High Resolution

Coal fires typically have a variety of mineral and organic deposits associated with the venting emission gases. In addition to the tars typically found at the Ruth Mullins coal fire, Perry County, Kentucky, a sooty carbon, superficially similar to a carbon from a university-based stoker-fired power plant, was sampled in an August 2010 visit. Carbons in the soot include complex carbon particles, nanotubes encapsulating Hg, onionlike structures with polyhedral and quasi-spherical morphology with hollow centers, and metal-bearing multiwalled nanotubes. Mineral sublimates from the Ruth Mullins fire in abandoned underground and surface mines in the high volatile A bituminous Middle Pennsylvanian Hazard No. 7 coalbed, Perry County, Kentucky, were examined by optical mineralogy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and high-resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM). Optical examination revealed the presence of salammoniac and a fine, unidentified fibrous mineral. XRD also showed the presence of salammoniac, along with trace amounts of quartz, kaolinite, and, possibly, phengite. Both cubic and dendritic salammoniac forms were observed with HR-TEM. Gypsum, jarosite, with cubic pseudomorphs after pyrite, and Fe-minerals, including Cr-bearing hematite in association with jarosite, were observed with HR-TEM. Dehydration of jarosite can lead to the formation of less hydrous Fe-sulfates and hematite. Mineral and amorphous inorganic phases included glassy Al-Si spheres with associated Pb and Se; nanopyrite grains with trace As and Se; nanohematite with V 3+ ; salammoniac; quartz; Cr-and Pb-bearing jarosite; fibrous pickeringite with surficial natrojarosite; and Cd-, Co-, Mo-, Ni, V-, W-, and Zr-bearing nanospheres.

An intense low pressure system formed in the Bass Strait region of southeastern Australia during the Boxing Day long weekend of 25-28 December 1998. The explosive development of this low commenced on 26 December (Boxing Day) and reached peak intensity on 27 December 1998 with mean wind speeds reported in the 50-60kt range. The event is referred to, for simplicity, as the Boxing Day storm.

Power grid's traditional security assessment approach -based on SCADA data and off-line studies conducted long in advance of real time operationsare becoming increasingly problematic for real time operations because they cannot fully anticipate all the conditions faced by operators. New technologies that rely on accurate, high-resolution, real-time monitoring of actual (not hypothesized) system conditions using synchronized measurement technologies are needed to support the real-time operations. The purpose of these tools and systems is to monitor, assess, enable, and ultimately, automatically take the necessary control action to prevent or mitigate problems in real time.

Coralline algae are one of the most important constructors of biogenic habitats. In the Mediterranean Sea, the dominant coralline algae species form crusts comprising formations known as coralligène, considered as very important fishing grounds by fishermen. Due to the destructive effect of fishing gear activities over coralligène, these formations were recently protected from the use of active benthic gears by the EU 1967/2006 Mediterranean fisheries management Regulation. However, the lack of maps and information on their distribution makes the effective application of these measures impossible. The present publication contributes to the mapping of coralligène in the southern Aegean Sea (eastern Mediterranean), and to the study of coralline algae formation morphology, distribution, development conditions and relation to fisheries using a combination of single-beam echo sounder, sidescan sonar, sub-bottom profiler recordings and biological and sedimentological ground-truthing techniques. The coralligène formations were recognized as two distinct acoustic signatures of localized backscatter facies distinguishable from other hard substrate reflectors at depths ranging from 55.9 to 114.0 m, but mainly between 70 and 90 m. Two types of formations were identified: minute reefs 0.5-2.5 m in height and superficial layer formations no more than 0.2 m thick over the substrate. The seismic profiles revealed a cavernous internal structure of the minute reefs and recorded their development on both hard and soft substrates. The distribution of formations was contagious, creating aggregations. The finding of superficial layer formations and coralline shreds around minute coralligène reefs indicated that the former could be an intermediate development type between isolated small coralline pebbles, rhodoliths, and minute reefs. Regarding the development conditions, sidescan sonar imagery indicated that the optimal conditions for the establishment and development of coralligène formations are medium intensity currents. Concerning human activity over coralligène, trawl traces were recorded near but not over minute reefs and both near and crossing superficial layer type aggregations, while a submarine cable was also recorded among minute reefs. The mapping of coralligène aggregation areas is essential for the application of the EU Regulation and the protection of this important marine habitat.

