The simultaneous interpolation of antenna radiation patterns inboth the spatial and frequency domains using model-based parameterestimation

The Pade rational function fitting model commonly used for model-based parameter estimation (MBPE) in the frequency domain is enhanced to include spatial dependence in the numerator and denominator coefficients. This allows the function to interpolate an antenna radiated electric field pattern in both the frequency and spatial domains simultaneously, such that a single set of coefficients can be used to accurately reconstruct an entire radiation pattern at any frequency in the fitting-model range. A simple procedure is introduced for transforming interpolated electric fields into gain patterns using input impedance versus frequency curves also obtained via MBPE. The utility of this method is demonstrated by applying it to a dipole antenna over a frequency range of 150-950 MHz and using a polynomial representation in &thetas; for the coefficient spatial dependence. It is also used to estimate radiation patterns for a three-element Yagi array between the frequencies of 470 and 500 MHz using a binomial representation for the spatial variation that includes terms dependent on &thetas; as well as φ. The use of this method for interpolating radiation patterns has at least two significant advantages; one being large compression ratios for the amount of data that must be stored to accurately reproduce patterns and the other being a significant decrease in the amount of time required for modeling problems with large computational domains     

Temperature determination in optoelectronic waveguide modulators

Optoelectronic devices are particularly sensitive to temperature changes induced by the absorption of light and the passage of current. In order to study the thermal issues arising in a InGaAsP-based Mach-Zehnder (MZ) optical modulator, a nonlinear finite-element thermal model of the device was constructed. The model considers the variation with temperature of both the thermal conductivity of the semiconductors composing the device and the optical absorption. To that effect, the optical absorption was measured inside the waveguide as a function of temperature, An experimental method using liquid crystals to measure the surface temperature was also developed. Both were used to evaluate the temperature inside a variable optical attenuator present on the modulator. Good agreement with the model and the experiment is found over a wide range of operating conditions. These tools are expected to play a key role in understanding thermal issues in future photonic devices, in view of the desire to integrate multiple devices on a common substrate and the continuous increase of the optical powers in fiber systems     

What information is necessary for speech categorization? Harnessing variability in the speech signal by integrating cues computed relative to expectations.

Most theories of categorization emphasize how continuous perceptual information is mapped to categories. However, equally important are the informational assumptions of a model, the type of information subserving this mapping. This is crucial in speech perception where the signal is variable and context dependent. This study assessed the informational assumptions of several models of speech categorization, in particular, the number of cues that are the basis of categorization and whether these cues represent the input veridically or have undergone compensation. We collected a corpus of 2,880 fricative productions (Jongman, Wayland, & Wong, 2000) spanning many talker and vowel contexts and measured 24 cues for each. A subset was also presented to listeners in an 8AFC phoneme categorization task. We then trained a common classification model based on logistic regression to categorize the fricative from the cue values and manipulated the information in the training set to contrast (a) models based on a small number of invariant cues, (b) models using all cues without compensation, and (c) models in which cues underwent compensation for contextual factors. Compensation was modeled by computing cues relative to expectations (C-CuRE), a new approach to compensation that preserves fine-grained detail in the signal. Only the compensation model achieved a similar accuracy to listeners and showed the same effects of context. Thus, even simple categorization metrics can overcome the variability in speech when sufficient information is available and compensation schemes like C-CuRE are employed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Office workers' computer use patterns are associated with workplace stressors

This field study examined associations between workplace stressors and office workers' computer use patterns. We collected keyboard and mouse activities of 93 office workers (68F, 25M) for approximately two work weeks. Linear regression analyses examined the associations between self-reported effort, reward, overcommitment, and perceived stress and software-recorded computer use duration, number of short and long computer breaks, and pace of input device usage. Daily duration of computer use was, on average, 30 min longer for workers with high compared to low levels of overcommitment and perceived stress. The number of short computer breaks (30 s–5 min long) was approximately 20% lower for those with high compared to low effort and for those with low compared to high reward. These outcomes support the hypothesis that office workers' computer use patterns vary across individuals with different levels of workplace stressors.     

Light management in PCPDTBT:PC70BM solar cells: A comparison of standard and inverted device structures

We compare standard and inverted bulk heterojunction solar cells composed of PCPDTBT:PC₇₀BM blends. Inverted devices comprising 100 nm thick active layers exhibited short circuit currents of 15 mA/cm², 10% larger than in corresponding standard devices. Modeling of the optical field distribution in the different device stacks proved that this enhancement originates from an increased absorption of incident light in the active layer. Internal quantum efficiencies (IQEs) were obtained from the direct comparison of experimentally derived and modeled currents for different layer thicknesses, yielding IQEs of ∼70% for a layer thickness of 100 nm. Simulations predict a significant increase of the light harvesting efficiency upon increasing the layer thickness to 270 nm. However, a continuous deterioration of the photovoltaic properties with layer thickness was measured for both device architectures, attributed to incomplete charge extraction. On the other hand, our optical modeling suggests that inverted devices based on PCPDTBT should be able to deliver high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of more than 7% provided that recombination losses can be reduced.     

