Cross-talk correction in atomic force microscopy

Commercial atomic force microscopes usually use a position-sensitive photodiode to detect the motion of the cantilever via laser beam deflection. This readout technique makes it possible to measure bending and torsion of the cantilever separately. A slight angle between the orientation of the photodiode and the plane of the readout laser beam, however, causes false signals in both readout channels. This cross-talk may lead to misinterpretation of the acquired data. We demonstrate this fault with images recorded in contact mode on periodically poled ferroelectric crystals and present a simple electronic circuit to compensate for it. This circuit can correct for cross-talk with a bandwidth of approximately 1 MHz suppressing the the false signal to <1%.     

Electroclinical manifestations elicited by intracerebral electric stimulation "shocks" in temporal lobe epilepsy

In patients with severe drug-resistant partial epilepsy, undergoing Stereo-EEG investigations, spatial definition of the "epileptogenic area" is mainly based on spontaneous seizures recordings, but also on seizures induced by intracerebral electrical stimulation (ES). Only "trains" ES (TES, 50 pps) are currently used with this aim; "shocks" ES (SES, 1 pps) are principally applied to localize motor pathways. We have shown, during a prospective study concerning 10 temporal lobe epileptic patients, that SES could frequently induce seizures, especially when stimulation is applied in the anterior part of the Ammon's horn. Even if its efficacy seems lower than by TES, this kind of stimulation, in the majority of the cases, does reproduce isolated ictal subjective symptomatology, allowing the visualization of the progressive organisation of ictal electrical discharges, and avoids "unexpected" ("false positive"?) clinical responses.     

Efficient data management in a large-scale epidemiology research project

This article describes the concept of a "Central Data Management" (CDM) and its implementation within the large-scale population-based medical research project "Personalized Medicine". The CDM can be summarized as a conjunction of data capturing, data integration, data storage, data refinement, and data transfer. A wide spectrum of reliable "Extract Transform Load" (ETL) software for automatic integration of data as well as "electronic Case Report Forms" (eCRFs) was developed, in order to integrate decentralized and heterogeneously captured data. Due to the high sensitivity of the captured data, high system resource availability, data privacy, data security and quality assurance are of utmost importance. A complex data model was developed and implemented using an Oracle database in high availability cluster mode in order to integrate different types of participant-related data. Intelligent data capturing and storage mechanisms are improving the quality of data. Data privacy is ensured by a multi-layered role/right system for access control and de-identification of identifying data. A well defined backup process prevents data loss. Over the period of one and a half year, the CDM has captured a wide variety of data in the magnitude of approximately 5terabytes without experiencing any critical incidents of system breakdown or loss of data. The aim of this article is to demonstrate one possible way of establishing a Central Data Management in large-scale medical and epidemiological studies.     

Open-loop and feedback-controlled mouse cursor movements in linear paths

Path length (A), path width (W) and movement direction (θ) are identified as the main factors affecting visually-controlled movement times in linear paths. Effects of A and W are well described by Drury's ( 1971 . Movements with lateral constraint. Ergonomics, l4 (2), 293-305.) model in which movement time is linearly related to the ratio of A/W. At low A/W values, departure from linearity has been identified but not investigated in detail. Data are presented for both open-loop and feedback-controlled movements in linear paths at 0, 60 and 150° movement directions. Movement amplitude and path width were varied over a wide range to determine the effects of A and (A/W) on movement time. Movements were found to be made ballistically or in open-loop mode when the ratio (A/W) was less than about 8 to 10 and the movement times were linearly related to √A for all angles of movement. Feedback-controlled movements followed Drury's law; ballistic movements had movement speed linear with √A. PRACTITIONER SUMMARY: Many tasks require manoeuvring equipment or devices through a path of limited width. These movements can be made with or without feedback control, depending on the path constraints. The conditions for the two forms of movement are determined in this research.     