Integrating geological concepts, such as relative positions and proportions of the different lithofacies, is of highest importance in order to render realistic geological patterns. The truncated plurigaussian simulation method provides a way of using both local and conceptual geological information to infer the distributions of the facies and then those of hydraulic parameters. The method (Le Loc'h and Galli 1994) is based on the idea of truncating at least two underlying multi-Gaussian simulations in order to create maps of categorical variable. In this manuscript we show how this technique can be used to assess contaminant migration in highly heterogeneous media. We illustrate its application on the biggest contaminated site of Switzerland. It consists of a contaminant plume located in the lower fresh water Molasse on the western Swiss Plateau. The highly heterogeneous character of this formation calls for efficient stochastic methods in order to characterize transport processes.

The Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) was initiated with an extensive allocation (590 orbits in Cycles 12-13) using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for high resolution imaging. Here we review the characteristics of the HST imaging with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and parallel observations with NICMOS and WFPC2. A square field (1.8⊓ ⊔ • ) has been imaged with single-orbit ACS I-F814W exposures with 50% completeness for sources 0.5 ′′ in diameter at I AB = 26.0 mag. The ACS imaging is a key part of the COSMOS survey, providing very high sensitivity and high resolution (0.09 ′′ FWHM, 0.05 ′′ pixels) imaging and detecting 1.2 million objects to a limiting magnitude of 26.5 (AB). These images yield resolved morphologies for several hundred thousand galaxies. The small HST PSF also provides greatly enhanced sensitivity for weak lensing investigations of the dark matter distribution.

The history of the Jewish Diaspora dates back to the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests in the Levant, followed by complex demographic and migratory trajectories over the ensuing millennia which pose a serious challenge to unraveling population genetic patterns. Here we ask whether phylogenetic analysis, based on highly resolved mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) phylogenies can discern among maternal ancestries of the Diaspora. Accordingly, 1,142 samples from 14 different non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities were analyzed. A list of complete mtDNA sequences was established for all variants present at high frequency in the communities studied, along with high-resolution genotyping of all samples. Unlike the previously reported pattern observed among Ashkenazi Jews, the numerically major portion of the non-Ashkenazi Jews, currently estimated at 5 million people and comprised of the Moroccan, Iraqi, Iranian and Iberian Exile Jewish communities showed no evidence for a narrow founder effect, which did however characterize the smaller and more remote Belmonte, Indian and the two Caucasus communities. The Indian and Ethiopian Jewish sample sets suggested local female introgression, while mtDNAs in all other communities studied belong to a well-characterized West Eurasian pool of maternal lineages. Absence of sub-Saharan African mtDNA lineages among the North African Jewish communities suggests negligible or low level of admixture with females of the host populations among whom the African haplogroup (Hg) L0-L3 sub-clades variants are common. In contrast, the North African and Iberian Exile Jewish communities show influence of putative Iberian admixture as documented by mtDNA Hg HV0 variants. These findings highlight striking differences in the demographic history of the widespread Jewish Diaspora.

