR. A tool to forecast variance based on a single acquisition was developed and its performance evaluated on simulated and in vivo data obtained at 3 Tesla from various brain regions and acquisition settings. A strong correlation to real uncertainties in estimated metabolite contents was found for the forecast values and the Cramer-Rao lower bounds obtained from the water-suppressed spectra. It appears to be possible to forecast the best-case errors associated with specific metabolites to be found in model fits of water-suppressed spectra based on a single water scan. Thus, nonspecialist operators will be able to judge ahead of time whether the planned acquisition can possibly be of sufficient quality to answer the targeted clinical question or whether it needs more averages or improved shimming. Magn Reson Med 78:441-451, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

  4. Temporal suppression and augmentation of click-evoked otoacoustic emissions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Verhulst, Sarah; Harte, James; Dau, Torsten

    2008-01-01

    This study investigates temporal suppression of click-evoked otoacoustic emissions (CEOAEs), occurring when a suppressor-click is presented close in time to a test-click (e.g. 0-8ms). Various temporal suppression methods for examining temporal changes in cochlear compression were evaluated and me...... under test. Temporal suppression was shown to be comparable for CEOAEs and SSOAEs, indicating similar underlying cochlear nonlinear mechanisms. This study contributes to a better understanding of the temporal properties of cochlear dynamics....

  5. An electromagnetic inerter-based vibration suppression device

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gonzalez-Buelga, A; Clare, L R; Neild, S A; Jiang, J Z; Inman, D J

    2015-01-01

    This paper describes how an inerter-based device for structural vibration suppression can be realized using an electromagnetic transducer such as a linear motor. When the motor shaft moves, a difference of voltage is generated across the transducer coil. The voltage difference is proportional to the relative velocity between its two terminals. The electromagnetic transducer will exert a force proportional to current following the Lorentz principle if the circuit is closed around the transducer coil. If an electronic circuit consisting of a capacitor, an inductance and a resistance with the appropriate configuration is connected, the resulting force reflected back into the mechanical domain is equivalent to that achieved by a mechanical inerter-based device. The proposed configuration is easy to implement and very versatile, provided a high quality conversion system with negligible losses. With the use of electromagnetic devices, a new generation of vibration absorbers can be realized, for example in the electrical domain it would be relatively uncomplicated to synthesize multi-frequency or real time tunable vibration absorbers by adding electrical components in parallel. In addition by using resistance emulators in the electrical circuits, part of the absorbed vibration energy can be converted into usable power. Here an electromagnetic tuned inerter damper (E-TID) is tested experimentally using real time dynamic substructuring. A voltage compensation unit was developed in order to compensate for coil losses. This voltage compensation unit requires power, which is acquired through harvesting from the vibration energy using a resistance emulator. A power balance analysis was developed in order to ensure the device can be self sufficient. Promising experimental results, using this approach, have been obtained and are presented in this paper. The ultimate goal of this research is the development of autonomous electromagnetic vibration absorbers, able to harvest energy

  6. Regional Extent of Peripheral Suppression in Amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Babu, Raiju J; Clavagnier, Simon; Bobier, William R; Thompson, Benjamin; Hess, Robert F

    2017-04-01

    Previously, we have mapped amblyopic eye suppression within the central 20° of the visual field and observed a gradient of suppression that is strongest in central vision and weakens with increasing eccentricity. In this study, using a large dichoptic display, we extend our novel suppression mapping approach further into the periphery (from 20°-60°) to assess whether suppression continues to decline with eccentricity or plateaus. Sixteen participants with amblyopia (10 with strabismus, 6 with anisometropia without strabismus; mean age: 37.9 ± 11 years) and six normal observers (mean age: 28.3 ± 5 years) took part. The visual stimulus (60° diameter), viewed from 57 cm, was composed of four concentric annuli (5° radius) with alternate contrast polarities starting from an eccentricity of 10°. Each annulus was divided into eight sectors subtending 45° of visual angle. Participants adjusted the contrast of a single sector presented to the fellow eye to match the perceived contrast of the remaining stimulus elements that were presented to the amblyopic eye. A matching contrast that was lower in the fellow eye than the amblyopic eye indicated suppression. Patients with strabismus exhibited significantly stronger interocular suppression than controls across all eccentricities (P = 0.01). Patients with anisometropia did not differ from controls (P = 0.58). Suppression varied significantly with eccentricity (P = 0.005) but this effect did not differ between patient groups (P = 0.217). In amblyopia, suppression is present beyond the central 10° in patients with strabismus. Suppression becomes weaker at greater eccentricities and this may enable peripheral fusion that could be used by binocular treatment methods.

  7. Novel Burst Suppression Segmentation in the Joint Time-Frequency Domain for EEG in Treatment of Status Epilepticus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jaeyun Lee

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available We developed a method to distinguish bursts and suppressions for EEG burst suppression from the treatments of status epilepticus, employing the joint time-frequency domain. We obtained the feature used in the proposed method from the joint use of the time and frequency domains, and we estimated the decision as to whether the measured EEG was a burst segment or suppression segment by the maximum likelihood estimation. We evaluated the performance of the proposed method in terms of its accordance with the visual scores and estimation of the burst suppression ratio. The accuracy was higher than the sole use of the time or frequency domains, as well as conventional methods conducted in the time domain. In addition, probabilistic modeling provided a more simplified optimization than conventional methods. Burst suppression quantification necessitated precise burst suppression segmentation with an easy optimization; therefore, the excellent discrimination and the easy optimization of burst suppression by the proposed method appear to be beneficial.

  8. Artifact suppression and analysis of brain activities with electroencephalography signals.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rashed-Al-Mahfuz, Md; Islam, Md Rabiul; Hirose, Keikichi; Molla, Md Khademul Islam

    2013-06-05

    Brain-computer interface is a communication system that connects the brain with computer (or other devices) but is not dependent on the normal output of the brain (i.e., peripheral nerve and muscle). Electro-oculogram is a dominant artifact which has a significant negative influence on further analysis of real electroencephalography data. This paper presented a data adaptive technique for artifact suppression and brain wave extraction from electroencephalography signals to detect regional brain activities. Empirical mode decomposition based adaptive thresholding approach was employed here to suppress the electro-oculogram artifact. Fractional Gaussian noise was used to determine the threshold level derived from the analysis data without any training. The purified electroencephalography signal was composed of the brain waves also called rhythmic components which represent the brain activities. The rhythmic components were extracted from each electroencephalography channel using adaptive wiener filter with the original scale. The regional brain activities were mapped on the basis of the spatial distribution of rhythmic components, and the results showed that different regions of the brain are activated in response to different stimuli. This research analyzed the activities of a single rhythmic component, alpha with respect to different motor imaginations. The experimental results showed that the proposed method is very efficient in artifact suppression and identifying individual motor imagery based on the activities of alpha component.

  9. Research on Strategies and Methods Suppressing Permanent Magnet Demagnetization in Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors Based on a Multi-Physical Field and Rotor Multi-Topology Structure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin Li

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM with sleeves on the rotor outer surface is investigated. The purpose of sleeves is to fix the permanent magnets and protect them from being destroyed by the large centrifugal force. However, the sleeve material characteristics have a great influence on the PMSM, and therewith, most of the rotor eddy-current losses are generated in the rotor sleeve, which could increase the device temperature and even cause thermal demagnetization of the magnets. Thus, a sleeve scheme design with low eddy-current losses is necessary, and a method suppressing the local temperature peak of permanent magnets is presented. The 3-D electromagnetic finite element model of a 12.5 kW, 2000 r/min PMSM with a segmented sleeve is established, and the electromagnetic field is calculated by using the finite element method. The results show the effectiveness of the presented method in reducing the eddy current losses in the rotor. Using the thermal method, it can be found that the maximum temperature position and zone of permanent magnet will change. Thus, some strategies are comparatively analyzed in order to obtain the change rule of the position and zone. The obtained conclusions may provide a useful reference for the design and research of PMSMs.

  10. A Long-Term Performance Enhancement Method for FOG-Based Measurement While Drilling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Chunxi; Lin, Tie

    2016-07-28

    In the oil industry, the measurement-while-drilling (MWD) systems are usually used to provide the real-time position and orientation of the bottom hole assembly (BHA) during drilling. However, the present MWD systems based on magnetic surveying technology can barely ensure good performance because of magnetic interference phenomena. In this paper, a MWD surveying system based on a fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) was developed to replace the magnetic surveying system. To accommodate the size of the downhole drilling conditions, a new design method is adopted. In order to realize long-term and high position precision and orientation surveying, an integrated surveying algorithm is proposed based on inertial navigation system (INS) and drilling features. In addition, the FOG-based MWD error model is built and the drilling features are analyzed. The state-space system model and the observation updates model of the Kalman filter are built. To validate the availability and utility of the algorithm, the semi-physical simulation is conducted under laboratory conditions. The results comparison with the traditional algorithms show that the errors were suppressed and the measurement precision of the proposed algorithm is better than the traditional ones. In addition, the proposed method uses a lot less time than the zero velocity update (ZUPT) method.

  11. TH-A-18C-07: Noise Suppression in Material Decomposition for Dual-Energy CT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dong, X; Petrongolo, M; Wang, T; Zhu, L

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: A general problem of dual-energy CT (DECT) is that the decomposition is sensitive to noise in the two sets of dual-energy projection data, resulting in severely degraded qualities of decomposed images. We have previously proposed an iterative denoising method for DECT. Using a linear decomposition function, the method does not gain the full benefits of DECT on beam-hardening correction. In this work, we expand the framework of our iterative method to include non-linear decomposition models for noise suppression in DECT. Methods: We first obtain decomposed projections, which are free of beam-hardening artifacts, using a lookup table pre-measured on a calibration phantom. First-pass material images with high noise are reconstructed from the decomposed projections using standard filter-backprojection reconstruction. Noise on the decomposed images is then suppressed by an iterative method, which is formulated in the form of least-square estimation with smoothness regularization. Based on the design principles of a best linear unbiased estimator, we include the inverse of the estimated variance-covariance matrix of the decomposed images as the penalty weight in the least-square term. Analytical formulae are derived to compute the variance-covariance matrix from the measured decomposition lookup table. Results: We have evaluated the proposed method via phantom studies. Using non-linear decomposition, our method effectively suppresses the streaking artifacts of beam-hardening and obtains more uniform images than our previous approach based on a linear model. The proposed method reduces the average noise standard deviation of two basis materials by one order of magnitude without sacrificing the spatial resolution. Conclusion: We propose a general framework of iterative denoising for material decomposition of DECT. Preliminary phantom studies have shown the proposed method improves the image uniformity and reduces noise level without resolution loss. In the future

  12. Investigation and development of the suppression methods of the {sup 42}K background in LArGe

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lubashevskiy, Alexey [Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik, Saupfercheckweg 1, D-69117 Heidelberg (Germany); Collaboration: GERDA-Collaboration

    2013-07-01

    GERDA is an ultra-low background experiment aimed for the neutrinoless double beta decay search. The search is performed using HPGe detectors operated in liquid argon (LAr). One of the most dangerous backgrounds in GERDA is the background from {sup 42}K which is a daughter isotope of cosmogenically produced {sup 42}Ar. {sup 42}K ions are collected towards to the detector by the electric field of the detector. Estimation of the background contribution and development of the suppression methods were performed in the low background test facility LArGe. For this purpose encapsulated HPGe and bare BEGe detectors were operated in 1m{sup 3} of LAr in the LArGe setup. It is equipped with scintillation veto, so particles which deposit part of their energy in LAr can be detected by 9 PMTs. In order to better understand background and to increase statistics the LAr of LArGe was spiked with specially produced {sup 42}Ar. All these investigations allowed us to estimate background contribution from {sup 42}K and demonstrate the possibility to suppress it in future measurements in GERDA Phase II.

  13. Suppression of Spiral Waves by Voltage Clamp Techniques in a Conductance-Based Cardiac Tissue Model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lian-Chun, Yu; Guo-Yong, Zhang; Yong, Chen; Jun, Ma

    2008-01-01

    A new control method is proposed to control the spatio-temporal dynamics in excitable media, which is described by the Morris–Lecar cells model. It is confirmed that successful suppression of spiral waves can be obtained by spatially clamping the membrane voltage of the excitable cells. The low voltage clamping induces breakup of spiral waves and the fragments are soon absorbed by low voltage obstacles, whereas the high voltage clamping generates travel waves that annihilate spiral waves through collision with them. However, each method has its shortcomings. Furthermore, a two-step method that combines both low and high voltage clamp techniques is then presented as a possible way of out this predicament. (cross-disciplinary physics and related areas of science and technology)

  14. Intermittent Aeration Suppresses Nitrite-Oxidizing Bacteria in Membrane-Aerated Biofilms: A Model-Based Explanation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ma, Yunjie; Domingo Felez, Carlos; Plósz, Benedek G.

    2017-01-01

    . On the basis of dissolved oxygen (DO), ammonium, nitrite, and nitrate profiles within the biofilm and in the bulk, a 1-dimensional nitrifying biofilm model was developed and calibrated. The model was utilized to explore the potential mechanisms of NOB suppression associated with intermittent aeration...... nitritation, strategies to suppress nitrite-oxidizing bacteria (NOB) are needed, which are ideally grounded on an understanding of underlying mechanisms. In this study, a nitrifying MABR was operated under intermittent aeration. During eight months of operation, AOB dominated, while NOB were suppressed...... during intermittent aeration was mostly explained by periodic inhibition caused by free ammonia due to periodic transient pH upshifts. Dissolved oxygen limitation did not govern NOB suppression. Different intermittent aeration strategies were then evaluated for nitritation success in intermittently...

  15. Inter-plane artifact suppression in tomosynthesis using 3D CT image data

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kim Jae G

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Despite its superb lateral resolution, flat-panel-detector (FPD based tomosynthesis suffers from low contrast and inter-plane artifacts caused by incomplete cancellation of the projection components stemming from outside the focal plane. The incomplete cancellation of the projection components, mostly due to the limited scan angle in the conventional tomosynthesis scan geometry, often makes the image contrast too low to differentiate the malignant tissues from the background tissues with confidence. Methods In this paper, we propose a new method to suppress the inter-plane artifacts in FPD-based tomosynthesis. If 3D whole volume CT images are available before the tomosynthesis scan, the CT image data can be incorporated into the tomosynthesis image reconstruction to suppress the inter-plane artifacts, hence, improving the image contrast. In the proposed technique, the projection components stemming from outside the region-of-interest (ROI are subtracted from the measured tomosynthesis projection data to suppress the inter-plane artifacts. The projection components stemming from outside the ROI are calculated from the 3D whole volume CT images which usually have lower lateral resolution than the tomosynthesis images. The tomosynthesis images are reconstructed from the subtracted projection data which account for the x-ray attenuation through the ROI. After verifying the proposed method by simulation, we have performed both CT scan and tomosynthesis scan on a phantom and a sacrificed rat using a FPD-based micro-CT. Results We have measured contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR from the tomosynthesis images which is an indicator of the residual inter-plane artifacts on the focal-plane image. In both cases of the simulation and experimental imaging studies of the contrast evaluating phantom, CNRs have been significantly improved by the proposed method. In the rat imaging also, we have observed better visual contrast from the tomosynthesis

  16. Inter-plane artifact suppression in tomosynthesis using 3D CT image data

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-01-01

    Background Despite its superb lateral resolution, flat-panel-detector (FPD) based tomosynthesis suffers from low contrast and inter-plane artifacts caused by incomplete cancellation of the projection components stemming from outside the focal plane. The incomplete cancellation of the projection components, mostly due to the limited scan angle in the conventional tomosynthesis scan geometry, often makes the image contrast too low to differentiate the malignant tissues from the background tissues with confidence. Methods In this paper, we propose a new method to suppress the inter-plane artifacts in FPD-based tomosynthesis. If 3D whole volume CT images are available before the tomosynthesis scan, the CT image data can be incorporated into the tomosynthesis image reconstruction to suppress the inter-plane artifacts, hence, improving the image contrast. In the proposed technique, the projection components stemming from outside the region-of-interest (ROI) are subtracted from the measured tomosynthesis projection data to suppress the inter-plane artifacts. The projection components stemming from outside the ROI are calculated from the 3D whole volume CT images which usually have lower lateral resolution than the tomosynthesis images. The tomosynthesis images are reconstructed from the subtracted projection data which account for the x-ray attenuation through the ROI. After verifying the proposed method by simulation, we have performed both CT scan and tomosynthesis scan on a phantom and a sacrificed rat using a FPD-based micro-CT. Results We have measured contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) from the tomosynthesis images which is an indicator of the residual inter-plane artifacts on the focal-plane image. In both cases of the simulation and experimental imaging studies of the contrast evaluating phantom, CNRs have been significantly improved by the proposed method. In the rat imaging also, we have observed better visual contrast from the tomosynthesis images reconstructed by

  17. Ground-based inhibition: Suppressive perceptual mechanisms interact with top-down attention to reduce distractor interference.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wager, Erica; Peterson, Mary A; Folstein, Jonathan R; Scalf, Paige E

    2015-01-01

    Successful attentional function requires inhibition of distracting information (e.g., Deutsch & Deutsch, 1963). Similarly, perceptual segregation of the visual world into figure and ground entails ground suppression (e.g., Likova & Tyler, 2008; Peterson & Skow, 2008). Here, we ask whether the suppressive processes of attention and perception-distractor inhibition and ground suppression-interact to more effectively insulate task performance from interfering information. We used a variant of the Eriksen flanker paradigm to assess the efficacy of distractor inhibition. Participants indicated the right/left orientation of a central arrow, which could be flanked by congruent, neutral, or incongruent stimuli. We manipulated the degree to which the ground region of a display was suppressed and measured the influence of this manipulation on the efficacy with which participants could inhibit responses from incongruent flankers. Greater ground suppression reduced the influence on target identification of interfering, incongruent information, but not that of facilitative, congruent information. These data are the first to show that distractor inhibition interacts with ground suppression to improve attentional function.

  18. Method and apparatus for suppressing electron generation in a vapor source for isotope separation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Janes, G.S.

    1979-01-01

    A system for applying accelerating forces to ionized particles of a vapor in a manner to suppress the flow of electron current from the vapor source. The accelerating forces are applied as an electric field in a configuration orthogonal to a magnetic field. The electric field is applied between one or more anodes in the plasma and one or more cathodes operated as electron emitting surfaces. The circuit for applying the electric field floats the cathodes with respect to the vapor source, thereby removing the vapor source from the circuit of electron flow through the plasma and suppressing the flow of electrons from the vapor source. The potential of other conducting structures contacting the plasma is controlled at or permitted to seek a level which further suppresses the flow of electron currents from the vapor source. Reducing the flow of electrons from the vapor source is particularly useful where the vapor is ionized with isotopic selectivity because it avoids superenergization of the vapor by the electron current

  19. Development of knowledge acquisition methods for knowledge base construction for autonomous plants

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yoshikawa, S. [Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corp., Oarai, Ibaraki (Japan). Oarai Engineering Center; Sasajima, M.; Kitamura, Y.; Ikeda, M.; Mizoguchi, R.

    1993-03-01

    In order to enhance safety and reliability of nuclear plant operation, it is strongly desired to construct diagnostic knowledge base without lacking, contradiction, and description inconsistency. Nowadays, an advanced method Knowledge Compiler` has been studied to acquire diagnostic knowledge, mainly based on qualitative reasoning technique, without accumulating heuristics by interviews. Until now, 2 methods to suppress the ambiguity observed when qualitative reasoning mechanism were applied to heat transport systems of nuclear power plants: In the first method, qualitative values are allocated to the system variables along with the causality direction, avoiding contradictions among plural variables in each qualitative constraint describing knowledge of deviation propagation, heat balance, or energy conservation. In the second method, all the qualitative information is represented as a set of simultaneous qualitative equations. And, an appropriate subset is selected so that the qualitative solutions of unknowns in this subset can be derived independently of the remaining part. A contrary method is applied for the selected subset to derive local solutions. Then the problem size is reduced by substituting solutions of the subset, in a recursive manner. In the previous report on this research project, complete computer softwares have been constructed based on these methods, and applied to a 2-loop heat transport system of a nuclear power plant. The detailed results are discussed in this report. In addition, an integrated configuration of diagnostic knowledge generation system of nuclear power plants is proposed, based upon the results and new foundings obtained through the research activities so far, and the future works to overcome remaining problems are also identified. (author)

  20. Adaptive Active Noise Suppression Using Multiple Model Switching Strategy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Quanzhen Huang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Active noise suppression for applications where the system response varies with time is a difficult problem. The computation burden for the existing control algorithms with online identification is heavy and easy to cause control system instability. A new active noise control algorithm is proposed in this paper by employing multiple model switching strategy for secondary path varying. The computation is significantly reduced. Firstly, a noise control system modeling method is proposed for duct-like applications. Then a multiple model adaptive control algorithm is proposed with a new multiple model switching strategy based on filter-u least mean square (FULMS algorithm. Finally, the proposed algorithm was implemented on Texas Instruments digital signal processor (DSP TMS320F28335 and real time experiments were done to test the proposed algorithm and FULMS algorithm with online identification. Experimental verification tests show that the proposed algorithm is effective with good noise suppression performance.

  1. Passive Newtonian noise suppression for gravitational-wave observatories based on shaping of the local topography

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harms, Jan; Hild, Stefan

    2014-09-01

    In this article we propose a new method for reducing Newtonian noise (NN) in laser-interferometric gravitational wave detectors located on the Earth's surface. We show that by excavating meter-scale recesses in the ground around the main test masses of a gravitational wave detector it is possible to reduce the coupling of Rayleigh wave driven seismic disturbances to test mass displacement. A discussion of the optimal recess shape is given and we use finite element simulations to derive the scaling of the NN suppression with the parameters of the recess as well as the frequency of the seismic excitation. Considering an interferometer similar to an Advance LIGO configuration, our simulations indicate a frequency dependent NN suppression factor of 2-4 in the relevant frequency range for a recesses of 4 m depth and a width and length of 11 m and 5 m, respectively. Though a retrofit to existing interferometers seems not impossible, the application of our concept to future infrastructures seems to provide a better benefit/cost ratio and therefore a higher feasibility.

  2. Passive Newtonian noise suppression for gravitational-wave observatories based on shaping of the local topography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Harms, Jan; Hild, Stefan

    2014-01-01

    In this article we propose a new method for reducing Newtonian noise (NN) in laser-interferometric gravitational wave detectors located on the Earth's surface. We show that by excavating meter-scale recesses in the ground around the main test masses of a gravitational wave detector it is possible to reduce the coupling of Rayleigh wave driven seismic disturbances to test mass displacement. A discussion of the optimal recess shape is given and we use finite element simulations to derive the scaling of the NN suppression with the parameters of the recess as well as the frequency of the seismic excitation. Considering an interferometer similar to an Advance LIGO configuration, our simulations indicate a frequency dependent NN suppression factor of 2–4 in the relevant frequency range for a recesses of 4 m depth and a width and length of 11 m and 5 m, respectively. Though a retrofit to existing interferometers seems not impossible, the application of our concept to future infrastructures seems to provide a better benefit/cost ratio and therefore a higher feasibility. (paper)

  3. Large scale power suppression in a multifield landscape

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Blanco-Pillado, Jose J.; Frazer, Jonathan; Sousa, Kepa; Dias, Mafalda

    2015-01-01

    Power suppression of the cosmic microwave background on the largest observable scales could provide valuable clues about the particle physics underlying inflation. Here we consider the prospect of power suppression in the context of the multifield landscape. Based on the assumption that our observable universe emerges from a tunnelling event and that the relevant features originate purely from inflationary dynamics, we find that the power spectrum not only contains information on single-field dynamics, but also places strong constraints on all scalar fields present in the theory. We find that the simplest single-field models giving rise to power suppression do not generalise to multifield models in a straightforward way, as the resulting superhorizon evolution of the curvature perturbation tends to erase any power suppression present at horizon crossing. On the other hand, multifield effects do present a means of generating power suppression which to our knowledge has so far not been considered. We propose a mechanism to illustrate this, which we dub flume inflation

  4. Large scale power suppression in a multifield landscape

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Blanco-Pillado, Jose J.; Frazer, Jonathan; Sousa, Kepa [Department of Theoretical Physics, Bizkaiako Campusa/Campus de Bizkaia, Posta Kodea 48940, Leioa, Bizkaia (Spain); Dias, Mafalda, E-mail: josejuan.blanco@ehu.es, E-mail: m.dias@sussex.ac.uk, E-mail: j.frazer@ucl.ac.uk, E-mail: kepa.sousa@ehu.es [Astronomy Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, School of Maths and Physical Sciences, University of Sussex, Pevensey II Building, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QH (United Kingdom)

    2015-08-01

    Power suppression of the cosmic microwave background on the largest observable scales could provide valuable clues about the particle physics underlying inflation. Here we consider the prospect of power suppression in the context of the multifield landscape. Based on the assumption that our observable universe emerges from a tunnelling event and that the relevant features originate purely from inflationary dynamics, we find that the power spectrum not only contains information on single-field dynamics, but also places strong constraints on all scalar fields present in the theory. We find that the simplest single-field models giving rise to power suppression do not generalise to multifield models in a straightforward way, as the resulting superhorizon evolution of the curvature perturbation tends to erase any power suppression present at horizon crossing. On the other hand, multifield effects do present a means of generating power suppression which to our knowledge has so far not been considered. We propose a mechanism to illustrate this, which we dub flume inflation.

  5. Nuisance alarm suppression techniques for fibre-optic intrusion detection systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahmoud, Seedahmed S.; Visagathilagar, Yuvaraja; Katsifolis, Jim

    2012-02-01

    The suppression of nuisance alarms without degrading sensitivity in fibre-optic intrusion detection systems is important for maintaining acceptable performance. Signal processing algorithms that maintain the POD and minimize nuisance alarms are crucial for achieving this. A level crossings algorithm is presented for suppressing torrential rain-induced nuisance alarms in a fibre-optic fence-based perimeter intrusion detection system. Results show that rain-induced nuisance alarms can be suppressed for rainfall rates in excess of 100 mm/hr, and intrusion events can be detected simultaneously during rain periods. The use of a level crossing based detection and novel classification algorithm is also presented demonstrating the suppression of nuisance events and discrimination of nuisance and intrusion events in a buried pipeline fibre-optic intrusion detection system. The sensor employed for both types of systems is a distributed bidirectional fibre-optic Mach Zehnder interferometer.

  6. Flutter suppression and stability analysis for a variable-span wing via morphing technology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Wencheng; Jin, Dongping

    2018-01-01

    A morphing wing can enhance aerodynamic characteristics and control authority as an alternative to using ailerons. To use morphing technology for flutter suppression, the dynamical behavior and stability of a variable-span wing subjected to the supersonic aerodynamic loads are investigated numerically in this paper. An axially moving cantilever plate is employed to model the variable-span wing, in which the governing equations of motion are established via the Kane method and piston theory. A morphing strategy based on axially moving rates is proposed to suppress the flutter that occurs beyond the critical span length, and the flutter stability is verified by Floquet theory. Furthermore, the transient stability during the morphing motion is analyzed and the upper bound of the morphing rate is obtained. The simulation results indicate that the proposed morphing law, which is varying periodically with a proper amplitude, could accomplish the flutter suppression. Further, the upper bound of the morphing speed decreases rapidly once the span length is close to its critical span length.

  7. Spiking cortical model based non-local means method for despeckling multiframe optical coherence tomography data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gu, Yameng; Zhang, Xuming

    2017-05-01

    Optical coherence tomography (OCT) images are severely degraded by speckle noise. Existing methods for despeckling multiframe OCT data cannot deliver sufficient speckle suppression while preserving image details well. To address this problem, the spiking cortical model (SCM) based non-local means (NLM) method has been proposed in this letter. In the proposed method, the considered frame and two neighboring frames are input into three SCMs to generate the temporal series of pulse outputs. The normalized moment of inertia (NMI) of the considered patches in the pulse outputs is extracted to represent the rotational and scaling invariant features of the corresponding patches in each frame. The pixel similarity is computed based on the Euclidean distance between the NMI features and used as the weight. Each pixel in the considered frame is restored by the weighted averaging of all pixels in the pre-defined search window in the three frames. Experiments on the real multiframe OCT data of the pig eye demonstrate the advantage of the proposed method over the frame averaging method, the multiscale sparsity based tomographic denoising method, the wavelet-based method and the traditional NLM method in terms of visual inspection and objective metrics such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), equivalent number of looks (ENL) and cross-correlation (XCOR).

  8. Anti-disturbance rapid vibration suppression of the flexible aerial refueling hose

    Science.gov (United States)

    Su, Zikang; Wang, Honglun; Li, Na

    2018-05-01

    As an extremely dangerous phenomenon in autonomous aerial refueling (AAR), the flexible refueling hose vibration caused by the receiver aircraft's excessive closure speed should be suppressed once it appears. This paper proposed a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) based refueling hose servo take-up system for the vibration suppression of the flexible refueling hose. A rapid back-stepping based anti-disturbance nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode (NFTSM) control scheme with a specially established finite-time convergence NFTSM observer is proposed for the PMSM based hose servo take-up system under uncertainties and disturbances. The unmeasured load torque and other disturbances in the PMSM system are reconstituted by the NFTSM observer and to be compensated during the controller design. Then, with the back-stepping technique, a rapid anti-disturbance NFTSM controller is proposed for the PMSM angular tracking to improve the tracking error convergence speed and tracking precision. The proposed vibration suppression scheme is then applied to PMSM based hose servo take-up system for the refueling hose vibration suppression in AAR. Simulation results show the proposed scheme can suppress the hose vibration rapidly and accurately even the system is exposed to strong uncertainties and probe position disturbances, it is more competitive in tracking accuracy, tracking error convergence speed and robustness.

  9. A limited role for suppression in the central field of individuals with strabismic amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barrett, Brendan T; Panesar, Gurvinder K; Scally, Andrew J; Pacey, Ian E

    2012-01-01

    Although their eyes are pointing in different directions, people with long-standing strabismic amblyopia typically do not experience double-vision or indeed any visual symptoms arising from their condition. It is generally believed that the phenomenon of suppression plays a major role in dealing with the consequences of amblyopia and strabismus, by preventing images from the weaker/deviating eye from reaching conscious awareness. Suppression is thus a highly sophisticated coping mechanism. Although suppression has been studied for over 100 years the literature is equivocal in relation to the extent of the retina that is suppressed, though the method used to investigate suppression is crucial to the outcome. There is growing evidence that some measurement methods lead to artefactual claims that suppression exists when it does not. Here we present the results of an experiment conducted with a new method to examine the prevalence, depth and extent of suppression in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia. Seven subjects (70%) showed no evidence whatsoever for suppression and in the three individuals who did (30%), the depth and extent of suppression was small. Suppression may play a much smaller role in dealing with the negative consequences of strabismic amblyopia than previously thought. Whereas recent claims of this nature have been made only in those with micro-strabismus our results show extremely limited evidence for suppression across the central visual field in strabismic amblyopes more generally. Instead of suppressing the image from the weaker/deviating eye, we suggest the visual system of individuals with strabismic amblyopia may act to maximise the possibilities for binocular co-operation. This is consistent with recent evidence from strabismic and amblyopic individuals that their binocular mechanisms are intact, and that, just as in visual normals, performance with two eyes is better than with the better eye alone in these individuals.

  10. A limited role for suppression in the central field of individuals with strabismic amblyopia.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brendan T Barrett

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Although their eyes are pointing in different directions, people with long-standing strabismic amblyopia typically do not experience double-vision or indeed any visual symptoms arising from their condition. It is generally believed that the phenomenon of suppression plays a major role in dealing with the consequences of amblyopia and strabismus, by preventing images from the weaker/deviating eye from reaching conscious awareness. Suppression is thus a highly sophisticated coping mechanism. Although suppression has been studied for over 100 years the literature is equivocal in relation to the extent of the retina that is suppressed, though the method used to investigate suppression is crucial to the outcome. There is growing evidence that some measurement methods lead to artefactual claims that suppression exists when it does not. METHODOLOGY/RESULTS: Here we present the results of an experiment conducted with a new method to examine the prevalence, depth and extent of suppression in ten individuals with strabismic amblyopia. Seven subjects (70% showed no evidence whatsoever for suppression and in the three individuals who did (30%, the depth and extent of suppression was small. CONCLUSIONS: Suppression may play a much smaller role in dealing with the negative consequences of strabismic amblyopia than previously thought. Whereas recent claims of this nature have been made only in those with micro-strabismus our results show extremely limited evidence for suppression across the central visual field in strabismic amblyopes more generally. Instead of suppressing the image from the weaker/deviating eye, we suggest the visual system of individuals with strabismic amblyopia may act to maximise the possibilities for binocular co-operation. This is consistent with recent evidence from strabismic and amblyopic individuals that their binocular mechanisms are intact, and that, just as in visual normals, performance with two eyes is better than

  11. Nano-anisotropic surface coating based on drug immobilized pendant polymer to suppress macrophage adhesion response.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaladhar, K; Renz, H; Sharma, C P

    2015-04-01

    Exploring drug molecules for material design, to harness concepts of nano-anisotropy and ligand-receptor interactions, are rather elusive. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the bottom-up design of a single-step and bio-interactive polymeric surface coating, based on drug based pendant polymer. This can be applied on to polystyrene (PS) substrates, to suppress macrophage adhesion and spreading. The drug molecule is used in this coating for two purposes. The first one is drug as a "pendant" group, to produce nano-anisotropic properties that can enable adhesion of the coatings to the substrate. The second purpose is to use the drug as a "ligand", to produce ligand-receptor interaction, between the bound ligand and receptors of albumin, to develop a self-albumin coat over the surface, by the preferential binding of albumin in biological environment, to reduce macrophage adhesion. Our in silico studies show that, diclofenac (DIC) is an ideal drug based "ligand" for albumin. This can also act as a "pendant" group with planar aryl groups. The combination of these two factors can help to harness, both nano-anisotropic properties and biological functions to the polymeric coating. Further, the drug, diclofenac (DIC) is immobilized to the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), to develop the pendant polymer (PVA-DIC). The interaction of bound DIC with the albumin is a ligand-receptor based interaction, as per the studies by circular dichroism, differential scanning calorimetry, and SDS-PAGE. The non-polar π-π* interactions are regulating; the interactions between PVA bound DIC-DIC interactions, leading to "nano-anisotropic condensation" to form distinct "nano-anisotropic segments" inside the polymeric coating. This is evident from, the thermo-responsiveness and uniform size of nanoparticles, as well as regular roughness in the surface coating, with similar properties as that of nanoparticles. In addition, the hydrophobic DIC-polystyrene (PS) interactions, between the PVA

  12. Smoke suppression properties of ferrite yellow on flame retardant thermoplastic polyurethane based on ammonium polyphosphate

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chen, Xilei; Jiang, Yufeng; Jiao, Chuanmei

    2014-01-01

    Highlights: • Smoke suppression of FeOOH on flame retardant TPU composites has been investigated. • FeOOH has excellent smoke suppression abilities for flame retardant TPU composites. • FeOOH has good ability of char formation, hence improved smoke suppression property. -- Abstract: This article mainly studies smoke suppression properties and synergistic flame retardant effect of ferrite yellow (FeOOH) on flame retardant thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composites using ammonium polyphosphate (APP) as a flame retardant agent. Smoke suppression properties and synergistic flame retardant effect of FeOOH on flame retardant TPU composites were intensively investigated by smoke density test (SDT), cone calorimeter test (CCT), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and thermal-gravimetric analysis (TGA). Remarkably, the SDT results show that FeOOH can effectively decrease the amount of smoke production with or without flame. On the other hand, the CCT data reveal that the addition of FeOOH can apparently reduce heat release rate (HRR), total heat release (THR), and total smoke release (TSR), etc. Here, FeOOH is considered to be an effective smoke suppression agent and a good synergism with APP in flame retardant TPU composites, which can greatly improve the structure of char residue realized by TGA and SEM results

  13. Methane explosion suppression characteristics based on the NaHCO3/red-mud composite powders with core-shell structure.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Yan; Cheng, Yi-Shen; Yu, Ming-Gao; Li, Yao; Cao, Jian-Liang; Zheng, Li-Gang; Yi, Hong-Wei

    2017-08-05

    The NaHCO 3 /red-mud (RM) composite powders were successfully prepared by the solvent-anti-solvent method for methane explosion suppression. The RM was used as a carrier, and the NaHCO 3 was used as a loaded inhibitor. The NaHCO 3 /RM composite powders showed a special core-shell structure and excellent endothermic performance. The suppression properties of NaHCO 3 /RM composite for 9.5% CH 4 explosion were tested in a 20L spherical explosion vessel and a 5L Perspex duct. The results showed that the NaHCO 3 /RM composite powders displayed a much better suppression property than the pure RM or NaHCO 3 powders. The loading amount of NaHCO 3 has an intensive influence on the inhibition property of NaHCO 3 /RM composite powders. The best loaded content of NaHCO 3 is 35%. It exhibited significant inhibitory effect that the explosion max-pressure declined 44.9%, the max-pressure rise rate declined 96.3% and the pressure peak time delayed 366.7%, respectively. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  14. Suppressed Belief

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Komarine Romdenh-Romluc

    2009-12-01

    Full Text Available Moran’s revised conception of conscious belief requires us to reconceptualise suppressed belief. The work of Merleau-Ponty offers a way to do this. His account of motor-skills allows us to understand suppressed beliefs as pre-reflective ways of dealing with the world.

  15. Consequences of stereotype suppression and internal suppression motivation : A self-regulation approach

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Gordijn, Ernestine H; Hindriks, Inge; Koomen, W; Dijksterhuis, Ap; van Knipppenberg, A.

    The present research studied the effects of suppression of stereotypes on subsequent stereotyping. Moreover, the moderating influence of motivation to suppress stereotypes was examined. The first three experiments showed that suppression of stereotypes leads to the experience of engaging in

  16. A new phase modulated binomial-like selective-inversion sequence for solvent signal suppression in NMR.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Johnny; Zheng, Gang; Price, William S

    2017-02-01

    A new 8-pulse Phase Modulated binomial-like selective inversion pulse sequence, dubbed '8PM', was developed by optimizing the nutation and phase angles of the constituent radio-frequency pulses so that the inversion profile resembled a target profile. Suppression profiles were obtained for both the 8PM and W5 based excitation sculpting sequences with equal inter-pulse delays. Significant distortions were observed in both profiles because of the offset effect of the radio frequency pulses. These distortions were successfully reduced by adjusting the inter-pulse delays. With adjusted inter-pulse delays, the 8PM and W5 based excitation sculpting sequences were tested on an aqueous lysozyme solution. The 8 PM based sequence provided higher suppression selectivity than the W5 based sequence. Two-dimensional nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy experiments were also performed on the lysozyme sample with 8PM and W5 based water signal suppression. The 8PM based suppression provided a spectrum with significantly increased (~ doubled) cross-peak intensity around the suppressed water resonance compared to the W5 based suppression. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  17. Knowledge-Based Trajectory Error Pattern Method Applied to an Active Force Control Scheme

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Endra Pitowarno, Musa Mailah, Hishamuddin Jamaluddin

    2012-08-01

    Full Text Available The active force control (AFC method is known as a robust control scheme that dramatically enhances the performance of a robot arm particularly in compensating the disturbance effects. The main task of the AFC method is to estimate the inertia matrix in the feedback loop to provide the correct (motor torque required to cancel out these disturbances. Several intelligent control schemes have already been introduced to enhance the estimation methods of acquiring the inertia matrix such as those using neural network, iterative learning and fuzzy logic. In this paper, we propose an alternative scheme called Knowledge-Based Trajectory Error Pattern Method (KBTEPM to suppress the trajectory track error of the AFC scheme. The knowledge is developed from the trajectory track error characteristic based on the previous experimental results of the crude approximation method. It produces a unique, new and desirable error pattern when a trajectory command is forced. An experimental study was performed using simulation work on the AFC scheme with KBTEPM applied to a two-planar manipulator in which a set of rule-based algorithm is derived. A number of previous AFC schemes are also reviewed as benchmark. The simulation results show that the AFC-KBTEPM scheme successfully reduces the trajectory track error significantly even in the presence of the introduced disturbances.Key Words:  Active force control, estimated inertia matrix, robot arm, trajectory error pattern, knowledge-based.

  18. Optimization of Compton-suppression and summing schemes for the TIGRESS HPGe detector array

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schumaker, M. A.; Svensson, C. E.; Andreoiu, C.; Andreyev, A.; Austin, R. A. E.; Ball, G. C.; Bandyopadhyay, D.; Boston, A. J.; Chakrawarthy, R. S.; Churchman, R.; Drake, T. E.; Finlay, P.; Garrett, P. E.; Grinyer, G. F.; Hackman, G.; Hyland, B.; Jones, B.; Maharaj, R.; Morton, A. C.; Pearson, C. J.; Phillips, A. A.; Sarazin, F.; Scraggs, H. C.; Smith, M. B.; Valiente-Dobón, J. J.; Waddington, J. C.; Watters, L. M.

    2007-04-01

    Methods of optimizing the performance of an array of Compton-suppressed, segmented HPGe clover detectors have been developed which rely on the physical position sensitivity of both the HPGe crystals and the Compton-suppression shields. These relatively simple analysis procedures promise to improve the precision of experiments with the TRIUMF-ISAC Gamma-Ray Escape-Suppressed Spectrometer (TIGRESS). Suppression schemes will improve the efficiency and peak-to-total ratio of TIGRESS for high γ-ray multiplicity events by taking advantage of the 20-fold segmentation of the Compton-suppression shields, while the use of different summing schemes will improve results for a wide range of experimental conditions. The benefits of these methods are compared for many γ-ray energies and multiplicities using a GEANT4 simulation, and the optimal physical configuration of the TIGRESS array under each set of conditions is determined.

  19. Cross-cultural differences in emotion suppression in everyday interactions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Huwaë, Sylvia; Schaafsma, Juliette

    2016-05-11

    Previous research suggests that in collectivistic cultures, people tend to suppress their emotions more than in individualistic cultures. Little research, however, has explored cross-cultural differences in emotion regulation in everyday interactions. Using a daily social interaction method, we examined whether people from collectivistic backgrounds (Chinese exchange students and immigrants from the Moluccas, Indonesia) living in the Netherlands differed from those from individualistic backgrounds (Dutch natives) in emotion suppression during everyday interactions. We also examined whether this depended on their relationship with the interaction partner(s). We found that Chinese participants suppressed positive and negative emotions more than Dutch and Moluccan participants and that this was related to differences in interdependent and independent self-construal across the samples. We also found that Chinese participants suppressed positive emotions less in interactions with close others, whereas Dutch participants suppressed negative emotions more with non-close others. No such differences were found for Moluccans. Our findings support the idea that people from collectivistic cultures suppress emotions more than those from individualistic cultures, but they also suggest that this depends on who the interaction partner is. Furthermore, they suggest that emotion suppression may change when people with collectivistic backgrounds have been raised in individualistic cultures. © 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.

  20. A speeded-up saliency region-based contrast detection method for small targets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Zhengjie; Zhang, Haiying; Bai, Jiaojiao; Zhou, Zhongjun; Zheng, Huihuang

    2018-04-01

    To cope with the rapid development of the real applications for infrared small targets, the researchers have tried their best to pursue more robust detection methods. At present, the contrast measure-based method has become a promising research branch. Following the framework, in this paper, a speeded-up contrast measure scheme is proposed based on the saliency detection and density clustering. First, the saliency region is segmented by saliency detection method, and then, the Multi-scale contrast calculation is carried out on it instead of traversing the whole image. Second, the target with a certain "integrity" property in spatial is exploited to distinguish the target from the isolated noises by density clustering. Finally, the targets are detected by a self-adaptation threshold. Compared with time-consuming MPCM (Multiscale Patch Contrast Map), the time cost of the speeded-up version is within a few seconds. Additional, due to the use of "clustering segmentation", the false alarm caused by heavy noises can be restrained to a lower level. The experiments show that our method has a satisfied FASR (False alarm suppression ratio) and real-time performance compared with the state-of-art algorithms no matter in cloudy sky or sea-sky background.

  1. High-efficiency pyrene-based blue light emitting diodes: Aggregation suppression using a calixarene 3D-scaffold

    KAUST Repository

    Chan, Khaileok

    2012-01-01

    An efficient blue light emitting diode based on solution processable pyrene-1,3-alt-calix[4]arene is demonstrated, providing a record current efficiency of 10.5 cd A -1 in a simple non-doped OLED configuration. Complete suppression of pyrene aggregation in the solid state is achieved by controlling chromophore dispersion using the 1,3-alt-calix[4]arene scaffold. © 2012 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

  2. Suppression of charmonium production in hadron gas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Faustov, R.N.; Vasilevskaya, I.G.

    1991-01-01

    The problem of J/ψ charmonium production suppression under heavy ion collisions is investigated. The processes of charmonium disintegration in hadron gas are considered: π+J/ψ → π+c+c-bar and ρ+J/ψ → D+D. Based on the results obtained one can assume that charmonium disintegration contribution to J/ψ production suppression under collisions with gas hadrons and the contribution conditioned by the production of quark-gluon plasma, appear to be the effects of similar order of magnitude

  3. A Method for the Realization of an Interruption Generator Based on Voltage Source Converters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Junhui Li

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available In this paper we described the structure and working principle of an interruption generator based on voltage source converters (VSCs. The main circuit parameters of the VSCs are determined according to the target of power transfer capability, harmonic suppression, and dynamic response capability. A state feedback linearization method in nonlinear differential geometry theory was used for dq axis current decoupling, based on the mathematical model used in the dq coordinate system of VSCs. The direct current control strategy was adopted to achieve the independent regulation of active power and reactive power. The proportional integral (PI link was used to optimize the dynamic performance of the controller, and PI parameters were adjusted. Disturbance voltage waves were generated by the regular sampling method. PSCAD/EMTDC simulation results and physical prototype experiments showed that the device could generate various disturbance voltage waveforms steadily, and had good dynamic and steady-state performance.

