Reduction of cold-pressor pain with acupuncture analgesia in high- and low-hypnotic subjects.

Examined the effect of acupuncture on the cold-pressor pain of high and low hypnotically susceptible undergraduates. The 24 high-susceptible Ss and the 24 low-susceptible Ss verbally reported their course of pain over each 60-sec cold-pressor trial on a numerical rating scale. On Trial 1, in which no groups received treatment, pain ratings did not differ between groups. On Trial 2, Ss who received acupuncture reported significantly less pain than their no-treatment counterparts. The Treatment by Susceptibility interaction was significant, with high-susceptible Ss being more responsive to acupuncture. When an acupuncture effect occurred, it was invariably one of pain reduction; in no case was pain elimination reported. It is concluded that hypnotic susceptibility may be a relevant dimension of individual differences in responsivity to acupuncture. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interpenetrating‐Lattice‐Structured Magnets Exhibiting Anomalous Magnetic Properties

Cubic [Ru₂(O₂CMe)₄]₃[Cr(CN)₆] prepared from water has two interpenetrating lattices and exhibits anomalous magnetic hysteresis, saturation magnetization, out‐of‐phase alternating current (AC) susceptibility, χ″(T), and zero‐field‐cooled/field‐cooled temperature‐dependent magnetization data with respect to either the material prepared from acetonitrile or the layered two‐dimensional (2D) [Ru₂(O₂CBu^t)₄]₃[Cr(CN)₆] · 2 H₂O prepared from water. These unexpected properties are attributed to the presence of the interpenetrating lattices and reveal that, albeit uncommon, interpenetrating‐lattice‐structured materials can stabilize new cooperative magnetic behavior.     

Generating doughnut-shaped beams with large charge numbers by use of liquid-crystal spiral phase plates

Liquid-crystal spiral phase plates with cell gaps of 7 and 20 microm have been used to generate doughnut-shaped beams (doughnut beams) with charges of 1 and 4, respectively. Stacking these liquid-crystal spiral phase plates yielded doughnut beams with charge numbers up to 8. High efficiency and flexibility are the advantages of generating doughnut beams by stacking liquid-crystal spiral phase plates. Interference of doughnut beams generated by liquid-crystal spiral phase plates and plane waves has been studied. Fingerlike interference patterns were obtained with a doughnut beam tilted from a Gaussian beam; spiral fanlike patterns were obtained with a doughnut beam and a Gaussian beam collimated coaxially. The experimental results are supported qualitatively by simulation. By rotating a glass slide in the path of the Gaussian beam, one can rotate the fanlike interference pattern in a controlled fashion. With the liquid-crystal display technology that we have developed and report here, these liquid-crystal spiral phase plates should find applications in optical tweezers.     

Fundamental limits of reconstruction-based superresolution algorithms under local translation

Superresolution is a technique that can produce images of a higher resolution than that of the originally captured ones. Nevertheless, improvement in resolution using such a technique is very limited in practice. This makes it significant to study the problem: "Do fundamental limits exist for superresolution?" In this paper, we focus on a major class of superresolution algorithms, called the reconstruction-based algorithms, which compute high-resolution images by simulating the image formation process. Assuming local translation among low-resolution images, this paper is the first attempt to determine the explicit limits of reconstruction-based algorithms, under both real and synthetic conditions. Based on the perturbation theory of linear systems, we obtain the superresolution limits from the conditioning analysis of the coefficient matrix. Moreover, we determine the number of low-resolution images that are sufficient to achieve the limit. Both real and synthetic experiments are carried out to verify our analysis.     

Face Hallucination: Theory and Practice

In this paper, we study face hallucination, or synthesizing a high-resolution face image from an input low-resolution image, with the help of a large collection of other high-resolution face images. Our theoretical contribution is a two-step statistical modeling approach that integrates both a global parametric model and a local nonparametric model. At the first step, we derive a global linear model to learn the relationship between the high-resolution face images and their smoothed and down-sampled lower resolution ones. At the second step, we model the residue between an original high-resolution image and the reconstructed high-resolution image after applying the learned linear model by a patch-based non-parametric Markov network to capture the high-frequency content. By integrating both global and local models, we can generate photorealistic face images. A practical contribution is a robust warping algorithm to align the low-resolution face images to obtain good hallucination results. The effectiveness of our approach is demonstrated by extensive experiments generating high-quality hallucinated face images from low-resolution input with no manual alignment.     