Fatty acid composition of human milk (HM) is known to change considerably during lactation. However, we were unable to find data on changes of fatty acid composition of HM during the very early phase of lactation, i.e. in the first week of life. HM samples were obtained from 18 healthy lactating women every day during the first week and thereafter on the 14th and 28th days of lactation. Fatty acid composition of colostrum and mature HM samples was determined by high-resolution capillary gas-liquid chromatography. Values of the n-6 essential fatty acid, linoleic acid, in HM did not change significantly during the first month of lactation, whereas values of the n-3 essential fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid, showed significant increases during the first 2 weeks of lactation (1st day: 0.49 [0.12], % weight/weight, median [ranges from the 1st to the 3rd quartile], 14th day: 0.69 [0.31], p < 0.05). In contrast, values of the n-6 long-chain metabolites, eicosadienoic-, dihomo-gamma-linolenic- and arachidonic acid, as well as the values of the n-3 long-chain metabolites, eicosatrienoic-, and eicosapentaenoic acid exhibited significant decreases during the entire period investigated. The principal n-3 long-chain metabolite, docosahexaenoic acid, showed a significant increase between the 3rd and 14th days, but a significant decrease between the 14th and 28th days (3rd day: 0.15 [0.13], 14th day: 0.28 [0.11], p < 0.05, 28th day: 0.19 [0.12], p < 0.01). There were statistically significant positive correlations between arachidonic and docosahexaenoic acid values on the 1st (r = 0.67, p < 0.01), 5th (r = 0.56, p < 0.05) and the 6th (r = 0.53, p < 0.05) days of lactation. Fatty acid composition of HM changes significantly even during the first week of lactation. The lack of positive correlation between essential fatty acids and their long-chain metabolites suggests that it is not only the availability of essential fatty acids that influences the fatty acid composition of human colostrum.

This paper concerns the problem of actively searching for and localizing ground features by a coordinated team of air and ground robotic sensor platforms. The approach taken builds on well known Decentralized Data Fusion (DDF) methodology. In particular, it brings together established representations developed for identification and linearized estimation problems to jointly address feature detection and localization. This provides transparent and scalable integration of sensor information from air and ground platforms. As in previous studies, an Informationtheoretic utility measure and local control strategy drive the robots to uncertainty reducing team configurations. Complementary characteristics in terms of coverage and accuracy are revealed through analysis of the observation uncertainty for air and ground on-board cameras. Implementation results for a detection and localization example indicate the ability of this approach to scalably and efficiently realize such collaborative potential.

An adaptive and fast constant false alarm rate (CFAR) algorithm based on automatic censoring (AC) is proposed for target detection in high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. First, an adaptive global threshold is selected to obtain an index matrix which labels whether each pixel of the image is a potential target pixel or not. Second, by using the index matrix, the clutter environment can be determined adaptively to prescreen the clutter pixels in the sliding window used for detecting. The G 0 distribution, which can model multilook SAR images within an extensive range of degree of homogeneity, is adopted as the statistical model of clutter in this paper. With the introduction of AC, the proposed algorithm gains good CFAR detection performance for homogeneous regions, clutter edge, and multitarget situations. Meanwhile, the corresponding fast algorithm greatly reduces the computational load. Finally, target clustering is implemented to obtain more accurate target regions. According to the theoretical performance analysis and the experiment results of typical real SAR images, the proposed algorithm is shown to be of good performance and strong practicability.

Wood coatings are widely used for aesthetic and protective reasons. Assessment of coating performance during service life is crucial in order to establish a knowledge database for product optimization. A vast amount of techniques is available for analysis of a coating's behavior of which micro-imaging is an important tool. In addition to standard microscopy techniques, high-resolution X-ray tomography is presented as a modality offering non-destructive visualization of a coating and the substrate applied on. Combined with analysis of the 3D volumetric data, surface roughness, structure and thickness of the coating layer, penetration depth and related mechanical anchoring can be studied in relation with the underlying substrate. To provide a clear illustration of the possibilities and limitations of this technique, both an opaque solvent-borne and an opaque water-borne coating applied on two different wood types were scanned and analyzed. Clearly, three-dimensional X-ray imaging at high resolution produces valuable information merely by visualization. Moreover by proper analysis quantitative data is obtained taking into account the limitations of Xray computed tomography and of automated image processing.

