Foliar Application of Nano-Silicon Complexes on Growth,Oxidative Damage and Bioactive Compounds of Feverfew Under Drought Stress

Silicon - Drought stress limits the growth and yield of essential oils of valuable medicinal plants such as feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium). So, foliar application efficiency of nano-silicon...     

Reconstruction of partially occluded objects encoded in three-dimensional scenes by using digital holograms

We propose a task-specific digital holographic capture system for three-dimensional scenes, which can reduce the amount of data sent from the camera system to the receiver and can effectively reconstruct partially occluded objects. The system requires knowledge of the object of interest, but it does not require a priori knowledge of either the occlusion or the distance the object is from the camera. Subwindows of the camera-plane Fresnel field are digitally propagated to reveal different perspectives of the scene, and these are combined to overcome the unknown foreground occlusions. The nature of the occlusions and the effect of subwindows are analyzed thoroughly by using the Wigner distribution function. We demonstrate that a careful combination of reconstructions from subwindows can reveal features that are not apparent in a reconstruction from the whole hologram. We provide results by using optically captured digital holograms of real-world objects and simulated occlusions.     

Fabrication and evaluation of a single-element Bi(0.5)Na(0.5)TiO(3)-based ultrasonic transducer

This paper discusses the fabrication and characterization of a single-element ultrasonic transducer with a lead-free piezoelectric active element. A piezoelectric ceramic with composition of 0.88Bi(0.5)Na(0.5)TiO(3)-0.08Bi(0.5)K(0.5)TiO(3)- 0.04Bi(0.5)Li(0.5)TiO(3) was chosen as the active element of the transducer. This composition exhibited a thickness coupling coefficient (kt) of 0.45, a dielectric constant of 440 (at 1 kHz), and a longitudinal piezoelectric coefficient (d(33)) of 84 pC?N(-1). To make the transducer, the ceramic was sandwiched between an epoxy-tungsten backing layer and a silver epoxy matching layer. An epoxy lens was also incorporated into the transducer?s design to focus the ultrasound beam. The focused transducer with a center frequency of about 23 MHz demonstrated a -6-dB bandwidth of 55% and an insertion loss of -32 dB; the -20-dB pulsed length was measured to be 150 ns. A phantom made of copper wires (30 μm in diameter) was utilized to investigate the imaging capability of the transducer. The results indicated that the fabricated transducer, with a lateral resolution of 260 μm and a relatively high depolarization temperature, could be considered as a candidate for replacement of lead-based ultrasonic transducers.     

Phonons in slow motion: dispersion relations in ultrathin Si membranes

We report the changes in dispersion relations of hypersonic acoustic phonons in free-standing silicon membranes as thin as ～8 nm. We observe a reduction of the phase and group velocities of the fundamental flexural mode by more than 1 order of magnitude compared to bulk values. The modification of the dispersion relation in nanostructures has important consequences for noise control in nano- and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) as well as opto-mechanical devices.     

Nonlinear seismic response of Milad Tower using finite element model

Milad Tower is a 436‐m‐tall telecommunications tower ranked as the fourth tallest structure of its kind in the world. The study of its seismic behaviour is of great importance as it is located in a highly seismic‐prone region. Because of the existence of the world's largest revolving restaurant in the head structure, and also because of the highly sensitive communication devices such as TV and telecommunications antennas installed on the tower, nonlinear deformation under future earthquakes should be studied. In this paper, a detailed finite element model is developed and nonlinear dynamic analysis was carried out under the design earthquakes. The foundation, concrete shaft, head structure and 120‐m antenna structure were modelled. Three components of the earthquakes are considered, and the selected earthquakes were normalized based on three design levels: design basis level, maximum design level and maximum credible level. The results of the analysis showed that all parts of the tower behave in the plastic zone except the elements of the head structure. It is also observed that in some cases, the earthquakes with lower peak accelerations and higher energy contents may have more severe effect on the tower than that with higher peak accelerations. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theoretical analysis for three-dimensional integral imaging systems with double devices

By adoption of double-device systems, integral imaging can be enhanced in image depth, viewing angle, or image size. Theoretical analyses are done for the double-image-plane integral imaging systems. Both ray optics analysis and wave optics analysis confirm that the double-device integral imaging systems can pick up and display images at two separate image planes. The analysis results are also valuable in the understanding of the conventional integral imaging systems for image positions off the central depth plane.     

Optimum nonlinear composite filter for distortion-tolerant pattern recognition

We describe a nonlinear distortion-tolerant filter for pattern recognition that is optimum in terms of tolerance to input noise and discrimination capability. This filter was derived by minimization of the output energy that is due to the overlapping additive noise and the input scene, and the output of the filter meets the design constraints obtained from the training data set. The performance of this filter was tested with an input scene containing one of the training data sets, a nontraining true target, and a false object in the presence of overlapping additive noise and nonoverlapping background noise. We carried out Monte Carlo runs to measure the statistical performance of the filter and obtained receiver operating characteristics curves to show the detection capabilities of the filter.