Animal experimental studies on the thrombolytic effect of streptokinase

The purpose of this investigation was to explore the feasibility of enhancing the electrochemical stability of dental amalgam restorations by a process of "selective interfacial amalgamation." If dental amalgam restorations can be selectively alloyed at the tooth-amalgam interface, to a minor thickness as compared with the dimensions of the bulk amalgam, so as to present a more electrochemically stable phase than psi2 to the oral environment, corrosion will be reduced and desirable qualities of existing amalgams can be utilized. It was found that selective interfacial amalgamation was indeed possible and that it could be readily accomplished using a silver suspension as a cavity liner. By then placing a conventional silver-tin amalgam according to ordinary dental techniques, mercury expressed during hand condensing reacted with the silver in the liner resulting in the formation of an integral amalgam restoration with the more noble psi1 phase adjacent to tooth structure. In vitro corrosion tests of samples so prepared exhibited corrosion resistance far superior to unlined control samples.     

Network Discovery and Verification

Due to its fast, dynamic, and distributed growth process, it is hard to obtain an accurate map of the Internet. In many cases, such a map-representing the structure of the Internet as a graph with nodes and links-is a prerequisite when investigating properties of the Internet. A common way to obtain such maps is to make certain local measurements at a small subset of the nodes, and then to combine these in order to "discover" (an approximation of) the actual graph. Each of these measurements is potentially quite costly. It is thus a natural objective to minimize the number of measurements which still discover the whole graph. We formalize this problem as a combinatorial optimization problem and consider it for two different models characterized by different types of measurements. We give several upper and lower bounds on the competitive ratio (for the online network discovery problem) and the approximation ratio (for the offline network verification problem) in both models. Furthermore, for one of the two models, we compare four simple greedy strategies in an experimental analysis     

Rotary Blanking ‐ a New Manufacturing Process

Rotary blanking is a method of blanking and punching with rotating tools whereby the cutting tools are fixed to a pair of rollers performing a continuous blanking operation on a strip of sheet metal. The purpose of this paper is to outline the determining conditions under which the rotary blanking process takes place and to discuss advantages, restrictions, applications and optimization of this technology.     

Adaptive polygonization of geometrically constrained surfaces

n -dimensional space, where n>3. This definition can be used for given surfaces that are implicit or parametric. This paper presents a robust, adaptive polygonization algorithm for evaluating and visualizing geometrically constrained surfaces. Let be the constrained surface, a 2-surface in n-space, and let π() be its projection into the subspace spanned by the first three coordinates. Our polygonization algorithm computes π(). The method works directly with the n-space representation, but performs all major computations in 3-space. Techniques for triangulation, polygon decimation, and local refinement are also presented.     

Measurements of Attenuation of Third Sound: Evidence of Trapped Vorticity in Thick Films of Superfluid 4He

We present results of a study of third sound in thick ⁴He films in circular resonator geometry. Frequency and line shapes of third sound resonances are measured for temperatures between 0.3 and 2.1 K in saturated films approximately 30 nm thick. From these measurements we calculate the attenuation of the sound. We find that the attenuation at a given temperature is a function of history of the film, strongly affected by such events as large, sudden (more than milli-Kelvin per second) temperature spikes. We also observe variable frequency splitting of resonances, indicating trapped circulation. Our measurements, taken together with other reported attenuation experiments, are incompatible with dissipation mechanisms dependent on thermodynamic properties alone. Measurements indicate a linear dissipation mechanism, inconsistent with vortex drag and re-connection models. We conclude that high attenuation values, evidence of trapped circulation, and variation in attenuation values support the hypothesis that thick films of ⁴He contain high densities of remnant quantized vortices. The vortex populations suggested by trapped circulation are consistent with proposed linear dissipation mechanisms due to vortex-normal fluid interactions and vortex dimple drag.     

Measurement of the Total Range and Specific Energy Deposition of a Beam of Uranium Ions in Porous Carbon Targets

Experimental results on the total range and specific energy deposition of a beam of uranium ions in foam carbon targets with various densities are presented. The chaotic arrangement of graphite grains in a porous target is modeled theoretically and the influence of the porosity on ion stopping is investigated.