Dynamic, multicompartment in vitro gastrointestinal simulators are often used to monitor gut microbial dynamics and activity. These reactors need to harbor a microbial community that is stable upon inoculation, colon region specific, and relevant to in vivo conditions. Together with the reproducibility of the colonization process, these criteria are often overlooked when the modulatory properties from different treatments are compared. We therefore investigated the microbial colonization process in two identical simulators of the human intestinal microbial ecosystem (SHIME), simultaneously inoculated with the same human fecal microbiota with a high-resolution phylogenetic microarray: the human intestinal tract chip (HITChip). Following inoculation of the in vitro colon compartments, microbial community composition reached steady state after 2 weeks, whereas 3 weeks were required to reach functional stability. This dynamic colonization process was reproducible in both SHIME units and resulted in highly diverse microbial communities which were colon region specific, with the proximal regions harboring saccharolytic microbes (e.g., Bacteroides spp. and Eubacterium spp.) and the distal regions harboring mucindegrading microbes (e.g., Akkermansia spp.). Importantly, the shift from an in vivo to an in vitro environment resulted in an increased Bacteroidetes/Firmicutes ratio, whereas Clostridium cluster IX (propionate producers) was enriched compared to clusters IV and XIVa (butyrate producers). This was supported by proportionally higher in vitro propionate concentrations. In conclusion, high-resolution analysis of in vitro-cultured gut microbiota offers new insight on the microbial colonization process and indicates the importance of digestive parameters that may be crucial in the development of new in vitro models.

Doses in mammography should be maintained as low as possible without reducing the high image quality needed for early detection of the breast cancer. The breast is composed of tissues with very close composition and densities. It increases the difficulty to detect small changes in the normal anatomical structures which may be associated with breast cancer. To achieve the standards of definition and contrast for mammography, the quality and intensity of the X-ray beam, the breast positioning and compression, the film-screen system, and the film processing have to be in optimal operational conditions. This study sought to evaluate average glandular dose (AGD) and image quality on a standard phantom in 134 mammography units in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, between December 2004 and May 2006. AGDs were obtained by means of entrance kerma measured with TL LiF100 dosimeters on phantom surface. Phantom images were obtained with automatic exposure technique, fixed 28 kV and molybdenum anode-filter combination. The phantom used contained structures simulating tumoral masses, microcalcifications, fibers and low contrast areas. High-resolution metallic meshes to assess image definition and a stepwedge to measure image contrast index were also inserted in the phantom. The visualization of simulated structures, the mean optical density and the contrast index allowed to classify the phantom image quality in a seven-point scale. The results showed that 54.5% of the facilities did not achieve the minimum performance level for image quality. It is mainly due to insufficient film processing observed in 61.2% of the units. AGD varied from 0.41 to 2.73 mGy with a mean value of 1.3270.44 mGy. In all optimal quality phantom images, AGDs were in this range. Additionally, in 7.3% of the mammography units, the AGD constraint of 2 mGy was exceeded. One may conclude that dose level to patient and image quality are not in conformity to regulations in most of the facilities. This indicates that ongoing actions are needed to optimize image quality and radiation dose for early detection of the breast cancer.

The number of sensors for Earth environmental observation is growing. Several new sensors have been announced for the near future and several proposals for smart sensors have been proposed. In particular, distributed sensors, sensor network and sensor integration are being taken into account, and smart sensors, intelligent sensors, sensor’s autonomy, etc. is beginning to be used in future earth observing satellites. This paper investigates the development of sensors in Earth observing (EO) satellites, analyzes the current high-resolution EO satellites and presents the tendency of new imaging systems in future Earth observing satellite. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the growing interest in knowing and keeping track of the details of the imaging system of earth observing satellites. This project is of particular interest to those who are developing the skills to measure and understand the detail of our Earth environment through analysis of satellite data. 1.

Pollen and high-resolution charcoal data from Bluff Lake and Crater Lake, California, indicate similar changes in climate, vegetation and fire history during the last 15 500 years. Pollen data at Bluff Lake suggest that the vegetation between c. 15 500 and 13 100 cal. BP consisted of subalpine parkland with scattered Pinus and Abies. After 13 100 cal. BP a relatively closed forest of P. monticola, P. contorta and Abies developed, and fire-event frequency was low. The inferred climate then was cooler and wetter than present. Pinus and Quercus vaccinifolia dominated at both sites during the early Holocene, when conditions were warm and dry. As climate became wetter and cooler in the late Holocene, Abies spp. at both sites and Tsuga mertensiana at Crater Lake increased in importance, displacing Pinus and Quercus. The two lake records have similar trends in fire history, with high event frequencies at c. 8400, 4000 and 1000 cal. BP and low values at c. 4800 cal. BP. The fire and vegetation history at both sites suggests a similar response to large-scale changes in climate during the Holocene.

