On demonstrating unconscious perception: Comment on Draine and Greenwald (1998).

S. C. Draine and A. G. Greenwald (see record 1999-10824-004) have described a methodology based on regression analysis for demonstrating unconscious perception. They have suggested that their methodology represents a major improvement over existing methodologies. An analysis of their methodology reveals that it is closely related to the classic dissociation paradigm. As such, interpretation of their results is compromised by the same issues concerning the measurement of awareness that have plagued all previous attempts to use the dissociation paradigm to demonstrate unconscious perception in the complete absence of conscious perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cryogenic scanning tunneling spectroscopy studies of inhomogeneous superconductors

We applied scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, combined with magnetic susceptibility measurements and Mossbauer spectroscopy, in studies of three superconducting materials. Two belong to a new class of high T_c magnetic-superconductor systems, R_1.4Ce_0.6RuSr₂Cu₂O_10-δ (R=Eu and Gd), which are magnetically ordered at T_N≪T_c. The third is a granular normal-superconductor system, where the superconducting phase is YNi₂B₂C. In this paper we focus on the tunneling measurements, which exhibit large spatial variations of the local electronic properties for all three materials. Albeit, these local measurements also reveal pronounced differences between the third and the first two systems, which will be discussed in view of their macroscopic properties.     

Synthesis and characterization of broad-band polarization-mode dispersion equalizers

A synthesis algorithm for the design of a finite impulse response polarization-mode dispersion (PMD) equalizer is described and used for characterization of the filter. Defined in terms of the residual maximum differential group delay, the performance of the equalizer is characterized as a function of the equalizer order and period. The synthesis algorithm uses spectral factorization to analytically find estimated equalizer control variables. The control variables are then used as initial guess for an optimization procedure that minimize the maximum differential group delay in the frequency range of interest.     

3-D curve matching using splines

A machine vision algorithm to find the longest common subcurve of two 3-D curves is presented. The curves are represented by splines fitted through sequences of sample points extracted from dense range data. The approximated 3-D curves are transformed into 1-D numerical strings of rotation and translation invariant shape signatures, based on a multiresolution representation of the curvature and torsion values of the space curves. The shape signature strings are matched using an efficient hashing technique that finds longest matching substrings. The results of the string matching stage are later verified by a robust, least-squares, 3-D curve matching technique, which also recovers the Euclidean transformation between the curves being matched. This algorithm is of average complexity O(n) where n is the number of the sample points on the two curves. The algorithm has applications in assembly and object recognition tasks. Results of assembly experiments are included.     

Improved blood glucose control for critically ill subjects

For patients in intensive care units (ICUs), control of blood glucose level is an important factor in reducing serious complications and mortality. Standard protocols for glucose control in ICUs have been based on infrequent glucose measurements, look-up tables to determine the appropriate insulin infusion rates, and bedside administration of the insulin infusion by ICU staff. In this paper a new automatic control strategy is proposed based on frequent glucose measurements and a self-tuning control technique. During a short initial time period when manual glucose control is performed using a standard protocol, a simple dynamic model of the glucose-insulin system is identified in real time using recursive least squares. Then an adaptive PID controller is tuned, based on the model parameters, and the controller is turned on. A simulation study based on detailed physiological models of the glucose-insulin dynamics demonstrates that the proposed control strategy performs better than standard protocols for insulin infusion.     

Experimental realization of an imaging system with an extended depth of field

We describe the experimental realization of an all-optical imaging system with an extended depth of field (DOF). The core of the system is a phase mask consisting of 16 Fresnel lenses (FLs) that are spatially multiplexed and mutually exclusive. Because each FL, in tandem with the primary lens, is designed to produce a sharp image for a specific object plane location, jointly the FLs achieve a wide DOF. However, the resultant image exhibits reduced resolution. The acquired image, onto which we did not apply any postprocessing, clearly is sharper than that acquired with a clear-aperture imaging system with the same pupil size.     

Control of hypertension in family practice by the doctor-nurse team

In Israel, most hypertensives are treated by the family doctor alone. In 45 family practices, nurses were given a more active part to play in the follow-up of these patients, including measuring weight and blood pressure, giving dietary guidance, checking patient compliance and actively following up drop-outs. After two years' follow-up, of a total of 4,255 patients studied, 82.4 per cent were under control (diastolic blood pressure less than 95 mmHg) compared to 42.1 per cent at the onset of the study. The drop-out rate was 0.65 per cent.     

Dynamic repair priority for a transfer line with a finite buffer

We formulate a continuous-time Markov chain model of a transfer line in which there are two unreliable machines separated by a finite buffer. Due to limited repair resources, simultaneous repairs are not possible in cases where both machines fail, and therefore we develop a repair priority rule that depends on the number of work-pieces present in the buffer. Each machine is characterized by three exponentially distributed random variables: processing time, time to failure, and time to repair. We provide a stochastic model for finding an optimal repair priority rule and an efficient algorithm accompanied by easy-to-use Matlab software. An extensive numerical study is performed to test the sensitivity of the proposed dynamic repair priority rule. While in previous studies repair priority was given to the bottleneck machine, we show that there are situations in which priority should be given to the non-bottleneck machine. Finally, we identify conditions in which adding a second technician is economically advisable.     

Fiber-optic pulsed photothermal radiometry for fast surface-temperature measurements

Temperature measurement based on pulsed photothermal radiometry is described. In this technique a body is irradiated by a laser pulse and its temperature is inferred from the shape of the emitted photothermal-signal curve. A prototypical system based on a pulsed CO(2) laser, an IR detector, and IR-transmitting silver halide optical fibers was constructed and used to evaluate the feasibility of this technique. An important feature of the technique is that changes in sample emissivity or geometric factors do not introduce errors in the temperature determination. Theory, simulation, and experimental results are given and discussed.     

Normalizing reflectance from different spectrometers and protocols with an internal soil standard

The internal soil standard (ISS) concept in which a soil standard sample, exhibiting stable spectral performance, is used to normalize and align all other soil spectral measurements – was further examined herein. Different spectrometers (Spectral Evolution and ASD Spectral Pro) were used to measure a set of soil samples with the soil standards sample as a reference. Two sand dune samples served as the ISS to align measurements made under different conditions and the results were compared. It was shown that the ISS method was able to correct the spectral information from one spectrometer to another; however, the differences in the results obtained when using the two different soil standards are discussed. The main conclusion of this paper is that the soil spectral user community should adopt the ISS method for the benefit of all, and the sooner the better. This will allow much more effective exploitation of all data sets acquired on a daily basis by the growing soil spectral community that still lacks standardization procedures.