Super-Resolution Reconstruction of Images Based on Microarray Camera

In the field of images and imaging, super-resolution (SR) reconstruction of images is a technique that converts one or more low-resolution (LR) images into a highresolution (HR) image. The classical two types of SR methods are mainly based on applying a single image or multiple images captured by a single camera. Microarray camera has the characteristics of small size, multi views, and the possibility of applying to portable devices. It has become a research hotspot in image processing. In this paper, we propose a SR reconstruction of images based on a microarray camera for sharpening and registration processing of array images. The array images are interpolated to obtain a HR image initially followed by a convolution neural network (CNN) procedure for enhancement. The convolution layers of our convolution neural network are 3×3 or 1×1 layers, of which the 1×1 layers are used to improve the network performance particularly. A bottleneck structure is applied to reduce the parameter numbers of the nonlinear mapping and to improve the nonlinear capability of the whole network. Finally, we use a 3×3 deconvolution layer to significantly reduce the number of parameters compared to the deconvolution layer of FSRCNN-s. The experiments show that the proposed method can not only ameliorate effectively the texture quality of the target image based on the array images information, but also further enhance the quality of the initial high resolution image by the improved CNN.     

Supramolecular Assembly of Aminoethylene‐Lipopeptide PMO Conjugates into RNA Splice‐Switching Nanomicelles

Phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PMOs) are oligonucleotide analogs that can be used for therapeutic modulation of pre‐mRNA splicing. Similar to other classes of nucleic acid‐based therapeutics, PMOs require delivery systems for efficient transport to the intracellular target sites. Here, artificial peptides based on the oligo(ethylenamino) acid succinyl‐tetraethylenpentamine (Stp), hydrophobic modifications, and an azide group are presented, which are used for strain‐promoted azide‐alkyne cycloaddition conjugation with splice‐switching PMOs. By systematically varying the lead structure and formulation, it is determined that the type of contained fatty acid and supramolecular assembly have a critical impact on the delivery efficacy. A compound containing linolenic acid with three cis double bonds exhibits the highest splice‐switching activity and significantly increases functional protein expression in pLuc/705 reporter cells in vitro and after local administration in vivo. Structural and mechanistic studies reveal that the lipopeptide PMO conjugates form nanoparticles, which accelerate cellular uptake and that the content of unsaturated fatty acids enhances endosomal escape. In an in vitro Duchenne muscular dystrophy exon skipping model using H2K‐mdx52 dystrophic skeletal myotubes, the highly potent PMO conjugates mediate significant splice‐switching at very low nanomolar concentrations. The presented aminoethylene‐lipopeptides are thus a promising platform for the generation of PMO‐therapeutics with a favorable activity/toxicity profile.     

Self-oscillating dimmable electronic ballast

This paper presents a simple alternative for an electronic ballast operating in self-sustained oscillating mode with dimming capability for fluorescent lamps. A simple modification in one of the gate drivers side circuit allows the lamp to dim without compromising the simplicity, reliability, and low cost which characterize the self-oscillating electronic ballast (SOEB). A qualitative analysis is presented to explain the behavior of the proposed self-oscillating electronic ballast with dimming feature. In addition, the stability and the key equations for the design are derived using the extended Nyquist criterion and describing function method. Experimental results from two 40-W electronic ballasts are presented to demonstrate the performance and to validate the analysis carried out.     

Evaluating the transfer of technology between application domains: a critical evaluation of the human component in the system

Technology can take many forms from the development of sophisticated electronics to the application of basic procedural principles. Technology transfer can also take several forms, however, in this case, it is the transfer of technological principles between application domains that is of primary interest. This paper presents a framework (the Five ‘M’s framework) that can be used to consider the likely success of technology transfer. The framework is based upon a sociotechnical system approach. The framework is illustrated with an evaluation of the introduction of intelligent cruise control into motor vehicles. It is argued that this is a technological concept first developed as an aerospace application in the form of the autopilot. In this case, it is argued that the transfer of this technology in its current form may potentially compromise safety.     

Parallel path consistency

Filtering algorithms are well accepted as a means of speeding up the solution of the consistent labeling problem (CLP). Despite the fact that path consistency does a better job of filtering than arc consistency, AC is still the preferred technique because it has a much lower time complexity. We are implementing parallel path consistency algorithms on multiprocessors and comparing their performance to the best sequential and parallel arc consistency algorithms.^(1,2) (See also work by Kerethoet al. ⁽³⁾ and Kasif⁽⁴⁾) Preliminary work has shown linear performance increases for parallelized path consistency and also shown that in many cases performance is significantly better than the theoretical worst case. These two results lead us to believe that parallel path consistency may be a superior filtering technique. Finally, we have implemented path consistency as an outer product computation and have obtained good results (e.g., linear speedup on a 64K-node Connection Machine 2).     

Disorder effects on the strain response of model polymer networks

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to investigate polymer networks made by either end-linking or randomly crosslinking a melt of linear precursor chains. The resulting network structures are very different, since end-linking leads to nearly ideal monodisperse networks, while random crosslinking leads to polydisperse networks, characterized by an exponential strand length distribution. Networks with average strand length 20 and 100 were generated. These networks were used to study the effects of disorder in the network connectivity on observables averaged either over the entire network or selected sub-structures. Heterogeneities in the randomly crosslinked networks cause significant differences in the localization of monomers, however, neither the localization of crosslinks nor the microscopic strain response are significantly affected. Compared to end-linked networks, randomly crosslinked networks have a slightly increased tube diameter, and as a result a slightly decreased shear modulus, but otherwise identical stress-strain behavior. For the investigated systems, we conclude that the microscopic strain response, tube diameter, and stress-strain relation are all insensitive to the heterogeneities due to the linking process by which the network were made.     

Higher Order Barycentric Coordinates

In recent years, a wide range of generalized barycentric coordinates has been suggested. However, all of them lack control over derivatives. We show how the notion of barycentric coordinates can be extended to specify derivatives at control points. This is also known as Hermite interpolation. We introduce a method to modify existing barycentric coordinates to higher order barycentric coordinates and demonstrate, using higher order mean value coordinates, that our method, although conceptually simple and easy to implement, can be used to give easy and intuitive control at interactive frame rates over local space deformations such as rotations.     

The five elements and chinese-american mortality.

D. P. Phillips, T. E. Ruth, and L. M. Wagner (1993) reported that 1969-1990 California mortality data show that Chinese Americans are particularly vulnerable to diseases that Chinese astrology and traditional Chinese medicine associate with their birth years. For example, because fire is associated with the heart, a Chinese person born in a fire year (such as 1937) is more likely to die of heart disease than is a Chinese person born in a nonfire year. However, many diseases were excluded from this study, some diseases that were included have ambiguous links to birth years, and the statistical tests were indirect. A more complete statistical analysis and independent California mortality data for the years 1960-1968 and 1991-2002 did not replicate the original results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)