The spatial resolution of numerical weather prediction and climate models is generally determined by their grid spacing (∆x) or spectral truncation and the numerical implementation of dynamical core and model parametrisations. For example features of the scale 2∆x and 3∆x are smoothed to avoid numerical instabilities (e.g., aliasing effects) and parameterisations in connection to advection, pressure gradient force, and subgrid-scale diffusion can only be well represented at dimensions of at least four times the grid spacing. Some parametrisations, however, generate energy at the grid-spacing scale. These multiple effects on the effective resolution of models are investigated in this study for three high resolution regional climate models (RCMs) in dependence of their grid spacing.

At the present time, remote sensing technologies are being improved and day by day, by launching new satellites with new developed techniques, images can be obtained faster with high resolution. The satellites which had been launched recent years for example; Ikonos, Quickbird and Orbview-3 have 1m and better resolution, continue their missions with quite success.

We report on high-resolution spatial and timing results for binary millisecond pulsar PSR J0218+4232 obtained with the Chandra HRC-I and HRC-S in imaging mode. The sub-arcsecond resolution image of the HRC-I (0.08-10 keV) showed that the X-ray emission from PSR J0218+4232 is consistent with that of a point source excluding the presence of a compact nebula with a size of about 14 ′′ for which we had indications in ROSAT HRI data. The presence of a DC component is confirmed. This X-ray DC component has a softer spectrum than the pulsed emission and can be explained by emission from a heated polar cap. With our HRC-S observation we obtained a 0.08-10 keV pulse profile with high statistics showing the well-known double peaked morphology in more detail than before: The two pulses have broad wings and pulsed emission appears only to be absent in a narrow phase window of width ∼ < 0.1. The absolute timing accuracy of ∼ 200µs makes it possible to compare for the first time in absolute phase the X-ray pulse profile with the highly structured radio profile and the high-energy γ-ray profile (0.1-1 GeV). The two X-ray pulses are aligned within absolute timing uncertainties with two of the three radio pulses. Furthermore, the two γ-ray pulses are aligned with the two non-thermal X-ray pulses, corresponding to a probability for a random occurrence of 4.9σ, strengthening the credibility of the earlier reported first detection of pulsed high-energy γ-ray emission from a (this) millisecond pulsar.

The cysteine-rich N-terminal domain of the micronemal adhesive protein MIC1 (MIC1-NT) from Toxoplasma gondii was cloned, expressed in Escherichia coli and purified. MIC1-NT is amenable to structural studies as shown by preliminary NMR and X-ray analysis. Positive results with two further micronemal proteins indicate that our strategy has wider application.

The CHORUS Collaboration is presently building a new detector for the search of v,,-vi oscillations in the CERN neutrino beam, the experiment being sensitive to a mixing angle an order of magnitude smaller than the present limit. The basic components of the CHORUS "hybrid" detector are an active target made of nuclear emulsions, an air core spectrometer with scintillating fiber tracking, a high resolution calorimeter and a muon spectrometer. An account is given here of the design of the 110-tons compensating calorimeter, made of 1 mm diameter scintillating fibers embedded in a lead matrix, and of the test results from the first modules produced .

An hybrid atomic force-scanning near-field optical microscope (AFM-SNOM) has been realized starting from a home-built AFM. The instrument uses a tetrahedral SiN tip for force and near field detection and is designed to provide, besides simple imaging, a full three-dimensional (3-D) mapping of force, friction and light intensity on the sample. High-resolution optical images of dielectric samples are presented together with curves describing the behavior of the collected optical intensity as a function of tip-object distance. AFM images and forcedistance curves are reported as well and are compared with those obtained from the optical channel. Subwavelength features of the samples can be easily appreciated in both kinds of images, and the refractive index of the object can be computed from the attenuation constant of the tunneling light detected by the tip, with the AFM curve providing a convenient way of detecting the contact point. The spatial resolution of this kind of measurement is far better than that obtainable with any other index-measuring device. Homogeneous glass samples as well as monomode channel waveguides were analyzed in our experiments. The refractive index of several different prisms, made either of BK7 (n = 1:519 at = 532 nm) or of SF58 (n = 1:932) glass, could be measured with our near-field technique. As for the channel waveguides, the accuracy of our measurements lets us detect their presence and lateral extension in the substrate but is not yet sufficient to allow the reconstruction of their index profile.