  4. Tagging and suppression of pileup jets

    CERN Document Server

    The ATLAS collaboration

    2014-01-01

    The suppression of pileup jets has been a crucial component of many physics analyses using 2012 LHC proton-proton collisions. In ATLAS, tracking information has been used to calculate a variable called the jet-vertex-fraction, which is the fraction of the total mo- mentum of tracks in the jet which is associated to the primary vertex. Imposing a minimum on this variable rejects the majority of pileup jets, but leads to hard-scatter jet efficiencies that depend on the number of reconstructed primary vertices in the event ($N_{Vtx}$). In this note, new track-based variables to suppress pileup jets are developed in such a way that the resulting hard-scatter jet efficiency is stable as a function of $N_{Vtx}$. A multivariate combina- tion of two such variables called the jet-vertex-tagger is constructed. In addition, it is shown that jet-vertex association can be applied to large-R jets, providing a track-based grooming technique that is as powerful as calorimeter-based trimming but based on complementary trackin...

  5. Theoretical and experimental study of fundamental differences in the noise suppression of high-speed SOA-based all-optical switches

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Mads Lønstrup; Mørk, Jesper; Suzuki, R.

    2005-01-01

    We identify a fundamental difference between the ASE noise filtering properties of different all-optical SOA-based switch configurations, and divide the switches into two classes. An in-band ASE suppression ratio quantifying the difference is derived theoretically and the impact of the ASE...

  6. Frequency shift and hysteresis suppression in contact-mode AFM using contact stiffness modulation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Belhaq M.

    2012-07-01

    Full Text Available In this paper the frequency response shift and hysteresis suppression of contact-mode atomic force microscopy is investigated using parametric modulation of the contact stiffness. Based on the Hertzian contact theory, a lumped single degree of freedom oscillator is considered for modeling the cantilever dynamics contact-mode atomic force microscopy. We use the technique of direct partition of motion and the method of multiple scales to obtain, respectively, the slow dynamic and the corresponding slow flow of the system. As results, this study shows that the amplitude of the contact stiffness modulation has a significant effect on the frequency response. Specifically, increasing the amplitude of the stiffness modulation suppresses hysteresis, decreases the peak amplitude and produces shifts towards higher and lower frequencies.

  7. Compton suppression method and epithermal NAA in the determination of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahmed, Y.A.; Landsberger, S.; O'Kelly, D.J.; Braisted, J.; Gabdo, H.; Ewa, I.O.B.; Umar, I.M.; Funtua, I.I.

    2010-01-01

    We used in this study Compton suppression method and epithermal neutron activation analysis to determine the concentration of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages. The work was performed at the University of Texas TRIGA Reactor by short, medium, and long irradiation protocols, using thermal flux of 1.4x10 12 n cm -2 s -1 and epithermal flux of 1.4x10 11 n cm -2 s -1 . Application of Compton suppression method has reduced interferences from Compton scattered photons thereby allowing easy evaluation of Na, Cl, Ca, Cu, Mn, Mg, Co, Cr, Rb, Fe, and Se. The epithermal NAA method has enabled determination of Cd, As, Ba, Sr, Br, I, and V with little turn-around time. Quality Control and Quality Assurance of the method was tested by analyzing four Standard Reference Materials (non-fat powdered milk, apple leaves, citrus leaves, and peach leaves) obtained from National Institute for Standards and Technology. Our results show that sorghum, millet, and maize have high values of Zn, Mn, Fe, low values of Cd, As, and Se. Powdered milks, rice, beans, and soybeans were found to have moderate amounts of all the elements. Tobacco recorded high content of Cd, Mn, and As, whereas tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and okro seed have more As values than others. However, biscuits, macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles show lower concentrations of all the elements. The distribution of these nutrients and heavy metals in these food and beverages shows the need to fortify biscuits and pastas with micro and macro-nutrients and reduce the use of tobacco, tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and Okro seed to avoid intake of heavy elements.

  8. Deconstructing continuous flash suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Eunice; Blake, Randolph

    2012-03-08

    In this paper, we asked to what extent the depth of interocular suppression engendered by continuous flash suppression (CFS) varies depending on spatiotemporal properties of the suppressed stimulus and CFS suppressor. An answer to this question could have implications for interpreting the results in which CFS influences the processing of different categories of stimuli to different extents. In a series of experiments, we measured the selectivity and depth of suppression (i.e., elevation in contrast detection thresholds) as a function of the visual features of the stimulus being suppressed and the stimulus evoking suppression, namely, the popular "Mondrian" CFS stimulus (N. Tsuchiya & C. Koch, 2005). First, we found that CFS differentially suppresses the spatial components of the suppressed stimulus: Observers' sensitivity for stimuli of relatively low spatial frequency or cardinally oriented features was more strongly impaired in comparison to high spatial frequency or obliquely oriented stimuli. Second, we discovered that this feature-selective bias primarily arises from the spatiotemporal structure of the CFS stimulus, particularly within information residing in the low spatial frequency range and within the smooth rather than abrupt luminance changes over time. These results imply that this CFS stimulus operates by selectively attenuating certain classes of low-level signals while leaving others to be potentially encoded during suppression. These findings underscore the importance of considering the contribution of low-level features in stimulus-driven effects that are reported under CFS.

  9. Dexamethasone suppression test

    Science.gov (United States)

    DST; ACTH suppression test; Cortisol suppression test ... During this test, you will receive dexamethasone. This is a strong man-made (synthetic) glucocorticoid medicine. Afterward, your blood is drawn ...

  10. Deconstructing continuous flash suppression

    OpenAIRE

    Yang, Eunice; Blake, Randolph

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we asked to what extent the depth of interocular suppression engendered by continuous flash suppression (CFS) varies depending on spatiotemporal properties of the suppressed stimulus and CFS suppressor. An answer to this question could have implications for interpreting the results in which CFS influences the processing of different categories of stimuli to different extents. In a series of experiments, we measured the selectivity and depth of suppression (i.e., elevation in co...

  11. Frequency-varying synchronous micro-vibration suppression for a MSFW with application of small-gain theorem

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peng, Cong; Fan, Yahong; Huang, Ziyuan; Han, Bangcheng; Fang, Jiancheng

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents a novel synchronous micro-vibration suppression method on the basis of the small gain theorem to reduce the frequency-varying synchronous micro-vibration forces for a magnetically suspended flywheel (MSFW). The proposed synchronous micro-vibration suppression method not only eliminates the synchronous current fluctuations to force the rotor spinning around the inertia axis, but also considers the compensation caused by the displacement stiffness in the permanent-magnet (PM)-biased magnetic bearings. Moreover, the stability of the proposed control system is exactly analyzed by using small gain theorem. The effectiveness of the proposed micro-vibration suppression method is demonstrated via the direct measurement of the disturbance forces for a MSFW. The main merit of the proposed method is that it provides a simple and practical method in suppressing the frequency varying micro-vibration forces and preserving the nominal performance of the baseline control system.

  12. The instantaneous linear motion information measurement method based on inertial sensors for ships

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Xu; Huang, Jing; Gao, Chen; Quan, Wei; Li, Ming; Zhang, Yanshun

    2018-05-01

    Ship instantaneous line motion information is the important foundation for ship control, which needs to be measured accurately. For this purpose, an instantaneous line motion measurement method based on inertial sensors is put forward for ships. By introducing a half-fixed coordinate system to realize the separation between instantaneous line motion and ship master movement, the instantaneous line motion acceleration of ships can be obtained with higher accuracy. Then, the digital high-pass filter is applied to suppress the velocity error caused by the low frequency signal such as schuler period. Finally, the instantaneous linear motion displacement of ships can be measured accurately. Simulation experimental results show that the method is reliable and effective, and can realize the precise measurement of velocity and displacement of instantaneous line motion for ships.

  13. Fat suppression failure artifacts at the susceptibility interface on frequency selective fat suppression MR imaging in the head and neck

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Anzai, Yoshimi; Minoshima, Satoshi; Uno, Kimiichi; Arimizu, Noboru; Lufkin, R.B.; Ishihara, Makiko; Yui, Nobuharu.

    1994-01-01

    Fat suppression MR imaging is a valuable technique mainly used for the orbit, head and neck, and spine, where the high signal from fat can often obscure adjacent pathology. Fat suppression failure artifact manifested as a high signal area without geographic disortion. The purpose of this study was to investigate the frequency and common location of these artifacts in clinical MR imaging and to caution against their misinterpretation. Fat suppression MR imaging of the head and neck was performed in 30 consecutive patients. The artifact was found in the orbital floor (57%), the skull base (10%), and subcutaneous fat (10%), where the air-fat interface is parallel to the static magnetic field direction. The fat signal in the air-fat interface perpendicular to the static magnetic field was well suppressed. This artifact was independent of the duration of TE, frequency/phase encoding direction, and the strength of gradient amplitude, and appeared to be related to the amount of surrounding air. This may simulate pathology if fat suppression is only performed following Gd-DTPA administration. The radiologist should be aware of the presence of artifact by considering the geographic relation to the static magnetic field. (author)

  14. X-ray CT high-density artefact suppression in the presence of bones

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wei Jikun [School of Health Sciences, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2051 (United States); Chen Laigao [BioImaging Center of Emphasis, Pfizer Global Research and Development, 2800 Plymouth RD, Ann Arbor, MI 48105 (United States); Sandison, George A [School of Health Sciences, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2051 (United States); Liang Yun [Department of Radiology, Indiana University Medical School, Indianapolis, IN 46202 (United States); Xu, Lisa X [School of Mechanical Engineering, 585 Purdue Mall, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2040 (United States)

    2004-12-21

    This paper presents a novel method of reducing x-ray CT high-density artefacts generated by metal objects when abundant bone structures are present in the region of interest. This method has an advantage over previously proposed methods since it heavily suppresses the metal artefacts without introducing extra bone artefacts. The method of suppression requires that bone pixels are isolated and segmented by thresholding. Then artificial CT numbers are assigned to the bone pixels so that their projection profiles are smooth and thus can be properly simulated by a polynomial interpolation. The projection profile of the metal object is then removed to fully suppress the artefacts. The resulting processed profile is fed to a reconstruction routine and the previously preserved bone pixels added back. The new method utilizes two important features of the CT image with metal artefacts: (a) metal and bone pixels are not severely affected by the high-density artefacts and (b) the high-density artefacts can be located in specific projection channels in the profile domain, although they are spread out in the image domain. This suppression method solves the problem of CT image artefacts arising from metal objects in the body. It has the potential to greatly improve diagnostic CT imaging in the presence of these objects and treatment planning that utilizes CT for patients with metal applicators (e.g., brachytherapy for cervix cancer and prostate cryotherapy)

  15. X-ray CT high-density artefact suppression in the presence of bones

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wei Jikun; Chen Laigao; Sandison, George A; Liang Yun; Xu, Lisa X

    2004-01-01

    This paper presents a novel method of reducing x-ray CT high-density artefacts generated by metal objects when abundant bone structures are present in the region of interest. This method has an advantage over previously proposed methods since it heavily suppresses the metal artefacts without introducing extra bone artefacts. The method of suppression requires that bone pixels are isolated and segmented by thresholding. Then artificial CT numbers are assigned to the bone pixels so that their projection profiles are smooth and thus can be properly simulated by a polynomial interpolation. The projection profile of the metal object is then removed to fully suppress the artefacts. The resulting processed profile is fed to a reconstruction routine and the previously preserved bone pixels added back. The new method utilizes two important features of the CT image with metal artefacts: (a) metal and bone pixels are not severely affected by the high-density artefacts and (b) the high-density artefacts can be located in specific projection channels in the profile domain, although they are spread out in the image domain. This suppression method solves the problem of CT image artefacts arising from metal objects in the body. It has the potential to greatly improve diagnostic CT imaging in the presence of these objects and treatment planning that utilizes CT for patients with metal applicators (e.g., brachytherapy for cervix cancer and prostate cryotherapy)

  16. Deposition and incorporation of corrosion product to primary coolant suppressing method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsuzuki, Yasuo; Hasegawa, Naoyoshi; Fujioka, Tsunaaki.

    1992-01-01

    In a PWR type nuclear power plant, the concentration of dissolved nitrogen in primary coolants is increased by controlling the nitrogen partial pressure in a volume controlling tank gas phase portion or addition of water in a primary system water supply tank containing dissolved nitrogen to a primary system. Then ammonium is formed by a reaction with hydrogen dissolved in the primary coolants in the field of radiation rays, to control the concentration of ammonium in the coolants within a range from 0.5 to 3.5 ppm, and operate the power plant. As a result, deposition and incorporation of corrosion products to the structural materials of the primary system equipments during plant operation (pH 6.8 to 8.0) are suppressed. In other words, deposition of particulate corrosion products on the surface of fuel cladding tubes and the inner surface of pipelines in the primary system main equipments is prevented and incorporation of ionic radioactive corrosion products to the oxide membranes on the inner surface of the pipelines of the primary system main equipments is suppressed, to greatly reduce the radiation dose rate of the primary system pipelines. Thus, operator's radiation exposure can be decreased upon shut down of the plant. (N.H.)

  17. Optimal digital filtering for tremor suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonzalez, J G; Heredia, E A; Rahman, T; Barner, K E; Arce, G R

    2000-05-01

    Remote manually operated tasks such as those found in teleoperation, virtual reality, or joystick-based computer access, require the generation of an intermediate electrical signal which is transmitted to the controlled subsystem (robot arm, virtual environment, or a cursor in a computer screen). When human movements are distorted, for instance, by tremor, performance can be improved by digitally filtering the intermediate signal before it reaches the controlled device. This paper introduces a novel tremor filtering framework in which digital equalizers are optimally designed through pursuit tracking task experiments. Due to inherent properties of the man-machine system, the design of tremor suppression equalizers presents two serious problems: 1) performance criteria leading to optimizations that minimize mean-squared error are not efficient for tremor elimination and 2) movement signals show ill-conditioned autocorrelation matrices, which often result in useless or unstable solutions. To address these problems, a new performance indicator in the context of tremor is introduced, and the optimal equalizer according to this new criterion is developed. Ill-conditioning of the autocorrelation matrix is overcome using a novel method which we call pulled-optimization. Experiments performed with artificially induced vibrations and a subject with Parkinson's disease show significant improvement in performance. Additional results, along with MATLAB source code of the algorithms, and a customizable demo for PC joysticks, are available on the Internet at http:¿tremor-suppression.com.

  18. Screening for suppression in young children: the Polaroid Suppression test

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Pott, J.W.R.; Oosterveen, DK; Van Hof-van Duin, J

    1998-01-01

    Background: Assessment of monocular visual impairment during screening of young children is often hampered by lack of cooperation. Because strabismus, amblyopia, or anisometropia may lead to monocular suppression during binocular viewing conditions, a test was developed to screen far suppression in

  19. Suppression of pool fires with HRC-125 in a simulated engine nacelle.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Keyser, David R. (INS, Inc., Lexington Park, MD); Hewson, John C.

    2007-06-01

    CFD simulations are conducted to predict the distribution of fire suppressant in an engine nacelle and to predict the suppression of pool fires by the application of this suppressant. In the baseline configuration, which is based on an installed system, suppressant is injected through four nozzles at a rate fast enough to suppress all simulated pool fires. Variations that reduce the mass of the suppression system (reducing the impact of the suppression system on meeting mission needs) are considered, including a reduction in the rate of suppressant injection, a reduction in the mass of suppressant and a reduction in the number of nozzles. In general, these variations should work to reduce the effectiveness of the suppression system, but the CFD results point out certain changes that have negligible impact, at least for the range of phenomena considered here. The results are compared with measurements where available. Comparisons with suppressant measurements are reasonable. A series of twenty-three fire suppression tests were conducted to check the predictions. The pre-test predictions were generally successful in identifying the range of successful suppression tests. In two separate cases, each where one nozzle of the suppression system was capped, the simulation results did indicate a failure to suppress for a condition where the tests indicated successful suppression. When the test-suppressant discharge rate was reduced by roughly 25%, the tests were in agreement with the predictions. That is, the simulations predict a failure to suppress slightly before observed in these cases.

  20. Spatial and Global Sensory Suppression Mapping Encompassing the Central 10° Field in Anisometropic Amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jingjing; Li, Jinrong; Chen, Zidong; Liu, Jing; Yuan, Junpeng; Cai, Xiaoxiao; Deng, Daming; Yu, Minbin

    2017-01-01

    We investigate the efficacy of a novel dichoptic mapping paradigm in evaluating visual function of anisometropic amblyopes. Using standard clinical measures of visual function (visual acuity, stereo acuity, Bagolini lenses, and neutral density filters) and a novel quantitative mapping technique, 26 patients with anisometropic amblyopia (mean age = 19.15 ± 4.42 years) were assessed. Two additional psychophysical interocular suppression measurements were tested with dichoptic global motion coherence and binocular phase combination tasks. Luminance reduction was achieved by placing neutral density filters in front of the normal eye. Our study revealed that suppression changes across the central 10° visual field by mean luminance modulation in amblyopes as well as normal controls. Using simulation and an elimination of interocular suppression, we identified a novel method to effectively reflect the distribution of suppression in anisometropic amblyopia. Additionally, the new quantitative mapping technique was in good agreement with conventional clinical measures, such as interocular acuity difference (P suppression with dichoptic mapping paradigm and the results of the other two psychophysical methods (suppression mapping versus binocular phase combination, P suppression mapping versus global motion coherence, P = 0.005). The dichoptic suppression mapping technique is an effective method to represent impaired visual function in patients with anisometropic amblyopia. It offers a potential in "micro-"antisuppression mapping tests and therapies for amblyopia.

  1. CUDA based Level Set Method for 3D Reconstruction of Fishes from Large Acoustic Data

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sharma, Ojaswa; Anton, François

    2009-01-01

    Acoustic images present views of underwater dynamics, even in high depths. With multi-beam echo sounders (SONARs), it is possible to capture series of 2D high resolution acoustic images. 3D reconstruction of the water column and subsequent estimation of fish abundance and fish species identificat...... of suppressing threshold and show its convergence as the evolution proceeds. We also present a GPU based streaming computation of the method using NVIDIA's CUDA framework to handle large volume data-sets. Our implementation is optimised for memory usage to handle large volumes....

  2. Suppression sours sacrifice: emotional and relational costs of suppressing emotions in romantic relationships.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Impett, Emily A; Kogan, Aleksandr; English, Tammy; John, Oliver; Oveis, Christopher; Gordon, Amie M; Keltner, Dacher

    2012-06-01

    What happens when people suppress their emotions when they sacrifice for a romantic partner? This multimethod study investigates how suppressing emotions during sacrifice shapes affective and relationship outcomes. In Part 1, dating couples came into the laboratory to discuss important romantic relationship sacrifices. Suppressing emotions was associated with emotional costs for the partner discussing his or her sacrifice. In Part 2, couples participated in a 14-day daily experience study. Within-person increases in emotional suppression during daily sacrifice were associated with decreases in emotional well-being and relationship quality as reported by both members of romantic dyads. In Part 3, suppression predicted decreases in relationship satisfaction and increases in thoughts about breaking up with a romantic partner 3 months later. In the first two parts of the study, authenticity mediated the costly effects of suppression. Implications for research on close relationships and emotion regulation are discussed.

  3. Multitarget Tracking with Spatial Nonmaximum Suppressed Sensor Selection

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liang Ma

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Multitarget tracking is one of the most important applications of sensor networks, yet it is an extremely challenging problem since multisensor multitarget tracking itself is nontrivial and the difficulty is further compounded by sensor management. Recently, random finite set based Bayesian framework has opened doors for multitarget tracking with sensor management, which is modelled in the framework of partially observed Markov decision process (POMDP. However, sensor management posed as a POMDP is in essence a combinatorial optimization problem which is NP-hard and computationally unacceptable. In this paper, we propose a novel sensor selection method for multitarget tracking. We first present the sequential multi-Bernoulli filter as a centralized multisensor fusion scheme for multitarget tracking. In order to perform sensor selection, we define the hypothesis information gain (HIG of a sensor to measure its information quantity when the sensor is selected alone. Then, we propose spatial nonmaximum suppression approach to select sensors with respect to their locations and HIGs. Two distinguished implementations have been provided using the greedy spatial nonmaximum suppression. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of proposed sensor selection approach for multitarget tracking.

  4. Active Vibration Suppression of a 3-DOF Flexible Parallel Manipulator Using Efficient Modal Control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Quan Zhang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper addresses the dynamic modeling and efficient modal control of a planar parallel manipulator (PPM with three flexible linkages actuated by linear ultrasonic motors (LUSM. To achieve active vibration control, multiple lead zirconate titanate (PZT transducers are mounted on the flexible links as vibration sensors and actuators. Based on Lagrange’s equations, the dynamic model of the flexible links is derived with the dynamics of PZT actuators incorporated. Using the assumed mode method (AMM, the elastic motion of the flexible links are discretized under the assumptions of pinned-free boundary conditions, and the assumed mode shapes are validated through experimental modal test. Efficient modal control (EMC, in which the feedback forces in different modes are determined according to the vibration amplitude or energy of their own, is employed to control the PZT actuators to realize active vibration suppression. Modal filters are developed to extract the modal displacements and velocities from the vibration sensors. Numerical simulation and vibration control experiments are conducted to verify the proposed dynamic model and controller. The results show that the EMC method has the capability of suppressing multimode vibration simultaneously, and both the structural and residual vibrations of the flexible links are effectively suppressed using EMC approach.

  5. The Stiffness and Damping Characteristics of a Dual-Chamber Air Spring Device Applied to Motion Suppression of Marine Structures

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaohui Zeng

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Dual-chamber air springs are used as a key component for vibration isolation in some industrial applications. The working principle of the dual-chamber air spring device as applied to motion suppression of marine structures is similar to that of the traditional air spring, but they differ in their specific characteristics. The stiffness and damping of the dual-chamber air spring device determine the extent of motion suppression. In this article, we investigate the stiffness and damping characteristics of a dual-chamber air spring device applied to marine structure motion suppression using orthogonal analysis and an experimental method. We measure the effects of volume ratio, orifice ratio, excitation amplitude, and frequency on the stiffness and damping of the dual-chamber vibration absorber. Based on the experimental results, a higher-order non-linear regression method is obtained. We achieve a rapid calculation model for dual-chamber air spring stiffness and damping, which can provide guidance to project design.

  6. Compton suppression method and epithermal NAA in the determination of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Ahmed, Y.A., E-mail: yaahmed1@gmail.co [Reactor Engineering Section, Centre for Energy Research and Training, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Nigeria); Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758 (United States); Landsberger, S.; O' Kelly, D.J.; Braisted, J. [Nuclear Engineering Teaching Laboratory, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78758 (United States); Gabdo, H. [Physics Department, Federal College of Education, Yola (Nigeria); Ewa, I.O.B.; Umar, I.M.; Funtua, I.I. [Reactor Engineering Section, Centre for Energy Research and Training, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (Nigeria)

    2010-10-15

    We used in this study Compton suppression method and epithermal neutron activation analysis to determine the concentration of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages. The work was performed at the University of Texas TRIGA Reactor by short, medium, and long irradiation protocols, using thermal flux of 1.4x10{sup 12} n cm{sup -2} s{sup -1} and epithermal flux of 1.4x10{sup 11} n cm{sup -2} s{sup -1}. Application of Compton suppression method has reduced interferences from Compton scattered photons thereby allowing easy evaluation of Na, Cl, Ca, Cu, Mn, Mg, Co, Cr, Rb, Fe, and Se. The epithermal NAA method has enabled determination of Cd, As, Ba, Sr, Br, I, and V with little turn-around time. Quality Control and Quality Assurance of the method was tested by analyzing four Standard Reference Materials (non-fat powdered milk, apple leaves, citrus leaves, and peach leaves) obtained from National Institute for Standards and Technology. Our results show that sorghum, millet, and maize have high values of Zn, Mn, Fe, low values of Cd, As, and Se. Powdered milks, rice, beans, and soybeans were found to have moderate amounts of all the elements. Tobacco recorded high content of Cd, Mn, and As, whereas tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and okro seed have more As values than others. However, biscuits, macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles show lower concentrations of all the elements. The distribution of these nutrients and heavy metals in these food and beverages shows the need to fortify biscuits and pastas with micro and macro-nutrients and reduce the use of tobacco, tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and Okro seed to avoid intake of heavy elements.

  7. Compton suppression method and epithermal NAA in the determination of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Y A; Landsberger, S; O'Kelly, D J; Braisted, J; Gabdo, H; Ewa, I O B; Umar, I M; Funtua, I I

    2010-10-01

    We used in this study Compton suppression method and epithermal neutron activation analysis to determine the concentration of nutrients and heavy metals in Nigerian food and beverages. The work was performed at the University of Texas TRIGA Reactor by short, medium, and long irradiation protocols, using thermal flux of 1.4x10(12)n cm(-2)s(-1) and epithermal flux of 1.4x10(11)n cm(-2)s(-1). Application of Compton suppression method has reduced interferences from Compton scattered photons thereby allowing easy evaluation of Na, Cl, Ca, Cu, Mn, Mg, Co, Cr, Rb, Fe, and Se. The epithermal NAA method has enabled determination of Cd, As, Ba, Sr, Br, I, and V with little turn-around time. Quality Control and Quality Assurance of the method was tested by analyzing four Standard Reference Materials (non-fat powdered milk, apple leaves, citrus leaves, and peach leaves) obtained from National Institute for Standards and Technology. Our results show that sorghum, millet, and maize have high values of Zn, Mn, Fe, low values of Cd, As, and Se. Powdered milks, rice, beans, and soybeans were found to have moderate amounts of all the elements. Tobacco recorded high content of Cd, Mn, and As, whereas tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and okro seed have more As values than others. However, biscuits, macaroni, spaghetti, and noodles show lower concentrations of all the elements. The distribution of these nutrients and heavy metals in these food and beverages shows the need to fortify biscuits and pastas with micro and macro-nutrients and reduce the use of tobacco, tea, tsobo leaves, Baobab leaves, and Okro seed to avoid intake of heavy elements. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  8. The wavelet transform and the suppression theory of binocular vision for stereo image compression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Reynolds, W.D. Jr [Argonne National Lab., IL (United States); Kenyon, R.V. [Illinois Univ., Chicago, IL (United States)

    1996-08-01

    In this paper a method for compression of stereo images. The proposed scheme is a frequency domain approach based on the suppression theory of binocular vision. By using the information in the frequency domain, complex disparity estimation techniques can be avoided. The wavelet transform is used to obtain a multiresolution analysis of the stereo pair by which the subbands convey the necessary frequency domain information.

  9. A model-based framework to evaluate alternative wildfire suppression strategies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Karin L. Riley; Matthew P. Thompson; Joe H. Scott; Julie W. Gilbertson-Day

    2018-01-01

    The complexity and demands of wildland firefighting in the western U.S. have increased over recent decades due to factors including the expansion of the wildland-urban interface, lengthening fire seasons associated with climate change, and changes in vegetation due to past fire suppression and timber harvest. In light of these changes, the use of more wildland fire on...

  10. Costs of fire suppression forces based on cost-aggregation approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gonz& aacute; lez-Cab& aacute; Armando n; Charles W. McKetta; Thomas J. Mills

    1984-01-01

    A cost-aggregation approach has been developed for determining the cost of Fire Management Inputs (FMls)-the direct fireline production units (personnel and equipment) used in initial attack and large-fire suppression activities. All components contributing to an FMI are identified, computed, and summed to estimate hourly costs. This approach can be applied to any FMI...

  11. Weed suppression greatly increased by plant diversity in intensively managed grasslands: A continental-scale experiment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Connolly, John; Sebastià, Maria-Teresa; Kirwan, Laura; Finn, John Anthony; Llurba, Rosa; Suter, Matthias; Collins, Rosemary P; Porqueddu, Claudio; Helgadóttir, Áslaug; Baadshaug, Ole H; Bélanger, Gilles; Black, Alistair; Brophy, Caroline; Čop, Jure; Dalmannsdóttir, Sigridur; Delgado, Ignacio; Elgersma, Anjo; Fothergill, Michael; Frankow-Lindberg, Bodil E; Ghesquiere, An; Golinski, Piotr; Grieu, Philippe; Gustavsson, Anne-Maj; Höglind, Mats; Huguenin-Elie, Olivier; Jørgensen, Marit; Kadziuliene, Zydre; Lunnan, Tor; Nykanen-Kurki, Paivi; Ribas, Angela; Taube, Friedhelm; Thumm, Ulrich; De Vliegher, Alex; Lüscher, Andreas

    2018-03-01

    Grassland diversity can support sustainable intensification of grassland production through increased yields, reduced inputs and limited weed invasion. We report the effects of diversity on weed suppression from 3 years of a 31-site continental-scale field experiment.At each site, 15 grassland communities comprising four monocultures and 11 four-species mixtures based on a wide range of species' proportions were sown at two densities and managed by cutting. Forage species were selected according to two crossed functional traits, "method of nitrogen acquisition" and "pattern of temporal development".Across sites, years and sown densities, annual weed biomass in mixtures and monocultures was 0.5 and 2.0 t  DM ha -1 (7% and 33% of total biomass respectively). Over 95% of mixtures had weed biomass lower than the average of monocultures, and in two-thirds of cases, lower than in the most suppressive monoculture (transgressive suppression). Suppression was significantly transgressive for 58% of site-years. Transgressive suppression by mixtures was maintained across years, independent of site productivity.Based on models, average weed biomass in mixture over the whole experiment was 52% less (95% confidence interval: 30%-75%) than in the most suppressive monoculture. Transgressive suppression of weed biomass was significant at each year across all mixtures and for each mixture.Weed biomass was consistently low across all mixtures and years and was in some cases significantly but not largely different from that in the equiproportional mixture. The average variability (standard deviation) of annual weed biomass within a site was much lower for mixtures (0.42) than for monocultures (1.77). Synthesis and applications . Weed invasion can be diminished through a combination of forage species selected for complementarity and persistence traits in systems designed to reduce reliance on fertiliser nitrogen. In this study, effects of diversity on weed suppression were

  12. Nanoparticles Containing Curcumin Useful for Suppressing Macrophages In Vivo in Mice.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chie Amano

    Full Text Available To explore a novel method using liposomes to suppress macrophages, we screened food constituents through cell culture assays. Curcumin was one of the strongest compounds exhibiting suppressive effects on macrophages. We subsequently tried various methods to prepare liposomal curcumin, and eventually succeeded in preparing liposomes with sufficient amounts of curcumin to suppress macrophages by incorporating a complex of curcumin and bovine serum albumin. The diameter of the resultant nanoparticles, the liposomes containing curcumin, ranged from 60 to 100 nm. Flow cytometric analyses revealed that after intraperitoneal administration of the liposomes containing curcumin into mice, these were incorporated mainly by macrophages positive for F4/80, CD36, and CD11b antigens. Peritoneal cells prepared from mice injected in vivo with the liposomes containing curcumin apparently decreased interleukin-6-producing activities. Major changes in body weight and survival rates in the mice were not observed after administrating the liposomes containing curcumin. These results indicate that the liposomes containing curcumin are safe and useful for the selective suppression of macrophages in vivo in mice.

  13. GNOSIS: THE FIRST INSTRUMENT TO USE FIBER BRAGG GRATINGS FOR OH SUPPRESSION

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Trinh, Christopher Q.; Ellis, Simon C.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Bryant, Julia; O' Byrne, John [Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia); Lawrence, Jon S.; Horton, Anthony J.; Shortridge, Keith; Case, Scott; Colless, Matthew; Gers, Luke; Lee, Steve; Miziarski, Stan [Australian Astronomical Observatory, 105 Delhi Road, North Ryde, P.O. Box 915, NSW 1670 (Australia); Leon-Saval, Sergio G. [Institute of Photonics and Optical Science, School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006 (Australia); Couch, Warrick; Glazebrook, Karl [Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, P.O. Box 218, Hawthorn, VIC 3122 (Australia); Freeman, Kenneth [Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Weston Creek, ACT 2611 (Australia); Loehmannsroeben, Hans-Gerd [innoFSPEC-Institut fuer Chemie/Physikalische Chemie, Universitaet Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, D-14476 Potsdam-Golm (Germany); Haynes, Roger; Roth, Martin M., E-mail: c.trinh@physics.usyd.edu.au [innoFSPEC-Leibniz-Institut fuer Astrophysik Potsdam, An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam (Germany); and others

    2013-02-01

    The near-infrared is an important part of the spectrum in astronomy, especially in cosmology because the light from objects in the early universe is redshifted to these wavelengths. However, deep near-infrared observations are extremely difficult to make from ground-based telescopes due to the bright background from the atmosphere. Nearly all of this background comes from the bright and narrow emission lines of atmospheric hydroxyl (OH) molecules. The atmospheric background cannot be easily removed from data because the brightness fluctuates unpredictably on short timescales. The sensitivity of ground-based optical astronomy far exceeds that of near-infrared astronomy because of this long-standing problem. GNOSIS is a prototype astrophotonic instrument that utilizes 'OH suppression fibers' consisting of fiber Bragg gratings and photonic lanterns to suppress the 103 brightest atmospheric emission doublets between 1.47 and 1.7 {mu}m. GNOSIS was commissioned at the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope with the IRIS2 spectrograph to demonstrate the potential of OH suppression fibers, but may be potentially used with any telescope and spectrograph combination. Unlike previous atmospheric suppression techniques GNOSIS suppresses the lines before dispersion and in a manner that depends purely on wavelength. We present the instrument design and report the results of laboratory and on-sky tests from commissioning. While these tests demonstrated high throughput ( Almost-Equal-To 60%) and excellent suppression of the skylines by the OH suppression fibers, surprisingly GNOSIS produced no significant reduction in the interline background and the sensitivity of GNOSIS+IRIS2 is about the same as IRIS2. It is unclear whether the lack of reduction in the interline background is due to physical sources or systematic errors as the observations are detector noise dominated. OH suppression fibers could potentially impact ground-based astronomy at the level of adaptive optics or

  14. GNOSIS: THE FIRST INSTRUMENT TO USE FIBER BRAGG GRATINGS FOR OH SUPPRESSION

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Trinh, Christopher Q.; Ellis, Simon C.; Bland-Hawthorn, Joss; Bryant, Julia; O'Byrne, John; Lawrence, Jon S.; Horton, Anthony J.; Shortridge, Keith; Case, Scott; Colless, Matthew; Gers, Luke; Lee, Steve; Miziarski, Stan; Leon-Saval, Sergio G.; Couch, Warrick; Glazebrook, Karl; Freeman, Kenneth; Löhmannsröben, Hans-Gerd; Haynes, Roger; Roth, Martin M.

    2013-01-01

    The near-infrared is an important part of the spectrum in astronomy, especially in cosmology because the light from objects in the early universe is redshifted to these wavelengths. However, deep near-infrared observations are extremely difficult to make from ground-based telescopes due to the bright background from the atmosphere. Nearly all of this background comes from the bright and narrow emission lines of atmospheric hydroxyl (OH) molecules. The atmospheric background cannot be easily removed from data because the brightness fluctuates unpredictably on short timescales. The sensitivity of ground-based optical astronomy far exceeds that of near-infrared astronomy because of this long-standing problem. GNOSIS is a prototype astrophotonic instrument that utilizes 'OH suppression fibers' consisting of fiber Bragg gratings and photonic lanterns to suppress the 103 brightest atmospheric emission doublets between 1.47 and 1.7 μm. GNOSIS was commissioned at the 3.9 m Anglo-Australian Telescope with the IRIS2 spectrograph to demonstrate the potential of OH suppression fibers, but may be potentially used with any telescope and spectrograph combination. Unlike previous atmospheric suppression techniques GNOSIS suppresses the lines before dispersion and in a manner that depends purely on wavelength. We present the instrument design and report the results of laboratory and on-sky tests from commissioning. While these tests demonstrated high throughput (≈60%) and excellent suppression of the skylines by the OH suppression fibers, surprisingly GNOSIS produced no significant reduction in the interline background and the sensitivity of GNOSIS+IRIS2 is about the same as IRIS2. It is unclear whether the lack of reduction in the interline background is due to physical sources or systematic errors as the observations are detector noise dominated. OH suppression fibers could potentially impact ground-based astronomy at the level of adaptive optics or greater. However, until a

  15. Chaos Suppression of an Electrically Actuated Microresonator Based on Fractional-Order Nonsingular Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Control

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jianxin Han

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper focuses on chaos suppression strategy of a microresonator actuated by two symmetrical electrodes. Dynamic behavior of this system under the case where the origin is the only stable equilibrium is investigated first. Numerical simulations reveal that system may exhibit chaotic motion under certain excitation conditions. Then, bifurcation diagrams versus amplitude or frequency of AC excitation are drawn to grasp system dynamics nearby its natural frequency. Results show that the vibration is complex and may exhibit period-doubling bifurcation, chaotic motion, or dynamic pull-in instability. For the suppression of chaos, a novel control algorithm, based on an integer-order nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode and a fractional-order switching law, is proposed. Fractional Lyapunov Stability Theorem is used to guarantee the asymptotic stability of the system. Finally, numerical results with both fractional-order and integer-order control laws show that our proposed control law is effective in controlling chaos with system uncertainties and external disturbances.

  16. New technologies for fire suppression on board naval craft, FiST

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Rahm, M.; Hiltz, J.; Wal, R. van der; Hertzberg, T.; Lindström, J.

    2014-01-01

    For three years Canada, Sweden and the Netherlands have been investigating new technologies for fire suppression on board naval crafts within the FiST project. The project has focused on a number of technologies. These included the evaluation of water based fire suppression systems and in particular

  17. Aging and repeated thought suppression success.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ann E Lambert

    Full Text Available Intrusive thoughts and attempts to suppress them are common, but while suppression may be effective in the short-term, it can increase thought recurrence in the long-term. Because intentional suppression involves controlled processing, and many aspects of controlled processing decline with age, age differences in thought suppression outcomes may emerge, especially over repeated thought suppression attempts as cognitive resources are expended. Using multilevel modeling, we examined age differences in reactions to thought suppression attempts across four thought suppression sequences in 40 older and 42 younger adults. As expected, age differences were more prevalent during suppression than during free monitoring periods, with younger adults indicating longer, more frequent thought recurrences and greater suppression difficulty. Further, younger adults' thought suppression outcomes changed over time, while trajectories for older adults' were relatively stable. Results are discussed in terms of older adults' reduced thought recurrence, which was potentially afforded by age-related changes in reactive control and distractibility.

  18. Efficacy of alginate-based reflux suppressant and magnesium-aluminium antacid gel for treatment of heartburn in pregnancy: a randomized double-blind controlled trial

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meteerattanapipat, Pontip; Phupong, Vorapong

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this study was to compare the therapeutic efficacy of alginate-based reflux suppressant and magnesium-aluminium antacid gel for treatment of heartburn in pregnancy. A double-blinded, randomized, controlled trial was conducted. One hundred pregnant women at less than 36 weeks gestation with heartburn at least twice per week were randomized to either alginate-based reflux suppressant or to magnesium-aluminium antacid gel. Details of heartburn were recorded before beginning the treatment and the second week of study. Primary outcome measure was the improvement of heartburn frequency after treatment and secondary outcome were the improvement of heartburn intensity, quality of life, maternal satisfaction, maternal side effects, pregnancy and neonatal outcomes. There was no difference between treatment and control groups in improvement of heartburn frequency (80% vs 88%, p = 0.275), 50% reduction of frequency of heartburn (56% vs 52%, p = 0.688), improvement of heartburn intensity (92% vs 92%, p = 1.000) and 50% reduction of heartburn intensity (68% vs 80% cases, p = 0.075). There were also no significant differences in quality of life, maternal satisfaction, maternal side effects, pregnancy and neonatal outcomes. Alginate-based reflux suppressant was not different from magnesium-aluminium antacid gel in the treatment of heartburn in pregnancy. PMID:28317885

  19. An Empirical Method for Particle Damping Design

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhi Wei Xu

    2004-01-01

    Full Text Available Particle damping is an effective vibration suppression method. The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirical method for particle damping design based on extensive experiments on three structural objects – steel beam, bond arm and bond head stand. The relationships among several key parameters of structure/particles are obtained. Then the procedures with the use of particle damping are proposed to provide guidelines for practical applications. It is believed that the results presented in this paper would be helpful to effectively implement the particle damping for various structural systems for the purpose of vibration suppression.

  20. Suppressed serum prolactin in sinoaortic-denervated rats

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alexander, N.; Melmed, S.; Morris, M.

    1987-01-01

    The authors investigated the effect of arterial baroreceptor deafferentation on serum and pituitary prolactin (PRL) and on catecholamines in median eminence (ME) and anterior and posterior pituitaries. Male Wistar rats were sinoaortic denervated (SAD) or sham operated (SO). Three days after surgery serum prolactin, measured by radioimmunoassay, was suppressed in SAD rats, and dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) concentrations, measured by radioenzymatic or high-performance liquid chromatography electron capture methods, were significantly reduced in ME of SAD rats. Simultaneously, anterior pituitary of SAD rats had significant increases in both catecholamines, whereas posterior pituitary showed no changes. Four hours after surgery serum PRL was also reduced in SAD rats, but no changes in ME catecholamines were found. Mean arterial pressure (MAP) and heart rate were measured before and after injection of bromocriptine in SAD and SO rats 3 days after surgery. Bromocriptine markedly suppressed serum PRL in both groups and reduced MAP from 144 +/- 10 to 84 +/- 5 and from 116 +/- 2 to 99 +/- 3 in SAD and SO rats, respectively; heart rate was reduced in SAD rats. They conclude that the SAD rat is a model of hypertension with suppressed serum PRL and that interruption of arterial baroreceptor nerves suppresses PRL secretion probably by modulating tuberoinfundibular turnover of catecholamines

  1. Transient voltage control of a DFIG-based wind power plant for suppressing overvoltage using a reactive current reduction loop

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Geon Park

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper proposes a transient voltage control scheme of a doubly fed induction generator (DFIG-based wind power plant (WPP using a reactive current reduction loop to suppress the overvoltage at a point of interconnection (POI and DFIG terminal after a fault clearance. The change of terminal voltage of a DFIG is monitored at every predefined time period to detect the fault clearance. If the voltage change exceeds a set value, then the reactive current reduction loop reduces the reactive current reference in the DFIG controller using the step function. The reactive current injection of DFIGs in a WPP is rapidly reduced, and a WPP can rapidly suppress the overvoltage at a fault clearance because the reactive current reference is reduced. Using an electromagnetic transients program–released version (EMTP–RV simulator, the performance of the proposed scheme was validated for a model system comprising 20 units of a 5-MW DFIG considering various scenarios, such as fault and wind conditions. Test results show that the proposed scheme enables a WPP to suppress the overvoltage at the POI and DFIG terminal within a short time under grid fault conditions.

  2. Suppression of seizures based on the multi-coupled neural mass model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cao, Yuzhen; Ren, Kaili; Su, Fei; Deng, Bin; Wei, Xile; Wang, Jiang

    2015-10-01

    Epilepsy is one of the most common serious neurological disorders, which affects approximately 1% of population in the world. In order to effectively control the seizures, we propose a novel control methodology, which combines the feedback linearization control (FLC) with the underlying mechanism of epilepsy, to achieve the suppression of seizures. The three coupled neural mass model is constructed to study the property of the electroencephalographs (EEGs). Meanwhile, with the model we research on the propagation of epileptiform waves and the synchronization of populations, which are taken as the foundation of our control method. Results show that the proposed approach not only yields excellent performances in clamping the pathological spiking patterns to the reference signals derived under the normal state but also achieves the normalization of the pathological parameter, where the parameters are estimated from EEGs with Unscented Kalman Filter. The specific contribution of this paper is to treat the epilepsy from its pathogenesis with the FLC, which provides critical theoretical basis for the clinical treatment of neurological disorders.

  3. Suppression of COTR in electron beam imaging diagnosis at FLASH

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yan, Minjie

    2012-05-15

    The Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH) demands electron beams with high peak current to generate high-brilliant, coherent X-ray pulses. Magnetic chicanes are used for longitudinal compression of the electron bunches to achieve the required high peak current. During bunch compression process, microstructures with a modulation length comparable to the visible light can be induced inside the bunch. This leads to coherent emission of optical transition radiation (OTR), which may impede the widely used beam diagnostic based on OTR imaging. In this thesis, two methods of using incoherent scintillation light are proposed to circumvent the problem of coherence effects in beam imaging diagnostics. The method of temporal separation has been proved experimentally to have successfully suppressed coherence effects. The longitudinal beam profiles measured using this method are in good agreement with reference measurements, verifying further the reliability of the method. The method of spatial separation has been investigated in preparation studies, from which an improved experimental setup has been designed.

  4. Suppression of COTR in electron beam imaging diagnosis at FLASH

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yan, Minjie

    2011-12-01

    The Free-Electron Laser in Hamburg (FLASH) demands electron beams with high peak current to generate high-brilliant, coherent X-ray pulses. Magnetic chicanes are used for longitudinal compression of the electron bunches to achieve the required high peak current. During bunch compression process, microstructures with a modulation length comparable to the visible light can be induced inside the bunch. This leads to coherent emission of optical transition radiation (OTR), which may impede the widely used beam diagnostic based on OTR imaging. In this thesis, two methods of using incoherent scintillation light are proposed to circumvent the problem of coherence effects in beam imaging diagnostics. The method of temporal separation has been proved experimentally to have successfully suppressed coherence effects. The longitudinal beam profiles measured using this method are in good agreement with reference measurements, verifying further the reliability of the method. The method of spatial separation has been investigated in preparation studies, from which an improved experimental setup has been designed.