A UWB Bandpass Filter With Two Transmission Zeros Using a Single Stub With CMRC

A compact bandpass filter is proposed for lower-band ultra-wideband applications. It entails the design concept of a stub-tapped half-wavelength line resonator which provides three transmission poles in the passband and two transmission zeros at the high and low rejection bands. The two stubs are replaced by a single dual-band stub and the parallel coupled-line structures are meandered, leading to a compact size of 0.26lambda_g by 0.32lambda _g     

The coming solar trade war: Obstacles to decarbonization from a political-economy conflict

Will the United States ‘Make Solar Expensive Again’? An active petition filed by the manufacturer known as Suniva now before the International Trade Commission would impose tariffs and a minimum price on solar panels, if acted upon by the executive branch of government. Renewed solar protectionism would reverse attained progress in cost reductions. For the nascent but burgeoning solar PV installation, construction, and operations sectors, higher prices would lead to decreased demand and fewer jobs. For the energy system as a whole, decarbonization would be delayed.     

100×100 optoelectronic cross-connect interconnects usingOPTOBUS

This paper demonstrates an OPTOBUS-based fully packaged optoelectronic cross-connect interconnect technique for data communication applications. Optical insertion loss of the compact 100×100 cross-connect interconnect device ranges from 0.4 to 2.9 dB among all possible connections. Optical transmissions with bit error rate (BER) of >10^-12 can be maintained at per channel bandwidth of 900 Mb/s. The system is expected to have an aggregated interconnect bandwidth near 100 Gb/s when being fully connected with the OPTOBUS chips     

Stereo matching using belief propagation

In this paper, we formulate the stereo matching problem as a Markov network and solve it using Bayesian belief propagation. The stereo Markov network consists of three coupled Markov random fields that model the following: a smooth field for depth/disparity, a line process for depth discontinuity, and a binary process for occlusion. After eliminating the line process and the binary process by introducing two robust functions, we apply the belief propagation algorithm to obtain the maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation in the Markov network. Other low-level visual cues (e.g., image segmentation) can also be easily incorporated in our stereo model to obtain better stereo results. Experiments demonstrate that our methods are comparable to the state-of-the-art stereo algorithms for many test cases.     

Structural and Functional Characterization of OXA-48: Insight into Mechanism and Structural Basis of Substrate Recognition and Specificity

Class D β-lactamase OXA-48 is widely distributed among Gram-negative bacteria and is an important determinant of resistance to the last-resort carbapenems. Nevertheless, the detailed mechanism by which this β-lactamase hydrolyzes its substrates remains poorly understood. In this study, the complex structures of OXA-48 and various β-lactams were modeled and the potential active site residues that may interact with various β-lactams were identified and characterized to elucidate their roles in OXA-48 substrate recognition. Four residues, namely S⁷⁰, K⁷³, S¹¹⁸, and K²⁰⁸ were found to be essential for OXA-48 to undergo catalytic hydrolysis of various penicillins and carbapenems both in vivo and in vitro. T²⁰⁹ was found to be important for hydrolysis of imipenem, whereas R²⁵⁰ played a major role in hydrolyzing ampicillin, imipenem, and meropenem most likely by forming a H-bond or salt-bridge between the side chain of these two residues and the carboxylate oxygen ions of the substrates. Analysis of the effect of substitution of alanine in two residues, W¹⁰⁵ and L¹⁵⁸, revealed their roles in mediating the activity of OXA-48. Our data show that these residues most likely undergo hydrophobic interaction with the R groups and the core structure of the β-lactam ring in penicillins and the carbapenems, respectively. Unlike OXA-58, mass spectrometry suggested a loss of the C6-hydroxyethyl group during hydrolysis of meropenem by OXA-48, which has never been demonstrated in Class D carbapenemases. Findings in this study provide comprehensive knowledge of the mechanism of the substrate recognition and catalysis of OXA-type β-lactamases.