VLSI circuits for adaptive digital beamforming in ultrasound imaging

For phased-array ultrasound imaging, alternative beamforming techniques and their VLSI circuits are studied to form a fully digital receive front-end hardware. In order to increase the timing accuracy in beamforming, a computationally efficient interpolation scheme to increase the sampling rate is examined. For adaptive beamforming, a phase aberration correction method with very low computational complexity is described. Image quality performance of the method is examined by processing the non-aberrated and aberrated phased-array experimental data sets of an ultrasound resolution phantom. A digital beamforming scheme based on receive focusing at the raster focal points is examined. The sector images of the resolution phantom, reconstructed from the phased-array experimental data by beamforming at the radial and raster focal points, are presented for comparison of the image resolution performances of the two beamforming schemes. VLSI circuits and their implementations for the proposed techniques are presented.     

An IS&R system based on Turkish language

This paper reports an IS&R (Information Storage and Retrieval) system which has been developed to process data stored in two-dimensional tables using a well-defined subset of the Turkish Language. The language referred to as TURDIL is defined by a Regular grammar and is used on an interactive basis. The system has a fully integrated data dictionary which contains table definitions and views of tables, along with information on data-access privileges.     

Equivalent circuits for high-frequency sonar transducers

The equivalent circuits for high-frequency transducers with quarter-wave matching layers, such as are used in sonar and ultrasonic applications, are discussed in terms of simple lumped bandpass filter circuits. Expressions for the matching criteria are given for half-section and full-section filters.     

Computer aided frequency planning for the radio and TV broadcasts

The frequency planning of the VHF and UHF broadcasts in Turkey is described. This planning is done with the aid of computer databases and digital terrain map. The frequency offset is applied whenever applicable to increase the channel capacity. The offset assignment is done through simulated annealing algorithm. The international rules and regulations concerning Turkey are also considered     

A Lamb wave lens for acoustic microscopy

In a conventional scanning acoustic microscope the excited leaky modes contribute significantly to the high contrast obtained in the images. However, all such modes exist simultaneously, and the interpretation of the images is not straightforward, especially in layered media. A lens geometry is proposed that can be used with acoustic microscopes to image layered solid structures. This lens can focus the acoustic waves in only one of the Lamb wave modes of the layered solid with a high efficiency. V(Z) curves obtained from this lens are more sensitive to material properties compared to that obtained from conventional lens. Measuring the return signal as a function of frequency results in another characteristic curve, V(f). The Lamb wave lens and the associated characterization methods for the layered structures are described. The results presented show that the Lamb wave lens is at least an order of magnitude more sensitive than the conventional lens and can easily differentiate between a good bond and disbond in a layered structure.     

New method for synthesis of Pt nanoparticles embedded in a carbon matrix

Platinum (Pt) nanoparticles embedded in a carbon matrix were synthesized for the first time in benzene by an electric plasma discharge generated in the cavitation field of benzene due to an ultrasonic horn. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to study the particle size, structure and morphology of the synthesized nanoparticles. The Pt nanoparticles have FCC bulk Pt crystal structure. On the average Pt nanoparticle diameter ranged from 8 nm to 40 nm when synthesized at 4.1 kV and from 5 nm to 25 nm when synthesized at 3.4 kV. X-ray photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) were used to study the chemical composition of the synthesized nanoparticles. A cost effective new method for carbon supported Pt nanoparticles will be of potential interest in fuel cell and catalysis applications.     

A Study of Prosthetic Heart Valve Sounds

In this paper a new mechanism is proposed for the generation of phonocardiogram (PCG) sounds from implanted mechanical prosthetic heart valves. The structures in the chest, the heart, its partitions, and major vessels, constitute a frequency selective system excited by the rapidly decelerating valve occluder. It is shown that the source, the rapidly decelerating valve, has a wide and flat power spectrum and hence is an impulsive excitation that couples energy to the resonance modes specified by the structures in the chest. Consequently, the PCG signal is composed of decaying sinusoids. The parameters of the decaying sinusoids are estimated, and it is observed that the power spectra of the PCG signals have two dominant peaks in the frequency band of 200-500 Hz. The energy coupled to these two modes depends on the state of the valve. With thrombus the decelerating occluder slows down and becomes a broader pulse concentrating the energy to the lower resonance mode. This is verified by experiments on 30 patients during postoperative time course. However, no significant change in the resonance frequencies are observed which is an evidence for their anatomical and not valvular dependence.     

Multichannel ECG data compression by multirate signal processingand transform domain coding techniques

A multilead electrocardiography (ECG) data compression method is presented. First, a linear transform is applied to the standard ECG lead signals, which are highly correlated with each other. In this way a set of uncorrelated transform domain signals is obtained. Then, the resulting transform domain signals are compressed using various coding methods, including multirate signal processing and transform domain coding techniques     

Distribution of aortic mechanical prosthetic valve closure soundmodel parameters on the surface of the chest

If has been previously proposed that heart valve closure sounds can be modeled by a sum of decaying sinusoids, based on the hypothesis that the heart cavity, heart walls, major vessels, and other structures in the chest constitute a frequency selective linear acoustic system and this system is excited by the rapidly decelerating valve occluder. In this study, the distribution of the parameters of this model for the second heart sound is investigated. For this purpose, heart sounds of 10 patients who have a St. Jude-type bileaflet mechanical heart valve prosthesis in the aortic position are recorded. Recordings are performed at 12 different locations on the surface of the chest. To reliably assign representative parameters to each recording site, signal averaging, model order selection, and a special filtration technique are employed. The results of the analyses are discussed in relation to the above hypothesis on the heart sound generation mechanism. It is observed that site-to-site variation of frequencies of modes does not exceed the accuracy limit of proposed analysis method, but energies of these modes vary on the surface of the chest, and as a result of statistical analysis, it appears that energy of some modes are significantly different between two recording sites