  5. Speckle Suppression by Weighted Euclidean Distance Anisotropic Diffusion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fengcheng Guo

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available To better reduce image speckle noise while also maintaining edge information in synthetic aperture radar (SAR images, we propose a novel anisotropic diffusion algorithm using weighted Euclidean distance (WEDAD. Presented here is a modified speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD method, which constructs a new edge detection operator using weighted Euclidean distances. The new edge detection operator can adaptively distinguish between homogenous and heterogeneous image regions, effectively generate anisotropic diffusion coefficients for each image pixel, and filter each pixel at different scales. Additionally, the effects of two different weighting methods (Gaussian weighting and non-linear weighting of de-noising were analyzed. The effect of different adjustment coefficient settings on speckle suppression was also explored. A series of experiments were conducted using an added noise image, GF-3 SAR image, and YG-29 SAR image. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can not only significantly suppress speckle, thus improving the visual effects, but also better preserve the edge information of images.

  6. A Method against Interrupted-Sampling Repeater Jamming Based on Energy Function Detection and Band-Pass Filtering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hui Yuan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Interrupted-sampling repeater jamming (ISRJ is a new kind of coherent jamming to the large time-bandwidth linear frequency modulation (LFM signal. Many jamming modes, such as lifelike multiple false targets and dense false targets, can be made through setting up different parameters. According to the “storage-repeater-storage-repeater” characteristics of the ISRJ and the differences in the time-frequency-energy domain between the ISRJ signal and the target echo signal, one new method based on the energy function detection and band-pass filtering is proposed to suppress the ISRJ. The methods mainly consist of two parts: extracting the signal segments without ISRJ and constructing band-pass filtering function with low sidelobe. The simulation results show that the method is effective in the ISRJ with different parameters.

  7. Factors affecting the purpose suppressive antiviral therapy for patients with recurrent genital herpes

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    I. S. Коlova

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Objective: To study the factors that influence the destination of suppressive antiviral therapy in patients with recurrent genital herpes doctors of different specialties.Material and Methods: The study was conducted based on an anonymous survey of professionals providing medical care to patients with genital herpes. The survey involved 67 experts – 44 dermatologist, 13 obstetricians and 10 urologists working in Skin and Venereal Diseases, Women’s consuitation post and Saint Petersburg clinics.Results: Most respondents indicated that among patients with genital herpes, seeking an appointment, dominated by patients with relapsing nature of the disease. Suppressive antiviral therapy is recommended 68,7% of specialists, including dermatologists 61,3%, 84,6% of obstetricians and gynecologists, and 80% of urologists. The main indications for its experts consider high frequency of relapses, the patient’s tendency to promiscuity, the desire of the patient with fewer relapses, and the emotional response of the patient for the presence of the disease. Do not prescribe suppressive therapy for recurrent genital herpes 31,4% of the doctors surveyed. Among the reasons for which are not appointed by the type of treatment, the patient is dominated by the rejection of this type of treatment, the lack of experience of the destination suppressive therapy, as well as the uncertainty of specialists in its effectiveness.Conclusion: Suppressive antiviral therapy is recommended 68,7% of specialists. Do not prescribe this type of treatment for recurrent genital herpes 31,4% of the doctors surveyed. The proportion of professionals who refuse the appointment of suppressive antiviral therapy, the highest among dermatologists (38,7% compared with 15,4% among obstetricians and 20% of urologists. The most frequent grounds for refusal from this type of treatment is the lack of confidence in its effectiveness. 

  8. A new double digestion ligation mediated suppression PCR method for simultaneous bacteria DNA-typing and confirmation of species: an Acinetobacter sp. model.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karolina Stojowska

    Full Text Available We have designed a new ddLMS PCR (double digestion Ligation Mediated Suppression PCR method based on restriction site polymorphism upstream from the specific target sequence for the simultaneous identification and differentiation of bacterial strains. The ddLMS PCR combines a simple PCR used for species or genus identification and the LM PCR strategy for strain differentiation. The bacterial identification is confirmed in the form of the PCR product(s, while the length of the PCR product makes it possible to differentiate between bacterial strains. If there is a single copy of the target sequence within genomic DNA, one specific PCR product is created (simplex ddLMS PCR, whereas for multiple copies of the gene the fingerprinting patterns can be obtained (multiplex ddLMS PCR. The described ddLMS PCR method is designed for rapid and specific strain differentiation in medical and microbiological studies. In comparison to other LM PCR it has substantial advantages: enables specific species' DNA-typing without the need for pure bacterial culture selection, is not sensitive to contamination with other cells or genomic DNA, and gives univocal "band-based" results, which are easy to interpret. The utility of ddLMS PCR was shown for Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii (Acb complex, the genetically closely related and phenotypically similar species and also important nosocomial pathogens, for which currently, there are no recommended methods for screening, typing and identification. In this article two models are proposed: 3' recA-ddLMS PCR-MaeII/RsaI for Acb complex interspecific typing and 5' rrn-ddLMS PCR-HindIII/ApaI for Acinetobacter baumannii intraspecific typing. ddLMS PCR allows not only for DNA-typing but also for confirmation of species in one reaction. Also, practical guidelines for designing a diagnostic test based on ddLMS PCR for genotyping different species of bacteria are provided.

  9. A new double digestion ligation mediated suppression PCR method for simultaneous bacteria DNA-typing and confirmation of species: an Acinetobacter sp. model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stojowska, Karolina; Krawczyk, Beata

    2014-01-01

    We have designed a new ddLMS PCR (double digestion Ligation Mediated Suppression PCR) method based on restriction site polymorphism upstream from the specific target sequence for the simultaneous identification and differentiation of bacterial strains. The ddLMS PCR combines a simple PCR used for species or genus identification and the LM PCR strategy for strain differentiation. The bacterial identification is confirmed in the form of the PCR product(s), while the length of the PCR product makes it possible to differentiate between bacterial strains. If there is a single copy of the target sequence within genomic DNA, one specific PCR product is created (simplex ddLMS PCR), whereas for multiple copies of the gene the fingerprinting patterns can be obtained (multiplex ddLMS PCR). The described ddLMS PCR method is designed for rapid and specific strain differentiation in medical and microbiological studies. In comparison to other LM PCR it has substantial advantages: enables specific species' DNA-typing without the need for pure bacterial culture selection, is not sensitive to contamination with other cells or genomic DNA, and gives univocal "band-based" results, which are easy to interpret. The utility of ddLMS PCR was shown for Acinetobacter calcoaceticus-baumannii (Acb) complex, the genetically closely related and phenotypically similar species and also important nosocomial pathogens, for which currently, there are no recommended methods for screening, typing and identification. In this article two models are proposed: 3' recA-ddLMS PCR-MaeII/RsaI for Acb complex interspecific typing and 5' rrn-ddLMS PCR-HindIII/ApaI for Acinetobacter baumannii intraspecific typing. ddLMS PCR allows not only for DNA-typing but also for confirmation of species in one reaction. Also, practical guidelines for designing a diagnostic test based on ddLMS PCR for genotyping different species of bacteria are provided.

  10. A Sea-Sky Line Detection Method for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Based on Gradient Saliency.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Bo; Su, Yumin; Wan, Lei

    2016-04-15

    Special features in real marine environments such as cloud clutter, sea glint and weather conditions always result in various kinds of interference in optical images, which make it very difficult for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to detect the sea-sky line (SSL) accurately. To solve this problem a saliency-based SSL detection method is proposed. Through the computation of gradient saliency the line features of SSL are enhanced effectively, while other interference factors are relatively suppressed, and line support regions are obtained by a region growing method on gradient orientation. The SSL identification is achieved according to region contrast, line segment length and orientation features, and optimal state estimation of SSL detection is implemented by introducing a cubature Kalman filter (CKF). In the end, the proposed method is tested on a benchmark dataset from the "XL" USV in a real marine environment, and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is significantly superior to other state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy rate and real-time performance, and its accuracy and stability are effectively improved by the CKF.

  11. TU-CD-BRA-11: Application of Bone Suppression Technique to Inspiratory/expiratory Chest Radiography

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tanaka, R; Sanada, S [Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Ishikawa (Japan); Sakuta, K; Kawashima, H [Kanazawa University Hospital, Kanazawa, Ishikawa (Japan); Kishitani, Y [TOYO Corporation, Chuoh-ku, Tokyo (Japan)

    2015-06-15

    Purpose: The bone suppression technique based on advanced image processing can suppress the conspicuity of bones on chest radiographs, creating soft tissue images normally obtained by the dual-energy subtraction technique. This study was performed to investigate the usefulness of bone suppression technique in quantitative analysis of pulmonary function in inspiratory/expiratory chest radiography. Methods: Commercial bone suppression image processing software (ClearRead; Riverain Technologies) was applied to paired inspiratory/expiratory chest radiographs of 107 patients (normal, 33; abnormal, 74) to create corresponding bone suppression images. The abnormal subjects had been diagnosed with pulmonary diseases, such as pneumothorax, pneumonia, emphysema, asthma, and lung cancer. After recognition of the lung area, the vectors of respiratory displacement were measured in all local lung areas using a cross-correlation technique. The measured displacement in each area was visualized as displacement color maps. The distribution pattern of respiratory displacement was assessed by comparison with the findings of lung scintigraphy. Results: Respiratory displacement of pulmonary markings (soft tissues) was able to be quantified separately from the rib movements on bone suppression images. The resulting displacement map showed a left-right symmetric distribution increasing from the lung apex to the bottom region of the lung in many cases. However, patients with ventilatory impairments showed a nonuniform distribution caused by decreased displacement of pulmonary markings, which were confirmed to correspond to area with ventilatory impairments found on the lung scintigrams. Conclusion: The bone suppression technique was useful for quantitative analysis of respiratory displacement of pulmonary markings without any interruption of the rib shadows. Abnormal areas could be detected as decreased displacement of pulmonary markings. Inspiratory/expiratory chest radiography combined

  12. Engineering Synthesis of Nonlinear Spatial Selection with Artificial Intelligence Elements to Suppress Critical Interference of Background in Aviation and Space-Based Opto-Electronic Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    V. L. Levshin

    2015-01-01

    macrostructure background – edges («steps» and targets, you must use the anisotropy coefficients of the first and second order. The result of using the system, most effectively separating of signs, was the formation of the so-called «areas of selection».Mathematical models of the target and interference of parametrically-stochastic approach, as well as simulation on a semi-natural test frame with a fairly complex background «scene», proved the fundamental capability of the synthesized circuits to suppress radically the sources of interference signals, which are tens and even hundreds times greater than the signals from targets at the input. Thus, unlike the method based on optimal linear filtering, this approach allows the nonlinear «blockers» to suppress completely interference previously recognized by topological discriminators.Control sampling of points of the semi-natural frame enabled us to estimate conditional probabilities of a true solution of the target detection problem. The estimate has shown that the obtained probability of missing the target and false alarm are quite acceptable the values that make up a few percent.Obtained results show the incomparable advantages in complex background situation of presented non-linear method as compared to its traditional linear analogues.

  13. Suppression of anomalous synchronization and nonstationary behavior of neural network under small-world topology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boaretto, B. R. R.; Budzinski, R. C.; Prado, T. L.; Kurths, J.; Lopes, S. R.

    2018-05-01

    It is known that neural networks under small-world topology can present anomalous synchronization and nonstationary behavior for weak coupling regimes. Here, we propose methods to suppress the anomalous synchronization and also to diminish the nonstationary behavior occurring in weakly coupled neural network under small-world topology. We consider a network of 2000 thermally sensitive identical neurons, based on the model of Hodgkin-Huxley in a small-world topology, with the probability of adding non local connection equal to p = 0 . 001. Based on experimental protocols to suppress anomalous synchronization, as well as nonstationary behavior of the neural network dynamics, we make use of (i) external stimulus (pulsed current); (ii) biologic parameters changing (neuron membrane conductance changes); and (iii) body temperature changes. Quantification analysis to evaluate phase synchronization makes use of the Kuramoto's order parameter, while recurrence quantification analysis, particularly the determinism, computed over the easily accessible mean field of network, the local field potential (LFP), is used to evaluate nonstationary states. We show that the methods proposed can control the anomalous synchronization and nonstationarity occurring for weak coupling parameter without any effect on the individual neuron dynamics, neither in the expected asymptotic synchronized states occurring for large values of the coupling parameter.

  14. Suppression of beam-excited electron waves by an externally applied RF signal

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fukumasa, Osamu; Itatani, Ryohei

    1980-11-01

    Suppression of the beam-excited electron wave in a bounded system is investigated in connection with the beam distribution function. Wave suppression has two different processes depending on whether injected beams are reflected at the other end or not. In the absence of reflected beam electrons, deformation of the beam distribution function is observed in relation to the suppression of the electron wave. However, when beam electrons are reflected, the external wave suppresses the electron wave but distribution function shows no appreciable change. These experimental results show that nonlinear behaviors of beam electrons, namely behaviors of reflected beams, are quite important for wave suppression. By using the method of partial simulation, interaction between two waves in the bounded system including nonlinear motions of beam electrons is studied numerically. Qualitative agreement between experimental and numerical results is obtained. (author)

  15. Compton suppression through rise-time analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Selvi, S.; Celiktas, C.

    2007-01-01

    We studied Compton suppression for 60 Co and 137 Cs radioisotopes using a signal selection criterion based on contrasting the fall time of the signals composing the photo peak with those composing the Compton continuum. The fall time criterion is employed by using the pulse shape analysis observing the change in the fall times of the gamma-ray pulses. This change is determined by measuring the changes in the rise times related to the fall time of the scintillator and the timing signals related to the fall time of the input signals. We showed that Compton continuum suppression is achieved best via the precise timing adjustment of an analog rise-time analyzer connected to a NaI(Tl) scintillation spectrometer

  16. Performance comparison for modes of operation and suppression cases of the clover detector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kshetri, R

    2014-01-01

    Peak-to-total ratios have been extracted for a segmented clover detector for various modes of operation and suppression cases. Based on absorption and scattering of gamma-rays, a formalism has been presented for quantifying the advantages of using addback mode and active suppression. Further investigations have been performed to find if the reduction of background counts is caused more by active suppression or by addback process

  17. Pressure suppressing device

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Naito, Makoto.

    1980-01-01

    Purpose: To prevent the pressure in the reactor container from excessively increasing even when vapor leaks from the dry well to a space of the suppression chamber, without passing though the suppression pool at the time of loss of coolant accident. Constitution: When vapor of a high temperature and a high pressure at the time of loss of coolant accident flows from the dry well to the suppression chamber without passing through suppression pool water, vapor dose not condense with pool water, and therefore the pressure within the chamber abnormally increases. For this reason, this abnormal pressure is detected by a pressure detector thereby to start the operations of a blower and a pump. By starting the blower, the pressure in the dry well becomes lower than the pressure in the chamber, and vapor entirely passes through the pool water and entirely condenses with the pool water. By starting the pump, the pool water is sprayed over the space of the chamber, and vapor in the space is condensed. (Yoshino, Y.)

  18. A methodology for analyzing the detection and suppression of fires in nuclear power plants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Siu, N.; Apostolakis, G.

    1986-01-01

    The assessment of the fire risk in nuclear power plants requires the analysis of fire scenarios within specified rooms. A methodology that integrates the fire protection features of a given room into an existing fire risk analysis framework is developed. An important component of this methodology is a model for the time required to detect and suppress a fire in a given room, called the ''hazard time.'' This model accounts for the reliability of fire detection and suppression equipment, as well as for the characteristics rates of the detection and suppression processes. Because the available evidence for fire detection and suppression in nuclear power plants is sparse and often qualitative, a second component of this methodology is a set of methods needed to employ imprecise information in a statistical analysis. These methods can be applied to a wide variety of problems

  19. The role of suppression in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Jingrong; Thompson, Benjamin; Lam, Carly S Y; Deng, Daming; Chan, Lily Y L; Maehara, Goro; Woo, George C; Yu, Minbin; Hess, Robert F

    2011-06-13

    This study had three main goals: to assess the degree of suppression in patients with strabismic, anisometropic, and mixed amblyopia; to establish the relationship between suppression and the degree of amblyopia; and to compare the degree of suppression across the clinical subgroups within the sample. Using both standard measures of suppression (Bagolini lenses and neutral density [ND] filters, Worth 4-Dot test) and a new approach involving the measurement of dichoptic motion thresholds under conditions of variable interocular contrast, the degree of suppression in 43 amblyopic patients with strabismus, anisometropia, or a combination of both was quantified. There was good agreement between the quantitative measures of suppression made with the new dichoptic motion threshold technique and measurements made with standard clinical techniques (Bagolini lenses and ND filters, Worth 4-Dot test). The degree of suppression was found to correlate directly with the degree of amblyopia within our clinical sample, whereby stronger suppression was associated with a greater difference in interocular acuity and poorer stereoacuity. Suppression was not related to the type or angle of strabismus when this was present or the previous treatment history. These results suggest that suppression may have a primary role in the amblyopia syndrome and therefore have implications for the treatment of amblyopia.

  20. Chromatic induction from surrounding stimuli under perceptual suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Horiuchi, Koji; Kuriki, Ichiro; Tokunaga, Rumi; Matsumiya, Kazumichi; Shioiri, Satoshi

    2014-11-01

    The appearance of colors can be affected by their spatiotemporal context. The shift in color appearance according to the surrounding colors is called color induction or chromatic induction; in particular, the shift in opponent color of the surround is called chromatic contrast. To investigate whether chromatic induction occurs even when the chromatic surround is imperceptible, we measured chromatic induction during interocular suppression. A multicolor or uniform color field was presented as the surround stimulus, and a colored continuous flash suppression (CFS) stimulus was presented to the dominant eye of each subject. The subjects were asked to report the appearance of the test field only when the stationary surround stimulus is invisible by interocular suppression with CFS. The resulting shifts in color appearance due to chromatic induction were significant even under the conditions of interocular suppression for all surround stimuli. The magnitude of chromatic induction differed with the surround conditions, and this difference was preserved regardless of the viewing conditions. The chromatic induction effect was reduced by CFS, in proportion to the magnitude of chromatic induction under natural (i.e., no-CFS) viewing conditions. According to an analysis with linear model fitting, we revealed the presence of at least two kinds of subprocesses for chromatic induction that reside at higher and lower levels than the site of interocular suppression. One mechanism yields different degrees of chromatic induction based on the complexity of the surround, which is unaffected by interocular suppression, while the other mechanism changes its output with interocular suppression acting as a gain control. Our results imply that the total chromatic induction effect is achieved via a linear summation of outputs from mechanisms that reside at different levels of visual processing.

  1. Research on Multiaircraft Cooperative Suppression Interference Array Based on an Improved Multiobjective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huan Zhang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available For the problem of multiaircraft cooperative suppression interference array (MACSIA against the enemy air defense radar network in electronic warfare mission planning, firstly, the concept of route planning security zone is proposed and the solution to get the minimum width of security zone based on mathematical morphology is put forward. Secondly, the minimum width of security zone and the sum of the distance between each jamming aircraft and the center of radar network are regarded as objective function, and the multiobjective optimization model of MACSIA is built, and then an improved multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to solve the model. The decomposition mechanism is adopted and the proportional distribution is used to maintain diversity of the new found nondominated solutions. Finally, the Pareto optimal solutions are analyzed by simulation, and the optimal MACSIA schemes of each jamming aircraft suppression against the enemy air defense radar network are obtained and verify that the built multiobjective optimization model is corrected. It also shows that the improved multiobjective particle swarm optimization algorithm for solving the problem of MACSIA is feasible and effective.

  2. Distinguishing among potential mechanisms of singleton suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gaspelin, Nicholas; Luck, Steven J

    2018-04-01

    Previous research has revealed that people can suppress salient stimuli that might otherwise capture visual attention. The present study tests between 3 possible mechanisms of visual suppression. According to first-order feature suppression models , items are suppressed on the basis of simple feature values. According to second-order feature suppression models , items are suppressed on the basis of local discontinuities within a given feature dimension. According to global-salience suppression models , items are suppressed on the basis of their dimension-independent salience levels. The current study distinguished among these models by varying the predictability of the singleton color value. If items are suppressed by virtue of salience alone, then it should not matter whether the singleton color is predictable. However, evidence from probe processing and eye movements indicated that suppression is possible only when the color values are predictable. Moreover, the ability to suppress salient items developed gradually as participants gained experience with the feature that defined the salient distractor. These results are consistent with first-order feature suppression models, and are inconsistent with the other models of suppression. In other words, people primarily suppress salient distractors on the basis of their simple features and not on the basis of salience per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

  3. Application of electron beam radiation for peat sterilization and suppression of microbe contaminants

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsai, David

    2006-01-01

    Inoculation of root nodule bacteria into legume seeds such as soybean [Glycine max. (L.)], common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) and forage pasture has been effective and convenient as this simple procedure may introduce effective strains of Bradyrhizobium/Rhizobium into agricultural soils without a past history of successful cropping systems with the legume hosts. Peat-based substrates previously sterilized have been used for decades as bacteria carrier, protecting them from the prevailing harsh conditions in tropical soils and ensuring their survival with nutrient and protection against the soil antagonists. The Brazilian Government requires that all peat-based substrates must be gamma-sterilized from a cobalt-60 ( 60 Co) source, prior the introduction of the root nodule bacteria into the package. The recommendation is for a dose up to 50 kGy for an effective suppression of pathogens and saprophytes, in order to avoid competition among the substrate microbiota. Recently, the use of the electron beam (EB) accelerator has shown to be a new alternative for peat pre-sterilization, as this technique may promote reactive free-radicals which are efficient to suppress microbial contaminants. This fast technology is considered more environment and ecology friendly-sound than gamma radiation (γ). The disadvantage of not reaching higher depth than gamma rays from 60 Co must be considered, and attempts of optimizing the technique are crucial. This study compared both methods by using increasing rates of radiation by 60 Co by the EB method - O, 10, 20, 30, 40 e 50 kGy in a commercial peat used for inoculants. Experimental data from days 7, 14, 21 and 28 days (growth period) and 150, 180 and 210 days (storage period) indicated high numbers of the strain Rhizobium tropici CM-01, labelled with gusA + (Study 1) and celB + (Study 2) from both eat-sterilizing techniques, reaching values above the minimum of 1x10 8 cells g -1 peat. At high rates, above 40 kGy, and after long

  4. THE POPULATION IMPACT OF ELIMINATING HOMELESSNESS ON HIV VIRAL SUPPRESSION AMONG PEOPLE WHO USE DRUGS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marshall, Brandon D.L.; Elston, Beth; Dobrer, Sabina; Parashar, Surita; Hogg, Robert S.; Montaner, Julio S.G.; Kerr, Thomas; Wood, Evan; Milloy, M-J

    2015-01-01

    Objective We sought to estimate the change in viral suppression prevalence if homelessness were eliminated from a population of HIV-infected people who use drugs (PWUD). Design Community-recruited prospective cohort of HIV-infected PWUD in Vancouver, Canada. Behavioral information was collected at baseline and linked to a province-wide HIV/AIDS treatment database. The primary outcome was viral suppression (<50 copies/mL) measured during subsequent routine clinical care. Methods We employed an imputation-based marginal modelling approach. First, we used modified Poisson regression to obtain effect estimates (adjusting for sociodemographics, substance use, addiction treatment, and other confounders). Then, we imputed an outcome probability for each individual while manipulating the exposure (homelessness). Population viral suppression prevalence under realized and “housed” scenarios were obtained by averaging these probabilities across the population. Bootstrapping was conducted to calculate 95% confidence limits. Results Of 706 individuals interviewed between January 2005 and December 2015, the majority was male (66.0%), of Caucasian race/ethnicity (55.1%), and had a history of injection (93.6%). At first study visit, 223 (31.6%) reported recent homelessness, and 37.8% were subsequently identified as virally suppressed. Adjusted marginal models estimated a 15.1% relative increase (95%CI: 9.0%, 21.7%) in viral suppression in the entire population—to 43.5% (95%CI: 39.4%, 48.2%)—if all homeless individuals were housed. Among those homeless, eliminating this exposure would increase viral suppression from 22.0% to 40.1% (95%CI: 35.1%, 46.1%), an 82.3% relative increase. Conclusions Interventions to house homeless, HIV-positive individuals who use drugs could significantly increase population viral suppression. Such interventions should be implemented as a part of renewed HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts. PMID:26636924

  5. Hot Spots Detection of Operating PV Arrays through IR Thermal Image Using Method Based on Curve Fitting of Gray Histogram

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiang Lin

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The overall efficiency of PV arrays is affected by hot spots which should be detected and diagnosed by applying responsible monitoring techniques. The method using the IR thermal image to detect hot spots has been studied as a direct, noncontact, nondestructive technique. However, IR thermal images suffer from relatively high stochastic noise and non-uniformity clutter, so the conventional methods of image processing are not effective. The paper proposes a method to detect hotspots based on curve fitting of gray histogram. The result of MATLAB simulation proves the method proposed in the paper is effective to detect the hot spots suppressing the noise generated during the process of image acquisition.

  6. Population suppression in support of the sterile insect technique

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mangan, R.L.

    2005-01-01

    Suppression or eradication of insect pest populations by the release of sterile insects is often dependent on supplementary methods of pest reduction to levels where the target pest population can be overflooded with sterile insects. Population suppression activities take place in advance of, or coincide with, the production of sterile insects. Supplementary methods to remove breeding opportunities, or management methods that prevent access of pests to the hosts, may reduce the population or prevent damage. Insecticides have been used widely in direct applications or applied as baits, in traps, or on specific sites where the pest makes contact or reproduces. As sterile insect release does not kill the pest, adult biting pests or fertile mated females of the pests will continue to attack hosts after the release of sterile insects. Thus supplementary pest suppression programmes and quarantine measures are essential to prevent damage or the spread of disease. Eradication or effective pest management requires that the entire population of the pest be treated, or that the programme apply immigration barriers. When supplementary pest control activities benefit the human population in areas being treated, such as in mosquito or screwworm eradication programmes, these activities are usually acceptable to the public, but when the public receives no direct benefit from supplementary control activities such as in fruit fly programmes, social resistance may develop. (author)

  7. A Novel Ship Detection Method Based on Gradient and Integral Feature for Single-Polarization Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hao Shi

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available With the rapid development of remote sensing technologies, SAR satellites like China’s Gaofen-3 satellite have more imaging modes and higher resolution. With the availability of high-resolution SAR images, automatic ship target detection has become an important topic in maritime research. In this paper, a novel ship detection method based on gradient and integral features is proposed. This method is mainly composed of three steps. First, in the preprocessing step, a filter is employed to smooth the clutters and the smoothing effect can be adaptive adjusted according to the statistics information of the sub-window. Thus, it can retain details while achieving noise suppression. Second, in the candidate area extraction, a sea-land segmentation method based on gradient enhancement is presented. The integral image method is employed to accelerate computation. Finally, in the ship target identification step, a feature extraction strategy based on Haar-like gradient information and a Radon transform is proposed. This strategy decreases the number of templates found in traditional Haar-like methods. Experiments were performed using Gaofen-3 single-polarization SAR images, and the results showed that the proposed method has high detection accuracy and rapid computational efficiency. In addition, this method has the potential for on-board processing.

  8. A compressed sensing based method with support refinement for impulse noise cancelation in DSL

    KAUST Repository

    Quadeer, Ahmed Abdul

    2013-06-01

    This paper presents a compressed sensing based method to suppress impulse noise in digital subscriber line (DSL). The proposed algorithm exploits the sparse nature of the impulse noise and utilizes the carriers, already available in all practical DSL systems, for its estimation and cancelation. Specifically, compressed sensing is used for a coarse estimate of the impulse position, an a priori information based maximum aposteriori probability (MAP) metric for its refinement, followed by least squares (LS) or minimum mean square error (MMSE) estimation for estimating the impulse amplitudes. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme achieves higher rate as compared to other known sparse estimation algorithms in literature. The paper also demonstrates the superior performance of the proposed scheme compared to the ITU-T G992.3 standard that utilizes RS-coding for impulse noise refinement in DSL signals. © 2013 IEEE.

  9. A Role of Base Plate Jerk Feedback Scheme for Suppression of the Self Vibration in a Pneumatic Positioning Stage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wali, Mohebullah; Nakamura, Yukinori; Wakui, Shinji

    In this study, a positioning stage is considered, which is actuated by four pneumatic cylinders and vertically supported by four coil-type spring isolators. Previously, we realized the base plate jerk feedback (BPJFB) to be analogues to a Master-Slave system which can synchronize the motion of the stage as a Slave to the motion of the base plate as a Master. However, in the case of real positioning, the stage had slightly self oscillation with higher frequency due to the higher gains set to the outer feedback loop controller besides its oscillation due to the natural vibration of the base plate. The self oscillation of stage was misunderstood to be the natural vibration of base plate due to the reaction force. However, according to the experimental results, the BPJFB scheme was able to control both of the mentioned vibrations. Suppression of the self vibration of stage is an interesting phenomenon, which should be experimentally investigated. Therefore, the current study focuses on the suppression of the self vibration of stage by using the BPJFB scheme. The experimental results show that besides operating as a Master-Slave synchronizing system, the PBJFB scheme is able to increase the damping ratio and stiffness of stage against its self vibration. This newly recognized phenomenon contributes to further increase the proportional gain of the outer feedback loop controller. As a result, the positioning speed and stability can be improved.

  10. Prevention and suppression of metal packing fires.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roberts, Mark; Rogers, William J; Sam Mannan, M; Ostrowski, Scott W

    2003-11-14

    Structured packing has been widely used because of large surface area that makes possible columns with high capacity and efficiency. The large surface area also contributes to fire hazards because of hydrocarbon deposits that can easily combust and promote combustion of the thin metal packing materials. Materials of high surface area that can fuel fires include reactive metals, such as titanium, and materials that are not considered combustible, such as stainless steel. Column design and material selection for packing construction is discussed together with employee training and practices for safe column maintenance and operations. Presented also are methods and agents for suppression of metal fires. Guidance for prevention and suppression of metal fires is related to incidents involving packing fires in columns.

  11. Effect of Thyrotropin Suppression Therapy on Bone in Thyroid Cancer Patients

    OpenAIRE

    Papaleontiou, Maria; Hawley, Sarah T.; Haymart, Megan R.

    2015-01-01

    Background. The thyroid cancer incidence is rising. Despite current guidelines, controversy exists regarding the degree and duration of thyrotropin suppression therapy. Also, its potential skeletal effects remain a concern to physicians caring for thyroid cancer patients. We conducted a review of published data to evaluate existing studies focusing on the skeletal effects of thyrotropin suppression therapy in thyroid cancer patients. Materials and Methods. A systematic search of the PubMed, O...

  12. Operation method for wall surface of pressure suppression chamber of reactor container and floating scaffold used for the method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Matsuzaki, Tetsuo; Kounomaru, Toshimi; Saito, Koichi.

    1996-01-01

    A floating scaffold is provisionally disposed in adjacent with the wall surface of pool water of a pressure suppression chamber while being floated on the surface of the pool water before the drainage of the pool water from the pressure vessel. The floating scaffold has guide rollers sandwiching a bent tube of an existent facility so that the horizontal movement is restrained, and is movable only in a vertical direction depending on the change of water level of the pool water. In addition, a handrail for preventing dropping, and a provisional illumination light are disposed. When pool water in the pressure suppression chamber is drained, the water level of the pool water is lowered in accordance with the amount of drained water. The floating scaffold floating on the water surface is lowered while being guided by the bent tube, and the operation position is lowered. An operator riding on the floating scaffold inspects the wall surfaces of the pressure chamber and conducts optional repair and painting. (I.N.)

  13. Resource allocation for wildland fire suppression planning using a stochastic program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Alex Taylor Masarie

    2011-01-01

    Resource allocation for wildland fire suppression problems, referred to here as Fire-S problems, have been studied for over a century. Not only have the many variants of the base Fire-S problem made it such a durable one to study, but advances in suppression technology and our ever-expanding knowledge of and experience with wildland fire behavior have required almost...

  14. Interference suppression using a SAW-based adaptive filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saulnier, Gary J.; Grant, Calvin J.; Das, Pankaj K.

    The structure and performance of a transversal filter interference suppressor that has been constructed using a surface acoustic wave (SAW) delay line are described. The delay line operates at a center frequency of 300 MHz and has eight equally spaced taps with an intertap delay of 150 ns. In the programmable mode, the tap weights are externally controllable, and in the adaptive mode, the tap weights are adjusted using the Widrow-Hoff least-mean-squared algorithm. Experimental results are provided that illustrate the performance of the filter in both the adaptive and programmable modes. Filter responses obtained in the adaptive mode are shown, along with spectra demonstrating the corresponding interference suppression. Bit-error-rate performance results for a single-tone jammer interfering with a direct sequence spread spectrum signal are presented.

  15. Fat suppression at three-dimensional T1-weighted MR imaging of the hands: Dixon method versus CHESS technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kirchgesner, T; Perlepe, V; Michoux, N; Larbi, A; Vande Berg, B

    2018-01-01

    To compare the effectiveness of fat suppression and the image quality of the Dixon method with those of the chemical shift-selective (CHESS) technique in hands of normal subjects at non-enhanced three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted MR imaging. Both hands of 14 healthy volunteers were imaged with 3D fast spoiled gradient echo (FSPGR) T1-weighted Dixon, 3D FSPGR T1-weighted CHESS and 3D T1-weighted fast spin echo (FSE) CHESS sequences in a 1.5T MR scanner. Three radiologists scored the effectiveness of fat suppression in bone marrow (EFS BM ) and soft tissues (EFS ST ) in 20 joints per subject. One radiologist measured the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in 10 bones per subject. Statistical analysis used two-way ANOVA with random effects (PCHESS sequence and the 3D FSE T1-weighted CHESS sequence (PCHESS sequence (PCHESS sequence in the axial plane (P=0.0028). Mean SNR was statistically significantly higher for 3D FSPGR T1-weighted Dixon sequence than for 3D FSPGR T1-weighted CHESS and 3D FSE T1-weighted CHESS sequences (PCHESS technique at 3D T1-weighted MR imaging of the hands. Copyright © 2017 Éditions françaises de radiologie. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

  16. Suppressing Unwanted Autobiographical Memories Reduces Their Automatic Influences: Evidence From Electrophysiology and an Implicit Autobiographical Memory Test.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xiaoqing; Bergström, Zara M; Bodenhausen, Galen V; Rosenfeld, J Peter

    2015-07-01

    The present study investigated the extent to which people can suppress unwanted autobiographical memories in a memory-detection context involving a mock crime. Participants encoded sensorimotor-rich memories by enacting a lab-based crime (stealing a ring) and received instructions to suppress memory of the crime in order to evade guilt detection in a brain-wave-based concealed-information test. Aftereffects of suppression on automatic memory processes were measured in an autobiographical Implicit Association Test. Results showed that suppression attenuated brain-wave activity (the P300) associated with crime-relevant memory retrieval, which rendered waveforms from innocent and guilty participants indistinguishable. However, the two groups could nevertheless be discriminated via the late-posterior-negative slow wave, which may reflect the need to monitor response conflict arising between voluntary suppression and automatic recognition processes. Finally, extending recent findings that suppression can impair implicit memory processes, we provide novel evidence that suppression reduces automatic cognitive biases often associated with actual autobiographical memories. © The Author(s) 2015.

  17. "Keep calm and carry on": structural correlates of expressive suppression of emotions.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Simone Kühn

    Full Text Available There is a growing appreciation that individuals differ systematically in their use of particular emotion regulation strategies. Our aim was to examine the structural correlates of the habitual use of expressive suppression of emotions. Based on our previous research on the voluntary suppression of actions we expected this response-focused emotion regulation strategy to be associated with increased grey matter volume in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC. On high-resolution MRI scans of 42 college-aged healthy adults we computed optimized voxel-based-morphometry (VBM to explore the correlation between grey matter volume and inter-individual differences in the tendency to suppress the expression of emotions assessed by means of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003. We found a positive correlation between the habitual use of expressive suppression as an emotion regulation strategy and grey matter volume in the dmPFC. No other brain area showed a significant positive or negative correlation with the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire scores. The association between the suppression of expression of emotions and volume in the dmPFC supports the behavioural stability and biological foundation of the concept of this particular emotion regulation strategy within an age-homogenous sample of adults.

  18. No evidence for surface organization in Kanizsa configurations during continuous flash suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moors, Pieter; Wagemans, Johan; van Ee, Raymond; de-Wit, Lee

    2016-04-01

    Does one need to be aware of a visual stimulus for it to be perceptually organized into a coherent whole? The answer to this question regarding the interplay between Gestalts and visual awareness remains unclear. Using interocular suppression as the paradigm for rendering stimuli invisible, conflicting evidence has been obtained as to whether the traditional Kanizsa surface is constructed during interocular suppression. While Sobel and Blake (2003) and Harris, Schwarzkopf, Song, Bahrami, and Rees (2011) failed to find evidence for this, Wang, Weng, and He (2012) showed that standard configurations of Kanizsa pacmen would break interocular suppression faster than their rotated counterparts. In the current study, we replicated the findings by Wang et al. (2012) but show that neither an account based on the construction of a surface nor one based on the long-range collinearities in the standard Kanizsa configuration stimulus could fully explain the difference in breakthrough times. We discuss these findings in the context of differences in the amplitudes of the Fourier orientation spectra for all stimulus types. Thus, we find no evidence that the integration of separate elements takes place during interocular suppression of Kanizsa stimuli, suggesting that this Gestalt involving figure-ground assignment is not constructed when rendered nonconscious using interocular suppression.

  19. Suppression of in vitro cell-mediated lympholysis generation by alloactivated lymphocytes. Examination of radioresistant suppressive activity

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Orosz, C.G.; Ferguson, R.M.

    1986-01-01

    We investigated the radioresistant (1000 rads) suppression of CML generation mediated by alloactivated murine splenocytes. Suppressive cells were generated in MLCs by stimulation of (A X 6R)F1 splenocytes with irradiated C57BL/10 splenocytes. Suppressive cells could lyse targets bearing H-2b alloantigens, but would not lyse parental B10.T(6R) or B10.A targets. Suppressive activity was detected by including the alloactivated (A X 6R)F1 cells in B10.T(6R) anti-B10.A(1R) MLCs. Relative to the suppressive (A X 6R)F1 cells, the B10.A(1R) lymphocytes display both parental and suppressor-inducing alloantigens. In the absence of a suppressive population, B10.A(1R) stimulators cause B10.T(6R) splenocytes to generate cytolytic activity specific for both H-2Db (suppressor-inducing) and H-2Kk (suppressor-borne) target determinants. The irradiated, alloactivated (A X 6R)F1 cells decrease the H-2Db-specific CML generated in this system, thus mediating apparent antigen-specific suppression. However, cytolytic activity concomitantly generated in the same culture against the unrelated H-2Kk target determinants is similarly reduced by the (A X 6R)F1 cells. Thus, radioresistant suppression by alloactivated splenocytes is not necessarily antigen-specific. The irradiated (A X 6R)F1 cells would not suppress the generation of H-2Kk-specific CTL in B10.T(6R) anti-B10.A MLCs. Hence, the irradiated (A X 6R)F1 cells can impede CML generation against third-party alloantigens if, and only if, those alloantigens are coexpressed with suppressor-inducing alloantigens on the stimulator cells in suppressed MLCs. Similar results were also obtained using a different histoincompatible lymphocyte combination

  20. A Robust Approach For Acoustic Noise Suppression In Speech Using ANFIS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martinek, Radek; Kelnar, Michal; Vanus, Jan; Bilik, Petr; Zidek, Jan

    2015-11-01

    The authors of this article deals with the implementation of a combination of techniques of the fuzzy system and artificial intelligence in the application area of non-linear noise and interference suppression. This structure used is called an Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). This system finds practical use mainly in audio telephone (mobile) communication in a noisy environment (transport, production halls, sports matches, etc). Experimental methods based on the two-input adaptive noise cancellation concept was clearly outlined. Within the experiments carried out, the authors created, based on the ANFIS structure, a comprehensive system for adaptive suppression of unwanted background interference that occurs in audio communication and degrades the audio signal. The system designed has been tested on real voice signals. This article presents the investigation and comparison amongst three distinct approaches to noise cancellation in speech; they are LMS (least mean squares) and RLS (recursive least squares) adaptive filtering and ANFIS. A careful review of literatures indicated the importance of non-linear adaptive algorithms over linear ones in noise cancellation. It was concluded that the ANFIS approach had the overall best performance as it efficiently cancelled noise even in highly noise-degraded speech. Results were drawn from the successful experimentation, subjective-based tests were used to analyse their comparative performance while objective tests were used to validate them. Implementation of algorithms was experimentally carried out in Matlab to justify the claims and determine their relative performances.

  1. A Sea-Sky Line Detection Method for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Based on Gradient Saliency

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bo Wang

    2016-04-01

    Full Text Available Special features in real marine environments such as cloud clutter, sea glint and weather conditions always result in various kinds of interference in optical images, which make it very difficult for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs to detect the sea-sky line (SSL accurately. To solve this problem a saliency-based SSL detection method is proposed. Through the computation of gradient saliency the line features of SSL are enhanced effectively, while other interference factors are relatively suppressed, and line support regions are obtained by a region growing method on gradient orientation. The SSL identification is achieved according to region contrast, line segment length and orientation features, and optimal state estimation of SSL detection is implemented by introducing a cubature Kalman filter (CKF. In the end, the proposed method is tested on a benchmark dataset from the “XL” USV in a real marine environment, and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is significantly superior to other state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy rate and real-time performance, and its accuracy and stability are effectively improved by the CKF.

  2. Optical gain and gain suppression of quantum-well lasers with valence band mixing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahn, D.; Chuang, S.L.

    1990-01-01

    The effects of valence band mixing on the nonlinear gains of quantum-well lasers are studied theoretically. The authors' analysis is based on the multiband effective-mass theory and the density matrix formalism with intraband relaxation taken into account. The gain and the gain-suppression coefficient of a quantum-well laser are calculated from the complex optical susceptibility obtained by the density matrix formulation with the theoretical dipole moments obtained from the multiband effective-mass theory. The calculated gain spectrum shows that there are remarkable differences (both in peak amplitude and spectral shape) between our model with valence band mixing and the conventional parabolic band model. The shape of the gain spectrum calculated by the authors' model becomes more symmetric due to intraband relaxation together with nonparabolic energy dispersions and is closer to the experimental observations when compared with the conventional method using the parabolic band model and the multiband effective-mass calculation without intraband relaxation. Both give quite asymmetric gain spectra. Optical intensity in the GaAs active region is estimated by solving rate equations for the stationary states with nonlinear gain suppression. The authors calculate the mode gain for the resonant mode including the gain suppression, which results in spectral hole burning of the gain spectrum

  3. Cross-cultural differences in emotion suppression in everyday interactions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Huwae, Sylvia; Schaafsma, Juliëtte

    Previous research suggests that in collectivistic cultures, people tend to suppress their emotions more than in individualistic cultures. Little research, however, has explored cross-cultural differences in emotion regulation in everyday interactions. Using a daily social interaction method, we

  4. Why expressive suppression does not pay? Cognitive costs of negative emotion suppression: The mediating role of subjective tense-arousal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Szczygieł Dorota

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this paper was to contribute to a broader understanding of the cognitive consequences of expressive suppression. Specifically, we examined whether the deteriorating effect of expressive suppression on cognitive functioning is caused by tense arousal enhanced by suppression. Two experiments were performed in order to test this prediction. In both studies we tested the effect of expressive suppression on working memory, as measured with a backwards digit-span task (Study 1, N = 43 and anagram problem-solving task (Study 2, N = 60. In addition, in Study 2 we tested whether expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression. Both studies were conducted in a similar design: Participants watched a film clip which evoked negative emotions (i.e. disgust in Study 1 and a combination of sadness and anxiety in Study 2 under the instruction to suppress those negative emotions or (in the control condition to simply watch the film. The results of these experiments lead to three conclusions. First, the results reveal that expressive suppression degrades memory of the events that emerged during the period of expressive suppression and leads to poorer performance on working memory tasks, as measured with a backwards digit-span task and anagram problem-solving task. Second, the results indicate that expressive suppression leads to a significant increase in subjective tense arousal. Third, the results support our prediction that expressive suppression decreases cognitive performance through its effects on subjective tense arousal. The results of the Study 1 show that tense arousal activated during expressive suppression of disgust fully mediates the negative effect of suppression on working memory as measured with a backwards digit-span task. The results of Study 2 reveal that subjective tense arousal elicited while suppressing sadness and anxiety mediates both the effect of suppression on

  5. Obtuse triangle suppression in anisotropic meshes

    KAUST Repository

    Sun, Feng; Choi, Yi King; Wang, Wen Ping; Yan, Dongming; Liu, Yang; Lé vy, Bruno L.

