Automated High Throughput Screening of Fluorescent Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) Assays Using Assay Platform™ Integrated with Activity Base for ‘on the fly’ Compound Reconfirmation

Advances in the field of automation have meant hitherto complex manual cell-based assays can now be automated. These improvements have brought significant enhancements in throughput, data fidelity and consistency, and allowed a reallocation of constrained resources.Building upon these improvements, we have linked our automated cell-based screening system, Assay Platform™, to Activity Base (IDBS), a software package designed to automate the analysis of HTS data. Customisation of this package has resulted in software that can identify ‘active’ compounds and re-pick them ‘on the fly’ from the original compound plates for triplicate re-testing without operator intervention.Based on an operator initially defining ‘normal’ parameters for assay activity in Activity Base, combined with an automated quality control software module that checks data fidelity, wells containing ‘active’ compounds can be re-picked and re-tested at the end of an automated screening run. Automating cell-based assays has significantly improved productivity, and, with the synergism of Activity Base, has given us greater power to complete each screening run and report ‘active’ compounds to Chemistry more rapidly. This article presents our approach to the automation of cell-based Fluorescent Imaging Plate Reader (FLIPR) screening together with automated active re-test confirmation using Activity Base.     

Information-theoretic framework for unsupervised activity classification

This article presents a mathematical framework based on information theory to compare multivariate sensory streams. Central to this approach is the notion of configuration: a set of distances between information sources, statistically evaluated for a given time span. As information distances capture simultaneously effects of physical closeness, intermodality, functional relationship and external couplings, a configuration can be interpreted as a signature for specific patterns of activity. This provides ways for comparing activity sequences by viewing them as points in an activity space. Results of experiments with an autonomous robot illustrate how this framework can be used to perform unsupervised activity classification.     

An active contour model with shape regulation scheme

This paper presents an active method for locating target objects in images, which is aimed at improving the performance of detecting object boundaries by enhancing the behavioral characteristics of an active contour. The proposed active contour model simulates a mechanical system consisting of two main parts: the first is a rigid fixture, called the 'core', specifying the expected shape of target boundaries, while the second is an elastic rod attached to the rigid fixture. The elastic rod deforms or moves relative to the rigid core according to the classical laws of the mechanical system. When the initial contour is applied to an image data, it is attracted near the dominant image features, but tries to keep its home shape and simultaneously make the deformation smooth if a deformation is more natural for force equilibrium. This mechanism significantly improves the performance of detecting object boundaries in the presence of some disturbing image features. The active contour is scale invariant, thereby significantly relieving the difficulty in selecting proper values for the model parameters. The values for the model parameters can be selected to make the contour have the desired behaviors around the equilibrium position through the analysis of the vibration mode of the mechanical system. The performance of the proposed method is validated through a series of experiments, which include detection of heavily degraded objects, tracking of objects under non-rigid motion and comparisons with the original snake models.     

Development of the quadruped walking robot,TITAN-IX — mechanical design concept and application for the humanitarian de-mining robot

This paper proposes a quadruped walking robot that has high performance as a working machine. This robot is needed for various tasks controlled by tele-operation, especially for humanitarian mine detection and removal. Since there are numerous personnel landmines that are still in place from many wars, it is desirable to provide a safe and inexpensive tool that civilians can use to remove those mines. The authors have been working on the concept of the humanitarian demining robot systems for 4 years and have performed basic experiments with the first prototype VK-I using the modified quadruped walking robot, TITAN-VIII. After those experiments, it was possible to refine some concepts and now the new robot has a tool (end-effector) changing system on its back, so that by utilizing the legs as manipulation arms and connecting various tools to the foot, it can perform mine detection and removal tasks. Toaccomplish these tasks, we developed various end-effectors that can be attached to the working leg. In this paper we will discuss the mechanical design of the new walking robot called TITAN-IX to be applied to the new system VK-II.     

