A circuital approach to evaluating the electromagnetic field on rectangular apertures backed by rectangular cavities

In this paper, the problem of evaluating the electromagnetic field on rectangular apertures backed by rectangular cavities is investigated. The electromagnetic-field distribution is derived by using a circuital model of an aperture and suitable forcing terms introduced into the equations related to the aperture model. The effects of a rectangular cavity on the aperture-field distribution are assessed by considering the rectangular cavity as a load impedance. The impedance value is obtained by modeling the rectangular cavity as a length of rectangular waveguide back-ended by a short. The distribution of the electromagnetic field on the aperture is used as an exciting source to evaluate, through a modal expansion, the electromagnetic field inside the cavity. Numerical simulations are in a good agreement with both other theoretical models and experimental data.     

Experimental Validation of a Monte Carlo Procedure for the Evaluation of the Effect of a Turbid Medium on the Point Spread Function of an Optical System

Abstract

The presence of particulate matter interposed between the object and the receiver affects the quality of the image produced by an optical system. This paper presents the results of measurements pertaining to the effect of a turbid medium on the point spread function of an optical system. The results refer to transmitted received power measurements obtained in controlled laboratory experiments. A random distribution of polystyrene microspheres suspended in water constituted the investigated turbid medium. Measurements were carried out for particulate with diameters of 0·33 μm, 0·995 μm, 15·7 μm at a wavelength of 0·6328 μm and for different values of sphere concentration in water. The measured data are favourably compared with results obtained by means of a Monte Carlo based numerical method. This numerical procedure allows us to obtain the point spread function and the modulation transfer function (MTF) of an optical system when a turbid medium is present. Examples of calculated MTFs that refer to the three kinds of spheres used in the measurements are presented.     

Human herpesvirus 6 latently infects early bone marrow progenitors in vivo

We have studied the in vivo tropism of human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) for hemopoietic cells in patients with latent HHV-6 infection. Having used a variety of cell purification, molecular, cytogenetic, and immunocytochemical procedures, we report the first evidence that HHV-6 latently infects early bone marrow progenitor cells and that HHV-6 may be transmitted longitudinally to cells which differentiate along the committed pathways.     

Long-term results from MOPPEBVCAD chemotherapy with optional limited radiotherapy in advanced Hodgkin's disease

The purpose was to verify the 5-year results of the MOPPEBVCAD chemotherapy regimen with limited radiotherapy in relation to the promising preliminary data. Mechlorethamine, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone, epidoxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, lomustine, melphalan, and vindesine were delivered according to a schedule derived through hybridization, intensification, and shortening of the corresponding alternating CAD/MOPP/ABV regimen. Radiotherapy was restricted to sites of bulky involvement or to areas that responded incompletely to chemotherapy. This multicenter, controlled, nonrandomized trial involved 145 eligible patients. Radiotherapy was administered to 47 patients, 46 of whom were in complete remission after chemotherapy. Remissions were complete in 137 patients (94%), partial in 4 (3%), and null in the remaining 4. Tumor-specific, overall, relapse-free, and failure-free survival at 5 years were 0.89, 0.86, 0.82, and 0.78, respectively. Hematologic toxicity was considerable, whereas nonhematologic side effects were fully acceptable. Most of the unfavorable prognostic factors lost their clinical weight. Only age and lymphocyte depletion histologic type were statistically correlated with major follow-up endpoints; performance status and bone marrow involvement were subordinate to age. Seven patients developed a second cancer (including 3 myelodysplasias). MOPPEBVCAD with selected radiotherapy is a highly effective regimen in advanced Hodgkin's disease. Early and late toxicity are no more severe than what would be expected with other alternating or hybrid regimens. A comparison with ABVD, which is currently considered the standard regimen for advanced Hodgkin's disease, is needed.     

Improved microwave imaging procedure for nondestructive evaluations of two-dimensional structures

An improved microwave procedure for detecting defects in dielectric structures is proposed. The procedure is based on the integral equations of the inverse scattering problem. A hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) is applied in order to minimize the obtained nonlinear functional. Since in nondestructive evaluations the unperturbed object is completely known, it is possible off-line to numerically compute the Green's function for the configuration without defects. Consequently, a very significant computation saving is obtained, since the "chromosome" of the GA codes only the parameters describing the unknown defect.     

Attenuation of energy in time-gated transillumination imaging: numerical results

Numerical simulations based on a semianalytic Monte Carlo procedure have been developed to investigate the feasibility of a time-gated transillumination imaging system that could be useful for breast cancer screening. Numerical results showed that attenuation of earlier received photons strongly increases when the gating time decreases and strongly depends on single-scattering properties of the medium. For gating times shorter than ~ 5 ps, attenuation of scattered received energy approaches the exponential attenuation expected for unscattered photons. For typical optical properties of a healthy breast the use of gating times shorter than 100 ps seems to be questionable because of the low level of received energy. The image resolution expected with gating times longer than lOOps is of the order of 10mm. A comparison with predictions or the diffusion equation showed the inadequacy of this theory to describe the dependence of earlier photons on the single-scattering properties of the medium. However, thepredictions of the diffusion equation are within the range of values obtained from numerical simulations for the different scattering properties investigated.     

Effective exploitation of the a priori information through a microwave imaging procedure based on the SMW for NDE/NDT applications

This paper presents an innovative microwave technique, which is suitable for the detection of defects in nondestructive-test and nondestructive-evaluation (NDT/NDE) applications where a lot of a priori information is available. The proposed approach is based on the equations of the inverse scattering problem, which are solved by means of a minimization procedure based on a genetic algorithm. To reduce the number of problem unknowns, the available a priori information is efficiently exploited by introducing an updating procedure for the electric field computation based on the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury formula. The results of a representative set of numerical experiments as well as comparisons with state-of-the-art methods are reported. They confirm the effectiveness, feasibility, and robustness of the proposed approach, which shows some interesting features by a computational point of view as well.     

Design of miniaturised ISM-band fractal antenna

Miniaturisation techniques for antenna designs based on fractal geometries are of growing interest in wireless communications. Described is the design of a miniaturised fractal antenna prototype. To this end, a particle swarm optimiser is used to optimise simultaneously the fractal shape and the input impedance by acting on the thickness of the antenna segments to avoid matching networks. The effectiveness of the approach is confirmed by simulated and experimental results.