    2011-01-01

    Anisotropic triangle meshes are used for efficient approximation of surfaces and flow data in finite element analysis, and in these applications it is desirable to have as few obtuse triangles as possible to reduce the discretization error. We present a variational approach to suppressing obtuse triangles in anisotropic meshes. Specifically, we introduce a hexagonal Minkowski metric, which is sensitive to triangle orientation, to give a new formulation of the centroidal Voronoi tessellation (CVT) method. Furthermore, we prove several relevant properties of the CVT method with the newly introduced metric. Experiments show that our algorithm produces anisotropic meshes with much fewer obtuse triangles than using existing methods while maintaining mesh anisotropy. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  6. Obtuse triangle suppression in anisotropic meshes

    KAUST Repository

    Sun, Feng

    2011-12-01

    Anisotropic triangle meshes are used for efficient approximation of surfaces and flow data in finite element analysis, and in these applications it is desirable to have as few obtuse triangles as possible to reduce the discretization error. We present a variational approach to suppressing obtuse triangles in anisotropic meshes. Specifically, we introduce a hexagonal Minkowski metric, which is sensitive to triangle orientation, to give a new formulation of the centroidal Voronoi tessellation (CVT) method. Furthermore, we prove several relevant properties of the CVT method with the newly introduced metric. Experiments show that our algorithm produces anisotropic meshes with much fewer obtuse triangles than using existing methods while maintaining mesh anisotropy. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  7. Control method of Three-phase Four-leg converter based on repetitive control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hui, Wang

    2018-03-01

    The research chose the magnetic levitation force of wind power generation system as the object. In order to improve the power quality problem caused by unbalanced load in power supply system, we combined the characteristics and repetitive control principle of magnetic levitation wind power generation system, and then an independent control strategy for three-phase four-leg converter was proposed. In this paper, based on the symmetric component method, the second order generalized integrator was used to generate the positive and negative sequence of signals, and the decoupling control was carried out under the synchronous rotating reference frame, in which the positive and negative sequence voltage is PI double closed loop, and a PI regulator with repetitive control was introduced to eliminate the static error regarding the fundamental frequency fluctuation characteristic of zero sequence component. The simulation results based on Matlab/Simulink show that the proposed control project can effectively suppress the disturbance caused by unbalanced loads and maintain the load voltage balance. The project is easy to be achieved and remarkably improves the quality of the independent power supply system.

  8. An automatic algorithm for blink-artifact suppression based on iterative template matching: application to single channel recording of cortical auditory evoked potentials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Valderrama, Joaquin T.; de la Torre, Angel; Van Dun, Bram

    2018-02-01

    Objective. Artifact reduction in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals is usually necessary to carry out data analysis appropriately. Despite the large amount of denoising techniques available with a multichannel setup, there is a lack of efficient algorithms that remove (not only detect) blink-artifacts from a single channel EEG, which is of interest in many clinical and research applications. This paper describes and evaluates the iterative template matching and suppression (ITMS), a new method proposed for detecting and suppressing the artifact associated with the blink activity from a single channel EEG. Approach. The approach of ITMS consists of (a) an iterative process in which blink-events are detected and the blink-artifact waveform of the analyzed subject is estimated, (b) generation of a signal modeling the blink-artifact, and (c) suppression of this signal from the raw EEG. The performance of ITMS is compared with the multi-window summation of derivatives within a window (MSDW) technique using both synthesized and real EEG data. Main results. Results suggest that ITMS presents an adequate performance in detecting and suppressing blink-artifacts from a single channel EEG. When applied to the analysis of cortical auditory evoked potentials (CAEPs), ITMS provides a significant quality improvement in the resulting responses, i.e. in a cohort of 30 adults, the mean correlation coefficient improved from 0.37 to 0.65 when the blink-artifacts were detected and suppressed by ITMS. Significance. ITMS is an efficient solution to the problem of denoising blink-artifacts in single-channel EEG applications, both in clinical and research fields. The proposed ITMS algorithm is stable; automatic, since it does not require human intervention; low-invasive, because the EEG segments not contaminated by blink-artifacts remain unaltered; and easy to implement, as can be observed in the Matlab script implemeting the algorithm provided as supporting material.

  9. Charge plasma based source/drain engineered Schottky Barrier MOSFET: Ambipolar suppression and improvement of the RF performance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kale, Sumit; Kondekar, Pravin N.

    2018-01-01

    This paper reports a novel device structure for charge plasma based Schottky Barrier (SB) MOSFET on ultrathin SOI to suppress the ambipolar leakage current and improvement of the radio frequency (RF) performance. In the proposed device, we employ dual material for the source and drain formation. Therefore, source/drain is divided into two parts as main source/drain and source/drain extension. Erbium silicide (ErSi1.7) is used as main source/drain material and Hafnium metal is used as source/drain extension material. The source extension induces the electron plasma in the ultrathin SOI body resulting reduction of SB width at the source side. Similarly, drain extension also induces the electron plasma at the drain side. This significantly increases the SB width due to increased depletion at the drain end. As a result, the ambipolar leakage current can be suppressed. In addition, drain extension also reduces the parasitic capacitances of the proposed device to improve the RF performance. The optimization of length and work function of metal used in the drain extension is performed to achieve improvement in device performance. Moreover, the proposed device makes fabrication simpler, requires low thermal budget and free from random dopant fluctuations.

  10. Multiscale KF Algorithm for Strong Fractional Noise Interference Suppression in Discrete-Time UWB Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liyun Su

    2011-01-01

    Full Text Available In order to suppress the interference of the strong fractional noise signal in discrete-time ultrawideband (UWB systems, this paper presents a new UWB multi-scale Kalman filter (KF algorithm for the interference suppression. This approach solves the problem of the narrowband interference (NBI as nonstationary fractional signal in UWB communication, which does not need to estimate any channel parameter. In this paper, the received sampled signal is transformed through multiscale wavelet to obtain a state transition equation and an observation equation based on the stationarity theory of wavelet coefficients in time domain. Then through the Kalman filter method, fractional signal of arbitrary scale is easily figured out. Finally, fractional noise interference is subtracted from the received signal. Performance analysis and computer simulations reveal that this algorithm is effective to reduce the strong fractional noise when the sampling rate is low.

  11. Suppression of radiation mutagenesis by dactinomycin in Chinese hamster cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tokita, N.; Capenter, S.G.; Chen, D.J.; MacInnes, M.A.; Raju, M.R.

    1985-01-01

    Dactinomycin (AMD) suppression of radiation mutagenesis was investigated using an in vitro mutation assay (6-thioguanine resistance) in Chinese hamster ovary cells. Cells were exposed to acute single doses of x rays followed by 1 hr-treatment with 0.1 or 1 μg/ml AMD. The cell survival curves plotted as a function of x-ray doses were similar for radiation alone and radiation plus AMD. The results suggest that AMD treatment was only slightly mutagenic, however, when given immediately after irradiation, it suppressed radiatiion mutagenesis at higher x-ray dose regions (below 10% survival levels). Higher AMD concentrations appeared more suppressive than lower concentrations. Dose-response data analyzed based on Poisson distribution models suggest the stochastic dependence of x-ray mutagenesis and AMD cytotoxity

  12. An alternative way of plotting the data and results of models of $J/\\psi$ suppression

    CERN Document Server

    Pisút, J

    2003-01-01

    We propose an alternative way of looking at data on anomalous J/ psi suppression. The proposed method is in principle equivalent to the one used by the NA50 Collaboration, but it permits to visualize separate contributions of individual processes responsible for the disintegration of J/ psi 's produced by a hard process in nuclear collisions. The method can be used provided that the time sequence of contributing mechanisms is known or assumed. It offers an alternative graphical presentation of the onset of anomalous J/ psi suppression in Pb-Pb interactions observed by the NA50 Collaboration at the CERN SPS and might contribute to explain why different mechanisms, such as J/ psi suppression by the quark-gluon plasma and by co-movers in the dual parton model or in Monte Carlo microscopic approaches, all lead to an approximate description of anomalous J/ psi suppression. (29 refs).

  13. Psychophysical "blinding" methods reveal a functional hierarchy of unconscious visual processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Breitmeyer, Bruno G

    2015-09-01

    Numerous non-invasive experimental "blinding" methods exist for suppressing the phenomenal awareness of visual stimuli. Not all of these suppressive methods occur at, and thus index, the same level of unconscious visual processing. This suggests that a functional hierarchy of unconscious visual processing can in principle be established. The empirical results of extant studies that have used a number of different methods and additional reasonable theoretical considerations suggest the following tentative hierarchy. At the highest levels in this hierarchy is unconscious processing indexed by object-substitution masking. The functional levels indexed by crowding, the attentional blink (and other attentional blinding methods), backward pattern masking, metacontrast masking, continuous flash suppression, sandwich masking, and single-flash interocular suppression, fall at progressively lower levels, while unconscious processing at the lowest levels is indexed by eye-based binocular-rivalry suppression. Although unconscious processing levels indexed by additional blinding methods is yet to be determined, a tentative placement at lower levels in the hierarchy is also given for unconscious processing indexed by Troxler fading and adaptation-induced blindness, and at higher levels in the hierarchy indexed by attentional blinding effects in addition to the level indexed by the attentional blink. The full mapping of levels in the functional hierarchy onto cortical activation sites and levels is yet to be determined. The existence of such a hierarchy bears importantly on the search for, and the distinctions between, neural correlates of conscious and unconscious vision. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  14. Determination of the appetite suppressant P57 in Hoodia gordonii plant extracts and dietary supplements by liquid chromatography/electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (LC-MSD-TOF) and LC-UV methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Avula, Bharathi; Wang, Yan-Hong; Pawar, Rahul S; Shukla, Yatin J; Schaneberg, Brian; Khan, Ikhlas A

    2006-01-01

    Hoodia gordonii is traditionally used in South Africa for its appetite suppressant properties. P57AS3 (P57), an oxypregnane steroidal glycoside, is the only reported active constituent from this plant as an appetite suppressant. Effective quality control of these extracts or products requires rapid methods to determine P57 content. New methods of liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) and LC-UV for analysis of P57 from H. gordonii have been developed. The quantitative determination of P57 was achieved with a Phenomenex Gemini (Torrance, CA) reversed-phase column using gradient mobile phase of water and acetonitrile, both containing 0.1% acetic acid. The method was validated for linearity, repeatability, and limits of detection and quantification. Good results were obtained in terms of repeatability (relative standard deviation <5.0%) and recovery (98.5-103.5%). The developed methods were applied to the determination of P57 for H. gordonii plant samples, one related genus (Opuntia ficus-indica), and dietary supplements that claim to contain H. gordonii.

  15. 10 Hz Amplitude Modulated Sounds Induce Short-Term Tinnitus Suppression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Patrick Neff

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Objectives: Acoustic stimulation or sound therapy is proposed as a main treatment option for chronic subjective tinnitus. To further probe the field of acoustic stimulations for tinnitus therapy, this exploratory study compared 10 Hz amplitude modulated (AM sounds (two pure tones, noise, music, and frequency modulated (FM sounds and unmodulated sounds (pure tone, noise regarding their temporary suppression of tinnitus loudness. First, it was hypothesized that modulated sounds elicit larger temporary loudness suppression (residual inhibition than unmodulated sounds. Second, with manipulation of stimulus loudness and duration of the modulated sounds weaker or stronger effects of loudness suppression were expected, respectively.Methods: We recruited 29 participants with chronic tonal tinnitus from the multidisciplinary Tinnitus Clinic of the University of Regensburg. Participants underwent audiometric, psychometric and tinnitus pitch matching assessments followed by an acoustic stimulation experiment with a tinnitus loudness growth paradigm. In a first block participants were stimulated with all of the sounds for 3 min each and rated their subjective tinnitus loudness to the pre-stimulus loudness every 30 s after stimulus offset. The same procedure was deployed in the second block with the pure tone AM stimuli matched to the tinnitus frequency, manipulated in length (6 min, and loudness (reduced by 30 dB and linear fade out. Repeated measures mixed model analyses of variance (ANOVA were calculated to assess differences in loudness growth between the stimuli for each block separately.Results: First, we found that all sounds elicit a short-term suppression of tinnitus loudness (seconds to minutes with strongest suppression right after stimulus offset [F(6, 1331 = 3.74, p < 0.01]. Second, similar to previous findings we found that AM sounds near the tinnitus frequency produce significantly stronger tinnitus loudness suppression than noise [vs. Pink

  16. Pressure suppression device

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mizumachi, Wataru; Fukuda, Akira; Kitaguchi, Hidemi; Shimizu, Toshiaki.

    1976-01-01

    Object: To relieve and absorb impact wave vibrations caused by steam and non-condensed gases releasing into the pressure suppression chamber at the time of an accident. Structure: The reactor container is filled with inert gases. A safety valve attached main steam pipe is provided to permit the excessive steam to escape, the valve being communicated with the pressure suppression chamber through an exhaust pipe. In the pressure suppression chamber, a doughnut-like cylindrical outer wall is filled at its bottom with pool water to condense the high temperature vapor released through the exhaust pipe. A head portion of a vent tube which leads the exhaust pipe is positioned at the top, and a down comer and an exhaust vent tube are locked by means of steady rests. At the bottom is mounted a pressure adsorber device which adsorbs a pressure from the pool water. (Kamimura, M.)

  17. Attention Determines Contextual Enhancement versus Suppression in Human Primary Visual Cortex.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flevaris, Anastasia V; Murray, Scott O

    2015-09-02

    Neural responses in primary visual cortex (V1) depend on stimulus context in seemingly complex ways. For example, responses to an oriented stimulus can be suppressed when it is flanked by iso-oriented versus orthogonally oriented stimuli but can also be enhanced when attention is directed to iso-oriented versus orthogonal flanking stimuli. Thus the exact same contextual stimulus arrangement can have completely opposite effects on neural responses-in some cases leading to orientation-tuned suppression and in other cases leading to orientation-tuned enhancement. Here we show that stimulus-based suppression and enhancement of fMRI responses in humans depends on small changes in the focus of attention and can be explained by a model that combines feature-based attention with response normalization. Neurons in the primary visual cortex (V1) respond to stimuli within a restricted portion of the visual field, termed their "receptive field." However, neuronal responses can also be influenced by stimuli that surround a receptive field, although the nature of these contextual interactions and underlying neural mechanisms are debated. Here we show that the response in V1 to a stimulus in the same context can either be suppressed or enhanced depending on the focus of attention. We are able to explain the results using a simple computational model that combines two well established properties of visual cortical responses: response normalization and feature-based enhancement. Copyright © 2015 the authors 0270-6474/15/3512273-08$15.00/0.

  18. Experimental results of active control on a large structure to suppress vibration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dunn, H. J.

    1991-01-01

    Three design methods, Linear Quadratic Gaussian with Loop Transfer Recovery (LQG/LTR), H-infinity, and mu-synthesis, are used to obtain compensators for suppressing the vibrations of a 10-bay vertical truss structure, a component typical of what may be used to build a large space structure. For the design process the plant dynamic characteristics of the structure were determined experimentally using an identification method. The resulting compensators were implemented on a digital computer and tested for their ability to suppress the first bending mode response of the 10-bay vertical truss. Time histories of the measured motion are presented, and modal damping obtained during the experiments are compared with analytical predictions. The advantages and disadvantages of using the various design methods are discussed.

  19. Suppression of high-frequency perturbations in pulse-width modulation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    2008-01-01

    A method suppresses high-frequency perturbations in a pulse-width modulated signal. The pulse-width modulation may superpose a carrier signal onto an input signal having a predetermined modulation frequency. The carrier signals may be phase-shifted. The resulting modulated signals may...

  20. Suppression of tilting instability of a compact torus by energetic particle beams

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nomura, Yasuyuki.

    1984-11-01

    It is shown that the tilting instability of a compact torus can be suppressed by toroidally circulating energetic particle beams. The stabilizing mechanism is based on the properties of the forced oscillation in the motion of beam particles in a plasma ring. The required beam current for the stabilization is estimated to be sufficiently small compared to the plasma current in the case that the angular velocity of beam particles is close to the betatron frequency. This stabilizing method is applied to a field reversed configuration. Effects of the plasma surface current and beam divergences are also examined. (author)

  1. Effects of seeding rate and poultry litter on weed suppression from a rolled cereal rye cover crop

    Science.gov (United States)

    Growing enough cover crop biomass to adequately suppress weeds is one of the primary challenges in reduced-tillage systems that rely on mulch-based weed suppression. We investigated two approaches to increasing cereal rye biomass for improved weed suppression: (1) increasing soil fertility and (2) i...

  2. Conscious Access to Suppressed Threatening Information Is Modulated by Working Memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Dong; Wang, Li; Wang, Ying; Jiang, Yi

    2016-11-01

    Previous research has demonstrated that emotional information processing can be modulated by what is being held in working memory (WM). Here, we showed that such content-based WM effects can occur even when the emotional information is suppressed from conscious awareness. Using the delayed-match-to-sample paradigm in conjunction with continuous flash suppression, we found that suppressed threatening (fearful and angry) faces emerged from suppression faster when they matched the emotional valence of WM contents than when they did not. This effect cannot be explained by perceptual priming, as it disappeared when the faces were only passively viewed and not held in WM. Crucially, such an effect is highly specific to threatening faces but not to happy or neutral faces. Our findings together suggest that WM can modulate nonconscious emotion processing, which highlights the functional association between nonconsciously triggered emotional processes and conscious emotion representation. © The Author(s) 2016.

  3. Managing for soil health can suppress pests

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amanda Hodson

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available A “healthy” soil can be thought of as one that functions well, both agronomically and ecologically, and one in which soil biodiversity and crop management work in synergy to suppress pests and diseases. UC researchers have pioneered many ways of managing soil biology for pest management, including strategies such as soil solarization, steam treatment and anaerobic soil disinfestation, as well as improvements on traditional methods, such as reducing tillage, amending soil with organic materials, and cover cropping. As managing for soil health becomes more of an explicit focus due to restrictions on the use of soil fumigants, integrated soil health tests will be needed that are validated for use in California. Other research needs include breeding crops for disease resistance and pest suppressive microbial communities as well as knowledge of how beneficial organisms influence plant health.

  4. Improving the accuracy of a dual-comb interferometer by suppressing the relative linewidth

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Zebin; Xu, Guangyao; Ni, Kai; Zhou, Qian; Wu, Guanhao

    2018-04-01

    We present a compact system of synchronization for two fiber-based optical frequency comb lasers. We use a free-running continuous wave laser as an intermediary to obtain the relative noise of two combs and employ an intra-cavity electro-optic modulator (EOM) to achieve active phase feedback for fast synchronization. The EOM bandwidth is 150 kHz and the relative linewidth is suppressed markedly from 300 kHz to sub-hertz values. The relative effective timing jitter of the two pulse trains is also decreased from 680 fs to 25 fs. The proposed method shows promise for developing a high-performance, low-cost, fiber-based dual-comb interferometer for ranging or spectroscopy.

  5. A closed-loop anesthetic delivery system for real-time control of burst suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liberman, Max Y.; Ching, ShiNung; Chemali, Jessica; Brown, Emery N.

    2013-08-01

    Objective. There is growing interest in using closed-loop anesthetic delivery (CLAD) systems to automate control of brain states (sedation, unconsciousness and antinociception) in patients receiving anesthesia care. The accuracy and reliability of these systems can be improved by using as control signals electroencephalogram (EEG) markers for which the neurophysiological links to the anesthetic-induced brain states are well established. Burst suppression, in which bursts of electrical activity alternate with periods of quiescence or suppression, is a well-known, readily discernible EEG marker of profound brain inactivation and unconsciousness. This pattern is commonly maintained when anesthetics are administered to produce a medically-induced coma for cerebral protection in patients suffering from brain injuries or to arrest brain activity in patients having uncontrollable seizures. Although the coma may be required for several hours or days, drug infusion rates are managed inefficiently by manual adjustment. Our objective is to design a CLAD system for burst suppression control to automate management of medically-induced coma. Approach. We establish a CLAD system to control burst suppression consisting of: a two-dimensional linear system model relating the anesthetic brain level to the EEG dynamics; a new control signal, the burst suppression probability (BSP) defining the instantaneous probability of suppression; the BSP filter, a state-space algorithm to estimate the BSP from EEG recordings; a proportional-integral controller; and a system identification procedure to estimate the model and controller parameters. Main results. We demonstrate reliable performance of our system in simulation studies of burst suppression control using both propofol and etomidate in rodent experiments based on Vijn and Sneyd, and in human experiments based on the Schnider pharmacokinetic model for propofol. Using propofol, we further demonstrate that our control system reliably

  6. The suppression of manganese superoxide dismutase decreased the survival of human glioblastoma multiforme T98G cells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Novi S. Hardiany

    2017-05-01

    Full Text Available Background: Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM is a primary malignant brain tumor which has poor prognosis. High incidence of oxidative stress-based therapy resistance could be related to the high antioxidant status of GBM cells. Our previous study has reported that manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD antioxidant expression was significantly higher in high grade glioma than in low grade. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of MnSOD suppression toward GBM cell survival.Methods: This study is an experimental study using human glioblastoma multiforme T98G cell line. Suppression of MnSOD expression was performed using in vitro transfection MnSOD-siRNA. The MnSOD expression was analyzed by measuring the mRNA using real time RT-PCR, protein using ELISA technique, and specific activity of enzyme using inhibition of xantine oxidase. Concentration of reactive oxygen species (ROS intracellular was determined by measuring superoxide radical and hydrogen peroxide. Cell survival was analyzed by measuring viability, proliferation, and cell apoptosis.Results: In vitro transfection of MnSOD-siRNA suppressed the mRNA, protein, and specific activity of MnSOD. This treatment significantly increased the concentration of superoxide radical; however, it did not influence the concentration of hydrogen peroxide. Moreover, viability MnSOD-suppressing cell significantly decreased, accompanied by increase of cell apoptosis without affecting cell proliferation.Conclusion: The suppression of MnSOD expression leads to decrease glioblastoma multiforme cell survival, which was associated to the increase of cell apoptotic.

  7. Simultaneous transmission of wired and wireless signals based on double sideband carrier suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bitew, Mekuanint Agegnehu; Shiu, Run-Kai; Peng, Peng-Chun; Wang, Cheng-Hao; Chen, Yan-Ming

    2017-11-01

    In this paper, we proposed and experimentally demonstrated simultaneous transmission of wired and wireless signals based on double sideband optical carrier suppression. By properly adjusting the bias point of the dual-output mach-zehnder modulator (MZM), a central carrier in one output port and a pair of first-order sidebands in another output port are generated. The pair of first-order sidebands are fed into a second MZM to generate second-order order sidebands. A wired signal is embedded on the central carrier while a wireless signal is embedded on the second-order sidebands. Unlike other schemes, we did not use optical filter to separate the carrier from the optical sidebands. The measured bit error rate (BER) and eye-diagrams after a 25 km single-mode-fiber (SMF) transmission proved that the proposed scheme is successful for both wired and wireless signals transmission. Moreover, the power penalty at the BER of 10-9 is 0.3 and 0.7 dB for wired and wireless signals, respectively.

  8. Radar-to-Radar Interference Suppression for Distributed Radar Sensor Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wen-Qin Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available Radar sensor networks, including bi- and multi-static radars, provide several operational advantages, like reduced vulnerability, good system flexibility and an increased radar cross-section. However, radar-to-radar interference suppression is a major problem in distributed radar sensor networks. In this paper, we present a cross-matched filtering-based radar-to-radar interference suppression algorithm. This algorithm first uses an iterative filtering algorithm to suppress the radar-to-radar interferences and, then, separately matched filtering for each radar. Besides the detailed algorithm derivation, extensive numerical simulation examples are performed with the down-chirp and up-chirp waveforms, partially overlapped or inverse chirp rate linearly frequency modulation (LFM waveforms and orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (ODFM chirp diverse waveforms. The effectiveness of the algorithm is verified by the simulation results.

  9. Improved detection of focal pneumonia by chest radiography with bone suppression imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li, Feng; Engelmann, Roger; Pesce, Lorenzo; Armato, Samuel G.; MacMahon, Heber

    2012-01-01

    To evaluate radiologists' ability to detect focal pneumonia by use of standard chest radiographs alone compared with standard plus bone-suppressed chest radiographs. Standard chest radiographs in 36 patients with 46 focal airspace opacities due to pneumonia (10 patients had bilateral opacities) and 20 patients without focal opacities were included in an observer study. A bone suppression image processing system was applied to the 56 radiographs to create corresponding bone suppression images. In the observer study, eight observers, including six attending radiologists and two radiology residents, indicated their confidence level regarding the presence of a focal opacity compatible with pneumonia for each lung, first by use of standard images, then with the addition of bone suppression images. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the observers' performance. The mean value of the area under the ROC curve (AUC) for eight observers was significantly improved from 0.844 with use of standard images alone to 0.880 with standard plus bone suppression images (P < 0.001) based on 46 positive lungs and 66 negative lungs. Use of bone suppression images improved radiologists' performance for detection of focal pneumonia on chest radiographs. (orig.)

  10. Improved detection of focal pneumonia by chest radiography with bone suppression imaging

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li, Feng; Engelmann, Roger; Pesce, Lorenzo; Armato, Samuel G.; MacMahon, Heber [University of Chicago, Department of Radiology, MC-2026, Chicago, IL (United States)

    2012-12-15

    To evaluate radiologists' ability to detect focal pneumonia by use of standard chest radiographs alone compared with standard plus bone-suppressed chest radiographs. Standard chest radiographs in 36 patients with 46 focal airspace opacities due to pneumonia (10 patients had bilateral opacities) and 20 patients without focal opacities were included in an observer study. A bone suppression image processing system was applied to the 56 radiographs to create corresponding bone suppression images. In the observer study, eight observers, including six attending radiologists and two radiology residents, indicated their confidence level regarding the presence of a focal opacity compatible with pneumonia for each lung, first by use of standard images, then with the addition of bone suppression images. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the observers' performance. The mean value of the area under the ROC curve (AUC) for eight observers was significantly improved from 0.844 with use of standard images alone to 0.880 with standard plus bone suppression images (P < 0.001) based on 46 positive lungs and 66 negative lungs. Use of bone suppression images improved radiologists' performance for detection of focal pneumonia on chest radiographs. (orig.)

  11. In-Flight Suppressant Deployment Temperatures

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Bein, Donald

    2006-01-01

    .... An assessment is made of the model output versus some aircraft measurement data, fire suppressant boiling point criterion, as well as the history of altitude/temperature at which fire suppressants have been deployed...

  12. Matairesinol inhibits angiogenesis via suppression of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Boram; Kim, Ki Hyun; Jung, Hye Jin [Chemical Genomics National Research Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Translational Research Center for Protein Function Control, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749 (Korea, Republic of); Kwon, Ho Jeong, E-mail: kwonhj@yonsei.ac.kr [Chemical Genomics National Research Laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, Translational Research Center for Protein Function Control, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749 (Korea, Republic of)

    2012-04-27

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Matairesinol suppresses mitochondrial ROS generation during hypoxia. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Matairesinol exhibits potent anti-angiogenic activity both in vitro and in vivo. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Matairesinol could be a basis for the development of novel anti-angiogenic agents. -- Abstract: Mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (mROS) are involved in cancer initiation and progression and function as signaling molecules in many aspects of hypoxia and growth factor-mediated signaling. Here we report that matairesinol, a natural small molecule identified from the cell-based screening of 200 natural plants, suppresses mROS generation resulting in anti-angiogenic activity. A non-toxic concentration of matairesinol inhibited the proliferation of human umbilical vein endothelial cells. The compound also suppressed in vitro angiogenesis of tube formation and chemoinvasion, as well as in vivo angiogenesis of the chorioallantoic membrane at non-toxic doses. Furthermore, matairesinol decreased hypoxia-inducible factor-1{alpha} in hypoxic HeLa cells. These results demonstrate that matairesinol could function as a novel angiogenesis inhibitor by suppressing mROS signaling.

  13. The polaroid suppression test in a pediatric population with ophthalmologic disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pott, Jan Willem R; Kingma, C; Verhoeff, K; Grootendorst, R J; de Faber, J T H N

    2003-04-01

    The Polaroid suppression test (PST) is a new method for early detection of amblyogenic factors by screening for suppression. The apparatus can elicit suppression with the use of Polaroid filters. The aim of the present study was to examine a population of children with known ophthalmologic disorders using the PST to determine the rate of false-negative results of the PST. Six hundred four children, varying in age between 3 and 15 years (mean, 7.9) were examined using the PST. Ophthalmologic disorders ranged from strabismus and amblyopia to refractive disorders. Mean testing time for the PST was 43 seconds. The PST could not be administered to 34 children (5.6%); 443 children (73.3%) had abnormal results; and 127 children (22.2%) showed no suppression. The suppression in constant strabismus was detected in almost all cases. The sensitivity for accommodative forms of strabismus was lower, but amblyopia was never missed in these cases. In children with normal eye alignment, only 2.7% with an interocular acuity difference of more than 0.1 logMAR had no suppression. Of all 119 children with clinical defined amblyopia, only 1 (0.8%) did not have suppression. Overall sensitivity of the PST for strabismus and/or abnormal interocular acuity difference was 96.2% and specificity was 41.1%. The PST has great potential as a visual screening tool in young children. Only few children with amblyogenic factors were missed. Thus, the test can differentiate those children at risk for amblyopia from normally sighted children. Because specificity is lower, all children showing suppression with the PST in a screening situation should have further examination by the health care worker before being referred to the ophthalmologist.

  14. A Randomized Trial of Comparing the Efficacy of Two Neurofeedback Protocols for Treatment of Clinical and Cognitive Symptoms of ADHD: Theta Suppression/Beta Enhancement and Theta Suppression/Alpha Enhancement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Arash Mohagheghi

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Introduction. Neurofeedback (NF is an adjuvant or alternative therapy for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD. This study intended to compare the efficacy of two different NF protocols on clinical and cognitive symptoms of ADHD. Materials and Methods. In this clinical trial, sixty children with ADHD aged 7 to 10 years old were randomly grouped to receive two different NF treatments (theta suppression/beta enhancement protocol and theta suppression/alpha enhancement protocol. Clinical and cognitive assessments were conducted prior to and following the treatment and also after an eight-week follow-up. Results. Both protocols alleviated the symptoms of ADHD in general (p<0.001, hyperactivity (p<0.001, inattention (p<0.001, and omission errors (p<0.001; however, they did not affect the oppositional and impulsive scales nor commission errors. These effects were maintained after an eight-week intervention-free period. The only significant difference between the two NF protocols was that high-frequency alpha enhancement protocol performed better in suppressing omission errors (p<0.001. Conclusion. The two NF protocols with theta suppression/beta enhancement and theta suppression/alpha enhancement have considerable and comparable effect on clinical symptoms of ADHD. Alpha enhancement protocol was more effective in suppressing omission errors.

  15. Input signal shaping based on harmonic frequency response function for suppressing nonlinear optical frequency in frequency-scanning interferometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhu, Yu; Liu, Zhigang; Deng, Wen; Deng, Zhongwen

    2018-05-01

    Frequency-scanning interferometry (FSI) using an external cavity diode laser (ECDL) is essential for many applications of the absolute distance measurement. However, owing to the hysteresis and creep of the piezoelectric actuator inherent in the ECDL, the optical frequency scanning exhibits a nonlinearity that seriously affects the phase extraction accuracy of the interference signal and results in the reduction of the measurement accuracy. To suppress the optical frequency nonlinearity, a harmonic frequency synthesis method for shaping the desired input signal instead of the original triangular wave is presented. The effectiveness of the presented shaping method is demonstrated through the comparison of the experimental results. Compared with an incremental Renishaw interferometer, the standard deviation of the displacement measurement of the FSI system is less than 2.4 μm when driven by the shaped signal.

  16. Suppression effects on musical and verbal memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schendel, Zachary A; Palmer, Caroline

    2007-06-01

    Three experiments contrasted the effects of articulatory suppression on recognition memory for musical and verbal sequences. In Experiment 1, a standard/comparison task was employed, with digit or note sequences presented visually or auditorily while participants remained silent or produced intermittent verbal suppression (saying "the") or musical suppression (singing "la"). Both suppression types decreased performance by equivalent amounts, as compared with no suppression. Recognition accuracy was lower during suppression for visually presented digits than during that for auditorily presented digits (consistent with phonological loop predictions), whereas accuracy was equivalent for visually presented notes and auditory tones. When visual interference filled the retention interval in Experiment 2, performance with visually presented notes but not digits was impaired. Experiment 3 forced participants to translate visually presented music sequences by presenting comparison sequences auditorily. Suppression effects for visually presented music resembled those for digits only when the recognition task required sensory translation of cues.

  17. Suppress to feel and remember less: Neural correlates of explicit and implicit emotional suppression on perception and memory.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Katsumi, Yuta; Dolcos, Sanda

    2018-02-09

    Available evidence suggests that emotion regulation can modulate both immediate (emotional experience) and long-term (episodic memory) effects of emotion, and that both explicit and implicit forms may be effective. However, neural mechanisms by which explicit and implicit emotional suppression affect these phenomena remain unclear, particularly regarding their effects on memory. In this study, participants rated the emotional content of negative and neutral images, following explicit (verbal instructions) or implicit (priming) induction of emotional suppression goals, during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants' memory for the images was tested one week later. Behaviorally, explicit suppression reduced emotional ratings of negative images, whereas both explicit and implicit suppression reduced subsequent memory. At the neural level, the engagement of explicit suppression was uniquely associated with decreased activity in the amygdala (AMY), during emotional ratings, and in the AMY and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), during successful encoding. Although both explicit and implicit suppression diminished functional connectivity between these regions and the hippocampus (HC) linked to successful encoding, explicit suppression was uniquely associated with interference with AMY-HC interactions, which no longer predicted subsequent memory for the explicitly-suppressed items. Overall, these findings advance our understanding of the common and dissociable mechanisms of explicit and implicit emotional suppression on perception and memory, and suggest their impact on both bottom-up and top-down mechanisms involved in emotion-cognition interactions. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  18. Cognitive and neural consequences of memory suppression in major depressive disorder.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sacchet, Matthew D; Levy, Benjamin J; Hamilton, J Paul; Maksimovskiy, Arkadiy; Hertel, Paula T; Joormann, Jutta; Anderson, Michael C; Wagner, Anthony D; Gotlib, Ian H

    2017-02-01

    Negative biases in cognition have been documented consistently in major depressive disorder (MDD), including difficulties in the ability to control the processing of negative material. Although negative information-processing biases have been studied using both behavioral and neuroimaging paradigms, relatively little research has been conducted examining the difficulties of depressed persons with inhibiting the retrieval of negative information from long-term memory. In this study, we used the think/no-think paradigm and functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the cognitive and neural consequences of memory suppression in individuals diagnosed with depression and in healthy controls. The participants showed typical behavioral forgetting effects, but contrary to our hypotheses, there were no differences between the depressed and nondepressed participants or between neutral and negative memories. Relative to controls, depressed individuals exhibited greater activity in right middle frontal gyrus during memory suppression, regardless of the valence of the suppressed stimuli, and differential activity in the amygdala and hippocampus during memory suppression involving negatively valenced stimuli. These findings indicate that depressed individuals are characterized by neural anomalies during the suppression of long-term memories, increasing our understanding of the brain bases of negative cognitive biases in MDD.

  19. Improved background suppression in 1H MAS NMR using composite pulses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Odedra, Smita; Wimperis, Stephen

    2012-08-01

    A well known feature of 1H MAS NMR spectroscopy, particularly of solids where the concentration of 1H nuclei is low, is the presence in the spectrum of a significant broad "background" signal arising from 1H nuclei that are outside the MAS rotor and radiofrequency coil, probably located on the surfaces of the static components of the probehead. A popular method of suppressing this unwanted signal is the "depth pulse" method, consisting of a 90° pulse followed by one or two 180° pulses that are phase cycled according to the "Exorcycle" scheme, which removes signal associated with imperfect 180° pulses. Consequently, only spins in the centre of the radiofrequency coil contribute to the 1H MAS spectrum, while those experiencing a low B1 field outside the coil are suppressed. Although very effective at removing background signal from the spectrum, one drawback with this approach is that significant loss of the desired signal from the sample also occurs. Here we investigate the 1H background suppression problem and, in particular, the use of novel antisymmetric passband composite pulses to replace the simple pulses in a depth pulse experiment. We show that it is possible to improve the intensity of the 1H signals of interest while still maintaining effective background suppression. We expect that these results will be relevant to 1H MAS NMR studies of, for example, nominally perdeuterated biological samples or nominally anhydrous inorganic materials.

  20. Suppression of Longitudinal Coupled-Bunch Instabilities at the KEK-PF

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Obina, T.; Tobiyama, M.; Honda, T.; Tadano, M.; Flanagan, J.W.; Mitsuhashi, T.; Cheng, W.X.; Fox, J.D.; Teytelman, D.

    2012-01-01

    A bunch-by-bunch feedback system has been developed to suppress longitudinal coupled-bunch instabilities at the KEK-PF. A longitudinal kicker based on a DAFNE-type overdamped cavity has been designed and installed in the ring, and a general purpose signal processor, called iGp, has been developed by the collaboration of the KEK, SLAC, and INFN-LNF. The entire feedback loop has been closed by the end of June 2007, and the feedback system has successfully suppressed the longitudinal dipole-mode instabilities up to 430 mA.

  1. Ionization Suppression and Recovery in Direct Biofluid Analysis Using Paper Spray Mass Spectrometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vega, Carolina; Spence, Corina; Zhang, Chengsen; Bills, Brandon J.; Manicke, Nicholas E.

    2016-04-01

    Paper spray mass spectrometry is a method for the direct analysis of biofluid samples in which extraction of analytes from dried biofluid spots and electrospray ionization occur from the paper on which the dried sample is stored. We examined matrix effects in the analysis of small molecule drugs from urine, plasma, and whole blood. The general method was to spike stable isotope labeled analogs of each analyte into the spray solvent, while the analyte itself was in the dried biofluid. Intensity of the labeled analog is proportional to ionization efficiency, whereas the ratio of the analyte intensity to the labeled analog in the spray solvent is proportional to recovery. Ion suppression and recovery were found to be compound- and matrix-dependent. Highest levels of ion suppression were obtained for poor ionizers (e.g., analytes lacking basic aliphatic amine groups) in urine and approached -90%. Ion suppression was much lower or even absent for good ionizers (analytes with aliphatic amines) in dried blood spots. Recovery was generally highest in urine and lowest in blood. We also examined the effect of two experimental parameters on ion suppression and recovery: the spray solvent and the sample position (how far away from the paper tip the dried sample was spotted). Finally, the change in ion suppression and analyte elution as a function of time was examined by carrying out a paper spray analysis of dried plasma spots for 5 min by continually replenishing the spray solvent.

  2. Adaptive suppression of passive intermodulation in digital satellite transceivers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lu TIAN

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available For the performance issues of satellite transceivers suffering passive intermodulation interference, a novel and effective digital suppression algorithm is presented in this paper. In contrast to analog approaches, digital passive intermodulation (PIM suppression approaches can be easily reconfigured and therefore are highly attractive for future satellite communication systems. A simplified model of nonlinear distortion from passive microwave devices is established in consideration of the memory effect. The multiple high-order PIM products falling into the receiving band can be described as a bilinear predictor function. A suppression algorithm based on a bilinear polynomial decorrelated adaptive filter is proposed for baseband digital signal processing. In consideration of the time-varying characteristics of passive intermodulation, this algorithm can achieve the rapidness of online interference estimation and low complexity with less consumption of resources. Numerical simulation results show that the algorithm can effectively compensate the passive intermodulation interference, and achieve a high signal-to-interference ratio gain.

  3. Research on Improved Control Strategy for STATCOM Based on Virtual Matrix Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wang Xudong

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Fast and accurate detection of reactive current is the precondition for the realization of static synchronous compensator (STATCOM reactive power compensation and harmonic suppression. Aiming at deviation and delay of the traditional reactive current detection algorithm with phase-locked loop (PLL and low-pass filter (LPF of STATCOM, a novel improved reactive current detection algorithm without PLL is proposed, in which the virtual matrix (VM is built to replace the original PLL, and improved current average value filter is used to realize the function of LPF, so as to improve the real-time performance and robustness of reactive current detection. The realization process of VM detection method is derived in this paper, and improved control strategy for STATCOM is designed based on the VM detection method. Simulation analysis of the proposed detection algorithm and control strategy is conducted in Matlab platform so as to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the control strategy. The VM detection has the advantages of simple structure, fast response and easy for digital realization, which provides reference for the improvement of reactive power compensation precision for STATCOM.

  4. COMPANY VALUATION METHODS BASED ON PATRIMONY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    SUCIU GHEORGHE

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available The methods used for the company valuation can be divided into 3 main groups: methods based on patrimony,methods based on financial performance, methods based both on patrimony and on performance. The companyvaluation methods based on patrimony are implemented taking into account the balance sheet or the financialstatement. The financial statement refers to that type of balance in which the assets are arranged according to liquidity,and the liabilities according to their financial maturity date. The patrimonial methods are based on the principle thatthe value of the company equals that of the patrimony it owns. From a legal point of view, the patrimony refers to allthe rights and obligations of a company. The valuation of companies based on their financial performance can be donein 3 ways: the return value, the yield value, the present value of the cash flows. The mixed methods depend both onpatrimony and on financial performance or can make use of other methods.

  5. Preoperative prediction of sentinel lymph node metastasis in breast cancer based on radiomics of T2-weighted fat-suppression and diffusion-weighted MRI

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dong, Yuhao; Mo, Xiaokai [Guangdong General Hospital/Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Department of Radiology, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (China); Shantou University Medical College, Graduate College, Shantou, Guangdong (China); Feng, Qianjin; Yang, Wei; Lu, Zixiao; Deng, Chunyan [Southern Medical University, The Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Medical Image Processing, School of Biomedical Engineering, Guangzhou, Guangdong (China); Zhang, Lu; Lian, Zhouyang; Liu, Jing; Luo, Xiaoning; Pei, Shufang; Huang, Wenhui; Liang, Changhong; Zhang, Bin; Zhang, Shuixing [Guangdong General Hospital/Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Department of Radiology, Guangzhou, Guangdong Province (China)

    2018-02-15

    To predict sentinel lymph node (SLN) metastasis in breast cancer patients using radiomics based on T{sub 2}-weighted fat suppression (T{sub 2}-FS) and diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI). We enrolled 146 patients with histologically proven breast cancer. All underwent pretreatment T{sub 2}-FS and DWI MRI scan. In all, 10,962 texture and four non-texture features were extracted for each patient. The 0.623 + bootstrap method and the area under the curve (AUC) were used to select the features. We constructed ten logistic regression models (orders of 1-10) based on different combination of image features using stepwise forward method. For T{sub 2}-FS, model 10 with ten features yielded the highest AUC of 0.847 in the training set and 0.770 in the validation set. For DWI, model 8 with eight features reached the highest AUC of 0.847 in the training set and 0.787 in the validation set. For joint T{sub 2}-FS and DWI, model 10 with ten features yielded an AUC of 0.863 in the training set and 0.805 in the validation set. Full utilisation of breast cancer-specific textural features extracted from anatomical and functional MRI images improves the performance of radiomics in predicting SLN metastasis, providing a non-invasive approach in clinical practice. (orig.)

  6. Weight Suppression Predicts Maintenance and Onset of Bulimic Syndromes at 10-Year Follow-up

    Science.gov (United States)

    Keel, Pamela K.; Heatherton, Todd F.

    2010-01-01

    Conflicting results have emerged regarding the prognostic significance of weight suppression for maintenance of bulimic symptoms. This study examined whether the magnitude of weight suppression would predict bulimic syndrome maintenance and onset in college-based samples of men (n=369) and women (n=968) at 10-year follow-up. Data come from a longitudinal study of body weight and disordered eating with high retention (80%). Among those with a bulimic syndrome at baseline, greater weight suppression significantly predicted maintenance of the syndrome, and, among those without a bulimic syndrome at baseline, greater weight suppression predicted onset of a bulimic syndrome at 10-year follow-up in multivariate models that included baseline body mass index, diet frequency, and weight perception. Future research should address mechanisms that could account for the effects of weight suppression over a long duration of follow-up. PMID:20455599

  7. MR imaging of the knee using fat suppression technique: a preliminary report

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Suh, Jin Suck; Kim, Mi Hye; Cho, Jae Hyun; Park, Chang Yun; Lee, Yeon Hee [Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Yong Soo [Inje University College of Medicine, Kimhae (Korea, Republic of)

    1994-03-15

    The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of fat suppression technique for MR imaging of the knee. Twenty-eight knees of 26 patients were imaged at a 1.5 T MR system. Sagittal and coronal T2-weighted spin echo imaged (SET2) and sagittal fat suppression SET2(FSSE) were obtained in all cases. We used a chemical shift imaging method for fat suppression. We compared FSSE with SET2 in terms of the conspicuity of lesions of menisci, cruciate ligaments, cartilage, bone and soft tissue of the knee. Meniscal lesions were detected on FSSE and SET2 as well. FSSE depicted the lesion more conspicuously in 6 cases. For the depiction of ACL tear, SET2 was superior to FSSE in 5 cases. FSSE was better for the visualization of the normal structure of cartilage and it also depicted the cartilaginous lesions more conspicuously in 3 cases. Though bone bruise could be detected on both techniques, FSSE was better. FSSE could provide the improved delineation of menisci, cartilage, bone bruise and other soft tissues except the injuries of anterior cruciate ligament. Although FSSE is a reliable method, it can not replace SET2. It may be used as a complemental method in the imaging of the knee.

  8. Generic conditions for suppressing the coherent synchrotron radiation induced emittance growth in a two-dipole achromat

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiao, Yi; Cui, Xiaohao; Huang, Xiyang; Xu, Gang

    2014-06-01

    The effect of the coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) becomes evident, and leads to increased beam energy spread and transverse emittance dilution, as both the emittance and bunch length of the electron beams are continuously pushed down in present and forthcoming high-brightness light sources and linear colliders. Suppressing this effect is important to preserve the expected machine performance. Methods of the R-matrix analysis and the Courant-Snyder formalism analysis have been proposed to evaluate and to suppress the emittance growth due to CSR in achromatic cells. In this paper a few important modifications are made on these two methods, which enable us to prove that these two methods are equivalent to each other. With the modified analysis, we obtain explicit and generic conditions of cancelling the CSR-driven emittance excitation in a single achromat consisting of two dipoles of arbitrary bending angles. In spite of the fact that the analysis constrains itself in a linear regime, based on the assumption that CSR-induced particle energy deviation is proportional to both θ and ρ1/3, with θ being the bending angle and ρ the bending radius, it is demonstrated through ELEGANT simulations that the conditions derived from this analysis are still effective in suppressing the emittance growth when a more detailed one-dimensional CSR model is considered. In addition, it illustrates that the emittance growth can be reduced to a lower level with the proposed conditions than with the other two approaches, such as matching the beam envelope to the CSR kick and setting the cell-to-cell betatron phase advance to an appropriate value.

