Catheter for diagnosis and therapy with infrared evanescent waves

We have developed an optical delivery device (catheter) capable of transmitting broadband infrared light (IR wavelengths from 2 to 10 microm) for both diagnostic and therapeutic applications. The catheter is 1.68 mm in outer diameter and 1 m in length. It consists of two hollow glass waveguides coupled to a high-refractive-index optic tip. The IR light interacts with the tissue at the optic-tissue interface to measure the spectral signatures and perform therapy on the tissue at this interface. Fourier-transform IR spectrophotometer light is used to obtain the spectral signatures, and an IR free-electron laser (FEL) is used to study the therapeutic interaction of evanescent waves with the tissue. We present our catheter design; preliminary IR spectroscopy of aorta, blood, fatty tissue, and muscle; and IR FEL therapy on atheroslerotic aorta.     

Single-parameter controlled-variable amplitude change function for digital filtering

A single-parameter controlled-variable amplitude change function has been constructed for digital filtering using multiple units of a prototype filter. The limits of variation are discussed. The technique is shown to be useful not only for the reduction of errors in either the pass band or the stop band of the overall filter, but also for varying the cutoff frequency of the overall filter over a wide range. Hardware implementation problems resulting from a wide variation are shown to be overcome by a modular approach.     

Fullerenes and Nanotubes from Coal

Abstract

Graphite has normally been used to synthesise fullerenes and nanotubes. However, coal is a cheaper and more suitable industrial material. Because coal is a molecular solid, unlike graphite, the mechanism by which fullerene and nanotubes are formed is different. Moreover, other products such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and microfibres are also formed. In this review, the mechanism of formation of fullerene and nanotubes from coal is discussed. It is shown that the pathway involved is other than through the C₁ intermediate route. The influence of other elements in coal such as hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur and iron is also discussed. It appears that, hydrogen, oxygen, iron and sulfur affect the yield and type of fullerenes and nanotubes formed.     

Using multirate architectures in realizing quadratic Volterrakernels

Multirate architectures have been used for realizing linear FIR digital filters with reduced computational complexity. The Volterra kernel can be represented as a generalized convolution. It would thus be expected that multirate architectures could be used to advantage in realizing Volterra kernels as well. The quadratic Volterra kernel may be realized in the form of an “LDL structure.” The LDL structure includes a set of FIR filters of increasing length, which may be realized in a computationally efficient manner using multirate architectures     

On characterization of linear phase nonuniform filter banks

In this paper, a condition termed as linear phase condition (LPC), which ensures that the filters of a nonuniform filter bank are linear phase, is presented. It is observed that the proposed LPC is also applicable to the uniform filter bank case. Further, the utility of this LPC to find (i) necessary restrictions on the filters lengths, (ii) the number of symmetric and antisymmetric filters in the filter bank and (iii) filter bank decimation factors is also investigated. The results obtained for the different cases are also presented in the form of tables. These tables will facilitate the design of nonuniform filter bank by ruling out the non-solvable cases and by reducing the search space, thus saving the designers’ precious time.     

Isotropic conforming refinement of quadrilateral and hexahedral meshes using two‐refinement templates

This paper presents three automated algorithms for isotropic, conforming refinement of all‐quadrilateral and all‐hexahedral meshes. These algorithms are based on the two‐refinement templates introduced by Schneiders. However, we introduce a novel technique to choose the appropriate refinement template locally. This enables efficient implementation of the proposed algorithms, even in parallel. The proposed algorithms can handle refined regions of complicated geometry and do not suffer from concavity restrictions associated with the three‐refinement methods currently dominating the literature. Several application examples show the strength of these new algorithms in problems that require fast dynamic remeshing such as computational fluid dynamics and computer graphics. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fullerenes and Nanotubes from Coal

Graphite has normally been used to synthesise fullerenes and nanotubes. However, coal is a cheaper and more suitable industrial material. Because coal is a molecular solid, unlike graphite, the mechanism by which fullerene and nanotubes are formed is different. Moreover, other products such as polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and microfibres are also formed. In this review, the mechanism of formation of fullerene and nanotubes from coal is discussed. It is shown that the pathway involved is other than through the C₁ intermediate route. The influence of other elements in coal such as hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur and iron is also discussed. It appears that, hydrogen, oxygen, iron and sulfur affect the yield and type of fullerenes and nanotubes formed.     

Fragment‐Parallel Composite and Filter

We present a strategy for parallelizing the composite and filter operations suitable for an order‐independent rendering pipeline implemented on a modern graphics processor. Conventionally, this task is parallelized across pixels/subpixels, but serialized along individual depth layers. However, our technique extends the domain of parallelization to individual fragments (samples), avoiding a serial dependence on the number of depth layers, which can be a constraint for scenes with high depth complexity. As a result, our technique scales with the number of fragments and can sustain a consistent and predictable throughput in scenes with both low and high depth complexity, including those with a high variability of depth complexity within a single frame. We demonstrate composite/filter performance in excess of 50M fragments/sec for scenes with more than 1500 semi‐transparent layers.     

Fourier-Based Feature Extraction for Classification of EEG Signals Using EEG Rhythms

In this paper, we propose a method for the analysis and classification of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals using EEG rhythms. The EEG rhythms capture the nonlinear complex dynamic behavior of the brain system and the nonstationary nature of the EEG signals. This method analyzes common frequency components in multichannel EEG recordings, using the filter bank signal processing. The mean frequency (MF) and RMS bandwidth of the signal are estimated by applying Fourier-transform-based filter bank processing on the EEG rhythms, which we refer intrinsic band functions, inherently present in the EEG signals. The MF and RMS bandwidth estimates, for the different classes (e.g., ictal and seizure-free, open eyes and closed eyes, inter-ictal and ictal, healthy volunteers and epileptic patients, inter-ictal epileptogenic and opposite to epileptogenic zone) of EEG recordings, are statistically different and hence used to distinguish and classify the two classes of signals using a least-squares support vector machine classifier. Experimental results, with 100 % classification accuracy, on a real-world EEG signals database analysis illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for EEG signal classification.     

Finding nonfaulty subtrees in faulty binary tree architectures

In this paper we have studied fault tolerance of a full binary tree in terms of availability of non-faulty (full) subtrees. When an unaugmented full binary tree is faulty, then the computation can be carried out on the largest available non-faulty (full) binary subtree.It is shown that the minimum number of faulty nodes required to destroy all subtrees of height h in a full binary tree of height n is given as f_bt(n, h) = (2ⁿ−1)/(2^h−1). It follows that the availability of a non-faulty subtree of height h = n−w, in an n level full binary tree containing u faulty nodes, can be ensured, where w is the smallest integer such that u ≤ 2^w.An algorithm which evaluates whether a given set of faulty nodes will destroy all subtrees of some specified height, is given. This algorithm can also evaluate the largest available non-faulty subtree in a faulty full binary tree. We also study the availability of a non-faulty subtree in some augmented binary tree architectures.