Adaptive Multiuser Detection Based on RBF Networks in Impulsive Noise CDMA Channels

With increasing need for capacity in mobilecellular communications, code division multiple accesshas been viewed as the technique to meet this goal.However, the conventional receiver suffers frommultiuser interference and the near-far effect. Toalleviate this problem, various multiuser receivers havebeen proposed. They have been shown to enhance theperformance of the conventional receiver with respect to capacity and interference rejection. Butthese receivers, intended for Gaussian noise channels,can fail in other environments such as impulsive noiseconditions. A possible solution is to exploit the advantages of neural networks. A neuralnetwork's ability to reject non-Gaussian noise can beutilized to implement multiuser receivers that rejectboth impulsive noise and multiuser interference.Following this logic, this paper considers nonadaptivemultiuser receiver and adaptive multiuser receiver basedon radial basis function neural networks. Simulations ofthese receivers show results that are superior to previously studied multiuser receivers, withrespect to practicality and performance.     

On Multicarrier Detection and Coherent CDMA Mobile Receiver Radio Systems with Joint Antenna Diversity

The combination of code division multiple access(CDMA) and multicarrier (MC) transmission techniques,termed MC-CDMA, is considered a promising alternative toconventional DS (direct sequence)-CDMA. For this reason, recent research activities haveconcentrated on the application of MC-CDMA to mobileradio systems. In this paper an MC-CDMA concept which iswell suited for mobile radio applications is described. The described MC-CDMA concept overcomesdisadvantages of previously proposed concepts. InMC-CDMA mobile radio systems, signal reception isimpaired by time-varying multipath propagation. Theimpairments can be reduced by applying diversitytechniques. Coherent receiver antenna diversity (CRAD)is especially attractive because only the signalprocessing at the receivers must be modified. In thiscommunication, the application of CRAD in combination withjoint detection (JD) techniques to the more criticaluplink of MC-CDMA mobile radio systems is investigated.It is explained that the deployment of JD techniques for CRAD is an effective countermeasure againstthe influence of the mobile radio channel on the systemperformance. Four JD techniques for CRAD which areapplicable to MC-CDMA are presented. Their performances are studied in bad urban, typical urban, andtypical macrocellular environments. It is shown thatMC-CDMA allows a favorable performance compared to otherCDMA concepts.     

Error Probability of FSK Incoherent Diversity Reception with Fast Rice Fading

In this paper we compute the error performanceof noncoherent detection receivers for FSK signalstransmitted over fast frequency-flat Rician fadingchannels. Linearly time-varying fading models are used to derive closed-form expressions for the errorprobability of binary FSK signaling. Error bounds areestablished for the performance of M-ary orthogonal FSK.Simulation results are in excellent agreement with analytical predictions.     

The Photography of Freely Moving Particles

The photography of small moving particles can only be carried out with small depths of field since magnifications greater than unity must be employed for subsequent accurate analysis. Freely moving particles tend to wander from a straight path, particularly in the presence of strong convection fields, and thus may rapidly move out of focus. In this paper a technique is presented which helps to overcome this problem.     

Implementation Issues for Multiuser DS-CDMA Receivers

Multiuser detection for CDMA has been an area ofconsiderable interest in the research community due tothe significant performance gains that can be obtainedthrough the use of sophisticated receivers that exploit the intrinsic structure of themultiple access interference. Recent advances inhigh-speed digital and mixed signal technologies arespawning practical implementations of real-timesuboptimal multiuser receivers. This paper focuses onimplementation issues for advanced DS-CDMA structuresbased on multiuser detection principles, reviewingseveral of the most interesting multiuser detectionschemes from a practical implementation point of view.The computational complexity of these algorithms, a keycriterion in the selection of a joint detection schemefor practical implementation, is evaluated in terms of the time complexity per bit (TCB)decision. Various approaches for multiuser parameterestimation are also reported in this paper, since ingeneral, accurate estimation of the received amplitudes, user delays, and carrier phases is central tomultiuser detection. Subsequently, two low-complexityasynchronous real-time multiuser detectors developed atVirginia Tech are presented along with experimental measurements. Finally, other importantdevelopments leading to practical implementation ofmultiuser receivers are described.     

基于EPON家庭信息终端的语音网关硬件设计与实现

以太无源光网络（EPON）技术的发展,使三网融合光纤到户成为各单位与居民区最佳的信息接入解决方案,本文就是在EPON技术上,实现了三网融合中网络电话（VOIP）的网关设计,该网关能将模拟的声音信号转换成组播IP信号,实现用户驻地网实现电话电网与计算机互联网的融合。