  9. Suppressing propylene carbonate decomposition by coating graphite electrode foil with silver

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gao, J.; Zhang, H.P.; Fu, L.J.; Zhang, T.; Wu, Y.P.; Takamura, T.; Wu, H.Q.; Holze, R.

    2007-01-01

    A method has been developed to suppress the decomposition of propylene carbonate (PC) by coating graphite electrode foil with a layer of silver. Results from electrochemical impedance measurements show that the Ag-coated graphite electrode presents lower charge transfer resistance and faster diffusion of lithium ions in comparison with the virginal one. Cyclic voltammograms and discharge-charge measurements suggest that the decomposition of propylene carbonate and co-intercalation of solvated lithium ions are prevented, and lithium ions can reversibly intercalate into and deintercalate from the Ag-coated graphite electrode. These results indicate that Ag-coating is a good way to improve the electrochemical performance of graphitic carbon in PC-based electrolyte solutions

  10. Joint Spatio-Temporal Filtering Methods for DOA and Fundamental Frequency Estimation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Jesper Rindom; Christensen, Mads Græsbøll; Benesty, Jacob

    2015-01-01

    some attention in the community and is quite promising for several applications. The proposed methods are based on optimal, adaptive filters that leave the desired signal, having a certain DOA and fundamental frequency, undistorted and suppress everything else. The filtering methods simultaneously...... operate in space and time, whereby it is possible resolve cases that are otherwise problematic for pitch estimators or DOA estimators based on beamforming. Several special cases and improvements are considered, including a method for estimating the covariance matrix based on the recently proposed...

  11. Deconstructing Interocular Suppression: Attention and Divisive Normalization.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hsin-Hung Li

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available In interocular suppression, a suprathreshold monocular target can be rendered invisible by a salient competitor stimulus presented in the other eye. Despite decades of research on interocular suppression and related phenomena (e.g., binocular rivalry, flash suppression, continuous flash suppression, the neural processing underlying interocular suppression is still unknown. We developed and tested a computational model of interocular suppression. The model included two processes that contributed to the strength of interocular suppression: divisive normalization and attentional modulation. According to the model, the salient competitor induced a stimulus-driven attentional modulation selective for the location and orientation of the competitor, thereby increasing the gain of neural responses to the competitor and reducing the gain of neural responses to the target. Additional suppression was induced by divisive normalization in the model, similar to other forms of visual masking. To test the model, we conducted psychophysics experiments in which both the size and the eye-of-origin of the competitor were manipulated. For small and medium competitors, behavioral performance was consonant with a change in the response gain of neurons that responded to the target. But large competitors induced a contrast-gain change, even when the competitor was split between the two eyes. The model correctly predicted these results and outperformed an alternative model in which the attentional modulation was eye specific. We conclude that both stimulus-driven attention (selective for location and feature and divisive normalization contribute to interocular suppression.

  12. Deconstructing Interocular Suppression: Attention and Divisive Normalization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Hsin-Hung; Carrasco, Marisa; Heeger, David J

    2015-10-01

    In interocular suppression, a suprathreshold monocular target can be rendered invisible by a salient competitor stimulus presented in the other eye. Despite decades of research on interocular suppression and related phenomena (e.g., binocular rivalry, flash suppression, continuous flash suppression), the neural processing underlying interocular suppression is still unknown. We developed and tested a computational model of interocular suppression. The model included two processes that contributed to the strength of interocular suppression: divisive normalization and attentional modulation. According to the model, the salient competitor induced a stimulus-driven attentional modulation selective for the location and orientation of the competitor, thereby increasing the gain of neural responses to the competitor and reducing the gain of neural responses to the target. Additional suppression was induced by divisive normalization in the model, similar to other forms of visual masking. To test the model, we conducted psychophysics experiments in which both the size and the eye-of-origin of the competitor were manipulated. For small and medium competitors, behavioral performance was consonant with a change in the response gain of neurons that responded to the target. But large competitors induced a contrast-gain change, even when the competitor was split between the two eyes. The model correctly predicted these results and outperformed an alternative model in which the attentional modulation was eye specific. We conclude that both stimulus-driven attention (selective for location and feature) and divisive normalization contribute to interocular suppression.

  13. Ideal and conventional feedback systems for RWM suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pustovitov, V.D.

    2002-01-01

    Feedback suppression of resistive wall modes (RWM) is studied analytically using a model based on a standard cylindrical approximation. Two feedback systems are compared: 'ideal', creating only the field necessary for RMW suppression, and 'conventional', like that used in the DIII-D tokamak and considered as a candidate for ITER. The widespread opinion that the feedback with poloidal sensors is better than that with radial sensors is discussed. It is shown that the 'conventional' feedback with radial sensors can be effective only in a limited range, while using the input signal from internal poloidal sensors allows easy fulfilment of the stability criterion. This is a property of the 'conventional' feedback, but the 'ideal' feedback would stabilise RWM in both cases. (author)

  14. Carrier-microencapsulation using Si-catechol complex for suppressing pyrite floatability

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jha, R.K.T.; Satur, J.; Hiroyoshi, N.; Ito, M.; Tsunekawa, M. [Hokkaido University, Hokkaido (Japan). Graduate School of Engineering

    2008-11-15

    Pyrite (FeS{sub 2}) is a common sulfide mineral associated with valuable metal minerals and coal, and it is rejected as a gangue mineral using physical separation techniques such as froth flotation and discharged into tailing pond. In the flotation, pyrite is frequently entrapped in the froth due to its hydrophobic nature. Formation of acid mine drainage due to the air-oxidation of pyrite in the tailing pond is also a serious problem. The authors have proposed carrier-microencapsulation (CME) as a method for suppressing both the floatability and oxidation of pyrite. In this method, pyrite is coated with a thin layer of metal oxide or hydroxide using catechol solution as a carrier combined with metal ions. The layer converts the pyrite surface from hydrophobic to hydrophilic and acts as a protective coating against oxidation. The present study demonstrates the effect of CME using Si-catechol complex to suppress the pyrite floatability: The bubble pick-up experiments showed that attachment of pyrite particles to air bubble is suppressed by the CME treatment at pH 4-10, Si-catechol complex concentration over 0.5 mol m{sup -3} and treatment time within 2 min. The Hallimond tube flotation experiments showed that the pyrite floatability is suppressed by the CME treatment even in the presence of typical flotation collectors such as kerosene and xanthate. SEM-EDX analysis confirmed that Si present on the pyrite surface treated by Si-catechol complex, implying that SiO{sub 2} or SiOH{sub 4} layer formed by the CME treatment convert the pyrite surface hydrophobic to hydrophilic.

  15. Combined adaptive multiple subtraction based on optimized event tracing and extended wiener filtering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tan, Jun; Song, Peng; Li, Jinshan; Wang, Lei; Zhong, Mengxuan; Zhang, Xiaobo

    2017-06-01

    The surface-related multiple elimination (SRME) method is based on feedback formulation and has become one of the most preferred multiple suppression methods used. However, some differences are apparent between the predicted multiples and those in the source seismic records, which may result in conventional adaptive multiple subtraction methods being barely able to effectively suppress multiples in actual production. This paper introduces a combined adaptive multiple attenuation method based on the optimized event tracing technique and extended Wiener filtering. The method firstly uses multiple records predicted by SRME to generate a multiple velocity spectrum, then separates the original record to an approximate primary record and an approximate multiple record by applying the optimized event tracing method and short-time window FK filtering method. After applying the extended Wiener filtering method, residual multiples in the approximate primary record can then be eliminated and the damaged primary can be restored from the approximate multiple record. This method combines the advantages of multiple elimination based on the optimized event tracing method and the extended Wiener filtering technique. It is an ideal method for suppressing typical hyperbolic and other types of multiples, with the advantage of minimizing damage of the primary. Synthetic and field data tests show that this method produces better multiple elimination results than the traditional multi-channel Wiener filter method and is more suitable for multiple elimination in complicated geological areas.

  16. Suppression of dust explosions and ignition spots in biomass-fired power plants

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilen, C.; Rautalin, A.

    1995-12-31

    Dust explosion characteristics of forest residue dust both at normal pressure and at elevated initial pressure have been determined in previous studies. These indices give a good base for evaluating the usability of suppression systems to obtain a sufficient level of peritoneal safety in biomass fuel handling equipment. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the usability of suppression systems and to demonstrate dust explosion suppression at elevated initial pressure. Suppression tests at 1 - 20 bar pressure will be carried out in co-operation with CTDD of British Coal, Kiddy Fire Protection and Health and Safety Executive. The tests with coal and biomass dust are scheduled to be started in March 1996 in Great Britain. In the second task of the project, self-ignition properties of forest residue dust and straw dust have been measured in a flow-through system simulating slow drying of the fuel

  17. Suppression of dust explosions and ignition spots in biomass-fired power plants

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilen, C; Rautalin, A

    1996-12-31

    Dust explosion characteristics of forest residue dust both at normal pressure and at elevated initial pressure have been determined in previous studies. These indices give a good base for evaluating the usability of suppression systems to obtain a sufficient level of peritoneal safety in biomass fuel handling equipment. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the usability of suppression systems and to demonstrate dust explosion suppression at elevated initial pressure. Suppression tests at 1 - 20 bar pressure will be carried out in co-operation with CTDD of British Coal, Kiddy Fire Protection and Health and Safety Executive. The tests with coal and biomass dust are scheduled to be started in March 1996 in Great Britain. In the second task of the project, self-ignition properties of forest residue dust and straw dust have been measured in a flow-through system simulating slow drying of the fuel

  18. Suppression of dust explosions and ignition spots in biomass- fired power plants

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wilen, C; Rautalin, A [VTT Energy, Espoo (Finland)

    1997-12-01

    Dust explosion characteristics of forest residue dust both at normal pressure and at elevated initial pressure have been determined in previous studies. These indices give a good base for evaluating the usability of suppression systems to obtain a sufficient level of operational safety in biomass fuel handling equipment. The objectives of this project were to evaluate the usability of suppression systems and to demonstrate dust explosion suppression at elevated initial pressure. Suppression tests at 1 - 20 bar pressure will be carried out in co-operation with CTDD of British Coal, Kiddy Fire Protection and Health and Safety Executive. The tests with coal and biomass dust are scheduled to be started in March 1996 in Great Britain. In the second task of the project, self-ignition properties of forest residue dust and straw dust have been measured in a flow-through system simulating slow drying of the fuel

  19. Linear accelerator accelerating module to suppress back-acceleration of field-emitted particles

    Science.gov (United States)

    Benson, Stephen V.; Marhauser, Frank; Douglas, David R.; Ament, Lucas J. P.

    2017-12-05

    A method for the suppression of upstream-directed field emission in RF accelerators. The method is not restricted to a certain number of cavity cells, but requires similar operating field levels in all cavities to efficiently annihilate the once accumulated energy. Such a field balance is desirable to minimize dynamic RF losses, but not necessarily achievable in reality depending on individual cavity performance, such as early Q.sub.0-drop or quench field. The method enables a significant energy reduction for upstream-directed electrons within a relatively short distance. As a result of the suppression of upstream-directed field emission, electrons will impact surfaces at rather low energies leading to reduction of dark current and less issues with heating and damage of accelerator components as well as radiation levels including neutron generation and thus radio-activation.

  20. Skin effect suppression for Cu/CoZrNb multilayered inductor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sato, Noriyuki; Endo, Yasushi; Yamaguchi, Masahiro

    2012-04-01

    The Cu/Co85Zr3Nb12 multilayer is studied as a conductor of a spiral inductor to suppress the skin effect at the 5 GHz range (matches IEEE 802.11 a standard) using negative-permeability in CoZrNb films beyond the ferromagnetic resonance frequency. The skin effect suppression becomes remarkable when the thickness of Cu in each period of the multilayer, tCu, is less than the skin depth of Cu at the targeting frequency. For the 5 GHz operation, tCu ≤ 750 nm. The resistance of the Cu/CoZrNb multilayered spiral inductor decreases as much as 8.7%, while keeping the same inductance of 1.1 nH as that of a similar air core. Accordingly, Q = 16. Therefore, the proposed method can contribute to realize a high-Q spiral inductor. We also study the potentially applicable frequency of this method. Given a soft magnetic material with Ms = 105 emu/cc and Hk = 5 Oe, the method can be applied at 700 MHz, the lowermost carrier frequency band for the 4th generation cellular phone system.

  1. Error suppression and error correction in adiabatic quantum computation: non-equilibrium dynamics

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sarovar, Mohan; Young, Kevin C

    2013-01-01

    While adiabatic quantum computing (AQC) has some robustness to noise and decoherence, it is widely believed that encoding, error suppression and error correction will be required to scale AQC to large problem sizes. Previous works have established at least two different techniques for error suppression in AQC. In this paper we derive a model for describing the dynamics of encoded AQC and show that previous constructions for error suppression can be unified with this dynamical model. In addition, the model clarifies the mechanisms of error suppression and allows the identification of its weaknesses. In the second half of the paper, we utilize our description of non-equilibrium dynamics in encoded AQC to construct methods for error correction in AQC by cooling local degrees of freedom (qubits). While this is shown to be possible in principle, we also identify the key challenge to this approach: the requirement of high-weight Hamiltonians. Finally, we use our dynamical model to perform a simplified thermal stability analysis of concatenated-stabilizer-code encoded many-body systems for AQC or quantum memories. This work is a companion paper to ‘Error suppression and error correction in adiabatic quantum computation: techniques and challenges (2013 Phys. Rev. X 3 041013)’, which provides a quantum information perspective on the techniques and limitations of error suppression and correction in AQC. In this paper we couch the same results within a dynamical framework, which allows for a detailed analysis of the non-equilibrium dynamics of error suppression and correction in encoded AQC. (paper)

  2. Artificial neural network for suppression of banding artifacts in balanced steady-state free precession MRI.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Ki Hwan; Park, Sung-Hong

    2017-04-01

    The balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) MR sequence is frequently used in clinics, but is sensitive to off-resonance effects, which can cause banding artifacts. Often multiple bSSFP datasets are acquired at different phase cycling (PC) angles and then combined in a special way for banding artifact suppression. Many strategies of combining the datasets have been suggested for banding artifact suppression, but there are still limitations in their performance, especially when the number of phase-cycled bSSFP datasets is small. The purpose of this study is to develop a learning-based model to combine the multiple phase-cycled bSSFP datasets for better banding artifact suppression. Multilayer perceptron (MLP) is a feedforward artificial neural network consisting of three layers of input, hidden, and output layers. MLP models were trained by input bSSFP datasets acquired from human brain and knee at 3T, which were separately performed for two and four PC angles. Banding-free bSSFP images were generated by maximum-intensity projection (MIP) of 8 or 12 phase-cycled datasets and were used as targets for training the output layer. The trained MLP models were applied to another brain and knee datasets acquired with different scan parameters and also to multiple phase-cycled bSSFP functional MRI datasets acquired on rat brain at 9.4T, in comparison with the conventional MIP method. Simulations were also performed to validate the MLP approach. Both the simulations and human experiments demonstrated that MLP suppressed banding artifacts significantly, superior to MIP in both banding artifact suppression and SNR efficiency. MLP demonstrated superior performance over MIP for the 9.4T fMRI data as well, which was not used for training the models, while visually preserving the fMRI maps very well. Artificial neural network is a promising technique for combining multiple phase-cycled bSSFP datasets for banding artifact suppression. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All

  3. Targeting acceptance in the management of food craving: The mediating roles of eating styles and thought suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Coffino, Jaime A; Heiss, Sydney; Hormes, Julia M

    2018-04-01

    Food craving is now widely considered to be a cognitively motivated state. Acceptance-based treatments are effective in reducing the adverse impact of food cravings on consumption, via a hypothesized decrease in experiential avoidance. The mechanisms that drive the success of acceptance-based management of craving remain to be empirically tested. This study examined the role of eating styles and thought suppression as mediators in the relationship between experiential avoidance and craving. Participants (n = 298, 51.5% female) completed the Food Craving Acceptance and Awareness Questionnaire (FAAQ), the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ), the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI; a measure of thought suppression), and the reduced version of the Food Craving Questionnaire- Trait (FCQ-T-r). Scores on the FAAQ were inversely associated with scores on the FCQ-T-r, DEBQ, and WBSI; FCQ-T-r scores were positively correlated with scores on the DEBQ and WBSI (all p styles and thought suppression, acceptance remained a significant predictor of craving. Results thus provide initial evidence that eating styles and thought suppression mediate the relationship between food-specific experiential avoidance and food craving. Findings lay the foundation for future study of the proximal antecedents of food cravings and lend preliminary support for targeting thought suppression and eating styles in acceptance-based approaches to the management of craving. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. In the suppression of regge cut contributions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chia, S.P.

    1975-07-01

    It is shown that contributions of reggeon-pomeron cuts are suppressed in amplitudes with opposite natural to the reggeon. This suppression grows logarithmically with energy. The suppression in the πP cut is, however, found to be weak. Consequence on conspiracy is discussed

  5. Suppressing unsteady flow in arterio-venous fistulae

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grechy, L.; Iori, F.; Corbett, R. W.; Shurey, S.; Gedroyc, W.; Duncan, N.; Caro, C. G.; Vincent, P. E.

    2017-10-01

    Arterio-Venous Fistulae (AVF) are regarded as the "gold standard" method of vascular access for patients with end-stage renal disease who require haemodialysis. However, a large proportion of AVF do not mature, and hence fail, as a result of various pathologies such as Intimal Hyperplasia (IH). Unphysiological flow patterns, including high-frequency flow unsteadiness, associated with the unnatural and often complex geometries of AVF are believed to be implicated in the development of IH. In the present study, we employ a Mesh Adaptive Direct Search optimisation framework, computational fluid dynamics simulations, and a new cost function to design a novel non-planar AVF configuration that can suppress high-frequency unsteady flow. A prototype device for holding an AVF in the optimal configuration is then fabricated, and proof-of-concept is demonstrated in a porcine model. Results constitute the first use of numerical optimisation to design a device for suppressing potentially pathological high-frequency flow unsteadiness in AVF.

  6. Immune-suppressive activity of punicalagin via inhibition of NFAT activation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Sang-Ik; Kim, Byoung-Soo; Kim, Kyoung-Shin; Lee, Samkeun; Shin, Kwang-Soo; Lim, Jong-Soon

    2008-01-01

    Since T cell activation is central to the development of autoimmune diseases, we screened a natural product library comprising 1400 samples of medicinal herbal extracts, to identify compounds that suppress T cell activity. Punicalagin (PCG) isolated from the fruit of Punica granatum was identified as a potent immune suppressant, based on its inhibitory action on the activation of the nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT). PCG downregulated the mRNA and soluble protein expression of interleukin-2 from anti-CD3/anti-CD28-stimulated murine splenic CD4+ T cells and suppressed mixed leukocytes reaction (MLR) without exhibiting cytotoxicity to the cells. In vivo, the PCG treatment inhibited phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA)-induced chronic ear edema in mice and decreased CD3+ T cell infiltration of the inflamed tissue. These results suggest that PCG could be a potential candidate for the therapeutics of various immune pathologies

  7. Recent development of the passive vibration control method

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ishida, Yukio

    2012-05-01

    This paper introduces new passive vibration suppression methods developed recently in our laboratory. First, two methods used to suppress steady-state resonances are explained. One is the improvement of the efficiency of a ball balancer. A simple method to eliminate the influence of friction of balls and to improve its efficiency is introduced. The other is an effective method that utilizes the discontinuous spring characteristics. Secondly, a method to eliminate unstable ranges in rotor systems is explained. Unstable ranges in an asymmetrical shaft, and in a hollow rotor partially filled with liquid, are eliminated by the discontinuous spring characteristics. Thirdly, a method to suppress self-excited oscillations is explained. Self-excited oscillations due to internal damping and rubbing are discussed. Finally, the methods of using a pendulum or roller type absorbers to suppress torsional vibrations are explained.

  8. Validation of SPARC, a suppression pool aerosol capture model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Owczarski, P.C.; Winegardner, W.K.

    1985-09-01

    A study of the potential for atmospheric release in hypothetical severe core melt accidents in BWRs with suppression pools was recently completed using a prototype of the SPARC code. The process of validating SPARC using an experimental data base is the concern of this paper

  9. Improved background suppression in ¹H MAS NMR using composite pulses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Odedra, Smita; Wimperis, Stephen

    2012-08-01

    A well known feature of ¹H MAS NMR spectroscopy, particularly of solids where the concentration of ¹H nuclei is low, is the presence in the spectrum of a significant broad "background" signal arising from ¹H nuclei that are outside the MAS rotor and radiofrequency coil, probably located on the surfaces of the static components of the probehead. A popular method of suppressing this unwanted signal is the "depth pulse" method, consisting of a 90° pulse followed by one or two 180° pulses that are phase cycled according to the "Exorcycle" scheme, which removes signal associated with imperfect 180° pulses. Consequently, only spins in the centre of the radiofrequency coil contribute to the ¹H MAS spectrum, while those experiencing a low B₁ field outside the coil are suppressed. Although very effective at removing background signal from the spectrum, one drawback with this approach is that significant loss of the desired signal from the sample also occurs. Here we investigate the ¹H background suppression problem and, in particular, the use of novel antisymmetric passband composite pulses to replace the simple pulses in a depth pulse experiment. We show that it is possible to improve the intensity of the ¹H signals of interest while still maintaining effective background suppression. We expect that these results will be relevant to ¹H MAS NMR studies of, for example, nominally perdeuterated biological samples or nominally anhydrous inorganic materials. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. A novel dual-salts of LiTFSI and LiODFB in LiFePO4-based batteries for suppressing aluminum corrosion and improving cycling stability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Faqiang; Gong, Yan; Jia, Guofeng; Wang, Qinglei; Peng, Zhengjun; Fan, Wei; Bai, Bing

    2015-11-01

    The strong corrosion behavior at the Al current collector restricts the application range of lithium bis (trifluoromethanesulfonylimide) (LiTFSI), despite its high stability against water and thermal. SEM, LSV and Tafel curves proved that adding LiODFB into LiTFSI-based electrolytes could suppress aluminum corrosion caused by LiTFSI-based electrolytes. The cycling stability and rate capability of LiFePO4-based batteries using LiTFSI0.6-LiODFB0.4-based electrolytes is excellent as compared to LiFePO4-based batteries using LiPF6-based electrolytes.

  11. Complex noise suppression using a sparse representation and 3D filtering of images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kravchenko, V. F.; Ponomaryov, V. I.; Pustovoit, V. I.; Palacios-Enriquez, A.

    2017-08-01

    A novel method for the filtering of images corrupted by complex noise composed of randomly distributed impulses and additive Gaussian noise has been substantiated for the first time. The method consists of three main stages: the detection and filtering of pixels corrupted by impulsive noise, the subsequent image processing to suppress the additive noise based on 3D filtering and a sparse representation of signals in a basis of wavelets, and the concluding image processing procedure to clean the final image of the errors emerged at the previous stages. A physical interpretation of the filtering method under complex noise conditions is given. A filtering block diagram has been developed in accordance with the novel approach. Simulations of the novel image filtering method have shown an advantage of the proposed filtering scheme in terms of generally recognized criteria, such as the structural similarity index measure and the peak signal-to-noise ratio, and when visually comparing the filtered images.

  12. Reflection/suppression coatings for 900 - 1200 A radiation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Edelstein, Jerry

    1989-01-01

    The design and performance of multiple-layer, selective-reflection, selective-suppression coatings for the 900 - 1200 A band are described. These coatings are designed to optimize both high reflectivity at a desirable wavelength and low reflectivity at an undesirable wavelength. The minimum structure for a selective coating consists of a thin metal or metal oxide layer (50 - 150 A thickness) over an aluminum substrate protected with a semi-transparent dielectric (100 - 1000 A thickness). Predicted coating performance is strongly effected by varying the layer combination and thickness. A graphical method of optimizing the coating layer structure is developed. Aluminum, silicon, their oxides, and gold have been investigated as coating layer materials. A very simple coating with a 1026 to 1216 A reflectivity ratio greater than 100 was fabricated. Such reflection/suppression coatings may be of great utility to spaceborne EUV spectrographs.

  13. Poppers: more evidence of suppressed immunity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    James, J S

    1999-08-20

    Evidence from studies in mice shows that exposure to isobutyl nitrite suppresses the immune system. This immune suppression allows for bacterial growth in the lungs and livers of infected mice and can inhibit the ability of mediastinal lymph nodes to respond to antigen-specific stimulation. The mechanism for immune suppression may be a reduction in CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations in the mediastinal lymph nodes following pulmonary infection with Listeria monocytogenes.

  14. Resveratrol suppresses IGF-1 induced human colon cancer cell proliferation and elevates apoptosis via suppression of IGF-1R/Wnt and activation of p53 signaling pathways

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radhakrishnan Sridhar

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Obesity is a global phenomenon and is associated with various types of cancer, including colon cancer. There is a growing interest for safe and effective bioactive compounds that suppress the risk for obesity-promoted colon cancer. Resveratrol (trans-3, 4', 5,-trihydroxystilbene, a stilbenoid found in the skin of red grapes and peanuts suppresses many types of cancers by regulating cell proliferation and apoptosis through a variety of mechanisms, however, resveratrol effects on obesity-promoted colon cancer are not clearly established. Methods We investigated the anti-proliferative effects of resveratrol on HT-29 and SW480 human colon cancer cells in the presence and absence of insulin like growth factor-1 (IGF-1; elevated during obesity and elucidated the mechanisms of action using IGF-1R siRNA in HT-29 cells which represents advanced colon carcinogenesis. Results Resveratrol (100-150 μM exhibited anti-proliferative properties in HT-29 cells even after IGF-1 exposure by arresting G0/G1-S phase cell cycle progression through p27 stimulation and cyclin D1 suppression. Treatment with resveratrol suppressed IGF-1R protein levels and concurrently attenuated the downstream Akt/Wnt signaling pathways that play a critical role in cell proliferation. Targeted suppression of IGF-1R using IGF-1R siRNA also affected these signaling pathways in a similar manner. Resveratrol treatment induced apoptosis by activating tumor suppressor p53 protein, whereas IGF-1R siRNA treatment did not affect apoptosis. Our data suggests that resveratrol not only suppresses cell proliferation by inhibiting IGF-1R and its downstream signaling pathways similar to that of IGF-1R siRNA but also enhances apoptosis via activation of the p53 pathway. Conclusions For the first time, we report that resveratrol suppresses colon cancer cell proliferation and elevates apoptosis even in the presence of IGF-1 via suppression of IGF-1R/Akt/Wnt signaling pathways and

  15. Methods in Logic Based Control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen, Georg Kronborg

    1999-01-01

    Desing and theory of Logic Based Control systems.Boolean Algebra, Karnaugh Map, Quine McClusky's algorithm. Sequential control design. Logic Based Control Method, Cascade Control Method. Implementation techniques: relay, pneumatic, TTL/CMOS,PAL and PLC- and Soft_PLC implementation. PLC...

  16. Concerted suppression of all starch branching enzyme genes in barley produces amylose-only starch granules

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Carciofi, Massimiliano; Blennow, Per Gunnar Andreas; Jensen, Susanne Langgård

    2012-01-01

    is preferentially derived from amylose, which can be increased by suppressing amylopectin synthesis by silencing of starch branching enzymes (SBEs). However all the previous works attempting the production of high RS crops resulted in only partly increased amylose-content and/or significant yield loss. Results...... In this study we invented a new method for silencing of multiple genes. Using a chimeric RNAi hairpin we simultaneously suppressed all genes coding for starch branching enzymes (SBE I, SBE IIa, SBE IIb) in barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), resulting in production of amylose-only starch granules in the endosperm...... yield in a living organism. This was achieved by a new method of simultaneous suppression of the entire complement of genes encoding starch branching enzymes. We demonstrate that amylopectin is not essential for starch granule crystallinity and integrity. However the slower initial growth of shoots from...

  17. Suppressing non-periodically repeating disturbances in mechanical servo systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tousain, R.L.; Boissy, J.C.; Norg, M.L.; Steinbuch, M.; Bosgra, O.H.

    1998-01-01

    Non-periodically repeating (NPR) disturbances are fixed-shape disturbances that occur randomly in time. We can provide a control system with the capability to suppress this type of disturbance by adding in parallel to the input of the nominal feedback controller a learning look-up-table based

  18. Effective suppression of bystander effects by DMSO treatment of irradiated CHO cells

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kashino, Genro; Prise, K.M.; Suzuki, Keiji

    2007-01-01

    Evidence is accumulating that irradiated cells produce some signals which interact with non-exposed cells in the same population via a bystander effect. Here, we examined whether dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is effective in suppressing radiation induced bystander effects in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) and repair deficient xrs5 cells. When 1 Gy-irradiated CHO cells were treated with 0.5% DMSO for 1 hr before irradiation, the induction of micronuclei in irradiated cells was suppressed to 80% of that in non-treated irradiated cells. The suppressive effect of DMSO on the formation of bystander signals was examined and the results demonstrated that 0.5% DMSO treatment of irradiated cells completely suppressed the induction of micronuclei by the bystander effect in non-irradiated cells. It is suggested that irradiated cells ceased signal formation for bystander effects by the action of DMSO. To determine the involvement of reactive oxygen species on the formation of bystander signals, we examined oxidative stress levels using the 2',7'-dichlorofluorescein (DCFH) staining method in irradiated populations. The results showed that the treatment of irradiated cells with 0.5% DMSO did not suppress oxidative stress levels. These results suggest that the prevention of oxidative stress is independent of the suppressive effect of DMSO on the formation of the bystander signal in irradiated cells. It is suggested that increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) in irradiated cells is not a substantial trigger of a bystander signal. (author)

  19. Active Suppression of Drilling System Vibrations For Deep Drilling

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Raymond, David W.; Blankenship, Douglas A.; Buerger, Stephen; Mesh, Mikhail; Radigan, William Thomas; Su, Jiann-Cherng

    2015-10-01

    The dynamic stability of deep drillstrings is challenged by an inability to impart controllability with ever-changing conditions introduced by geology, depth, structural dynamic properties and operating conditions. A multi-organizational LDRD project team at Sandia National Laboratories successfully demonstrated advanced technologies for mitigating drillstring vibrations to improve the reliability of drilling systems used for construction of deep, high-value wells. Using computational modeling and dynamic substructuring techniques, the benefit of controllable actuators at discrete locations in the drillstring is determined. Prototype downhole tools were developed and evaluated in laboratory test fixtures simulating the structural dynamic response of a deep drillstring. A laboratory-based drilling applicability demonstration was conducted to demonstrate the benefit available from deployment of an autonomous, downhole tool with self-actuation capabilities in response to the dynamic response of the host drillstring. A concept is presented for a prototype drilling tool based upon the technical advances. The technology described herein is the subject of U.S. Patent Application No. 62219481, entitled "DRILLING SYSTEM VIBRATION SUPPRESSION SYSTEMS AND METHODS", filed September 16, 2015.

  20. Regulatory Eosinophils Suppress T Cells Partly through Galectin-10.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lingblom, Christine; Andersson, Jennie; Andersson, Kerstin; Wennerås, Christine

    2017-06-15

    Eosinophils have the capacity to regulate the function of T cell subsets. Our aim was to test the hypothesis of the existence of a regulatory subset of eosinophils. Human eosinophils were incubated with T cells that were stimulated with allogeneic leukocytes or CD3/CD28 cross-linking. After 2 d of coculture, 11% of the eosinophils gained CD16 expression. A CD16 hi subset of eosinophils, encompassing 1-5% of all eosinophils, was also identified in the blood of healthy subjects. FACS sorting showed that these CD16 hi eosinophils were significantly stronger suppressors of T cell proliferation than were conventional CD16 neg eosinophils. Human eosinophils contain stores of the immunoregulatory protein galectin-10. We found that Ab-mediated neutralization of galectin-10 partially abrogated the suppressive function of the eosinophils. Moreover, recombinant galectin-10 by itself was able to suppress T cell proliferation. Finally, we detected galectin-10-containing immune synapses between eosinophils and lymphocytes. To conclude, we describe a subset of suppressive eosinophils expressing CD16 that may escape detection because CD16-based negative selection is the standard procedure for the isolation of human eosinophils. Moreover, we show that galectin-10 functions as a T cell-suppressive molecule in eosinophils. Copyright © 2017 by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc.

  1. Ideal and conventional feedback systems for RWM suppression

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pustovitov, V.D.

    2002-01-01

    Feedback suppression of resistive wall modes (RWM) is studied analytically using a model based on a standard cylindrical approximation. Two feedback systems are compared: 'ideal', creating only the field necessary for RMW suppression, and 'conventional', like that used in the DIII-D tokamak and considered as a candidate for ITER. The widespread opinion that the feedback with poloidal sensors is better than that with radial sensors is discussed. It is shown that the 'conventional' feedback with radial sensors can be effective only in a limited range, while using the input signal from internal poloidal sensors allows easy fulfilment of the stability criterion. This is a property of the 'conventional' feedback, but the 'ideal' feedback would stabilise RWM in both cases. (author)

  2. A High-Fidelity Haze Removal Method Based on HOT for Visible Remote Sensing Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hou Jiang

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available Spatially varying haze is a common feature of most satellite images currently used for land cover classification and mapping and can significantly affect image quality. In this paper, we present a high-fidelity haze removal method based on Haze Optimized Transformation (HOT, comprising of three steps: semi-automatic HOT transform, HOT perfection and percentile based dark object subtraction (DOS. Since digital numbers (DNs of band red and blue are highly correlated in clear sky, the R-squared criterion is utilized to search the relative clearest regions of the whole scene automatically. After HOT transform, spurious HOT responses are first masked out and filled by means of four-direction scan and dynamic interpolation, and then homomorphic filter is performed to compensate for loss of HOT of masked-out regions with large areas. To avoid patches and halo artifacts, a procedure called percentile DOS is implemented to eliminate the influence of haze. Scenes including various land cover types are selected to validate the proposed method, and a comparison analysis with HOT and Background Suppressed Haze Thickness Index (BSHTI is performed. Three quality assessment indicators are selected to evaluate the haze removed effect on image quality from different perspective and band profiles are utilized to analyze the spectral consistency. Experiment results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method for haze removal and the superiority of it in preserving the natural color of object itself, enhancing local contrast, and maintaining structural information of original image.

  3. Reversible beam heater for suppression of microbunching instability by transverse gradient undulators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Tao; Qin, Weilun; Wang, Dong; Huang, Zhirong

    2017-08-01

    The microbunching instability driven by beam collective effects in a linear accelerator of a free-electron laser (FEL) facility significantly degrades the electron beam quality and FEL performance. A conventional method to suppress this instability is to introduce an additional uncorrelated energy spread by laser-electron interaction, which has been successfully operated in the Linac Coherent Light Source and Fermi@Elettra, etc. Some other ideas are recently proposed to suppress the instability without increasing energy spread, which could benefit the seeded FEL schemes. In this paper, we propose a reversible electron beam heater using two transverse gradient undulators to suppress the microbunching instability. This scheme introduces both an energy spread increase and a transverse-to-longitudinal phase space coupling, which suppress the microbunching instabilities driven by both longitudinal space charge and coherent synchrotron radiation before and within the system. Finally the induced energy spread increase and emittance growth are reversed. Theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are presented to verify the feasibility of the scheme and indicate the capability to improve the seeded FEL radiation performance.

  4. Human Detection System by Fusing Depth Map-Based Method and Convolutional Neural Network-Based Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Anh Vu Le

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, the depth images and the colour images provided by Kinect sensors are used to enhance the accuracy of human detection. The depth-based human detection method is fast but less accurate. On the other hand, the faster region convolutional neural network-based human detection method is accurate but requires a rather complex hardware configuration. To simultaneously leverage the advantages and relieve the drawbacks of each method, one master and one client system is proposed. The final goal is to make a novel Robot Operation System (ROS-based Perception Sensor Network (PSN system, which is more accurate and ready for the real time application. The experimental results demonstrate the outperforming of the proposed method compared with other conventional methods in the challenging scenarios.

  5. Suppression of umami aftertaste by polysaccharides in soy sauce.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imamura, Miho; Matsushima, Kenichiro

    2013-08-01

    Umami is one of 5 basic tastes that make foods savory and palatable. The umami aftertaste is a long-lasting taste sensation that is important for Japanese broth (dashi) utilized for various Japanese foods. Soy sauce is usually added when making dashi-based dishes; however, different soy sauces produce distinct effects on the umami aftertaste. In this study, we attempted to identify the substances that cause the suppression of the umami aftertaste in soy sauce by combining sensory analysis, size fractionation, chemical analysis, and enzymatic treatment. The suppressive substance was revealed to be polysaccharides with molecular weights between 44900 and 49700. The results of acid hydrolysis and enzymatic treatment suggested that the polysaccharides were cellulose. These results indicate that a type of water-soluble cellulose derived from soybean, wheat, or microorganisms has a suppressive effect on the umami aftertaste of soy sauce. Future studies should focus on developing a strategy that regulates the amount of these polysaccharides generated during soy sauce production, to maintain or enhance the umami aftertaste. © 2013 Institute of Food Technologists®

  6. The application of cost-effective lasers in coherent UDWDM-OFDM-PON aided by effective phase noise suppression methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yue; Yang, Chuanchuan; Yang, Feng; Li, Hongbin

    2014-03-24

    Digital coherent passive optical network (PON), especially the coherent orthogonal frequency division multiplexing PON (OFDM-PON), is a strong candidate for the 2nd-stage-next-generation PON (NG-PON2). As is known, OFDM is very sensitive to the laser phase noise which severely limits the application of the cost-effective distributed feedback (DFB) lasers and more energy-efficient vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSEL) in the coherent OFDM-PON. The current long-reach coherent OFDM-PON experiments always choose the expensive external cavity laser (ECL) as the optical source for its narrow linewidth (usuallyOFDM-PON and study the possibility of the application of the DFB lasers and VCSEL in coherent OFDM-PON. A typical long-reach coherent ultra dense wavelength division multiplexing (UDWDM) OFDM-PON has been set up. The numerical results prove that the OBE method can stand severe phase noise of the lasers in this architecture and the DFB lasers as well as VCSEL can be used in coherent OFDM-PON. In this paper, we have also analyzed the performance of the RF-pilot-aided (RFP) phase noise suppression method in coherent OFDM-PON.

  7. Managing Abiotic Factors of Compost to Increase Soilborne Disease Suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Griffin, Deirdre E.

    2012-01-01

    Soilborne pathogens can devastate crops, causing economic losses for farmers due to reduced yields and expensive management practices. Fumigants and fungicides have harmful impacts on the surrounding environment and can be toxic to humans. Therefore, alternative methods of disease management are important. The disease suppressive abilities of…

  8. BWR Mark III pressure suppression containment response to hydrogen deflagration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fuls, G.M.; Gunter, A.D.

    1982-01-01

    The CLASIX-3 computer program has been used to evaluate the temperature and pressure response of the BWR Mark III Suppression Containment System to hydrogen deflagration resulting from a degraded core condition. The CLASIX-3 computer program is an extension of the CLASIX program which was originally developed to analyze ice condenser containments. A brief description is given of the modifications made to CLASIX to increase its flexibility and versatility to include the capability of analyzing the Mark III Containment. Analytical results are presented for the two base case transients. The two base cases are the stuck open steam relief valve and the small break LOCA, both of which are assumed to lead to a degraded core condition and the release of hydrogen to the containment. Results include pressure and temperature response, gas concentrations and suppression pool response

  9. HIGH-PRECISION ATTITUDE ESTIMATION METHOD OF STAR SENSORS AND GYRO BASED ON COMPLEMENTARY FILTER AND UNSCENTED KALMAN FILTER

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    C. Guo

    2017-07-01

    Full Text Available Determining the attitude of satellite at the time of imaging then establishing the mathematical relationship between image points and ground points is essential in high-resolution remote sensing image mapping. Star tracker is insensitive to the high frequency attitude variation due to the measure noise and satellite jitter, but the low frequency attitude motion can be determined with high accuracy. Gyro, as a short-term reference to the satellite’s attitude, is sensitive to high frequency attitude change, but due to the existence of gyro drift and integral error, the attitude determination error increases with time. Based on the opposite noise frequency characteristics of two kinds of attitude sensors, this paper proposes an on-orbit attitude estimation method of star sensors and gyro based on Complementary Filter (CF and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF. In this study, the principle and implementation of the proposed method are described. First, gyro attitude quaternions are acquired based on the attitude kinematics equation. An attitude information fusion method is then introduced, which applies high-pass filtering and low-pass filtering to the gyro and star tracker, respectively. Second, the attitude fusion data based on CF are introduced as the observed values of UKF system in the process of measurement updating. The accuracy and effectiveness of the method are validated based on the simulated sensors attitude data. The obtained results indicate that the proposed method can suppress the gyro drift and measure noise of attitude sensors, improving the accuracy of the attitude determination significantly, comparing with the simulated on-orbit attitude and the attitude estimation results of the UKF defined by the same simulation parameters.

