A modified Rietveld method to model highly anisotropic ceramics

High energy X-ray diffraction was employed to probe the complex constitutive behavior of a polycrystalline ferroelectric material in various sample orientations. Pb(Zn,Nb)O₃-Pb(Zr,Ti)O₃ (PZN-PZT) ceramics were subjected to a cyclic bipolar electric field while diffraction patterns were taken. Using transmission geometry and a two-dimensional detector, lattice strain and texture evolution (domain switching) were measured in multiple sample directions simultaneously. In addition, texture analysis suggests that non-180° domain switching is coupled with lattice strain evolution during uniaxial electrical loading. As a result of this material’s high strain anisotropy, the full-pattern Rietveld method was inadequate to analyze the diffraction data. Instead, a modified Rietveld method, which includes an elastic anisotropy term, yielded significant improvements in the data analysis results.     

Optical measurement of non-uniform electric field vector distribution in a dielectric liquid using triplet measurement system [and reply]

The authors argue that the original paper by Ihori et al. ("Optical Measurement of Non-uniform Electric Field Vector Distribution in a Dielectric Liquid Using Triplet Measurement System", see ibid., vol. 9, p. 56-60, 2002) is misleading. The purpose of this communication is to point out the mis-statements and to identify the nature of the unstated approximations used in that work.     

Effect of mitomycin C on aqueous humor flow, flare and intraocular pressure in eyes with glaucoma 2 years after trabeculectomy

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to determine the intraocular pressure (IOP), aqueous humor flow, flare and ocular side effects in eyes with a history of hypotony after trabeculectomy with adjunctive mitomycin C (MMC). METHODS: Thirty-six eyes with primary or secondary open-angle glaucoma and IOP < or = 8 mmHg during the postoperative period were studied 745 +/- 315 days after surgery. MMC (0.2 or 0.5 mg/ml) was applied to the episclera with a cellular sponge. Flare was studied with the Kowa Laser Flare Meter 500. Aqueous humor flow was measured in the afternoon (Fluorotron Master II). IOP, visual fields and best corrected visual acuity were also examined. Twenty-two contralateral eyes without surgical intervention served as controls. RESULTS: The mean age of patients was 44.5 +/- 16.8 years. The mean IOP was significantly lower in the MMC group than in the control group: 9.6 +/- 6.4 mmHg vs 18.0 +/- 13.6 mmHg at 2 years (P < 0.001). Aqueous flow was significantly lower in subjects treated with MMC than in controls (P < 0.001). The flare values were significantly higher in the MMC-treated group, with a mean of 12.0 +/- 7.7 photon counts/ms, than in the control group, mean 7.9 +/- 4.6 photon counts/ms (P < 0.019). CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that MMC is a useful ocular hypotensive agent which seems to participate in a change in aqueous humor dynamics when applied topically as an aqueous solution.     

Stock Price Prediction Using Predictive Error Compensation Wavelet Neural Networks

Machine Learning (ML) algorithms have been widely used for financial time series prediction and trading through bots. In this work, we propose a Predictive Error Compensated Wavelet Neural Network (PEC-WNN) ML model that improves the prediction of next day closing prices. In the proposed model we use multiple neural networks where the first one uses the closing stock prices from multiple-scale time-domain inputs. An additional network is used for error estimation to compensate and reduce the prediction error of the main network instead of using recurrence. The performance of the proposed model is evaluated using six different stock data samples in the New York stock exchange. The results have demonstrated significant improvement in forecasting accuracy in all cases when the second network is used in accordance with the first one by adding the outputs. The RMSE error is 33% improved when the proposed PEC-WNN model is used compared to the Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model. Furthermore, through the analysis of training mechanisms, we found that using the updated training the performance of the proposed model is improved. The contribution of this study is the applicability of simultaneously different time frames as inputs. Cascading the predictive error compensation not only reduces the error rate but also helps in avoiding overfitting problems.     

Kerr electro-optic theory and measurements of electric fields withmagnitude and direction varying along the light path

Differential equations that govern light propagation in Kerr media are derived when the applied electric field direction and magnitude vary along the light path. Case studies predict Kerr electro-optic fringe patterns for the specific case of point/plane electrodes. We apply the characteristic directions theory of photoelasticity to understand these fringes. We also study birefringent media with small Kerr constant, in particular transformer oil. For this case we show that simplifications in the characteristic parameter theory is possible, resulting in simple integral relationships between the characteristic parameters and the applied electric field. We use these simple relationships to extend the ac modulation method to measure the characteristic parameters for small Kerr constant media. Measurements of the characteristic parameters using the ac modulation method are presented for point/plane electrodes in transformer oil. The measurements agree reasonably well with space charge free theory for infinite extent electrodes for which analytical expressions are available. We finally employ the `onion peeling' method to reconstruct the axisymmetric electric field magnitude and direction from the measured characteristic parameters and compare the results to the analytically obtained electric field     

Comparative study of theoretical Kerr electro-optic fringe patternsin 2-D and axisymmetric electrode geometries

Kerr electro-optic fringe patterns have long been used to study space charge injection and transport phenomena in highly birefringent materials such as nitrobenzene, Most past experimental work has been limited to 1 or 2-dimensional geometries where the electric field magnitude and direction have been constant along the light path such as two concentric or parallel cylinders or parallel plate electrodes. For these geometries the extrema in the fringe patterns can be used directly to find the electric field magnitude and direction. In this work we extend the fringe based Kerr electro-optic measurement technique to a point/plane electrode geometry which often is used in HV research to create large electric fields for charge injection at known location and at reasonable voltages. We calculate theoretical Kerr electro-optic fringe patterns for this point/plane electrode geometry with and without space charge distributions, for which the electric field magnitude and direction vary along the light path. We particularly compare the calculated space charge free optical patterns for the point/plane electrodes to the optical patterns of the 2-dimensional analog blade/plane geometry. We underline the differences and study how these fringe patterns can be used to reconstruct the axisymmetric electric field components in practice     

Finite element based Kerr electro-optic reconstruction of spacecharge

Recently we used the onion peeling method to reconstruct the axisymmetric electric field distribution of point/plane electrodes from Kerr electro-optic measurements. The method accurately reconstructed the electric field from numerically generated data. However in the presence of experimental noise the performance was less satisfactory. The measurements were especially noisy and unstable near the needle tip which is also the interesting region since most charge injection initiates here. We develop a new algorithm for Kerr electro-optic reconstruction of space charge in axisymmetric point/plane electrode geometries. The algorithm is built on the finite element method (FEM) for Poisson's equation and will be called finite element based Kerr electro-optic reconstruction (FEBKER) hereafter. FEBKER calculates the space charge density directly to avoid the numerical problems associated with taking the divergence of the electric field, uses single parameter light intensity measurements to enable transient analysis, which otherwise is difficult since multiple parameter intensity measurements are slow due to the rotation of polarizers, and is capable of reconstruction even when the number and/or position of measurements are limited by the electrodes and/or the experimental setup. The performance of the algorithm is tested on synthetic Kerr electro-optic data obtained for an axisymmetric point/plane electrode geometry in transformer oil with specified space charge density distributions. The impact of experimental error is analyzed by incorporating random error to the synthetic data. Regularization techniques that decrease the impact of experimental error are applied. In principle FEBKER is applicable to arbitrary three-dimensional geometries as well