Exploring liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry fingerprints of urine samples from patients with prostate or urinary bladder cancer

Data processing and analysis have become true rate and success limiting factors for molecular research where a large number of samples of high complexity are included in the data set. In general rather complicated methodologies are needed for the combination and comparison of information as obtained from selected analytical platforms. Although commercial as well as freely accessible software for high-throughput data processing are available for most platforms, tailored in-house solutions for data management and analysis can provide the versatility and transparency eligible for e.g. method development and pilot studies.This paper describes a procedure for exploring metabolic fingerprints in urine samples from prostate and bladder cancer patients with a set of in-house developed Matlab tools. In spite of the immense amount of data produced by the LC-MS platform, in this study more than 10¹⁰ data points, it is shown that the data processing tasks can be handled with reasonable computer resources. The preprocessing steps include baseline subtraction and noise reduction, followed by an initial time alignment. In the data analysis the fingerprints are treated as 2-D images, i.e. pixel by pixel, in contrast to the more common list-based approach after peak or feature detection. Although the latter approach greatly reduces the data complexity, it also involves a critical step that may obscure essential information due to undetected or misaligned peaks. The effects of remaining time shifts after the initial alignment are reduced by a binning and ‘blurring’ procedure prior to the comparative multivariate and univariate data analyses. Other factors than cancer assignment were taken into account by ANOVA applied to the PCA scores as well as to the individual variables (pixels). It was found that the analytical day-to-day variations in our study had a large confounding effect on the cancer related differences, which emphasizes the role of proper normalization and/or experimental design. While PCA could not establish significant cancer related patterns, the pixel-wise univariate analysis could provide a list of about a hundred ‘hotspots’ indicating possible biomarkers. This was also the limited goal for this study, with focus on the exploration of a really huge and complex data set. True biomarker identification, however, needs thorough validation and verification in separate patient sets.     

Androgens Upregulate Pathogen-Induced Placental Innate Immune Response

Group B Streptococcus (GBS) is a leading cause of placental infection, termed chorioamnionitis. Chorioamnionitis is associated with an increased risk of neurobehavioral impairments, such as autism spectrum disorders, which are more prominent in males than in female offspring. In a pre-clinical model of chorioamnionitis, a greater inflammatory response was observed in placenta associated with male rather than female fetuses, correlating with the severity of subsequent neurobehavioral impairments. The reason for this sex difference is not understood. Our hypothesis is that androgens upregulate the placental innate immune response in male fetuses. Lewis dams were injected daily from gestational day (G) 18 to 21 with corn oil (vehicle) or an androgen receptor antagonist (flutamide). On G 19, dams were injected with saline (control) or GBS. Maternal, fetal sera and placentas were collected for protein assays and in situ analyses. Our results showed that while flutamide alone had no effect, a decrease in placental concentration of pro-inflammatory cytokines and infiltration of polymorphonuclear cells was observed in flutamide/infected compared to vehicle/infected groups. These results show that androgens upregulate the placental innate immune response and thus may contribute to the skewed sex ratio towards males observed in several developmental impairments resulting from perinatal infection/inflammation.     

CART algorithm for spatial data: Application to environmental and ecological data

Most statistical learning techniques such as Classification And Regression Trees (CART) assume independent samples to compute classification rules. This assumption is very practical for estimating quantities involved in the algorithm and for assessing asymptotic properties of estimators. In many environmental or ecological applications, the data under study are a sample of some regionalized variables, which can be modeled as random fields with spatial dependence. When the sampling scheme is very irregular, a direct application of supervised classification algorithms leads to biased discriminant rules due, for example, to the possible oversampling of some areas. The CART algorithm is adapted to the case of spatially dependent samples, focusing on environmental and ecological applications. Two approaches are considered. The first one takes into account the irregularity of the sampling by weighting the data according to their spatial pattern using two existing methods based on Voronoï tessellation and regular grid, and one original method based on kriging. The second one uses spatial estimates of the quantities involved in the construction of the discriminant rule at each step of the algorithm. These methods are tested on simulations and on a classical dataset to highlight their advantages and drawbacks. They are then applied on an ecological data set to explore the relationship between pollen data and presence/absence of tree species, which is an important question for climate reconstruction based on paleoecological data.     

Effects of preoxidation on the nucleation and growth behavior of chemically vapor-deposited α-Al2O3 on a single-crystal Ni-based superalloy

A chemical vapor deposition (CVD) procedure was developed for preparing a high-quality α-Al₂O₃ coating layer on the surface of a single-crystal Ni-based superalloy using AlCl₃, CO₂ and H₂ as precursors. A critical part of this procedure was a short-time preoxidation step (1 min) with CO₂ and H₂ in the CVD chamber, prior to introducing the AlCl₃ precursor. Without this preoxidation step, extensive whisker formation was observed on the alloy surface. Characterization results showed that the preoxidation step resulted in the formation of a continuous oxide layer (∼50 nm) on the alloy surface. The outer part of this layer (∼20 nm) appeared to contain mixed oxides, whereas the inner part (∼30 nm) mainly consisted of α-Al₂O₃ grains with θ-Al₂O₃ as a minor phase. We observed that the nucleation of α-Al₂O₃ in the preoxidized layer was promoted by (1) rapid heating (10 seconds) of the alloy surface to the temperature region where α-Al₂O₃ was expected to nucleate; (2) the low oxygen pressure environment of the preoxidation step, which kept the rate of oxidation low; and (3) contamination of the reactor chamber with HfCl₄. The preoxidized layer served as an effective diffusion barrier for mitigating the interaction with some of the alloying elements such as Co and Cr with the CVD precursors and eliminating whisker formation on the alloy surface.