  10. Pathway profiles based on gene-set enrichment analysis in the honey bee Apis mellifera under brood rearing-suppressed conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Kyungmun; Kim, Ju Hyeon; Kim, Young Ho; Hong, Seong-Eui; Lee, Si Hyeock

    2018-01-01

    Perturbation of normal behaviors in honey bee colonies by any external factor can immediately reduce the colony's capacity for brood rearing, which can eventually lead to colony collapse. To investigate the effects of brood-rearing suppression on the biology of honey bee workers, gene-set enrichment analysis of the transcriptomes of worker bees with or without suppressed brood rearing was performed. When brood rearing was suppressed, pathways associated with both protein degradation and synthesis were simultaneously over-represented in both nurses and foragers, and their overall pathway representation profiles resembled those of normal foragers and nurses, respectively. Thus, obstruction of normal labor induced over-representation in pathways related with reshaping of worker bee physiology, suggesting that transition of labor is physiologically reversible. In addition, some genes associated with the regulation of neuronal excitability, cellular and nutritional stress and aggressiveness were over-expressed under brood rearing suppression perhaps to manage in-hive stress under unfavorable conditions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  11. Multivariate analysis of covariates of adherence among HIV-positive mothers with low viral suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nsubuga-Nyombi, Tamara; Sensalire, Simon; Karamagi, Esther; Aloyo, Judith; Byabagambi, John; Rahimzai, Mirwais; Nabitaka, Linda Kisaakye; Calnan, Jacqueline

    2018-03-31

    As part of efforts to improve the prevention of mother-to-child transmission in Northern Uganda, we explored reasons for poor viral suppression among 122 pregnant and lactating women who were in care, received viral load tests, but had not achieved viral suppression and had more than 1000 copies/mL. Understanding the patient factors associated with low viral suppression was of interest to the Ministry of Health to guide the development of tools and interventions to achieve viral suppression for pregnant and lactating women newly initiating on ART as well as those on ART with unsuppressed viral load. A facility-based cross-sectional and mixed methods study design was used, with retrospective medical record review. We assessed 122 HIV-positive mothers with known low viral suppression across 31 health facilities in Northern Uganda. Adjusted odds ratios were used to determine the covariates of adherence among HIV positive mothers using logistic regression. A study among health care providers shed further light on predictors of low viral suppression and a history of low early retention. This study was part of a larger national evaluation of the performance of integrated care services for mothers. Adherence defined as taking antiretroviral medications correctly everyday was low at 67.2%. The covariates of low adherence are: taking other medications in addition to ART, missed appointments in the past 6 months, experienced violence in the past 6 months, and faces obstacles to treatment. Mothers who were experiencing each of these covariates were less likely to adhere to treatment. These covariates were triangulated with perspectives of health providers as covariates of low adherence and included: long distances to health facility, missed appointments, running out of pills, sharing antiretroviral drugs, violence, and social lifestyles such as multiple sexual partners coupled with non-disclosure to partners. Inadequate counseling, stigma, and lack of client identity are

  12. Suppression of interfacial reactions between Li4Ti5O12 electrode and electrolyte solution via zinc oxide coating

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Han, Cuiping; He, Yan-Bing; Li, Hongfei; Li, Baohua; Du, Hongda; Qin, Xianying; Kang, Feiyu

    2015-01-01

    Graphical abstract: The Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 (LTO) based batteries have severe gassing behavior due to the strong interfacial reactions between LTO and the electrolyte solution, which hampers the practical application of LTO in high power LIBs. The ZnO coating on LTO particles as a barrier layer can effectively suppress the interfacial reactions between LTO and the electrolyte solution. Simultaneously, the ZnO coating significantly reduces the charge-transfer resistance and increases the lithium ion diffusion coefficient, which leads to great improvement of rate and cyclic performance of LTO electrode. - Highlights: • A ZnO coating layer was constructed on the LTO particles by a chemical process as a barrier layer between LTO and surrounding electrolyte solution. • The ZnO coating can effectively stabilize the electrode/electrolyte interface and suppress interfacial reactions between LTO and electrolyte solution. • The ZnO coating can improve the electronic conductivity and lithium ion diffusion coefficient, which contributes to a great improvement in cyclic and high rate capabilities of LTO electrode. • The ZnO coating on LTO may be an effective method to solve the gassing behavior of LTO based battery and promote its wide application in lithium ion power battery. - Abstract: Li 4 Ti 5 O 12 (LTO) based batteries have severe gassing behavior during charge/discharge and storage process. The interfacial reactions between LTO and electrolyte solution may be the main reason. In this work, the LTO spinel particles are modified with ZnO coating using a chemical process to reduce the surface reactivity of LTO particles. Results show that the ZnO coating can effectively stabilize the electrode/electrolyte interface and suppress the formation of a solid electrolyte interface (SEI) film. Simultaneously, this ZnO modification can improve the electronic conductivity and lithium ion diffusion coefficient, which contributes to a great improvement in cyclic and high rate

  13. Measurement and Estimation of Effective Thermal Conductivity for Sodium based Nanofluid using 3-Omega Method

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Oh, Sun Ryung; Park, Hyun Sun [POSTECH, Pohang (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Moo Hwan [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-05-15

    The sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is one of generation IV type reactors and has been extensively researched since 1950s. A strong advantage of the SFR is its liquid sodium coolant which is well-known for its superior thermal properties. However, in terms of possible pipe leakage or rupture, a liquid sodium coolant possesses a critical issue due to its high chemical reactivity which leads to fire or explosion. Due to its safety concerns, dispersion of nanoparticles in liquid sodium has been proposed to reduce the chemical reactivity of sodium. In case of sodium based titanium nanofluid (NaTiNF), the chemical reactivity suppression effect when interacting with water has been proved both experimentally and theoretically [1,2]. Suppression of chemical reactivity is critical without much loss of high heat transfer characteristic of sodium. As there is no research conducted for applying 3-omega sensor in liquid metal as well as high temperature liquid, the sensor development is performed for using in NaTiNF as well as effective thermal conductivity model validation. Based on the acquired effective thermal conductivity of NaTiNF, existing effective thermal conductivity models are evaluated. Thermal conductivity measurement is performed for liquid sodium based titanium nanofluid (NaTiNF) through 3-Omega method. The experiment is conducted at three temperature points of 120, 150, and 180 .deg. C for both pure liquid sodium and NaTiNF. By using 3- omega sensor, thermal conductivity measurement of liquid metal can be more conveniently conducted in labscale. Also, its possibility to measure the thermal conductivity of high temperature liquid metal with metallic nanoparticles being dispersed is shown. Unlike other water or oil-based nanofluids, NaTiNF exhibits reduction of thermal conductivity compare with liquid sodium. Various nanofluid models are plotted, and it is concluded that the MSBM which considers interfacial resistance and Brownian motion can be used in predicting

  14. Measurement and Estimation of Effective Thermal Conductivity for Sodium based Nanofluid using 3-Omega Method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Oh, Sun Ryung; Park, Hyun Sun; Kim, Moo Hwan

    2016-01-01

    The sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) is one of generation IV type reactors and has been extensively researched since 1950s. A strong advantage of the SFR is its liquid sodium coolant which is well-known for its superior thermal properties. However, in terms of possible pipe leakage or rupture, a liquid sodium coolant possesses a critical issue due to its high chemical reactivity which leads to fire or explosion. Due to its safety concerns, dispersion of nanoparticles in liquid sodium has been proposed to reduce the chemical reactivity of sodium. In case of sodium based titanium nanofluid (NaTiNF), the chemical reactivity suppression effect when interacting with water has been proved both experimentally and theoretically [1,2]. Suppression of chemical reactivity is critical without much loss of high heat transfer characteristic of sodium. As there is no research conducted for applying 3-omega sensor in liquid metal as well as high temperature liquid, the sensor development is performed for using in NaTiNF as well as effective thermal conductivity model validation. Based on the acquired effective thermal conductivity of NaTiNF, existing effective thermal conductivity models are evaluated. Thermal conductivity measurement is performed for liquid sodium based titanium nanofluid (NaTiNF) through 3-Omega method. The experiment is conducted at three temperature points of 120, 150, and 180 .deg. C for both pure liquid sodium and NaTiNF. By using 3- omega sensor, thermal conductivity measurement of liquid metal can be more conveniently conducted in labscale. Also, its possibility to measure the thermal conductivity of high temperature liquid metal with metallic nanoparticles being dispersed is shown. Unlike other water or oil-based nanofluids, NaTiNF exhibits reduction of thermal conductivity compare with liquid sodium. Various nanofluid models are plotted, and it is concluded that the MSBM which considers interfacial resistance and Brownian motion can be used in predicting

  15. Suppression and interpersonal harmony: a cross-cultural comparison between Chinese and European Americans.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Meifen; Su, Jenny C; Carrera, Stephanie; Lin, Shu-Ping; Yi, Fei

    2013-10-01

    Based on Markus and Kitayama's (1991) theory, this study was conducted to examine whether the association between emotional suppression and interpersonal harmony would be moderated by cultural group (i.e., Chinese and European Americans) and an Asian cultural value (i.e., emotional self-control). A total of 451 college students (205 Chinese and 246 European Americans) participated in this study. As expected, results indicated that the association between emotional suppression and interpersonal harmony was significantly positive for Chinese but not significant for European Americans. Similarly, when emotional self-control was examined as a moderator, the results still confirmed our hypotheses. That is, the association between emotional suppression and interpersonal harmony was significantly positive for those with stronger endorsement of emotional self-control but not for those with weaker endorsement of emotional self-control. Furthermore, we examined whether the above results could be replicated when forbearance (a construct similar to suppression) and distress disclosure (a construct opposite to suppression) were examined. The results showed the same pattern for forbearance and distress disclosure when cultural group or emotional self-control served as the moderator. The convergence of findings increased the robustness of our results. Finally, our data suggest that individuals from Eastern, interdependent cultures (e.g., Chinese) tend to value emotional suppression to preserve interpersonal harmony; individuals from Western, independent cultures may or may not necessarily suppress their emotions for this purpose. A comprehensive understanding of the different meanings of a specific strategy (i.e., emotional suppression) in different cultural contexts is important to promote effective cross-cultural counseling.

  16. Suppression of neutrophil accumulation in mice by cutaneous application of geranium essential oil

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oshima Haruyuki

    2005-02-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Previous studies suggested that essential oils suppressed the adherence response of human neutrophils in vitro and that intraperitoneal application of geranium oil suppressed the neutrophil accumulation into peritoneal cavity in vivo. Usually, essential oils are applied through skin in aromatherapy in inflammatory symptoms. The purpose of this study is to assess the effects of cutaneous application of essential oils on the accumulation of neutrophils in inflammatory sites in skin of mice. Methods Inflammation with accumulation of inflammatory cells was induced by injection of curdlan, a (1→3-β-D-glucan in skin or peritoneal cavity of mice. Essential oils were applied cutaneously to the mice immediately and 3 hr after intradermal injection of curdlan. The skin with inflammatory lesion was cut off 6 hr after injection of curdlan, and the homogenates were used for myeloperoxidase (MPO: a marker enzyme of neutrophil granule assay. Results The MPO activity of the skin lesion induced by curdlan was suppressed dose-dependently by cutaneous application of geranium oil. Other oils such as lavender, eucalyptus and tea tree oils also suppressed the activity, but their activities seemed weaker than geranium. Juniper oil didn't suppress the activity Conclusion Cutaneous application of essential oils, especially geranium oil, can suppress the inflammatory symptoms with neutrophil accumulation and edema.

  17. A nodal method based on matrix-response method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rocamora Junior, F.D.; Menezes, A.

    1982-01-01

    A nodal method based in the matrix-response method, is presented, and its application to spatial gradient problems, such as those that exist in fast reactors, near the core - blanket interface, is investigated. (E.G.) [pt

  18. Value of fat suppression and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in the diagnosis of insulinoma

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xu Zengbin; Ruan Lingxiang; Peng Zhiyi; Zhang Minming; Xu Shunliang; Zhang Xidao

    2003-01-01

    Objective: To evaluate the value of fat suppression and dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in the preoperative localization of insulinoma. Methods: Twelve cases with pathologically proven insulinoma were evaluated with MRI. SE T 1 WI, FSE T 2 WI, T 1 WI and T 2 WI with fat suppression, dynamic contrast-enhanced FMPSPGR sequences were used in MR scanning. Results: On SE T 1 WI, the lesions displayed hypointense in 4, isointense in 8 cases. Lesions showed hyperintense in 4, isointense in 8 cases on FSE T 2 WI. In contrast, 7 cases appeared as hypointense on T 1 WI with fat suppression and 6 cases appeared as hyperintense on T 2 WI with fat suppression. With dynamic contrast-enhanced FMPSPGR sequence 11 of 12 insulinomas were detected. In the arterial phase, the lesions presented as hyperintense with different degrees in 11 cases and isointense in 1 case. 6 cases remained hyperintense and 6 cases were isointense in pancreatic parenchymal and portal phase. 4 lesions were identified only in dynamic enhancement images. The diagnostic accuracy of insulinoma by dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI was 91.7% (11/12) as compared with histological study. Conclusion: The results indicate that dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI is an sensitive and accurate method for the preoperative localization of insulinoma

  19. [Research on the temperature field detection method of hot forging based on long-wavelength infrared spectrum].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yu-Cun; Wei, Bin; Fu, Xian-Bin

    2014-02-01

    A temperature field detection method based on long-wavelength infrared spectrum for hot forging is proposed in the present paper. This method combines primary spectrum pyrometry and three-stage FP-cavity LCTF. By optimizing the solutions of three group nonlinear equations in the mathematical model of temperature detection, the errors are reduced, thus measuring results will be more objective and accurate. Then the system of three-stage FP-cavity LCTF was designed on the principle of crystal birefringence. The system realized rapid selection of any wavelength in a certain wavelength range. It makes the response of the temperature measuring system rapid and accurate. As a result, without the emissivity of hot forging, the method can acquire exact information of temperature field and effectively suppress the background light radiation around the hot forging and ambient light that impact the temperature detection accuracy. Finally, the results of MATLAB showed that the infrared spectroscopy through the three-stage FP-cavity LCTF could meet the requirements of design. And experiments verified the feasibility of temperature measuring method. Compared with traditional single-band thermal infrared imager, the accuracy of measuring result was improved.

  20. Combining the Sterile Insect Technique with Wolbachia-Based Approaches: II--A Safer Approach to Aedes albopictus Population Suppression Programmes, Designed to Minimize the Consequences of Inadvertent Female Release.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dongjing Zhang

    Full Text Available Due to the absence of a perfect method for mosquito sex separation, the combination of the sterile insect technique and the incompatible insect technique is now being considered as a potentially effective method to control Aedes albopictus. In this present study first we examine the minimum pupal irradiation dose required to induce complete sterility in Wolbachia triple-infected (HC, double-infected (GUA and uninfected (GT female Ae. albopictus. The HC line is a candidate for Ae. albopictus population suppression programmes, but due to the risk of population replacement which characterizes this triple infected line, the individuals to be released need to be additionally irradiated. After determining the minimum irradiation dose required for complete female sterility, we test whether sterilization is sufficient to prevent invasion of the triple infection from the HC females into double-infected (GUA populations. Our results indicate that irradiated Ae. albopictus HC, GUA and GT strain females have decreased fecundity and egg hatch rate when irradiated, inversely proportional to the dose, and the complete sterilization of females can be acquired by pupal irradiation with doses above 28 Gy. PCR-based analysis of F1 and F2 progeny indicate that the irradiated HC females, cannot spread the new Wolbachia wPip strain into a small cage GUA population, released at a 1:5 ratio. Considering the above results, we conclude that irradiation can be used to reduce the risk of population replacement caused by an unintentional release of Wolbachia triple-infected Ae. albopictus HC strain females during male release for population suppression.

  1. Calculation of Fire Severity Factors and Fire Non-Suppression Probabilities For A DOE Facility Fire PRA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Elicson, Tom; Harwood, Bentley; Lucek, Heather; Bouchard, Jim

    2011-01-01

    Over a 12 month period, a fire PRA was developed for a DOE facility using the NUREG/CR-6850 EPRI/NRC fire PRA methodology. The fire PRA modeling included calculation of fire severity factors (SFs) and fire non-suppression probabilities (PNS) for each safe shutdown (SSD) component considered in the fire PRA model. The SFs were developed by performing detailed fire modeling through a combination of CFAST fire zone model calculations and Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS). Component damage times and automatic fire suppression system actuation times calculated in the CFAST LHS analyses were then input to a time-dependent model of fire non-suppression probability. The fire non-suppression probability model is based on the modeling approach outlined in NUREG/CR-6850 and is supplemented with plant specific data. This paper presents the methodology used in the DOE facility fire PRA for modeling fire-induced SSD component failures and includes discussions of modeling techniques for: Development of time-dependent fire heat release rate profiles (required as input to CFAST), Calculation of fire severity factors based on CFAST detailed fire modeling, and Calculation of fire non-suppression probabilities.

  2. Benchmark enclosure fire suppression experiments - phase 1 test report.

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Figueroa, Victor G.; Nichols, Robert Thomas; Blanchat, Thomas K.

    2007-06-01

    A series of fire benchmark water suppression tests were performed that may provide guidance for dispersal systems for the protection of high value assets. The test results provide boundary and temporal data necessary for water spray suppression model development and validation. A review of fire suppression in presented for both gaseous suppression and water mist fire suppression. The experimental setup and procedure for gathering water suppression performance data are shown. Characteristics of the nozzles used in the testing are presented. Results of the experiments are discussed.

  3. Reproducibility of suppression of Pythium wilt of cucumber by compost

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Mauritz Vilhelm Vestberg

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available There is increasing global interest in using compost to suppress soil-borne fungal and bacterial diseases and nematodes. We studied the reproducibility of compost suppressive capacity (SC against Pythium wilt of cucumber using nine composts produced by the same composting plant in 2008 and 2009. A bioassay was set up in a greenhouse using cucumber inoculated with two strains of Pythium. The composts were used as 20% mixtures (v:v of a basic steam-sterilized light Sphagnum peat and sand (3:1, v:v. Shoot height was measured weekly during the 5-week experiment. At harvest, the SC was calculated as the % difference in shoot dry weight (DW between non-inoculated and inoculated cucumbers. The SC was not affected by year of production (2008 or 2009, indicating reproducibility of SC when the raw materials and the composting method are not changed. Differences in shoot height were not as pronounced as those for shoot DW. The results were encouraging, but further studies are still needed for producing compost with guaranteed suppressiveness properties.

  4. Use of acid-suppressive therapy before anti-reflux surgery in 2922 patients

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lødrup, A; Pottegård, A; Hallas, J

    2015-01-01

    BACKGROUND: Guidelines recommend that patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease are adequately treated with acid-suppressive therapy before undergoing anti-reflux surgery. Little is known of the use of acid-suppressive drugs before anti-reflux surgery. AIM: To determine the use of proton pump...... inhibitors and H2 -receptor antagonists in the year before anti-reflux surgery. METHODS: A nationwide retrospective study of all patients aged ≥18 undergoing first-time anti-reflux surgery in Denmark during 2000-2012 using data from three different sources: the Danish National Register of Patients......, the Danish National Prescription Register, and the Danish Person Register. RESULTS: The study population thus included 2922 patients (median age: 48 years, 55.7% male). The annual proportion of patients redeeming ≥180 DDD of acid-suppressive therapy increased from 17.0% 5 years before anti-reflux surgery...

  5. Bone-suppressed radiography using machine learning

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Park, Jun Beom; Kim, Dae Cheon; Kim, Ho Kyung [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-05-15

    The single-shot dual-energy imaging suffers from reduced contrast-to-noise ratio performance due to poor spectral separation. Tomosynthesis requires more complex motion equipment and may require higher patient dose. An alternative tissue-specific imaging technique was introduced. This alternative technique usually possesses a filter to generate bone-only images for given digital radiographs. Therefore, it provides soft-tissue-enhanced images from the subtraction of given radiographs and filtered bone-only images. Only bone-suppressed imaging capability is a limitation of the method. The filter can be obtained from a machine-learning algorithm, e.g. artificial neural network (ANN), with the dual-energy bone-only images (called 'teaching' images). We suspect the robustness of the filter may be dependent upon the number of teaching images and the number of patients from whose radiographs we obtain the teaching images. In this study, we design an ANN to obtain a bone-extracting filter from a radiograph, and investigate the filter properties with respect to various ANN parameters. Preliminary results are summarized in Fig. 3. We extracted 5,000 subregions in a 21x21 pixel format from the lung region in the bone-enhanced dual-energy image and we used them for teaching images during training the ANN. The resultant bone-enhanced image from the ANN nonlinear filter is shown in Fig. 3 (a). From the weighted logarithmic subtraction between Fig. 2 (a) and Fig. 3 (a), we could obtain the bone-suppressed image as shown in Fig. 3 (b). The quality of the bone-suppressed image is comparable to the ground truth Fig. 2 (c).

  6. Bone-suppressed radiography using machine learning

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Jun Beom; Kim, Dae Cheon; Kim, Ho Kyung

    2016-01-01

    The single-shot dual-energy imaging suffers from reduced contrast-to-noise ratio performance due to poor spectral separation. Tomosynthesis requires more complex motion equipment and may require higher patient dose. An alternative tissue-specific imaging technique was introduced. This alternative technique usually possesses a filter to generate bone-only images for given digital radiographs. Therefore, it provides soft-tissue-enhanced images from the subtraction of given radiographs and filtered bone-only images. Only bone-suppressed imaging capability is a limitation of the method. The filter can be obtained from a machine-learning algorithm, e.g. artificial neural network (ANN), with the dual-energy bone-only images (called 'teaching' images). We suspect the robustness of the filter may be dependent upon the number of teaching images and the number of patients from whose radiographs we obtain the teaching images. In this study, we design an ANN to obtain a bone-extracting filter from a radiograph, and investigate the filter properties with respect to various ANN parameters. Preliminary results are summarized in Fig. 3. We extracted 5,000 subregions in a 21x21 pixel format from the lung region in the bone-enhanced dual-energy image and we used them for teaching images during training the ANN. The resultant bone-enhanced image from the ANN nonlinear filter is shown in Fig. 3 (a). From the weighted logarithmic subtraction between Fig. 2 (a) and Fig. 3 (a), we could obtain the bone-suppressed image as shown in Fig. 3 (b). The quality of the bone-suppressed image is comparable to the ground truth Fig. 2 (c).

  7. The Analysis of the Adverse Reaction of Traditional Chinese Medicine Tumor Bone Marrow Suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wei, Zhenzhen; Fang, Xiaoyan; Miao, Mingsan

    2018-01-01

    With the rapid increase of cancer patients, chemotherapy is the main method for the clinical treatment of cancer, but also in the treatment of the adverse reactions--bone marrow suppression is often a serious infection caused by patients after chemotherapy and the important cause of mortality. Chinese medicine has obvious advantages in the prevention and treatment of bone marrow depression after chemotherapy. According to tumor bone marrow suppression after chemotherapy of etiology and pathogenesis of traditional Chinese medicine and China national knowledge internet nearly 10 years of traditional Chinese medicine in the prevention and control of the status of clinical and laboratory research of tumor bone marrow suppression, the author analyzed and summarized its characteristics, so as to provide the basis for treating bone marrow suppression of drug research and development, and promote small adverse reactions of the development and utilization of natural medicine and its preparations.

  8. Using Correlated Photons to Suppress Background Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Deborah; Hockney, George; Dowling, Jonathan

    2003-01-01

    A proposed method of suppressing the effect of background noise in an optical communication system would exploit the transmission and reception of correlated photons at the receiver. The method would not afford any advantage in a system in which performance is limited by shot noise. However, if the performance of the system is limited by background noise (e.g., sunlight in the case of a free-space optical communication system or incoherently scattered in-band photons in the case of a fiber-optic communication system), then the proposed method could offer an advantage: the proposed method would make it possible to achieve a signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) significantly greater than that of an otherwise equivalent background- noise-limited optical communication system based on the classical transmission and reception of uncorrelated photons. The figure schematically depicts a classical optical-communication system and a system according to the proposed method. In the classical system, a modulated laser beam is transmitted along an optical path to a receiver, the optics of which include a narrow-band-pass filter that suppresses some of the background noise. A photodetector in the receiver detects the laser-beam and background photons, most or all of which are uncorrelated. In the proposed system, correlated photons would be generated at the transmitter by making a modulated laser beam pass through a nonlinear parametric down-conversion crystal. The sum of frequencies of the correlated photons in each pair would equal the frequency of the incident photon from which they were generated. As in the classical system, the correlated photons would travel along an optical path to a receiver, where they would be band-pass filtered and detected. Unlike in the classical system, the photodetector in the receiver in this system would be one that intrinsically favors the detection of pairs of correlated photons over the detection of uncorrelated photons. Even though there would be no

  9. SPHYNX: an accurate density-based SPH method for astrophysical applications

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cabezón, R. M.; García-Senz, D.; Figueira, J.

    2017-10-01

    Aims: Hydrodynamical instabilities and shocks are ubiquitous in astrophysical scenarios. Therefore, an accurate numerical simulation of these phenomena is mandatory to correctly model and understand many astrophysical events, such as supernovas, stellar collisions, or planetary formation. In this work, we attempt to address many of the problems that a commonly used technique, smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH), has when dealing with subsonic hydrodynamical instabilities or shocks. To that aim we built a new SPH code named SPHYNX, that includes many of the recent advances in the SPH technique and some other new ones, which we present here. Methods: SPHYNX is of Newtonian type and grounded in the Euler-Lagrange formulation of the smoothed-particle hydrodynamics technique. Its distinctive features are: the use of an integral approach to estimating the gradients; the use of a flexible family of interpolators called sinc kernels, which suppress pairing instability; and the incorporation of a new type of volume element which provides a better partition of the unity. Unlike other modern formulations, which consider volume elements linked to pressure, our volume element choice relies on density. SPHYNX is, therefore, a density-based SPH code. Results: A novel computational hydrodynamic code oriented to Astrophysical applications is described, discussed, and validated in the following pages. The ensuing code conserves mass, linear and angular momentum, energy, entropy, and preserves kernel normalization even in strong shocks. In our proposal, the estimation of gradients is enhanced using an integral approach. Additionally, we introduce a new family of volume elements which reduce the so-called tensile instability. Both features help to suppress the damp which often prevents the growth of hydrodynamic instabilities in regular SPH codes. Conclusions: On the whole, SPHYNX has passed the verification tests described below. For identical particle setting and initial

  10. Force to Rebalance Control of HRG and Suppression of Its Errors on the Basis of FPGA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Qingan Jiang

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available A novel design of force to rebalance control for a hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG based on FPGA is demonstrated in this paper. The proposed design takes advantage of the automatic gain control loop and phase lock loop configuration in the drive mode while making full use of the quadrature control loop and rebalance control loop in controlling the oscillating dynamics in the sense mode. First, the math model of HRG with inhomogeneous damping and frequency split is theoretically analyzed. In addition, the major drift mechanisms in the HRG are described and the methods that can suppress the gyro drift are mentioned. Based on the math model and drift mechanisms suppression method, four control loops are employed to realize the manipulation of the HRG by using a FPGA circuit. The reference-phase loop and amplitude control loop are used to maintain the vibration of primary mode at its natural frequency with constant amplitude. The frequency split is readily eliminated by the quadrature loop with a DC voltage feedback from the quadrature component of the node. The secondary mode response to the angle rate input is nullified by the rebalance control loop. In order to validate the effect of the digital control of HRG, experiments are carried out with a turntable. The experimental results show that the design is suitable for the control of HRG which has good linearity scale factor and bias stability.

  11. Force to rebalance control of HRG and suppression of its errors on the basis of FPGA.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Xu; Wu, Wenqi; Luo, Bing; Fang, Zhen; Li, Yun; Jiang, Qingan

    2011-01-01

    A novel design of force to rebalance control for a hemispherical resonator gyro (HRG) based on FPGA is demonstrated in this paper. The proposed design takes advantage of the automatic gain control loop and phase lock loop configuration in the drive mode while making full use of the quadrature control loop and rebalance control loop in controlling the oscillating dynamics in the sense mode. First, the math model of HRG with inhomogeneous damping and frequency split is theoretically analyzed. In addition, the major drift mechanisms in the HRG are described and the methods that can suppress the gyro drift are mentioned. Based on the math model and drift mechanisms suppression method, four control loops are employed to realize the manipulation of the HRG by using a FPGA circuit. The reference-phase loop and amplitude control loop are used to maintain the vibration of primary mode at its natural frequency with constant amplitude. The frequency split is readily eliminated by the quadrature loop with a DC voltage feedback from the quadrature component of the node. The secondary mode response to the angle rate input is nullified by the rebalance control loop. In order to validate the effect of the digital control of HRG, experiments are carried out with a turntable. The experimental results show that the design is suitable for the control of HRG which has good linearity scale factor and bias stability.

  12. Triptycene-based dianhydrides, polyimides, methods of making each, and methods of use

    KAUST Repository

    Ghanem, Bader; Pinnau, Ingo; Swaidan, Raja

    2015-01-01

    A triptycene-based monomer, a method of making a triptycene-based monomer, a triptycene-based aromatic polyimide, a method of making a triptycene- based aromatic polyimide, methods of using triptycene-based aromatic polyimides, structures incorporating triptycene-based aromatic polyimides, and methods of gas separation are provided. Embodiments of the triptycene-based monomers and triptycene-based aromatic polyimides have high permeabilities and excellent selectivities. Embodiments of the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides have one or more of the following characteristics: intrinsic microporosity, good thermal stability, and enhanced solubility. In an exemplary embodiment, the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides are microporous and have a high BET surface area. In an exemplary embodiment, the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides can be used to form a gas separation membrane.

  13. Triptycene-based dianhydrides, polyimides, methods of making each, and methods of use

    KAUST Repository

    Ghanem, Bader

    2015-12-30

    A triptycene-based monomer, a method of making a triptycene-based monomer, a triptycene-based aromatic polyimide, a method of making a triptycene- based aromatic polyimide, methods of using triptycene-based aromatic polyimides, structures incorporating triptycene-based aromatic polyimides, and methods of gas separation are provided. Embodiments of the triptycene-based monomers and triptycene-based aromatic polyimides have high permeabilities and excellent selectivities. Embodiments of the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides have one or more of the following characteristics: intrinsic microporosity, good thermal stability, and enhanced solubility. In an exemplary embodiment, the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides are microporous and have a high BET surface area. In an exemplary embodiment, the triptycene-based aromatic polyimides can be used to form a gas separation membrane.

  14. Suppression of vegetation in LANDSAT ETM+ remote sensing images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Le; Porwal, Alok; Holden, Eun-Jung; Dentith, Michael

    2010-05-01

    Vegetation cover is an impediment to the interpretation of multispectral remote sensing images for geological applications, especially in densely vegetated terrains. In order to enhance the underlying geological information in such terrains, it is desirable to suppress the reflectance component of vegetation. One form of spectral unmixing that has been successfully used for vegetation reflectance suppression in multispectral images is called "forced invariance". It is based on segregating components of the reflectance spectrum that are invariant with respect to a specific spectral index such as the NDVI. The forced invariance method uses algorithms such as software defoliation. However, the outputs of software defoliation are single channel data, which are not amenable to geological interpretations. Crippen and Blom (2001) proposed a new forced invariance algorithm that utilizes band statistics, rather than band ratios. The authors demonstrated the effectiveness of their algorithms on a LANDSAT TM scene from Nevada, USA, especially in open canopy areas in mixed and semi-arid terrains. In this presentation, we report the results of our experimentation with this algorithm on a densely to sparsely vegetated Landsat ETM+ scene. We selected a scene (Path 119, Row 39) acquired on 18th July, 2004. Two study areas located around the city of Hangzhou, eastern China were tested. One of them covers uninhabited hilly terrain characterized by low rugged topography, parts of the hills are densely vegetated; another one covers both inhabited urban areas and uninhabited hilly terrain, which is densely vegetated. Crippen and Blom's algorithm is implemented in the following sequential steps: (1) dark pixel correction; (2) vegetation index calculation; (3) estimation of statistical relationship between vegetation index and digital number (DN) values for each band; (4) calculation of a smooth best-fit curve for the above relationships; and finally, (5) selection of a target average DN

  15. Concrete Image Segmentation Based on Multiscale Mathematic Morphology Operators and Otsu Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sheng-Bo Zhou

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of the current study lies in the development of a reformative technique of image segmentation for Computed Tomography (CT concrete images with the strength grades of C30 and C40. The results, through the comparison of the traditional threshold algorithms, indicate that three threshold algorithms and five edge detectors fail to meet the demand of segmentation for Computed Tomography concrete images. The paper proposes a new segmentation method, by combining multiscale noise suppression morphology edge detector with Otsu method, which is more appropriate for the segmentation of Computed Tomography concrete images with low contrast. This method cannot only locate the boundaries between objects and background with high accuracy, but also obtain a complete edge and eliminate noise.

  16. Vital Signs-HIV Care Saves Lives: Viral Suppression is Key

    Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

    This podcast is based on the December 2014 CDC Vital Signs report. For people living with HIV, Viral suppression is critical. By getting tested and taking HIV medicines, individuals living with HIV can achieve very low levels of HIV in the body.

  17. A Study of Residual Amplitude Modulation Suppression in Injection Locked Quantum Cascade Lasers Based on a Simplified Rate Equation Model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Webb, J F; Yong, K S C; Haldar, M K

    2015-01-01

    Using results that come out of a simplified rate equation model, the suppression of residual amplitude modulation in injection locked quantum cascade lasers with the master laser modulated by its drive current is investigated. Quasi-static and dynamic expressions for intensity modulation are used. The suppression peaks at a specific value of the injection ratio for a given detuning and linewidth enhancement factor. The intensity modulation suppression remains constant over a range of frequencies. The effects of injection ratio, detuning, coupling efficiency and linewidth enhancement factor are considered. (paper)

  18. Usefulness of combined fat- and fluid-suppressed SPIR-FLAIR images in optic neurits : Comparison with fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Hye Yeon; Son, Seok Hyun; Eun, Choong Ki; Han, Sang Suk

    2001-01-01

    To compare the usefulness of combined fat- and fluid-suppressed selective partial inversion recovery-fluid attenuated inversion recovery(SPIR-FLAIR) images in the detection of high signal intensity of the optic nerve in optic neuritis with that of fat-suppressed selective partial inversion recovery(SPIR) or short inversion time inversion recovery(STIR) images. Two radiologists independently analyzed randomly mixed MR images of 16 lesions in 14 patients (M:F=7:7; mean age, 40 years) in whom optic neuritis had been clinically diagnosed. All subjects underwent both SPIR-FLAIR and fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR imaging, in a blind fashion. In order to evaluate the optic nerve, coronal images perpendicular to its long axis were obtained. The detection rate of high signal intensity of the optic nerve, the radiologists preferred imaging sequences, and intersubject consistency of detection were evaluated. 'High signal intensity' was defined as the subjective visual evaluation of increased signal intensity compared with that of the contralateral optic nerve or that of white matter. The mean detection rate of high signal intensity of the optic nerve was 90% for combined fat- and fluid-suppressed SPIR-FLAIR images, and 59% for fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR images. In all cases in which the signal intensity observed on SPIR-FLAIR images was normal, that on fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR images was also normal. The radiologists preferred the contrast properties of SPIR-FLAIR to those of fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR images. In the diagnosis of optic neuritis using MRI, combined fat- and fluid-suppressed SPIR-FLAIR images were more useful for the detection of high signal intensity of the optic nerve than fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR images. For the evaluation of optic neuritis, combined fat- and fluid-suppressed SPIR-FLAIR imaging is superior to fat-suppressed SPIR or STIR imaging

  19. Exploring Genetic Suppression Interactions on a Global Scale

    OpenAIRE

    van Leeuwen, Jolanda; Pons, Carles; Mellor, Joseph C.; Yamaguchi, Takafumi N.; Friesen, Helena; Koschwanez, John; Ušaj, Mojca Mattiazzi; Pechlaner, Maria; Takar, Mehmet; Ušaj, Matej; VanderSluis, Benjamin; Andrusiak, Kerry; Bansal, Pritpal; Baryshnikova, Anastasia; Boone, Claire

    2016-01-01

    Genetic suppression occurs when the phenotypic defects caused by a mutation in a particular gene are rescued by a mutation in a second gene. To explore the principles of genetic suppression, we examined both literature-curated and unbiased experimental data, involving systematic genetic mapping and whole-genome sequencing, to generate a large-scale suppression network among yeast genes. Most suppression pairs identified novel relationships among functionally related genes, providing new insig...

  20. Chondromalacia patellae: fat-suppressed MR imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rose, P M; Demlow, T A; Szumowski, J; Quinn, S F

    1994-11-01

    To evaluate the accuracy of fat-suppressed magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in diagnosing chondromalacia patellae. Seventy-one patients underwent fat-suppressed MR imaging and arthroscopy of the patellofemoral compartment. Findings were classified as early or advanced chondromalacia or as normal and were correlated with arthroscopic findings. Early and advanced stages of chondromalacia patellae were reliably detected, with positive predictive values of 85% and 92%, respectively. Specificity in early stages was 94% and in late stages was 98%. However, the overall accuracies did not differ substantially from those reported in studies that did not use fat-suppressed imaging. Axial, fat-suppressed MR imaging accurately depicts changes caused by chondromalacia patellae. Early stages can be seen as intrasubstance changes of increased signal intensity. Results of this study suggest a high degree of specificity in excluding both early and advanced changes.

  1. Wireless Inductive Power Device Suppresses Blade Vibrations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Morrison, Carlos R.; Provenza, Andrew J.; Choi, Benjamin B.; Bakhle, Milind A.; Min, James B.; Stefko, George L.; Duffy, Kirsten P.; Fougers, Alan J.

    2011-01-01

    Vibration in turbomachinery can cause blade failures and leads to the use of heavier, thicker blades that result in lower aerodynamic efficiency and increased noise. Metal and/or composite fatigue in the blades of jet engines has resulted in blade destruction and loss of lives. Techniques for suppressing low-frequency blade vibration, such as gtuned circuit resistive dissipation of vibratory energy, h or simply "passive damping," can require electronics incorporating coils of unwieldy dimensions and adding unwanted weight to the rotor. Other approaches, using vibration-dampening devices or damping material, could add undesirable weight to the blades or hub, making them less efficient. A wireless inductive power device (WIPD) was designed, fabricated, and developed for use in the NASA Glenn's "Dynamic Spin Rig" (DSR) facility. The DSR is used to simulate the functionality of turbomachinery. The relatively small and lightweight device [10 lb (approx.=4.5 kg)] replaces the existing venerable and bulky slip-ring. The goal is the eventual integration of this technology into actual turbomachinery such as jet engines or electric power generators, wherein the device will facilitate the suppression of potentially destructive vibrations in fan blades. This technology obviates slip rings, which require cooling and can prove unreliable or be problematic over time. The WIPD consists of two parts: a remote element, which is positioned on the rotor and provides up to 100 W of electrical power to thin, lightweight piezoelectric patches strategically placed on/in fan blades; and a stationary base unit that wirelessly communicates with the remote unit. The base unit supplies inductive power, and also acts as an input and output corridor for wireless measurement, and active control command to the remote unit. Efficient engine operation necessitates minimal disturbance to the gas flow across the turbine blades in any effort to moderate blade vibration. This innovation makes it

  2. Suppressed visual looming stimuli are not integrated with auditory looming signals: Evidence from continuous flash suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moors, Pieter; Huygelier, Hanne; Wagemans, Johan; de-Wit, Lee; van Ee, Raymond

    2015-01-01

    Previous studies using binocular rivalry have shown that signals in a modality other than the visual can bias dominance durations depending on their congruency with the rivaling stimuli. More recently, studies using continuous flash suppression (CFS) have reported that multisensory integration influences how long visual stimuli remain suppressed. In this study, using CFS, we examined whether the contrast thresholds for detecting visual looming stimuli are influenced by a congruent auditory stimulus. In Experiment 1, we show that a looming visual stimulus can result in lower detection thresholds compared to a static concentric grating, but that auditory tone pips congruent with the looming stimulus did not lower suppression thresholds any further. In Experiments 2, 3, and 4, we again observed no advantage for congruent multisensory stimuli. These results add to our understanding of the conditions under which multisensory integration is possible, and suggest that certain forms of multisensory integration are not evident when the visual stimulus is suppressed from awareness using CFS.

  3. Use of acid-suppressive therapy before anti-reflux surgery in 2922 patients: a nationwide register-based study in Denmark.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lødrup, A; Pottegård, A; Hallas, J; Bytzer, P

    2015-07-01

    Guidelines recommend that patients with gastro-oesophageal reflux disease are adequately treated with acid-suppressive therapy before undergoing anti-reflux surgery. Little is known of the use of acid-suppressive drugs before anti-reflux surgery. To determine the use of proton pump inhibitors and H2 -receptor antagonists in the year before anti-reflux surgery. A nationwide retrospective study of all patients aged ≥18 undergoing first-time anti-reflux surgery in Denmark during 2000-2012 using data from three different sources: the Danish National Register of Patients, the Danish National Prescription Register, and the Danish Person Register. The study population thus included 2922 patients (median age: 48 years, 55.7% male). The annual proportion of patients redeeming ≥180 DDD of acid-suppressive therapy increased from 17.0% 5 years before anti-reflux surgery to 64.9% 1 year before. The probability for inadequate dosing 1 year before surgery (reflux surgery, as a high proportion of patients receive inadequate dosing of acid-suppressive therapy prior to the operation. © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  4. SUPPRESSION OF DIELECTRONIC RECOMBINATION DUE TO FINITE DENSITY EFFECTS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nikolić, D.; Gorczyca, T. W.; Korista, K. T.; Ferland, G. J.; Badnell, N. R.

    2013-01-01

    We have developed a general model for determining density-dependent effective dielectronic recombination (DR) rate coefficients in order to explore finite-density effects on the ionization balance of plasmas. Our model consists of multiplying by a suppression factor those highly-accurate total zero-density DR rate coefficients which have been produced from state-of-the-art theoretical calculations and which have been benchmarked by experiment. The suppression factor is based upon earlier detailed collision-radiative calculations which were made for a wide range of ions at various densities and temperatures, but used a simplified treatment of DR. A general suppression formula is then developed as a function of isoelectronic sequence, charge, density, and temperature. These density-dependent effective DR rate coefficients are then used in the plasma simulation code Cloudy to compute ionization balance curves for both collisionally ionized and photoionized plasmas at very low (n e = 1 cm –3 ) and finite (n e = 10 10 cm –3 ) densities. We find that the denser case is significantly more ionized due to suppression of DR, warranting further studies of density effects on DR by detailed collisional-radiative calculations which utilize state-of-the-art partial DR rate coefficients. This is expected to impact the predictions of the ionization balance in denser cosmic gases such as those found in nova and supernova shells, accretion disks, and the broad emission line regions in active galactic nuclei.

  5. The impact of intermediate-term alcohol abstinence on memory retrieval and suppression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Viola Luca Nemeth

    2014-12-01

    Full Text Available Background: The nature of episodic memory deficit in intermediate-term abstinence from alcohol in alcohol dependence (AD is not yet clarified. Deficits in inhibitory control are commonly reported in substance use disorders. However, much less is known about cognitive control suppressing interference from memory. The Think/No-think (TNT paradigm is a well established method to investigate inhibition of associative memory retrieval.Methods: Thirty-six unmedicated alcohol dependent (AD patients and 36 healthy controls (HC performed the TNT task. Thirty image-word pairs were trained up to a predefined accuracy level. Cued recall was examined in three conditions: Think (T for items instructed to-be-remembered, No-think (NT assessing the ability to suppress retrieval and Baseline (B for general relational memory. Premorbid IQ, clinical variables and impulsivity measures were quantified. Results: AD patients had a significantly increased demand for training. Baseline memory abilities and effect of practice on retrieval were not markedly different between the groups. We found a significant main effect of group (HC vs AD x condition (B, T and NT and a significant difference in mean NT-B scores for the two groups. Discussion: AD and HC groups did not differ essentially in their baseline memory abilities. Also, the instruction to focus on retrieval improved episodic memory performance in both groups. Crucially, control participants were able to suppress relational words in the NT condition supporting the critical effect of cognitive control processes over inhibition of retrieval. In contrast to this, the ability of AD patients to suppress retrieval was found to be impaired.

  6. Accentuation-suppression and scaling

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Thomas Alrik; Bundesen, Claus

    2012-01-01

    The limitations of the visual short-term memory (VSTM) system have become an increasingly popular field of study. One line of inquiry has focused on the way attention selects objects for encoding into VSTM. Using the framework of the Theory of Visual Attention (TVA; Bundesen, 1990 Psychological...... a scaling mechanism modulating the decision bias of the observer and also through an accentuation-suppression mechanism that modulates the degree of subjective relevance of objects, contracting attention around fewer, highly relevant objects while suppressing less relevant objects. These mechanisms may...

  7. Linewidth-tolerant real-time 40-Gbit/s 16-QAM self-homodyne detection using a pilot carrier and ISI suppression based on electronic digital processing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nakamura, Moriya; Kamio, Yukiyoshi; Miyazaki, Tetsuya

    2010-01-01

    We experimentally demonstrate linewidth-tolerant real-time 40-Gbit/s(10-Gsymbol/s) 16-quadrature amplitude modulation. We achieved bit-error rates of noise canceling capability provided by self-homodyne detection using a pilot carrier. Pre-equalization based on digital signal processing was employed to suppress intersymbol interference caused by the limited-frequency bandwidth of electrical components.

  8. Software filtering method to suppress spike pulse interference in multi-channel scaler

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huang Shun; Zhao Xiuliang; Li Zhiqiang; Zhao Yanhui

    2008-01-01

    In the test on anti-jamming function of a multi-channel scaler, we found that the spike pulse interference on the second level counter caused by the motor start-stop operations brings a major count error. There are resolvable characteristics between effective signal and spike pulse interference, and multi-channel hardware filtering circuit is too huge and can't filter thoroughly, therefore we designed a software filtering method. In this method based on C8051F020 MCU, we dynamically store sampling values of one channel in only a one-byte variable and distinguish the rise-trail edge of a signal and spike pulse interference because of value changes of the variable. Test showed that the filtering software method can solve the error counting problem of the multi-channel scaler caused by the motor start-stop operations. The flow chart and source codes of the method were detailed in this paper. (authors)

  9. A Comparison of Urge Intensity and the Probability of Tic Completion During Tic Freely and Tic Suppression Conditions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Specht, Matt W; Nicotra, Cassandra M; Kelly, Laura M; Woods, Douglas W; Ricketts, Emily J; Perry-Parrish, Carisa; Reynolds, Elizabeth; Hankinson, Jessica; Grados, Marco A; Ostrander, Rick S; Walkup, John T

    2014-03-01

    Tic-suppression-based treatments (TSBTs) represent a safe and effective treatment option for Chronic Tic Disorders (CTDs). Prior research has demonstrated that treatment naive youths with CTDs have the capacity to safely and effectively suppress tics for prolonged periods. It remains unclear how tic suppression is achieved. The current study principally examines how effective suppression is achieved and preliminary correlates of the ability to suppress tics. Twelve youths, ages 10 to 17 years, with moderate-to-marked CTDs participated in an alternating sequence of tic freely and reinforced tic suppression conditions during which urge intensity and tic frequency were frequently assessed. Probability of tics occurring was half as likely following high-intensity urges during tic suppression (31%) in contrast to low-intensity urges during tic freely conditions (60%). Age was not associated with ability to suppress. Intelligence indices were associated with or trended toward greater ability to suppress tics. Attention difficulties were not associated with ability to suppress but were associated with tic severity. In contrast to our "selective suppression" hypothesis, we found participants equally capable of suppressing their tics regardless of urge intensity during reinforced tic suppression. Tic suppression was achieved with an "across-the-board" effort to resist urges. Preliminary data suggest that ability to suppress may be associated with general cognitive variables rather than age, tic severity, urge severity, and attention. Treatment naive youths appear to possess a capacity for robust tic suppression. TSBTs may bolster these capacities and/or enable their broader implementation, resulting in symptom improvement. © The Author(s) 2014.

  10. Organization and effectivity of works on dust suppressing in the special zone of the Chernobyl' NPP

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shimin, S.A.; Krapchatov, V.P.; Nad''yarnykh, G.V.; Komarov, V.I.; Andreev, Yu.B.; Samojlenko, Yu.N.

    1989-01-01

    In 1988 three methods of dust suppressing were used: regular watering of roads, chemical treatment of roadsides and dusting sections of area, long-time biologochemical fixation of open sections of area, including sowing with grass and simultaneous treatment by dust-suppressing compositions. Preliminary treatment of objects by polymeric compositions was an effective action to reduce dust-raising. 3 refs.; 3 figs

  11. HIV Care Saves Lives: Viral Suppression is Key PSA (:60)

    Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Podcasts

    This 60 second Public Service Announcement is based on the December 2014 Vital Signs. For people living with HIV, Viral suppression is critical. By getting tested and taking HIV medicines, individuals living with HIV can achieve very low levels of HIV in the body.

  12. Acrolein exposure suppresses antigen-induced pulmonary inflammation

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-01-01

    Background Adverse health effects of tobacco smoke arise partly from its influence on innate and adaptive immune responses, leading to impaired innate immunity and host defense. The impact of smoking on allergic asthma remains unclear, with various reports demonstrating that cigarette smoke enhances asthma development but can also suppress allergic airway inflammation. Based on our previous findings that immunosuppressive effects of smoking may be largely attributed to one of its main reactive electrophiles, acrolein, we explored the impact of acrolein exposure in a mouse model of ovalbumin (OVA)-induced allergic asthma. Methods C57BL/6 mice were sensitized to ovalbumin (OVA) by intraperitoneal injection with the adjuvant aluminum hydroxide on days 0 and 7, and challenged with aerosolized OVA on days 14–16. In some cases, mice were also exposed to 5 ppm acrolein vapor for 6 hrs/day on days 14–17. Lung tissues or brochoalveolar lavage fluids (BALF) were collected either 6 hrs after a single initial OVA challenge and/or acrolein exposure on day 14 or 48 hrs after the last OVA challenge, on day 18. Inflammatory cells and Th1/Th2 cytokine levels were measured in BALF, and lung tissue samples were collected for analysis of mucus and Th1/Th2 cytokine expression, determination of protein alkylation, cellular thiol status and transcription factor activity. Results Exposure to acrolein following OVA challenge of OVA-sensitized mice resulted in markedly attenuated allergic airway inflammation, demonstrated by decreased inflammatory cell infiltrates, mucus hyperplasia and Th2 cytokines. Acrolein exposure rapidly depleted lung tissue glutathione (GSH) levels, and induced activation of the Nrf2 pathway, indicated by accumulation of Nrf2, increased alkylation of Keap1, and induction of Nrf2-target genes such as HO-1. Additionally, analysis of inflammatory signaling pathways showed suppressed activation of NF-κB and marginally reduced activation of JNK in acrolein

  13. Method of suppressing the deposition of Co-60 to primary coolant pipeways in a nuclear reactor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hoshi, Michio; Tachikawa, Enzo; Goto, Satoshi; Sagawa, Chiaki; Yonezawa, Chushiro.

    1987-01-01

    Purpose: To suppress the deposition of Co-60 to primary coolant pipeways in a nuclear reactor. Method: To reduce the accumulation of Co-60 by causing chemical species of extremely similar chemical property with soluble Co-60 to be present together in coolants and replacing the deposition of Co-60 to the primary coolant pipeways in a nuclear reactor with that of the coexistent chemical spacies. Ni or Zn is used as the coexistet chemical spacies of similar chemical property with Co-60. The coexistent amount is from 5 to 10 times of the soluble Co-60 in the primary coolants. Ni or Zn solution adjusted with concentration is poured into and mixed with the coolants from a water feed source by using a high pressure constant volume pump. The amount of Co-60 taken into the pipeways caused by corrosion due to high temperature coolant is reduced to about 1/5 as compared with the case of Co-60 alone if 1 ppb of soluble Co-60 is present in water and 5 ppb of soluble Ni or Zn is added and, reduced to 1/12 if the amount of Ni or Zn is 10 ppb. (Kamimura, M.)

  14. Applications of zero-suppressed decision diagrams

    CERN Document Server

    Sasao, Tsutomu

    2014-01-01

    A zero-suppressed decision diagram (ZDD) is a data structure to represent objects that typically contain many zeros. Applications include combinatorial problems, such as graphs, circuits, faults, and data mining. This book consists of four chapters on the applications of ZDDs. The first chapter by Alan Mishchenko introduces the ZDD. It compares ZDDs to BDDs, showing why a more compact representation is usually achieved in a ZDD. The focus is on sets of subsets and on sum-of-products (SOP) expressions. Methods to generate all the prime implicants (PIs), and to generate irredundant SOPs are show

  15. Analysis and suppression of passive noise in surface microseismic data

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forghani-Arani, Farnoush

    Surface microseismic surveys are gaining popularity in monitoring the hydraulic fracturing process. The effectiveness of these surveys, however, is strongly dependent on the signal-to-noise ratio of the acquired data. Cultural and industrial noise generated during hydraulic fracturing operations usually dominate the data, thereby decreasing the effectiveness of using these data in identifying and locating microseismic events. Hence, noise suppression is a critical step in surface microseismic monitoring. In this thesis, I focus on two important aspects in using surface-recorded microseismic seismic data: first, I take advantage of the unwanted surface noise to understand the characteristics of these noise and extract information about the propagation medium from the noise; second, I propose effective techniques to suppress the surface noise while preserving the waveforms that contain information about the source of microseisms. Automated event identification on passive seismic data using only a few receivers is challenging especially when the record lengths span over long durations of time. I introduce an automatic event identification algorithm that is designed specifically for detecting events in passive data acquired with a small number of receivers. I demonstrate that the conventional STA/LTA (Short-term Average/Long-term Average) algorithm is not sufficiently effective in event detection in the common case of low signal-to-noise ratio. With a cross-correlation based method as an extension of the STA/LTA algorithm, even low signal-to-noise events (that were not detectable with conventional STA/LTA) were revealed. Surface microseismic data contains surface-waves (generated primarily from hydraulic fracturing activities) and body-waves in the form of microseismic events. It is challenging to analyze the surface-waves on the recorded data directly because of the randomness of their source and their unknown source signatures. I use seismic interferometry to extract

  16. When remembering the past suppresses memory for future actions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Utsumi, Kenta; Saito, Satoru

    2016-01-01

    Remembering planned actions at the correct time in the future is an integral component of prospective cognition. Recent studies on future remembering have led to suggestions that prospective cognition might be based on past experience. To test this hypothesis, we focused on retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF), which usually indicates that remembering past events suppresses memory for related but different past events. The current study assessed RIF in two kinds of event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks using either focal or non-focal cues for ongoing tasks. Participants studied six members from each of eight taxonomic categories and then practiced recalling three of the six members from four of the eight categories using category-stem cues. This retrieval practice suppressed the detection of non-practiced members of the practiced categories during the PM task with non-focal cues (Experiment 1) but not with focal cues (Experiment 2). The results suggest that recall of certain items inhibits the function of the others as PM cues, but only if the PM task does not largely share its processing with the ongoing task.

  17. An Adaptive S-Method to Analyze Micro-Doppler Signals for Human Activity Classification.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Fangmin; Yang, Chao; Xia, Yuqing; Ma, Xiaolin; Zhang, Tao; Zhou, Zhou

    2017-11-29

    In this paper, we propose the multiwindow Adaptive S-method (AS-method) distribution approach used in the time-frequency analysis for radar signals. Based on the results of orthogonal Hermite functions that have good time-frequency resolution, we vary the length of window to suppress the oscillating component caused by cross-terms. This method can bring a better compromise in the auto-terms concentration and cross-terms suppressing, which contributes to the multi-component signal separation. Finally, the effective micro signal is extracted by threshold segmentation and envelope extraction. To verify the proposed method, six states of motion are separated by a classifier of a support vector machine (SVM) trained to the extracted features. The trained SVM can detect a human subject with an accuracy of 95.4% for two cases without interference.

  18. Burst-suppression is reactive to photic stimulation in comatose children with acquired brain injury

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nita, Dragos A.; Moldovan, Mihai; Sharma, Roy

    2016-01-01

    reactivity. We quantified reactivity by measuring the change in the burst ratio (fraction of time in burst) following photic stimulation. Results: Photic stimulation evoked bursts in all patients, resulting in a transient increase in the burst ratio, while the mean heart rate remained unchanged......Objective: Burst-suppression is an electroencephalographic pattern observed during coma. In individuals without known brain pathologies undergoing deep general anesthesia, somatosensory stimulation transiently increases the occurrence of bursts. We investigated the reactivity of burst......-suppression in children with acquired brain injury. Methods: Intensive care unit electroencephalographic monitoring recordings containing burst-suppression were obtained from 5 comatose children with acquired brain injury of various etiologies. Intermittent photic stimulation was performed at 1 Hz for 1 min to assess...

  19. One-tone suppression in the frog auditory nerve

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christensen-Dalsgaard, J; Jørgensen, M B

    1996-01-01

    Sixty-seven fibers of a sample of 401 in the auditory nerve of grassfrogs (Rana temporaria) showed one-tone suppression, i.e., their spontaneous activity was suppressed by tones. All fibers were afferents from the amphibian papilla with best frequencies between 100 and 400 Hz. Best suppression...

  20. Combustion suppressing device for leaked sodium

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ooto, Akihiro.

    1985-01-01

    Purpose: To suppress the atmospheric temperature to secure the building safety and shorten the recovery time after the leakage in a chamber for containing sodium leaked from coolant circuit equipments or pipeways of LMFBR type rector by suppressing the combustion of sodium contained in the chamber. Constitution: To the inner wall of a chamber for containing sodium handling equipments, are vertically disposed a panel having a coolant supply port at the upper portion and a coolant discharge port at the lower portion thereof and defined with a coolant flowing channel and a panel for sucking the coolant discharged from the abovementioned panel and exhausting the same externally. Further, a corrugated combustion suppressing plate having apertures for draining the condensated leaked sodium is disposed near the sodium handling equipments. If ruptures are resulted to the sodium handling equipments or pipeway, leaked sodium is passed through the drain apertures in the suppressing plate and stored at the bottom of the containing chamber. (Horiuchi, T.)

  1. Gain media edge treatment to suppress amplified spontaneous emission in a high power laser

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hackel, Lloyd A.; Soules, Thomas F.; Fochs, Scott N.; Rotter, Mark D.; Letts, Stephan A.

    2008-12-09

    A novel method and apparatus for suppressing ASE and parasitic oscillation modes in a high average power laser is introduced. By roughening one or more peripheral edges of a solid-state crystal or ceramic laser gain media and by bonding such edges using a substantially high index bonding elastomer or epoxy to a predetermined electromagnetic absorbing arranged adjacent to the entire outer surface of the peripheral edges of the roughened laser gain media, ASE and parasitic oscillation modes can be effectively suppressed.

  2. Thyroxin hormone suppression treatment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Samuel, A.M.

    1999-01-01

    One of the important modalities of treatment of thyroid cancer (TC) after surgery is the administration of thyroxin as an adjuvant treatment. The analysis supports the theory that thyroid suppression plays an important role in patient management. 300 μg of thyroxin, as this is an adequate dose for suppression is given. Ideally the dose should be tailored by testing s-TSH levels. However, since a large number of the patients come from out station cities and villages this is impractical. We therefore depend on clinical criteria of hyperthyroid symptoms and adjust the dose. Very few patients need such adjustment

  3. Suppression criteria of parasitic mode oscillations in a gyrotron beam tunnel

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, Nitin; Singh, Udaybir; Singh, T. P.; Sinha, A. K.

    2011-02-01

    This paper presents the design criteria of the parasitic mode oscillations suppression for a periodic, ceramic, and copper loaded gyrotron beam tunnel. In such a type of beam tunnel, the suppression of parasitic mode oscillations is an important design problem. A method of beam-wave coupling coefficient and its mathematical formulation are presented. The developed design criteria are used in the beam tunnel design of a 42 GHz gyrotron to be developed for the Indian TOKAMAK system. The role of the thickness and the radius of the beam tunnel copper rings to obtain the developed design criteria are also discussed. The commercially available electromagnetic code CST and the electron trajectory code EGUN are used for the simulations.

  4. Suppression criteria of parasitic mode oscillations in a gyrotron beam tunnel

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kumar, Nitin; Singh, Udaybir; Sinha, A. K.; Singh, T. P.

    2011-01-01

    This paper presents the design criteria of the parasitic mode oscillations suppression for a periodic, ceramic, and copper loaded gyrotron beam tunnel. In such a type of beam tunnel, the suppression of parasitic mode oscillations is an important design problem. A method of beam-wave coupling coefficient and its mathematical formulation are presented. The developed design criteria are used in the beam tunnel design of a 42 GHz gyrotron to be developed for the Indian TOKAMAK system. The role of the thickness and the radius of the beam tunnel copper rings to obtain the developed design criteria are also discussed. The commercially available electromagnetic code CST and the electron trajectory code EGUN are used for the simulations.

  5. Distracted by the Unthought - Suppression and Reappraisal of Mind Wandering under Stereotype Threat.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuster, Carolin; Martiny, Sarah E; Schmader, Toni

    2015-01-01

    Previous research has found that subtle reminders of negative stereotypes about one's group can lead individuals to underperform on stereotype-relevant tests (e.g., women in math, ethnic minorities on intelligence tests). This so called stereotype threat effect can contribute to systematic group differences in performance that can obscure the true abilities of certain social groups and thereby sustain social inequalities. In the present study, we examined processes underlying stereotype threat effects on women's math performance, specifically focusing on the role of suppression of mind wandering (i.e., task-irrelevant thinking) in stereotype threat (ST) and no threat (NT) situations. Based on a process model of stereotype threat effects on performance, we hypothesized that women under stereotype threat spontaneously suppress mind wandering, and that this suppression impairs performance. An alternative regulation strategy that prevents suppression (i.e., reappraising task-irrelevant thoughts as normal) was predicted to prevent stereotype threat effects on performance. We manipulated stereotype threat (ST vs. NT) and cognitive regulation strategy (suppression, reappraisal, or no strategy) and measured women's performance on a math and a concentration task (N = 113). We expected three groups to perform relatively more poorly: Those in ST with either no strategy or suppression and those in NT with a suppression strategy. We tested the performance of these groups against the remaining three groups hypothesized to perform relatively better: those in NT with no strategy or reappraisal and those in ST with reappraisal. The results showed the expected pattern for participants' math performance, but not for concentration achievement. This pattern suggests that ineffective self-regulation by suppressing mind wandering can at least partly explain stereotype threat effects on performance, whereas a reappraisal strategy can prevent this impairment. We discuss implications for

  6. Fat suppression techniques for obtaining high resolution dynamic contrast enhanced bilateral breast MR images at 7 tesla

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    van der Velden, Tijl A; Schmitz, Alexander M Th; Gilhuijs, Kenneth G A

    2016-01-01

    contained 3D T1-weighted gradient echo images obtained with both WSE fat suppression, multi echo Dixon fat suppression, and without fat suppression. Images were acquired at a (0.8mm)(3) or (0.7mm)(3) isotropic resolution with equal field of view and optimized such to obtain a maximal SNR. Image quality...... was scored qualitatively on overall image quality, sharpness of anatomical details, presence of artefacts, inhomogeneous fat suppression and the presence of water-fat shift. A quantitative scoring was obtained from the signal to noise ratio and contrast to noise ratio. RESULTS: WSE scored significantly...... better in terms of overall image quality and the absence of artefacts. No significant difference in contrast to noise ratio was found between the two fat suppression methods. CONCLUSION: When maximizing temporal and spatial resolution of high resolution DCE MRI of the breast, water selective excitation...

  7. A new method by steering kernel-based Richardson–Lucy algorithm for neutron imaging restoration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Qiao, Shuang; Wang, Qiao; Sun, Jia-ning; Huang, Ji-peng

    2014-01-01

    Motivated by industrial applications, neutron radiography has become a powerful tool for non-destructive investigation techniques. However, resulted from a combined effect of neutron flux, collimated beam, limited spatial resolution of detector and scattering, etc., the images made with neutrons are degraded severely by blur and noise. For dealing with it, by integrating steering kernel regression into Richardson–Lucy approach, we present a novel restoration method in this paper, which is capable of suppressing noise while restoring details of the blurred imaging result efficiently. Experimental results show that compared with the other methods, the proposed method can improve the restoration quality both visually and quantitatively

  8. Beyond viral suppression of HIV

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lazarus, Jeffrey V.; Safreed-Harmon, Kelly; Barton, Simon E

    2016-01-01

    BACKGROUND: In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a new Global Health Sector Strategy on HIV for 2016-2021. It establishes 15 ambitious targets, including the '90-90-90' target calling on health systems to reduce under-diagnosis of HIV, treat a greater number of those diagnosed......, and ensure that those being treated achieve viral suppression. DISCUSSION: The WHO strategy calls for person-centered chronic care for people living with HIV (PLHIV), implicitly acknowledging that viral suppression is not the ultimate goal of treatment. However, it stops short of providing an explicit target...... for health-related quality of life. It thus fails to take into account the needs of PLHIV who have achieved viral suppression but still must contend with other intense challenges such as serious non-communicable diseases, depression, anxiety, financial stress, and experiences of or apprehension about HIV...

  9. Harmonics Suppression for Single-Phase Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Systems in Different Operation Modes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Yang, Yongheng; Zhou, Keliang; Blaabjerg, Frede

    2013-01-01

    -connected PV inverters may be severely affected in different operation modes. In this paper, a detailed analysis is conducted to reveal the relationship between the harmonics level with the power factor and the current level in the PV systems. A current control solution which employs an Internal Model...... Principle (IMP) is proposed to suppress the harmonic currents injected into the grid. Experiments are carried out to verify the analysis and the performance of the proposed control method. It is demonstrated that the proposed method presents an effective solution to harmonics suppression for single......-phase grid-connected PV systems in different operation modes. Especially, it can remove higher order harmonics effectively leading to a better power quality compared to the Proportional plus Multi-Resonant Controller, and it has less computational burden....

  10. A weed suppressive index for spring barley (Hordeum vulgare) varieties

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, P K; Kristensen, K; Willas, J

    2008-01-01

    A screening programme for crop variety competitiveness would ideally be based on only a few, non-destructive measurements of key growth traits. In this study we measured the weed suppressive ability of 79 varieties of spring barley in two ways: (i) directly, by weed coverage assessments under wee...

  11. Self-noise suppression schemes in blind image steganography

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramkumar, Mahalingam; Akansu, Ali N.

    1999-11-01

    Blind or oblivious data hiding, can be considered as a signaling method where the origin of the signal constellation is not known. The origin however, can be estimated, by means of self-noise suppression techniques. In this paper, we propose such a technique, and present both theoretical and numerical evaluations of its performance in an additive noise scenario. The problem of optimal choice of the parameters of the proposed technique is also explored, and solutions are presented. Though the cover object is assumed to be an image for purposes of illustration, the proposed method is equally applicable for other types of multimedia data, like video, speech or music.

  12. Cold suppresses agonist-induced activation of TRPV1.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, M-K; Wang, S

    2011-09-01

    Cold therapy is frequently used to reduce pain and edema following acute injury or surgery such as tooth extraction. However, the neurobiological mechanisms of cold therapy are not completely understood. Transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) is a capsaicin- and heat-gated nociceptive ion channel implicated in thermosensation and pathological pain under conditions of inflammation or injury. Although capsaicin-induced nociception, neuropeptide release, and ionic currents are suppressed by cold, it is not known if cold suppresses agonist-induced activation of recombinant TRPV1. We demonstrate that cold strongly suppressed the activation of recombinant TRPV1 by multiple agonists and capsaicin-evoked currents in trigeminal ganglia neurons under normal and phosphorylated conditions. Cold-induced suppression was partially impaired in a TRPV1 mutant that lacked heat-mediated activation and potentiation. These results suggest that cold-induced suppression of TRPV1 may share a common molecular basis with heat-induced potentiation, and that allosteric inhibition may contribute, in part, to the cold-induced suppression. We also show that combination of cold and a specific antagonist of TRPV1 can produce an additive suppression. Our results provide a mechanistic basis for cold therapy and may enhance anti-nociceptive approaches that target TRPV1 for managing pain under inflammation and tissue injury, including that from tooth extraction.

  13. The use of irradiated food for immuno-suppressed hospital patients

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pryke, D.C.

    1994-01-01

    The treatment of leukaemia and other forms of haematological malignancies involves destruction of the bone marrow followed by bone-marrow transplant. This results in patients becoming severely immuno-suppressed. Other diseases result in a similar condition, most notably Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Irradiation using radioactive sources or machines has been proposed as a method for preparing foods for immuno-suppressed patients and other high risk groups. Doses of around 30 kGy ensure a total sterility whilst a dose of 10 kGy (the recommended maximum for food available to the general public) results in a significant reduction in the number of pathogenic microorganisms. Irradiation has a number of advantages over other processing methods, in particular that flavour, texture and nutritional changes are limited. This is important as patients are often in a compromised state and need clinical assistance in returning to normal eating habits. In recognition of the potential of irradiated foods for hospital patients this use has been specifically exempted from regulatory control in the UK. This paper reviews the experience in the UK of irradiation-sterilized foods in hospitals. It was found that for practical reasons use is currently restricted. The future prospects for food irradiated at non-sterilized doses are also considered. It is concluded that as well as providing greater choice for consumers (high risk and the general public as a whole) irradiated foods could extend and improved the diets of immuno-suppressed hospital patients; this could be an important factor in recovery. (author)

  14. Suppression of fertility in adult cats

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Goericke-Pesch, Sandra Kathrin; Wehrend, A.; Georgiev, P.

    2014-01-01

    /needed? (iii) sex of the animal? New effective and available methods for hormonal contraception include melatonin implants for short-term post ponement of oestrus in adult queens and slow-release GnRH-agonist implants containing deslorelin (Suprelorin®) for short- and long-term contraception in male and female......Contents: Cats are animals with highly efficient reproduction, clearly pointing to a need for suppression of fertility. Although surgical contraception is highly effective, it is not always the method of choice. This is predominantly because it is cost-intensive, time-consuming and irreversible......, with the latter being of major importance for cat breeders. This article reviews the use of progestins, scleroting agents, immunocontraception, melatonin, GnRH antagonists and finally, GnRH agonists, in adult male and female cats in detail, according to the present state of the art. By now, various scientific...

  15. Ion suppression from blood collection devices

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hasselstrøm, Jørgen Bo; Sejr Gothelf, Aase

    The aim of the study was to examine the variation in ion suppression in ultra high pressure liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS-MS) methods when using different blood collection devices. Three different methods measuring 18 antidepressants and antipsychotics in total were...... Terumo, S-monovette from Sarstedt, Vacuette from Greiner Bio-One and three BD Vacutainer serum tubes from BD. These seven different blood collection devices were used to withdraw blood from five healthy drug free donors (n=35) in random order. The samples were centrifuged and serum from each sample...... by UHPLC-MS-MS using three different gradients (Group I, II and III). The analytes in group I was measured on an Agilent 6460 mass spectrometer and group II and III were measured on an Agilent 6410 mass spectrometer both utilizing positive electrospray ionization. The experiments demonstrated significant...

  16. Suppression of mode-beating in a saturated hole-coupled FEL oscillator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Krishnagopal, S.; Xie, M.; Kim, K.J.

    1992-08-01

    In a hole-coupled resonator, either empty or loaded with a linear FEL gain medium, the phenomenon of mode-degeneracy and mode-beating have been studied. When the magnitudes of the eigenvalues, derived from a linear analysis, are equal for two or more dominant eigenmodes, the system cannot achieve a stable beam-profile. We investigate this phenomenon when a saturated FEL is present within the cavity, thus introducing non-linearity. We use a three-dimensional FEL oscillator code, based on the amplifier code TDA, and show that mode-beating is completely suppressed in the nonlinear saturated regime. We suggest a simple, qualitative model for the mechanism responsible for this suppression

  17. Intravenous lidocaine suppresses fentanyl-induced cough in Children

    OpenAIRE

    Gecaj-Gashi, Agreta; Nikolova-Todorova, Zorica; Ismaili-Jaha, Vlora; Gashi, Musli

    2013-01-01

    Objective Fentanyl-induced cough is usually mild and transitory, but it can be undesirable in patients with increased intracranial pressure, open wounds of the eye, dissecting aortic aneurism, pneumothorax, and reactive airway disease. The aim of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of lidocaine in suppressing fentanyl-induced cough in children during induction in general anesthesia. Methods One hundred and eighty-six children of both sexes, aged between 4?10?years, ASA physical status I an...

  18. Social hierarchy and depression: the role of emotion suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Langner, Carrie A; Epel, Elissa S; Matthews, Karen A; Moskowitz, Judith T; Adler, Nancy E

    2012-01-01

    Position in the social hierarchy is a major determinant of health outcomes. We examined the associations between aspects of social hierarchy and depressive symptoms with a specific focus on one potential psychological mechanism: emotion suppression. Suppressing negative emotion has mental health costs, but individuals with low social power and low social status may use these strategies to avoid conflict. Study 1 assessed perceived social power, tendency to suppress negative emotion, and depressive symptoms in a community sample of women. Low social power was related to greater depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by emotion suppression. Study 2 examined education as a proxy for social hierarchy position, anger suppression, and depressive symptoms in a national, longitudinal cohort study (The coronary artery risk development in young adults [CARDIA] study; Cutter et al., 1991). Much as in study 1, low education levels were correlated with greater depressive symptoms, and this relationship was partially mediated by anger suppression. Further, suppression mediated the relationship between low education and subsequent depression up to 15 years later. These findings support the theory that social hierarchy affects mental health in part through a process of emotion suppression.

  19. Attentional selection and suppression in children and adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sun, Meirong; Wang, Encong; Huang, Jing; Zhao, Chenguang; Guo, Jialiang; Li, Dongwei; Sun, Li; Du, Boqi; Ding, Yulong; Song, Yan

    2018-05-15

    The fundamental role of covert spatial attention is to enhance the processing of attended items while simultaneously ignoring irrelevant items. However, relatively little is known about how brain electrophysiological activities associated with target selection and distractor suppression are involved as they develop and become fully functional. The current study aimed to identify the neurophysiological bases of the development of covert spatial attention, focusing on electroencephalographic (EEG) markers of attentional selection (N2pc) and suppression (P D ). EEG data were collected from healthy young adults and typically developing children (9-15 years old) as they searched for a shape singleton target in either the absence or the presence of a salient-but-irrelevant color singleton distractor. The ERP results showed that a lateral shape target elicited a smaller N2pc in children compared with adults regardless of whether a distractor was present or not. Moreover, the target-elicited N2pc was always followed by a similar positivity in both age groups. Counterintuitively, a lateral salient-but-irrelevant distractor elicited a large P D in children with low behavioral accuracy, whereas high-accuracy children exhibited a small and "adult-like" P D . More importantly, we found no evidence for a correlation between the target-elicited N2pc and the distractor-elicited P D in either age group. Our results provide neurophysiological evidence for the developmental differences between target selection and distractor suppression. Compared with adults, 9-15-year-old children deploy insufficient attentional selection resources to targets but use "adult-like" or even more attentional suppression resources to resist irrelevant distractors. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhWapx0d75I. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. Disease Suppressive Soils: New Insights from the Soil Microbiome.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schlatter, Daniel; Kinkel, Linda; Thomashow, Linda; Weller, David; Paulitz, Timothy

    2017-11-01

    Soils suppressive to soilborne pathogens have been identified worldwide for almost 60 years and attributed mainly to suppressive or antagonistic microorganisms. Rather than identifying, testing and applying potential biocontrol agents in an inundative fashion, research into suppressive soils has attempted to understand how indigenous microbiomes can reduce disease, even in the presence of the pathogen, susceptible host, and favorable environment. Recent advances in next-generation sequencing of microbiomes have provided new tools to reexamine and further characterize the nature of these soils. Two general types of suppression have been described: specific and general suppression, and theories have been developed around these two models. In this review, we will present three examples of currently-studied model systems with features representative of specific and general suppressiveness: suppression to take-all (Gaeumannomyces graminis var. tritici), Rhizoctonia bare patch of wheat (Rhizoctonia solani AG-8), and Streptomyces. To compare and contrast the two models of general versus specific suppression, we propose a number of hypotheses about the nature and ecology of microbial populations and communities of suppressive soils. We outline the potential and limitations of new molecular techniques that can provide novel ways of testing these hypotheses. Finally, we consider how this greater understanding of the phytobiome can facilitate sustainable disease management in agriculture by harnessing the potential of indigenous soil microbes.

  1. Burst-suppression pattern in the electroencephalogram of newborns and infants. Its clinical expression

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cervantes Blanco Jorge Mauricio

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Burst-suppression pattern in the electroencephalogram (EEG is associated with severe brain damage and has a bad prognosis in 85% of the cases. Objectives. To identify the prevalence of the EEG burst-suppression pattern (BSP in fullterm newborns and infants, determine its etiol- ogy, clinical features and course. Methods. A retrospective study was conducted. Between January 2008 and December 2012, 4,891 EEGs were reviewed. The EEGs of newborns and infants (< 3 months of age with BSP were selected. Results. 11 cases identified with burst suppression pattern. The overall prevalence of which was 3.5%; 8.1% among the newborns and 1.2% among infants. Seizures were the main reason for doing an EEG in the newborn period in 7 patients and after day 28 in three. The clinical manifestations were abnormal level of consciousness (n=8, hypotonia (n=2, and spasticity (n=6. The main causes were hypoxic ischemic injury, stroke and kernicterus. There were two cases of early infantile epileptic encephalopathy. Two patients died before the third month of age; 8 survived an average of 13 months. All had epilepsy, neurologic retardation and disability. Two patients had persistent EEG burst-suppression pattern; 1 and 3 months after the neonatal period respectively; 7 had focal spikes and an asymmetric pattern. Conclusions. Electroencephalographic burst-suppression pat- tern predicts a severe neurologic injury in fullterm newborns and infants.

  2. Venture capital: States suffer as suppression expenses climb

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krista Gebert

    2008-01-01

    The high cost of suppressing wildfires is taking a toll on federal and state agencies alike. Large wildland fires are complex, costly events influenced by a vast array of physical, climatic, and social factors. During five of the last eight years, the Forest Services' wildfire suppression expenditures have topped $1 billion, and total federal wildland suppression...

  3. Binocular Therapy for Childhood Amblyopia Improves Vision Without Breaking Interocular Suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bossi, Manuela; Tailor, Vijay K; Anderson, Elaine J; Bex, Peter J; Greenwood, John A; Dahlmann-Noor, Annegret; Dakin, Steven C

    2017-06-01

    Amblyopia is a common developmental visual impairment characterized by a substantial difference in acuity between the two eyes. Current monocular treatments, which promote use of the affected eye by occluding or blurring the fellow eye, improve acuity, but are hindered by poor compliance. Recently developed binocular treatments can produce rapid gains in visual function, thought to be as a result of reduced interocular suppression. We set out to develop an effective home-based binocular treatment system for amblyopia that would engage high levels of compliance but that would also allow us to assess the role of suppression in children's response to binocular treatment. Balanced binocular viewing therapy (BBV) involves daily viewing of dichoptic movies (with "visibility" matched across the two eyes) and gameplay (to monitor compliance and suppression). Twenty-two children (3-11 years) with anisometropic (n = 7; group 1) and strabismic or combined mechanism amblyopia (group 2; n = 6 and 9, respectively) completed the study. Groups 1 and 2 were treated for a maximum of 8 or 24 weeks, respectively. The treatment elicited high levels of compliance (on average, 89.4% ± 24.2% of daily dose in 68.23% ± 12.2% of days on treatment) and led to a mean improvement in acuity of 0.27 logMAR (SD 0.22) for the amblyopic eye. Importantly, acuity gains were not correlated with a reduction in suppression. BBV is a binocular treatment for amblyopia that can be self-administered at home (with remote monitoring), producing rapid and substantial benefits that cannot be solely mediated by a reduction in interocular suppression.

  4. J/Ψ suppression

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Giubellino, P.; Abreu, M.C.; Alessandro, B.; Alexa, C.; Arnaldi, R.; Astruc, J.; Atayan, M.; Baglin, C.; Baldit, A.; Bedjidian, M.; Bellaiche, F.; Beole, S.; Boldea, V.; Bordalo, P.; Bussiere, A.; Capony, V.; Casagrande, L.; Castor, J.; Chambon, T.; Chaurand, B.; Chevrot, I.; Cheynis, B.; Chiavassa, E.; Cicalo, C.; Comets, M.P.; Constantinescu, S.; Cruz, J.; De Falco, A.; De Marco, N.; Dellacasa, G.; Devaux, A.; Dita, S.; Drapier, O.; Espagnon, B.; Fargeix, J.; Filippov, S.N.; Fleuret, F.; Force, P.; Gallio, M.; Gavrilov, Y.K.; Gerschel, C.; Giubellino, P.; Golubeva, M.B.; Gonin, M.; Grigorian, A.A.; Grossiord, J.Y.; Guber, F.F.; Guichard, A.; Gulkaninan, H.; Hakobyan, R.; Haroutunian, R.; Idzik, M.; Jouan, D.; Karavitcheva, T.L.; Kluberg, L.; Kurepin, A.B.; Le Bornec, Y.; Lourenco, C.; Mac Cormick, M.; Macciotta, P.; Marzari-Chiesa, A.; Masera, M.; Masoni, A.; Mehrabyan, S.; Mourgues, S.; Musso, A.; Ohlsson-Malek, F.; Petiau, P.; Piccotti, A.; Pizzi, J.R.; Prado da Silva, W.L.; Puddu, G.; Quintans, C.; Racca, C.; Ramello, L.; Ramos, S.; Rato-Mendes, P.; Riccati, L.; Romana, A.; Sartori, S.; Saturnini, P.; Scomparin, E.; Serci, S.; Shahoyan, R.; Silva, S.; Soave, C.; Sonderegger, P.; Tarrago, X.; Temnikov, P.; Topilskaya, N.S.; Usai, G.; Vale, C.; Vercellin, E.; Willis, N.

    1999-01-01

    The cross section for J/Ψ production in Pb-Pb interactions at 158 GeV per nucleon is measured at the CERN SPS by the NA50 experiment. The final results from the 1995 run are presented here together with preliminary ones from the high-statistics 1996 run. An anomalous J/Ψ suppression is observed in Pb-Pb collisions as compared to extrapolations of the previous results obtained by the NA38 experiment with proton and lighter ion beams. The results of the two runs are in good agreement. The results from the 1996 run allow the study of the onset of the anomalous suppression within the same set of data, showing evidence of a sharp change of behaviour around a value of neutral transverse energy, as measured by our electromagnetic calorimeter, of about 50 GeV

  5. Fluid-structure interaction in BWR suppression pool systems. Final report

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nickell, R.E.

    1979-09-01

    The discharge of safety relief valves or a severe loss-of-coolant event in a boiling-water-cooled reactor steam supply system triggers a complex pressure suppression system that is based upon sub-surface steam condensation in large pools of water. The physical problems fall into two categories. The first is referred to as vent clearing and describes the process of expelling non-condensables from the system prior to steam flow. The second category covers a variety of phenomena related to the transient overexpansion of a condensable volume and the subsequent inertially-driven volume decrease. The dynamic loading of either event, depending upon fluid-structural design parameters, can be of concern in safety analysis. This report describes the development of a method for calculating the loads and the structural response for both types of problems. The method is embedded in a computer code, called PELE-IC, that couples a two-dimensional, incompressible eulerian fluid algorithm to a finite element shell algorithm. The fluid physics is based upon the SOLA algorithm, which provideds a trial velocity field using the Navier-Stokes equations that is subsequently corrected iteratively so that incompressibility, fluid-structure interface compatibility, and boundary conditions are satisfied. These fluid and fluid-structure algorithms have been extensively verified through calculations of known solutions from the classical literature, and by comparison to air and steam blowdown experiments

  6. Imaging Method Based on Time Reversal Channel Compensation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bing Li

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available The conventional time reversal imaging (TRI method builds imaging function by using the maximal value of signal amplitude. In this circumstance, some remote targets are missed (near-far problem or low resolution is obtained in lossy and/or dispersive media, and too many transceivers are employed to locate targets, which increases the complexity and cost of system. To solve these problems, a novel TRI algorithm is presented in this paper. In order to achieve a high resolution, the signal amplitude corresponding to focal time observed at target position is used to reconstruct the target image. For disposing near-far problem and suppressing spurious images, combining with cross-correlation property and amplitude compensation, channel compensation function (CCF is introduced. Moreover, the complexity and cost of system are reduced by employing only five transceivers to detect four targets whose number is close to that of transceivers. For the sake of demonstrating the practicability of the proposed analytical framework, the numerical experiments are actualized in both nondispersive-lossless (NDL media and dispersive-conductive (DPC media. Results show that the performance of the proposed method is superior to that of conventional TRI algorithm even under few echo signals.

  7. Double suppression of FCNCs in a supersymmetric model

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kajiyama, Yuji

    2004-01-01

    A concrete model which can suppress FCNCs and CP violating phenomena is suggested. It is S 3 symmetric extension of MSSM in extra dimensions where only SU(2) and SU(3) gauge multiplet are assumed to propagate in the bulk. They are suppressed due to S 3 flavor symmetry at M SUSY , and the infrared attractive force of gauge interaction in extra dimensions are used to suppress them at the compactification scale. We find that O(1) disorders of the soft parameters are allowed at the cut-off scale to suppress FCNCs and CP violating phenomena. (author)

  8. Double suppression of FCNCs in a supersymmetric model

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kajiyama, Yuji [Kanazawa Univ., Dept. of Physics, Kanazawa, Ishikawa (Japan)

    2004-12-01

    A concrete model which can suppress FCNCs and CP violating phenomena is suggested. It is S{sub 3} symmetric extension of MSSM in extra dimensions where only SU(2) and SU(3) gauge multiplet are assumed to propagate in the bulk. They are suppressed due to S{sub 3} flavor symmetry at M{sub SUSY}, and the infrared attractive force of gauge interaction in extra dimensions are used to suppress them at the compactification scale. We find that O(1) disorders of the soft parameters are allowed at the cut-off scale to suppress FCNCs and CP violating phenomena. (author)

  9. Exploring genetic suppression interactions on a global scale.

    Science.gov (United States)

    van Leeuwen, Jolanda; Pons, Carles; Mellor, Joseph C; Yamaguchi, Takafumi N; Friesen, Helena; Koschwanez, John; Ušaj, Mojca Mattiazzi; Pechlaner, Maria; Takar, Mehmet; Ušaj, Matej; VanderSluis, Benjamin; Andrusiak, Kerry; Bansal, Pritpal; Baryshnikova, Anastasia; Boone, Claire E; Cao, Jessica; Cote, Atina; Gebbia, Marinella; Horecka, Gene; Horecka, Ira; Kuzmin, Elena; Legro, Nicole; Liang, Wendy; van Lieshout, Natascha; McNee, Margaret; San Luis, Bryan-Joseph; Shaeri, Fatemeh; Shuteriqi, Ermira; Sun, Song; Yang, Lu; Youn, Ji-Young; Yuen, Michael; Costanzo, Michael; Gingras, Anne-Claude; Aloy, Patrick; Oostenbrink, Chris; Murray, Andrew; Graham, Todd R; Myers, Chad L; Andrews, Brenda J; Roth, Frederick P; Boone, Charles

    2016-11-04

    Genetic suppression occurs when the phenotypic defects caused by a mutation in a particular gene are rescued by a mutation in a second gene. To explore the principles of genetic suppression, we examined both literature-curated and unbiased experimental data, involving systematic genetic mapping and whole-genome sequencing, to generate a large-scale suppression network among yeast genes. Most suppression pairs identified novel relationships among functionally related genes, providing new insights into the functional wiring diagram of the cell. In addition to suppressor mutations, we identified frequent secondary mutations,in a subset of genes, that likely cause a delay in the onset of stationary phase, which appears to promote their enrichment within a propagating population. These findings allow us to formulate and quantify general mechanisms of genetic suppression. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  10. A moving pole-placement compensation design method to increase the bandwidth of RC-damper-based dual “Buck-Boost” AC/DC converter

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wu, Weimin; Qin, Weibo; Wang, Houqin

    2017-01-01

    the “Buck” mode, the control-to-grid current transfer function of this dual “Buck-Boost” AC/DC converter has a movable zero, which is related to the input power and the output DC voltage. When the input power increases, the movable zero will slide to the lower frequency range. And then, the gain between...... the cut-off frequency point and the resonant frequency of LCL filter will swell up, resulting in reduced amplitude margin and suppressed bandwidth of system. Based on the theoretical analysis, a new dynamic pole placement compensation control design method is proposed for this dual AC/DC converter...

  11. Triptycene-based ladder monomers and polymers, methods of making each, and methods of use

    KAUST Repository

    Pinnau, Ingo

    2015-02-05

    Embodiments of the present disclosure provide for a triptycene-based A-B monomer, a method of making a triptycene-based A-B monomer, a triptycene-based ladder polymer, a method of making a triptycene-based ladder polymers, a method of using triptycene-based ladder polymers, a structure incorporating triptycene-based ladder polymers, a method of gas separation, and the like.

  12. Waves of visibility: probing the depth of inter-ocular suppression with transient and sustained targets

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lisandro eKaunitz

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available In order to study non-conscious visual processing, researchers render otherwise consciously perceived images into invisible stimuli. Through the years, several psychophysical techniques have been developed for this purpose. Yet the comparison of experimental results across techniques remains a difficult task as the depth of suppression depends on the interactions between the type of stimuli and the suppression methods employed. This poses a limit to the inferences that researchers make about the extent of non-conscious processes. We investigated the mechanisms underlying inter-ocular suppression during continuous flash suppression (CFS and dichoptic visual masking using a transient onset target stimulus and a variety of stimulus / mask temporal manipulations. We show that target duration, timing of target onset, and mask frequency are key aspects of inter-ocular suppression during CFS with transient targets. The differences between our results and sustained target CFS studies suggest that two distinct mechanisms are involved in the detection of transient and prolonged target stimuli during CFS. Our results provide insight into the dynamics of CFS together with evidence for similarities between transient target CFS and dichoptic visual masking.

  13. Estimating and suppressing background in Raman spectra with an artificial neural network

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sigurdsson, Sigurdur; Larsen, Jan; Philipsen, Peter Alshede

    2003-01-01

    In this report we address the problem of skin fluorescence in feature extraction from Raman spectra of skin lesions. We apply a highly automated neural network method for suppressing skin fluorescence from Raman spectrum of skin lesions before dimension reduction with principal components analysi...

  14. An Adaptive S-Method to Analyze Micro-Doppler Signals for Human Activity Classification

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fangmin Li

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we propose the multiwindow Adaptive S-method (AS-method distribution approach used in the time-frequency analysis for radar signals. Based on the results of orthogonal Hermite functions that have good time-frequency resolution, we vary the length of window to suppress the oscillating component caused by cross-terms. This method can bring a better compromise in the auto-terms concentration and cross-terms suppressing, which contributes to the multi-component signal separation. Finally, the effective micro signal is extracted by threshold segmentation and envelope extraction. To verify the proposed method, six states of motion are separated by a classifier of a support vector machine (SVM trained to the extracted features. The trained SVM can detect a human subject with an accuracy of 95.4% for two cases without interference.

  15. Improved fat-suppression homogeneity with mDIXON turbo spin echo (TSE) in pediatric spine imaging at 3.0 T.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pokorney, Amber L; Chia, Jonathan M; Pfeifer, Cory M; Miller, Jeffrey H; Hu, Houchun H

    2017-11-01

    Background Robust fat suppression remains essential in clinical MRI to improve tissue signal contrast, minimize fat-related artifacts, and enhance image quality. Purpose To compare fat suppression between mDIXON turbo spin echo (TSE) and conventional frequency-selective and inversion-recovery methods in pediatric spine MRI. Material and Methods Images from T1-weighted (T1W) and T2-weighted (T2W) TSE sequences coupled with conventional methods and the mDIXON technique were compared in 36 patients (5.8 ± 5.4 years) at 3.0 T. Images from 42 pairs of T1W (n = 16) and T2W (n = 26) scans were acquired. Two radiologists reviewed the data and rated images using a three-point scale in two categories, including the uniformity of fat suppression and overall diagnostic image quality. The Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used to compare the scores. Results The Cohen's kappa coefficient for inter-rater agreement was 0.69 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.56-0.83). Images from mDIXON TSE were considered superior in fat suppression ( P 3.0 T and should be considered as a permanent replacement of traditional methods, in particular frequency-selective techniques.

  16. Fire suppression as a thermal implosion

    Science.gov (United States)

    Novozhilov, Vasily

    2017-01-01

    The present paper discusses the possibility of the thermal implosion scenario. This process would be a reverse of the well known thermal explosion (autoignition) phenomenon. The mechanism for thermal implosion scenario is proposed which involves quick suppression of the turbulent diffusion flame. Classical concept of the thermal explosion is discussed first. Then a possible scenario for the reverse process (thermal implosion) is discussed and illustrated by a relevant mathematical model. Based on the arguments presented in the paper, thermal implosion may be observed as an unstable equilibrium point on the generalized Semenov diagram for turbulent flame, however this hypothesis requires ultimate experimental confirmation.

  17. Language Practitioners' Reflections on Method-Based and Post-Method Pedagogies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Soomro, Abdul Fattah; Almalki, Mansoor S.

    2017-01-01

    Method-based pedagogies are commonly applied in teaching English as a foreign language all over the world. However, in the last quarter of the 20th century, the concept of such pedagogies based on the application of a single best method in EFL started to be viewed with concerns by some scholars. In response to the growing concern against the…

  18. Dynamic interactions of the cortical networks during thought suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aso, Toshihiko; Nishimura, Kazuo; Kiyonaka, Takashi; Aoki, Takaaki; Inagawa, Michiyo; Matsuhashi, Masao; Tobinaga, Yoshikazu; Fukuyama, Hidenao

    2016-08-01

    Thought suppression has spurred extensive research in clinical and preclinical fields, particularly with regard to the paradoxical aspects of this behavior. However, the involvement of the brain's inhibitory system in the dynamics underlying the continuous effort to suppress thoughts has yet to be clarified. This study aims to provide a unified perspective for the volitional suppression of internal events incorporating the current understanding of the brain's inhibitory system. Twenty healthy volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed thought suppression blocks alternating with visual imagery blocks. The whole dataset was decomposed by group-independent component analysis into 30 components. After discarding noise components, the 20 valid components were subjected to further analysis of their temporal properties including task-relatedness and between-component residual correlation. Combining a long task period and a data-driven approach, we observed a right-side-dominant, lateral frontoparietal network to be strongly suppression related. This network exhibited increased fluctuation during suppression, which is compatible with the well-known difficulty of suppression maintenance. Between-network correlation provided further insight into the coordinated engagement of the executive control and dorsal attention networks, as well as the reciprocal activation of imagery-related components, thus revealing neural substrates associated with the rivalry between intrusive thoughts and the suppression process.

  19. Interocular suppression in children with deprivation amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hamm, Lisa; Chen, Zidong; Li, Jinrong; Black, Joanna; Dai, Shuan; Yuan, Junpeng; Yu, Minbin; Thompson, Benjamin

    2017-04-01

    In patients with anisometropic or strabismic amblyopia, interocular suppression can be minimized by presenting high contrast stimulus elements to the amblyopic eye and lower contrast elements to the fellow eye. This suggests a structurally intact binocular visual system that is functionally suppressed. We investigated whether suppression can also be overcome by contrast balancing in children with deprivation amblyopia due to childhood cataracts. To quantify interocular contrast balance, contrast interference thresholds were measured using an established dichoptic global motion technique for 21 children with deprivation amblyopia, 14 with anisometropic or mixed strabismic/anisometropic amblyopia and 10 visually normal children (mean age mean=9.9years, range 5-16years). We found that interocular suppression could be overcome by contrast balancing in most children with deprivation amblyopia, at least intermittently, and all children with anisometropic or mixed anisometropic/strabismic amblyopia. However, children with deprivation amblyopia due to early unilateral or bilateral cataracts could tolerate only very low contrast levels to the stronger eye indicating strong suppression. Our results suggest that treatment options reliant on contrast balanced dichoptic presentation could be attempted in a subset of children with deprivation amblyopia. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  20. Suppression factors in diffractive photoproduction of dijets

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Klasen, Michael; Kramer, Gustav

    2010-06-01

    After new publications of H1 data for the diffractive photoproduction of dijets, which overlap with the earlier published H1 data and the recently published data of the ZEUS collaboration, have appeared, we have recalculated the cross sections for this process in next-to-leading order (NLO) of perturbative QCD to see whether they can be interpreted consistently. The results of these calculations are compared to the data of both collaborations. We find that the NLO cross sections disagree with the data, showing that factorization breaking occurs at that order. If direct and resolved contributions are both suppressed by the same amount, the global suppression factor depends on the transverse-energy cut. However, by suppressing only the resolved contribution, also reasonably good agreement with all the data is found with a suppression factor independent of the transverse-energy cut. (orig.)

  1. Model-Based Method for Sensor Validation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vatan, Farrokh

    2012-01-01

    Fault detection, diagnosis, and prognosis are essential tasks in the operation of autonomous spacecraft, instruments, and in situ platforms. One of NASA s key mission requirements is robust state estimation. Sensing, using a wide range of sensors and sensor fusion approaches, plays a central role in robust state estimation, and there is a need to diagnose sensor failure as well as component failure. Sensor validation can be considered to be part of the larger effort of improving reliability and safety. The standard methods for solving the sensor validation problem are based on probabilistic analysis of the system, from which the method based on Bayesian networks is most popular. Therefore, these methods can only predict the most probable faulty sensors, which are subject to the initial probabilities defined for the failures. The method developed in this work is based on a model-based approach and provides the faulty sensors (if any), which can be logically inferred from the model of the system and the sensor readings (observations). The method is also more suitable for the systems when it is hard, or even impossible, to find the probability functions of the system. The method starts by a new mathematical description of the problem and develops a very efficient and systematic algorithm for its solution. The method builds on the concepts of analytical redundant relations (ARRs).

  2. Surface return direction-of-arrival analysis for radar ice sounding surface clutter suppression

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nielsen, Ulrik; Dall, Jørgen

    2015-01-01

    Airborne radar ice sounding is challenged by surface clutter masking the depth signal of interest. Surface clutter may even be prohibitive for potential space-based ice sounding radars. To some extent the radar antenna suppresses the surface clutter, and a multi-phase-center antenna in combination...... with coherent signal processing techniques can improve the suppression, in particular if the direction of arrival (DOA) of the clutter signal is estimated accurately. This paper deals with data-driven DOA estimation. By using P-band data from the ice shelf in Antarctica it is demonstrated that a varying...

  3. The relation of weight suppression and BMI to bulimic symptoms.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Butryn, Meghan L; Juarascio, Adrienne; Lowe, Michael R

    2011-11-01

    High levels of weight suppression have been associated with greater binge eating and weight gain as well as poorer treatment outcome in bulimia nervosa. This study examined the relationship between weight suppression and bulimia nervosa symptoms and explored how weight suppression might interact with body mass index (BMI) in accounting for level of symptomatology at presentation for treatment. Participants were 64 women with threshold or sub-threshold bulimia nervosa. A clinical interview assessed binge eating and purging. Weight suppression and the interaction between BMI and weight suppression predicted frequency of binge eating such that participants with low BMI and high weight suppression engaged in the most binge eating. High levels of weight suppression also predicted more frequent purging. Additional research is warranted to examine mediators of these relationships. Copyright © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  4. Activity based costing (ABC Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Prof. Ph.D. Saveta Tudorache

    2008-05-01

    Full Text Available In the present paper the need and advantages are presented of using the Activity BasedCosting method, need arising from the need of solving the information pertinence issue. This issue has occurreddue to the limitation of classic methods in this field, limitation also reflected by the disadvantages ofsuch classic methods in establishing complete costs.

  5. Nuclear suppression of J/Ψ: From RHIC to the LHC

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kopeliovich, B.Z.; Potashnikova, I.K.; Schmidt, Ivan

    2011-01-01

    A parameter-free calculation for J/Ψ suppression in pA collisions, based on the dipole description, is confronted with the new data from the PHENIX experiment. Achieving good agreement, we employed this model predicting the contribution of initial state interactions (ISI) to J/Ψ suppression in AA collisions. Such a transition from pA to AA is not straightforward, since involves specific effects of double color filtering and boosting of the saturation scale. Relying on this refined ISI contribution, we updated the previous analysis of RHIC data on J/Ψ production in Cu-Cu and Au-Au collisions at √(s)=200 GeV, and determined the transport coefficient of the created dense medium at q-hat 0 =0.6 GeV 2 /fm. Nuclear effects for J/Ψ production at the LHC are predicted using the transport coefficient q-hat 0 =0.8 GeV 2 /fm, extracted from data on suppression of high-p T hadrons in central lead-lead collisions at √(s)=2.76 TeV. Our analysis covers only direct J/Ψ production, while data may also include the feed-down from decay of heavier states and B-mesons.

  6. Pseudo-spectral method using rotated staggered grid for elastic wave propagation in 3D arbitrary anisotropic media

    KAUST Repository

    Zou, Peng

    2017-05-10

    Staggering grid is a very effective way to reduce the Nyquist errors and to suppress the non-causal ringing artefacts in the pseudo-spectral solution of first-order elastic wave equations. However, the straightforward use of a staggered-grid pseudo-spectral method is problematic for simulating wave propagation when the anisotropy level is greater than orthorhombic or when the anisotropic symmetries are not aligned with the computational grids. Inspired by the idea of rotated staggered-grid finite-difference method, we propose a modified pseudo-spectral method for wave propagation in arbitrary anisotropic media. Compared with an existing remedy of staggered-grid pseudo-spectral method based on stiffness matrix decomposition and a possible alternative using the Lebedev grids, the rotated staggered-grid-based pseudo-spectral method possesses the best balance between the mitigation of artefacts and efficiency. A 2D example on a transversely isotropic model with tilted symmetry axis verifies its effectiveness to suppress the ringing artefacts. Two 3D examples of increasing anisotropy levels demonstrate that the rotated staggered-grid-based pseudo-spectral method can successfully simulate complex wavefields in such anisotropic formations.

  7. The regulation of induced depression during a frustrating situation: benefits of expressive suppression in Chinese individuals.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jiajin Yuan

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Studies from European-American cultures consistently reported that expressive suppression was associated with worse emotional consequence (e.g. depression in comparison with acceptance. However, this conclusion may not apply to Chinese, as suppressing emotional displays to maintain relational harmony is culturally valued in East Asian countries. Thus, the present study examined the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood induced by a frustrating task in a Chinese sample. METHOD: Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions: suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a frustrating arithmetic task. The experience of depressive emotion and skin conductance response (SCR were recorded during pre-frustration baseline, frustration induction and post-frustration recovery phases, respectively. RESULTS: Compared with the control and acceptance instructions, suppression instruction was associated with decreased depressive experiences and smaller SCR activity during frustration. There were no significant differences between acceptance and control groups in both subjective depression and SCR activity during frustration. Moreover, the suppression group showed a better emotional recovery after the frustrating task, in comparison with the acceptance and control groups. Correlation analyses verified that SCR reactivity was a reliable index of experienced depression during the frustration. CONCLUSIONS: Expressive suppression is effective in reducing depressive experiences and depression-related physiological activity (SCR when Chinese people are involved. By contrast, the acceptance of depressive emotion in Chinese people does not produce a similar regulation effect. These findings suggest that cultural context should be considered in understanding the emotional consequences of suppression and acceptance strategies.

  8. The Regulation of Induced Depression during a Frustrating Situation: Benefits of Expressive Suppression in Chinese Individuals

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ding, Nanxiang; Yang, Jiemin

    2014-01-01

    Background Studies from European-American cultures consistently reported that expressive suppression was associated with worse emotional consequence (e.g. depression) in comparison with acceptance. However, this conclusion may not apply to Chinese, as suppressing emotional displays to maintain relational harmony is culturally valued in East Asian countries. Thus, the present study examined the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood induced by a frustrating task in a Chinese sample. Method Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions: suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a frustrating arithmetic task. The experience of depressive emotion and skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during pre-frustration baseline, frustration induction and post-frustration recovery phases, respectively. Results Compared with the control and acceptance instructions, suppression instruction was associated with decreased depressive experiences and smaller SCR activity during frustration. There were no significant differences between acceptance and control groups in both subjective depression and SCR activity during frustration. Moreover, the suppression group showed a better emotional recovery after the frustrating task, in comparison with the acceptance and control groups. Correlation analyses verified that SCR reactivity was a reliable index of experienced depression during the frustration. Conclusions Expressive suppression is effective in reducing depressive experiences and depression-related physiological activity (SCR) when Chinese people are involved. By contrast, the acceptance of depressive emotion in Chinese people does not produce a similar regulation effect. These findings suggest that cultural context should be considered in understanding the emotional consequences of suppression and acceptance strategies. PMID:24827934

  9. Dopamine agonist suppression of rapid-eye-movement sleep is secondary to sleep suppression mediated via limbic structures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Miletich, R.S.

    1985-01-01

    The effects of pergolide, a direct dopamine receptor agonist, on sleep and wakefulness, motor behavior and 3 H-spiperone specific binding in limbic structures and striatum in rats was studied. The results show that pergolide induced a biphasic dose effect, with high doses increasing wakefulness and suppressing sleep while low dose decreased wakefulness, but increased sleep. It was shown that pergolide-induced sleep suppression was blocked by α-glupenthixol and pimozide, two dopamine receptor antagonists. It was further shown that pergolide merely delayed the rebound resulting from rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep deprivation, that dopamine receptors stimulation had no direct effect on the period, phase or amplitude of the circadian rhythm of REM sleep propensity and that there was no alteration in the coupling of REM sleep episodes with S 2 episodes. Rapid-eye-movement sleep deprivation resulted in increased sensitivity to the pergolide-induced wakefulness stimulation and sleep suppression and pergolide-induced motor behaviors of locomotion and head bobbing. 3 H-spiperone specific binding to dopamine receptors was shown to be altered by REM sleep deprivation in the subcortical limbic structures. It is concluded that the REM sleep suppressing action of dopamine receptor stimulation is secondary to sleep suppression per se and not secondary to a unique effect on the REM sleep. Further, it is suggested that the wakefulness stimulating action of dopamine receptor agonists is mediated by activation of the dopamine receptors in the terminal areas of the mesolimbocortical dopamine projection system

  10. Space robots with flexible appendages: Dynamic modeling, coupling measurement, and vibration suppression

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meng, Deshan; Wang, Xueqian; Xu, Wenfu; Liang, Bin

    2017-05-01

    For a space robot with flexible appendages, vibrations of flexible structure can be easily excited during both orbit and/or attitude maneuvers of the base and the operation of the manipulators. Hence, the pose (position and attitude) of the manipulator's end-effector will greatly deviate from the desired values, and furthermore, the motion of the manipulator will trigger and exacerbate vibrations of flexible appendages. Given lack of the atmospheric damping in orbit, the vibrations will last for quite a while and cause the on-orbital tasks to fail. We derived the rigid-flexible coupling dynamics of a space robot system with flexible appendages and established a coupling model between the flexible base and the space manipulator. A specific index was defined to measure the coupling degree between the flexible motion of the appendages and the rigid motion of the end-effector. Then, we analyzed the dynamic coupling for different conditions, such as modal displacements, joint angles (manipulator configuration), and mass properties. Moreover, the coupling map was adopted and drawn to represent the coupling motion. Based on this map, a trajectory planning method was addressed to suppress structure vibration. Finally, simulation studies of typical cases were performed, which verified the proposed models and method. This work provides a theoretic basis for the system design, performance evaluation, trajectory planning, and control of such space robots.

  11. SPATIAL DISTRIBUTIONS OF ABSORPTION, LOCAL SUPPRESSION, AND EMISSIVITY REDUCTION OF SOLAR ACOUSTIC WAVES IN MAGNETIC REGIONS

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chou, D.-Y.; Yang, M.-H.; Zhao Hui; Liang Zhichao; Sun, M.-T.

    2009-01-01

    Observed acoustic power in magnetic regions is lower than the quiet Sun because of absorption, emissivity reduction, and local suppression of solar acoustic waves in magnetic regions. In the previous studies, we have developed a method to measure the coefficients of absorption, emissivity reduction, and local suppression of sunspots. In this study, we go one step further to measure the spatial distributions of three coefficients in two active regions, NOAA 9055 and 9057. The maps of absorption, emissivity reduction, and local suppression coefficients correlate with the magnetic map, including plage regions, except the emissivity reduction coefficient of NOAA 9055 where the emissivity reduction coefficient is too weak and lost among the noise.

  12. Distracted by the Unthought – Suppression and Reappraisal of Mind Wandering under Stereotype Threat

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuster, Carolin; Martiny, Sarah E.; Schmader, Toni

    2015-01-01

    Previous research has found that subtle reminders of negative stereotypes about one’s group can lead individuals to underperform on stereotype-relevant tests (e.g., women in math, ethnic minorities on intelligence tests). This so called stereotype threat effect can contribute to systematic group differences in performance that can obscure the true abilities of certain social groups and thereby sustain social inequalities. In the present study, we examined processes underlying stereotype threat effects on women’s math performance, specifically focusing on the role of suppression of mind wandering (i.e., task-irrelevant thinking) in stereotype threat (ST) and no threat (NT) situations. Based on a process model of stereotype threat effects on performance, we hypothesized that women under stereotype threat spontaneously suppress mind wandering, and that this suppression impairs performance. An alternative regulation strategy that prevents suppression (i.e., reappraising task-irrelevant thoughts as normal) was predicted to prevent stereotype threat effects on performance. We manipulated stereotype threat (ST vs. NT) and cognitive regulation strategy (suppression, reappraisal, or no strategy) and measured women’s performance on a math and a concentration task (N = 113). We expected three groups to perform relatively more poorly: Those in ST with either no strategy or suppression and those in NT with a suppression strategy. We tested the performance of these groups against the remaining three groups hypothesized to perform relatively better: those in NT with no strategy or reappraisal and those in ST with reappraisal. The results showed the expected pattern for participants’ math performance, but not for concentration achievement. This pattern suggests that ineffective self-regulation by suppressing mind wandering can at least partly explain stereotype threat effects on performance, whereas a reappraisal strategy can prevent this impairment. We discuss

  13. Unsteady numerical simulation of a round jet with impinging microjets for noise suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lew, Phoi-Tack; Najafi-Yazdi, Alireza; Mongeau, Luc

    2013-09-01

    The objective of this study was to determine the feasibility of a lattice-Boltzmann method (LBM)-Large Eddy Simulation methodology for the prediction of sound radiation from a round jet-microjet combination. The distinct advantage of LBM over traditional computational fluid dynamics methods is its ease of handling problems with complex geometries. Numerical simulations of an isothermal Mach 0.5, Re(D) = 1 × 10(5) circular jet (D(j) = 0.0508 m) with and without the presence of 18 microjets (D(mj) = 1 mm) were performed. The presence of microjets resulted in a decrease in the axial turbulence intensity and turbulent kinetic energy. The associated decrease in radiated sound pressure level was around 1 dB. The far-field sound was computed using the porous Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings surface integral acoustic method. The trend obtained is in qualitative agreement with experimental observations. The results of this study support the accuracy of LBM based numerical simulations for predictions of the effects of noise suppression devices on the radiated sound power.

  14. Optimized suppression of coherent noise from seismic data using the Karhunen-Loeve transform

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Montagne, Raul; Vasconcelos, Giovani L.

    2006-01-01

    Signals obtained in land seismic surveys are usually contaminated with coherent noise, among which the ground roll (Rayleigh surface waves) is of major concern for it can severely degrade the quality of the information obtained from the seismic record. This paper presents an optimized filter based on the Karhunen-Loeve transform for processing seismic images contaminated with ground roll. In this method, the contaminated region of the seismic record, to be processed by the filter, is selected in such way as to correspond to the maximum of a properly defined coherence index. The main advantages of the method are that the ground roll is suppressed with negligible distortion of the remnant reflection signals and that the filtering procedure can be automated. The image processing technique described in this study should also be relevant for other applications where coherent structures embedded in a complex spatiotemporal pattern need to be identified in a more refined way. In particular, it is argued that the method is appropriate for processing optical coherence tomography images whose quality is often degraded by coherent noise (speckle)

  15. Sex-dimorphic adverse drug reactions to immune suppressive agents in inflammatory bowel disease

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Z. Zelinkova (Zuzana); E. Bultman (Evelien); L. Vogelaar (Lauran); C. Bouziane (Cheima); E.J. Kuipers (Ernst); C.J. van der Woude (Janneke)

    2012-01-01

    textabstractAIM: To analyze sex differences in adverse drug reactions (ADR) to the immune suppressive medication in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients. METHODS: All IBD patients attending the IBD outpatient clinic of a referral hospital were identifed through the electronic diagnosis

  16. Agent-based model of fecal microbial transplant effect on bile acid metabolism on suppressing Clostridium difficile infection: an example of agent-based modeling of intestinal bacterial infection.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Peer, Xavier; An, Gary

    2014-10-01

    Agent-based modeling is a computational modeling method that represents system-level behavior as arising from multiple interactions between the multiple components that make up a system. Biological systems are thus readily described using agent-based models (ABMs), as multi-cellular organisms can be viewed as populations of interacting cells, and microbial systems manifest as colonies of individual microbes. Intersections between these two domains underlie an increasing number of pathophysiological processes, and the intestinal tract represents one of the most significant locations for these inter-domain interactions, so much so that it can be considered an internal ecology of varying robustness and function. Intestinal infections represent significant disturbances of this internal ecology, and one of the most clinically relevant intestinal infections is Clostridium difficile infection (CDI). CDI is precipitated by the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, involves the depletion of commensal microbiota, and alterations in bile acid composition in the intestinal lumen. We present an example ABM of CDI (the C. difficile Infection ABM, or CDIABM) to examine fundamental dynamics of the pathogenesis of CDI and its response to treatment with anti-CDI antibiotics and a newer treatment therapy, fecal microbial transplant. The CDIABM focuses on one specific mechanism of potential CDI suppression: commensal modulation of bile acid composition. Even given its abstraction, the CDIABM reproduces essential dynamics of CDI and its response to therapy, and identifies a paradoxical zone of behavior that provides insight into the role of intestinal nutritional status and the efficacy of anti-CDI therapies. It is hoped that this use case example of the CDIABM can demonstrate the usefulness of both agent-based modeling and the application of abstract functional representation as the biomedical community seeks to address the challenges of increasingly complex diseases with the goal of

  17. Bandwidth-limited control and ringdown suppression in high-Q resonators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Borneman, Troy W; Cory, David G

    2012-12-01

    We describe how the transient behavior of a tuned and matched resonator circuit and a ringdown suppression pulse may be integrated into an optimal control theory (OCT) pulse-design algorithm to derive control sequences with limited ringdown that perform a desired quantum operation in the presence of resonator distortions of the ideal waveform. Inclusion of ringdown suppression in numerical pulse optimizations significantly reduces spectrometer deadtime when using high quality factor (high-Q) resonators, leading to increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and sensitivity of inductive measurements. To demonstrate the method, we experimentally measure the free-induction decay of an inhomogeneously broadened solid-state free radical spin system at high Q. The measurement is enabled by using a numerically optimized bandwidth-limited OCT pulse, including ringdown suppression, robust to variations in static and microwave field strengths. We also discuss the applications of pulse design in high-Q resonators to universal control of anisotropic-hyperfine coupled electron-nuclear spin systems via electron-only modulation even when the bandwidth of the resonator is significantly smaller than the hyperfine coupling strength. These results demonstrate how limitations imposed by linear response theory may be vastly exceeded when using a sufficiently accurate system model to optimize pulses of high complexity. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  18. Cooling device for reactor suppression pool

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Togasaki, Susumu; Kato, Kiyoshi.

    1994-01-01

    In a cooling device of a reactor suppression pool, when a temperature of pool water is abnormally increased and a heat absorbing portion is heated by, for example, occurrence of an accident, coolants are sent to the outside of the reactor container to actuates a thermally operating portion by the heat energy of coolants and drive heat exchanging fluids of a secondary cooling system. If the heat exchanging fluids are sent to a cooling portion, the coolants are cooled and returned to the heat absorbing portion of the suppression pool water. If the heat absorbing portion is heat pipes, the coolants are evaporated by heat absorbed from the suppression pool water, steams are sent to the thermally operating portion, then coolants are liquefied and caused to return to the heat absorbing portion. If the thermal operation portion is a gas turbine, the gas turbine is operated by the coolants, and it is converted to a rotational force to drive heat exchanging fluids by pumps. By constituting the cooling portion with a condensator, the coolants are condensed and liquefied and returned to the heat absorbing portion of the suppression pool water. (N.H.)

  19. Kontexte qualitativer Sozialforschung: Arts-Based Research, Mixed Methods und Emergent Methods

    OpenAIRE

    Schreier, Margrit

    2017-01-01

    In dem vorliegenden Beitrag werden drei Kontexte qualitativer Sozialforschung genauer dargestellt, die in den vergangenen Jahren zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen haben: Arts-Based Research, Mixed Methods und Emergent Methods. Es werden verschiedene Ansätze und Varianten von Arts-Informed und Arts-Based Research genauer beschrieben, und es wird argumentiert, dass Arts-Based Research eine eigenständige Forschungstradition darstellt, die der qualitativen Sozialforschung wichtige Impulse geben kan...

  20. Binocular vision in amblyopia : structure, suppression and plasticity

    OpenAIRE

    Hess, Robert F; Thompson, Benjamin; Baker, Daniel Hart

    2014-01-01

    The amblyopic visual system was once considered to be structurally monocular. However, it now evident that the capacity for binocular vision is present in many observers with amblyopia. This has led to new techniques for quantifying suppression that have provided insights into the relationship between suppression and the monocular and binocular visual deficits experienced by amblyopes. Furthermore, new treatments are emerging that directly target suppressive interactions within the visual cor...

  1. Mode of ATM-dependent suppression of chromosome translocation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yamauchi, Motohiro, E-mail: motoyama@nagasaki-u.ac.jp [Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8523 (Japan); Suzuki, Keiji; Oka, Yasuyoshi; Suzuki, Masatoshi; Kondo, Hisayoshi; Yamashita, Shunichi [Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, 1-12-4 Sakamoto, Nagasaki 852-8523 (Japan)

    2011-12-09

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We addressed how ATM suppresses frequency of chromosome translocation. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We found ATM/p53-dependent G1 checkpoint suppresses translocation frequency. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We found ATM and DNA-PKcs function in a common pathway to suppress translocation. -- Abstract: It is well documented that deficiency in ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) protein leads to elevated frequency of chromosome translocation, however, it remains poorly understood how ATM suppresses translocation frequency. In the present study, we addressed the mechanism of ATM-dependent suppression of translocation frequency. To know frequency of translocation events in a whole genome at once, we performed centromere/telomere FISH and scored dicentric chromosomes, because dicentric and translocation occur with equal frequency and by identical mechanism. By centromere/telomere FISH analysis, we confirmed that chemical inhibition or RNAi-mediated knockdown of ATM causes 2 to 2.5-fold increase in dicentric frequency at first mitosis after 2 Gy of gamma-irradiation in G0/G1. The FISH analysis revealed that ATM/p53-dependent G1 checkpoint suppresses dicentric frequency, since RNAi-mediated knockdown of p53 elevated dicentric frequency by 1.5-fold. We found ATM also suppresses dicentric occurrence independently of its checkpoint role, as ATM inhibitor showed additional effect on dicentric frequency in the context of p53 depletion and Chk1/2 inactivation. Epistasis analysis using chemical inhibitors revealed that ATM kinase functions in the same pathway that requires kinase activity of DNA-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (DNA-PKcs) to suppress dicentric frequency. From the results in the present study, we conclude that ATM minimizes translocation frequency through its commitment to G1 checkpoint and DNA double-strand break repair pathway that requires kinase activity of DNA-PKcs.

  2. Breaking continuous flash suppression: A new measure of unconscious processing during interocular suppression?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Timo eStein

    2011-12-01

    Full Text Available Until recently, it has been thought that under interocular suppression high-level visual processing is strongly inhibited if not abolished. With the development of continuous flash suppression (CFS, a variant of binocular rivalry, this notion has now been challenged by a number of reports showing that even high-level aspects of visual stimuli, such as familiarity, affect the time stimuli need to overcome CFS and emerge into awareness. In this breaking CFS (b-CFS paradigm, differential unconscious processing during suppression is inferred when (a speeded detection responses to initially invisible stimuli differ, and (b no comparable differences are found in non-rivalrous control conditions supposed to measure general threshold differences between stimuli. To critically evaluate these assumptions was the aim of the present study. In six experiments we compared the time upright and inverted faces needed to be detected. We found that not only under CFS, but also in control conditions upright faces were detected faster and more accurately than inverted faces, although the effect was larger during CFS. However, reaction time (RT distributions indicated critical differences between the CFS and the control condition. When RT distributions were matched, similar effect sizes were obtained in both conditions. Moreover, subjective ratings revealed that CFS and control conditions are not perceptually comparable. These findings cast doubt on the usefulness of non-rivalrous control conditions to rule out mere detection threshold differences as a cause of shorter detection latencies during CFS. In conclusion, we acknowledge that the b-CFS paradigm can be fruitfully applied as a highly sensitive device to probe differences between stimuli in their potency to gain access to awareness. However, our current findings suggest that such differences can not unequivocally be attributed to differential unconscious processing under interocular suppression.

  3. Fractional order absolute vibration suppression (AVS) controllers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halevi, Yoram

    2017-04-01

    Absolute vibration suppression (AVS) is a control method for flexible structures. The first step is an accurate, infinite dimension, transfer function (TF), from actuation to measurement. This leads to the collocated, rate feedback AVS controller that in some cases completely eliminates the vibration. In case of the 1D wave equation, the TF consists of pure time delays and low order rational terms, and the AVS controller is rational. In all other cases, the TF and consequently the controller are fractional order in both the delays and the "rational parts". The paper considers stability, performance and actual implementation in such cases.

  4. Psychophysical research progress of interocular suppression in amblyopic visual system

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jing-Jing Li

    2016-03-01

    Full Text Available Some recent animal experiments and psychophysical studies indicate that patients with amblyopia have a structurally intact binocular visual system that is rendered functionally monocular due to suppression, and interocular suppression is a key mechanism in visual deficits experienced by patients with amblyopia. The aim of this review is to provide an overview of recent psychophysical findings that have investigated the important role of interocular suppression in amblyopia, the measurement and modulation of suppression, and new dichoptic treatment intervention that directly target suppression.

  5. Triptycene-based ladder monomers and polymers, methods of making each, and methods of use

    KAUST Repository

    Pinnau, Ingo; Ghanem, Bader; Swaidan, Raja

    2015-01-01

    Embodiments of the present disclosure provide for a triptycene-based A-B monomer, a method of making a triptycene-based A-B monomer, a triptycene-based ladder polymer, a method of making a triptycene-based ladder polymers, a method of using

  6. Near-source noise suppression of AMT by compressive sensing and mathematical morphology filtering

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Guang; Xiao, Xiao; Tang, Jing-Tian; Li, Jin; Zhu, Hui-Jie; Zhou, Cong; Yan, Fa-Bao

    2017-12-01

    In deep mineral exploration, the acquisition of audio magnetotelluric (AMT) data is severely affected by ambient noise near the observation sites; This near-field noise restricts investigation depths. Mathematical morphological filtering (MMF) proved effective in suppressing large-scale strong and variably shaped noise, typically low-frequency noise, but can not deal with pulse noise of AMT data. We combine compressive sensing and MMF. First, we use MMF to suppress the large-scale strong ambient noise; second, we use the improved orthogonal match pursuit (IOMP) algorithm to remove the residual pulse noise. To remove the noise and protect the useful AMT signal, a redundant dictionary that matches with spikes and is insensitive to the useful signal is designed. Synthetic and field data from the Luzong field suggest that the proposed method suppresses the near-source noise and preserves the signal well; thus, better results are obtained that improve the output of either MMF or IOMP.

  7. Dysfunction of the Human Mirror Neuron System in Ideomotor Apraxia: Evidence from Mu Suppression.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Frenkel-Toledo, Silvi; Liebermann, Dario G; Bentin, Shlomo; Soroker, Nachum

    2016-06-01

    Stroke patients with ideomotor apraxia (IMA) have difficulties controlling voluntary motor actions, as clearly seen when asked to imitate simple gestures performed by the examiner. Despite extensive research, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying failure to imitate gestures in IMA remain controversial. The aim of the current study was to explore the relationship between imitation failure in IMA and mirror neuron system (MNS) functioning. Mirror neurons were found to play a crucial role in movement imitation and in imitation-based motor learning. Their recruitment during movement observation and execution is signaled in EEG recordings by suppression of the lower (8-10 Hz) mu range. We examined the modulation of EEG in this range in stroke patients with left (n = 21) and right (n = 15) hemisphere damage during observation of video clips showing different manual movements. IMA severity was assessed by the DeRenzi standardized diagnostic test. Results showed that failure to imitate observed manual movements correlated with diminished mu suppression in patients with damage to the right inferior parietal lobule and in patients with damage to the right inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis-areas where major components of the human MNS are assumed to reside. Voxel-based lesion symptom mapping revealed a significant impact on imitation capacity for the left inferior and superior parietal lobules and the left post central gyrus. Both left and right hemisphere damages were associated with imitation failure typical of IMA, yet a clear demonstration of relationship to the MNS was obtained only in the right hemisphere damage group. Suppression of the 8-10 Hz range was stronger in central compared with occipital sites, pointing to a dominant implication of mu rather than alpha rhythms. However, the suppression correlated with De Renzi's apraxia test scores not only in central but also in occipital sites, suggesting a multifactorial mechanism for IMA, with a possible

  8. Non-disruptive tactics of suppression are superior in countering terrorism, insurgency, and financial panics.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David A Siegel

    Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Suppressing damaging aggregate behaviors such as insurgency, terrorism, and financial panics are important tasks of the state. Each outcome of these aggregate behaviors is an emergent property of a system in which each individual's action depends on a subset of others' actions, given by each individual's network of interactions. Yet there are few explicit comparisons of strategies for suppression, and none that fully incorporate the interdependence of individual behavior. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Here I show that suppression tactics that do not require the removal of individuals from networks of interactions are nearly always more effective than those that do. I find using simulation analysis of a general model of interdependent behavior that the degree to which such less disruptive suppression tactics are superior to more disruptive ones increases in the propensity of individuals to engage in the behavior in question. CONCLUSIONS: Thus, hearts-and-minds approaches are generally more effective than force in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, and partial insurance is usually a better tactic than gag rules in quelling financial panics. Differences between suppression tactics are greater when individual incentives to support terrorist or insurgent groups, or susceptibilities to financial panic, are higher. These conclusions have utility for policy-makers seeking to end bloody conflicts and prevent financial panics. As the model also applies to mass protest, its conclusions provide insight as well into the likely effects of different suppression strategies undertaken by authoritarian regimes seeking to hold on to power in the face of mass movements seeking to end them.

  9. Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forder, Lewis; Taylor, Olivia; Mankin, Helen; Scott, Ryan B.; Franklin, Anna

    2016-01-01

    The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry), detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d’) and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object’s stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain. PMID:27023274

  10. Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Forder, Lewis; Taylor, Olivia; Mankin, Helen; Scott, Ryan B; Franklin, Anna

    2016-01-01

    The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry), detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d') and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object's stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain.

  11. Colour Terms Affect Detection of Colour and Colour-Associated Objects Suppressed from Visual Awareness.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lewis Forder

    Full Text Available The idea that language can affect how we see the world continues to create controversy. A potentially important study in this field has shown that when an object is suppressed from visual awareness using continuous flash suppression (a form of binocular rivalry, detection of the object is differently affected by a preceding word prime depending on whether the prime matches or does not match the object. This may suggest that language can affect early stages of vision. We replicated this paradigm and further investigated whether colour terms likewise influence the detection of colours or colour-associated object images suppressed from visual awareness by continuous flash suppression. This method presents rapidly changing visual noise to one eye while the target stimulus is presented to the other. It has been shown to delay conscious perception of a target for up to several minutes. In Experiment 1 we presented greyscale photos of objects. They were either preceded by a congruent object label, an incongruent label, or white noise. Detection sensitivity (d' and hit rates were significantly poorer for suppressed objects preceded by an incongruent label compared to a congruent label or noise. In Experiment 2, targets were coloured discs preceded by a colour term. Detection sensitivity was significantly worse for suppressed colour patches preceded by an incongruent colour term as compared to a congruent term or white noise. In Experiment 3 targets were suppressed greyscale object images preceded by an auditory presentation of a colour term. On congruent trials the colour term matched the object's stereotypical colour and on incongruent trials the colour term mismatched. Detection sensitivity was significantly poorer on incongruent trials than congruent trials. Overall, these findings suggest that colour terms affect awareness of coloured stimuli and colour- associated objects, and provide new evidence for language-perception interaction in the brain.

  12. The measurement and treatment of suppression in amblyopia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Black, Joanna M; Hess, Robert F; Cooperstock, Jeremy R; To, Long; Thompson, Benjamin

    2012-12-14

    Amblyopia, a developmental disorder of the visual cortex, is one of the leading causes of visual dysfunction in the working age population. Current estimates put the prevalence of amblyopia at approximately 1-3%(1-3), the majority of cases being monocular(2). Amblyopia is most frequently caused by ocular misalignment (strabismus), blur induced by unequal refractive error (anisometropia), and in some cases by form deprivation. Although amblyopia is initially caused by abnormal visual input in infancy, once established, the visual deficit often remains when normal visual input has been restored using surgery and/or refractive correction. This is because amblyopia is the result of abnormal visual cortex development rather than a problem with the amblyopic eye itself(4,5) . Amblyopia is characterized by both monocular and binocular deficits(6,7) which include impaired visual acuity and poor or absent stereopsis respectively. The visual dysfunction in amblyopia is often associated with a strong suppression of the inputs from the amblyopic eye under binocular viewing conditions(8). Recent work has indicated that suppression may play a central role in both the monocular and binocular deficits associated with amblyopia(9,10) . Current clinical tests for suppression tend to verify the presence or absence of suppression rather than giving a quantitative measurement of the degree of suppression. Here we describe a technique for measuring amblyopic suppression with a compact, portable device(11,12) . The device consists of a laptop computer connected to a pair of virtual reality goggles. The novelty of the technique lies in the way we present visual stimuli to measure suppression. Stimuli are shown to the amblyopic eye at high contrast while the contrast of the stimuli shown to the non-amblyopic eye are varied. Patients perform a simple signal/noise task that allows for a precise measurement of the strength of excitatory binocular interactions. The contrast offset at which

  13. Comparison of dynamic monitoring strategies based on CD4 cell counts in virally suppressed, HIV-positive individuals on combination antiretroviral therapy in high-income countries: a prospective, observational study

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Caniglia, Ellen C.; Cain, Lauren E.; Sabin, Caroline A.; Robins, James M.; Logan, Roger; Abgrall, Sophie; Mugavero, Michael J.; Hernández-Díaz, Sonia; Meyer, Laurence; Seng, Remonie; Drozd, Daniel R.; Seage, George R.; Bonnet, Fabrice; Dabis, Francois; Moore, Richard D.; Reiss, Peter; van Sighem, Ard; Mathews, William C.; del Amo, Julia; Moreno, Santiago; Deeks, Steven G.; Muga, Roberto; Boswell, Stephen L.; Ferrer, Elena; Eron, Joseph J.; Napravnik, Sonia; Jose, Sophie; Phillips, Andrew; Justice, Amy C.; Tate, Janet P.; Gill, John; Pacheco, Antonio; Veloso, Valdilea G.; Bucher, Heiner C.; Egger, Matthias; Furrer, Hansjakob; Porter, Kholoud; Touloumi, Giota; Crane, Heidi; Miro, Jose M.; Sterne, Jonathan A.; Costagliola, Dominique; Saag, Michael; Hernán, Miguel A.

    2017-01-01

    Clinical guidelines vary with respect to the optimal monitoring frequency of HIV-positive individuals. We compared dynamic monitoring strategies based on time-varying CD4 cell counts in virologically suppressed HIV-positive individuals. In this observational study, we used data from prospective

  14. Sensorless SPMSM Position Estimation Using Position Estimation Error Suppression Control and EKF in Wide Speed Range

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zhanshan Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available The control of a high performance alternative current (AC motor drive under sensorless operation needs the accurate estimation of rotor position. In this paper, one method of accurately estimating rotor position by using both motor complex number model based position estimation and position estimation error suppression proportion integral (PI controller is proposed for the sensorless control of the surface permanent magnet synchronous motor (SPMSM. In order to guarantee the accuracy of rotor position estimation in the flux-weakening region, one scheme of identifying the permanent magnet flux of SPMSM by extended Kalman filter (EKF is also proposed, which formed the effective combination method to realize the sensorless control of SPMSM with high accuracy. The simulation results demonstrated the validity and feasibility of the proposed position/speed estimation system.

  15. Planck-suppressed operators

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Assassi, Valentin; Baumann, Daniel; Green, Daniel; McAllister, Liam

    2014-01-01

    We show that the recent Planck limits on primordial non-Gaussianity impose strong constraints on light hidden sector fields coupled to the inflaton via operators suppressed by a high mass scale Λ. We study a simple effective field theory in which a hidden sector field is coupled to a shift-symmetric inflaton via arbitrary operators up to dimension five. Self-interactions in the hidden sector lead to non-Gaussianity in the curvature perturbations. To be consistent with the Planck limit on local non-Gaussianity, the coupling to any hidden sector with light fields and natural cubic couplings must be suppressed by a very high scale Λ > 10 5 H. Even if the hidden sector has Gaussian correlations, nonlinearities in the mixing with the inflaton still lead to non-Gaussian curvature perturbations. In this case, the non-Gaussianity is of the equilateral or orthogonal type, and the Planck data requires Λ > 10 2 H

  16. An adaptive vibration control method to suppress the vibration of the maglev train caused by track irregularities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhou, Danfeng; Yu, Peichang; Wang, Lianchun; Li, Jie

    2017-11-01

    The levitation gap of the urban maglev train is around 8 mm, which puts a rather high requirement on the smoothness of the track. In practice, it is found that the track irregularity may cause stability problems when the maglev train is traveling. In this paper, the dynamic response of the levitation module, which is the basic levitation structure of the urban maglev train, is investigated in the presence of track irregularities. Analyses show that due to the structural configuration of the levitation module, the vibration of the levitation gap may be amplified and "resonances" may be observed under some specified track wavelengths and train speeds; besides, it is found that the gap vibration of the rear levitation unit in a levitation module is more significant than that of the front levitation unit, which agrees well with practice. To suppress the vibration of the rear levitation gap, an adaptive vibration control method is proposed, which utilizes the information of the front levitation unit as a reference. A pair of mirror FIR (finite impulse response) filters are designed and tuned by an adaptive mechanism, and they produce a compensation signal for the rear levitation controller to cancel the disturbance brought by the track irregularity. Simulations under some typical track conditions, including the sinusoidal track profile, random track irregularity, as well as track steps, indicate that the adaptive vibration control scheme can significantly reduce the amplitude of the rear gap vibration, which provides a method to improve the stability and ride comfort of the maglev train.

  17. The EPED pedestal model and edge localized mode-suppressed regimes: Studies of quiescent H-mode and development of a model for edge localized mode suppression via resonant magnetic perturbations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Snyder, P. B.; Osborne, T. H.; Burrell, K. H.; Groebner, R. J.; Leonard, A. W.; Wade, M. R. [General Atomics, P.O. Box 85608, San Diego, California 92186-5608 (United States); Nazikian, R. [Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey (United States); Orlov, D. M. [University of California-San Diego, San Diego, California 92093 (United States); Schmitz, O. [Institut fuer Plasmaphysik, Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH, Association FZJ-EURATOM, Juelich (Germany); Wilson, H. R. [York Plasma Institute, Department of Physics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD (United Kingdom)

    2012-05-15

    The EPED model predicts the H-mode pedestal height and width based upon two fundamental and calculable constraints: (1) onset of non-local peeling-ballooning modes at low to intermediate mode number, (2) onset of nearly local kinetic ballooning modes at high mode number. We present detailed tests of the EPED model in discharges with edge localized modes (ELMs), employing new high resolution measurements, and finding good quantitative agreement across a range of parameters. The EPED model is then applied for the first time to quiescent H-mode (QH), finding a similar level of agreement between predicted and observed pedestal height and width, and suggesting that the model can be used to predict the critical density for QH-mode operation. Finally, the model is applied toward understanding the suppression of ELMs with 3D resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP). Combining EPED with plasma response physics, a new working model for RMP ELM suppression is developed. We propose that ELMs are suppressed when a 'wall' associated with the RMP blocks the inward penetration of the edge transport barrier. A calculation of the required location of this 'wall' with EPED is consistent with observed profile changes during RMP ELM suppression and offers an explanation for the observed dependence on safety factor (q{sub 95}).

  18. Dopamine agonist suppression of rapid-eye-movement sleep is secondary to sleep suppression mediated via limbic structures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Miletich, R.S.

    1985-01-01

    The effects of pergolide, a direct dopamine receptor agonist, on sleep and wakefulness, motor behavior and /sup 3/H-spiperone specific binding in limbic structures and striatum in rats was studied. The results show that pergolide induced a biphasic dose effect, with high doses increasing wakefulness and suppressing sleep while low dose decreased wakefulness, but increased sleep. It was shown that pergolide-induced sleep suppression was blocked by ..cap alpha..-glupenthixol and pimozide, two dopamine receptor antagonists. It was further shown that pergolide merely delayed the rebound resulting from rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep deprivation, that dopamine receptors stimulation had no direct effect on the period, phase or amplitude of the circadian rhythm of REM sleep propensity and that there was no alteration in the coupling of REM sleep episodes with S/sub 2/ episodes. Rapid-eye-movement sleep deprivation resulted in increased sensitivity to the pergolide-induced wakefulness stimulation and sleep suppression and pergolide-induced motor behaviors of locomotion and head bobbing. /sup 3/H-spiperone specific binding to dopamine receptors was shown to be altered by REM sleep deprivation in the subcortical limbic structures. It is concluded that the REM sleep suppressing action of dopamine receptor stimulation is secondary to sleep suppression per se and not secondary to a unique effect on the REM sleep. Further, it is suggested that the wakefulness stimulating action of dopamine receptor agonists is mediated by activation of the dopamine receptors in the terminal areas of the mesolimbocortical dopamine projection system.

  19. A new method of small target detection based on neural network

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Jing; Hu, Yongli; Lu, Xinxin

    2018-02-01

    The detection and tracking of moving dim target in infrared image have been an research hotspot for many years. The target in each frame of images only occupies several pixels without any shape and structure information. Moreover, infrared small target is often submerged in complicated background with low signal-to-clutter ratio, making the detection very difficult. Different backgrounds exhibit different statistical properties, making it becomes extremely complex to detect the target. If the threshold segmentation is not reasonable, there may be more noise points in the final detection, which is unfavorable for the detection of the trajectory of the target. Single-frame target detection may not be able to obtain the desired target and cause high false alarm rate. We believe the combination of suspicious target detection spatially in each frame and temporal association for target tracking will increase reliability of tracking dim target. The detection of dim target is mainly divided into two parts, In the first part, we adopt bilateral filtering method in background suppression, after the threshold segmentation, the suspicious target in each frame are extracted, then we use LSTM(long short term memory) neural network to predict coordinates of target of the next frame. It is a brand-new method base on the movement characteristic of the target in sequence images which could respond to the changes in the relationship between past and future values of the values. Simulation results demonstrate proposed algorithm can effectively predict the trajectory of the moving small target and work efficiently and robustly with low false alarm.

  20. Anger suppression, interdependent self-construal, and depression among Asian American and European American college students.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheung, Rebecca Y M; Park, Irene J K

    2010-10-01

    The present study tested a theoretical model of emotion regulation (Yap, Sheeber, & Allen, 2007) in a sample of Asian American and European American college students (N = 365). Specifically, the mediating role of anger suppression in the effect of temperament and family processes on depressive symptoms was tested across race and levels of interdependent self-construal (a culturally based self orientation emphasizing connectedness with others). Next, the moderation of the suppression-depression relation was tested by race and interdependent self-construal. Results indicated that the hypothesized model fit well across Asian American and European American students, as well as those with high versus low levels of interdependent self-construal. Anger suppression was a significant mediator of the hypothesized indirect effects on depressive symptoms. Moreover, race and interdependent self-construal moderated the suppression-depression link, such that Asian American status and a stronger interdependent self-construal attenuated the relation between anger suppression and depressive symptoms. Understanding both universal and culture-specific aspects of emotion regulation in the development of depressive symptoms will be essential for sound theory, future research, and effective prevention and intervention efforts across diverse populations. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.