Gold nanoparticles protected by a binary mixture of thiolate molecules have a ligand shell that can spontaneously separate into nanoscale domains. Complex morphologies arise in such ligand shells, including striped, patchy, and Janus domains. Characterization of these morphologies remains a challenge. Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) imaging has been one of the key approaches to determine these structures, yet the imaging of nanoparticles' surfaces faces difficulty stemming from steep surface curvature, complex molecular structures, and the possibility of imaging artifacts in the same size range. Images obtained to date have lacked molecular resolution, and only domains have been resolved. There is a clear need for images that resolve the molecular arrangement that leads to domain formation on the ligand shell of these particles. Herein we report an advance in the STM imaging of gold nanoparticles, revealing some of the molecules that constitute the domains in striped and Janus gold nanoparticles. We analyze the images to determine molecular arrangements on parts of the particles, highlight molecular "defects" present in the ligand shell, show persistence of the features across subsequent images, and observe the transition from quasimolecular to domain resolution. The ability to resolve single molecules in the ligand shell of nanoparticles could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of the ligand structure in determining the properties of mixed-monolayer-protected gold nanoparticles.

Using scintillation crystal sheets instead of discrete crystal arrays in high-resolution PET has the immediate advantage of reduced complexity as well as a potential for increased sensitivity. In order to evaluate the positioning capability of a position sensitive avalanche photodioide (PSAPD) using a sheet Lutetium Oxyorthosilicate (LSO) crystal scintillator, we studied the dependence of detected event position versus the known source position. In particular, we studied positioning in a continuous 8 mm 8 mm LSO sheet coupled to a PSAPD with an 8 mm 8 mm active area experimentally, studied optical transport in the sheet crystal with Monte Carlo simulation, and used two positioning methods to evaluate PSAPD pincushioning effects. Both collimated 57 Co 122 keV and coincidence-triggered 22 Na 511 keV sources were used in the experiments performed. We analyze the energy resolution, sensitivity, photopeak position and spatial resolution as a function of source position. An average point spread function (PSF) resolution of 2.86 and 1.12 mm FWHM for 57 Co and 22 Na respectively was observed. Within 1.2 mm from the edge of the LSO sheet, the average photopeak position change was 5%. Simulations using annihilation photon interactions from GATE and scintillation photon transport from DETECT2000, as well as utilizing a pincushion-reduction posioning algorithm, have confirmed that the positioning and energy response observed experimently at the edge of the crystal is due to optical transport near those edges.

An OSGi (Open Services Gateway Initiative) home gateway system manages the integration of heterogeneous home networks protocols and devices to develop ubiquitous applications. Wired and wireless heterogeneous home networks have different QoS concerns. For instance, jitter and latency are important concerns in web phones, while packet loss ratio is important in on-line video. This study adopts UPnP QoS specification version 1.0 to design an adaptive QoS management mechanism based on the RMD (Resource Management in DiffServ) architecture. This study monitors real-time network traffic, and adaptively controls the bandwidth, to satisfy the minimum but most important quality for each application in home network congestion. Simulation results indicate that the average jitter, latency and packet loss are reduced by 0.1391 ms, 0.0066 s, and 5.43%, respectively. The packet loss ratio is reduced by 4.53%, and the throughput is increased by 1.2% in high definition video stream; the packet loss ratio is reduced by 1.89% for standard definition video stream, and in VoIP (Voice over IP) the jitter and latency are reduced to 0.0407 ms and 0.0209 s, respectively.

In this work, we report on a novel microfabrication process suitable for macroelectronics, flexible electronics and biological applications. It consists of the embedding of high aspect ratio vertical nanosheets of materials on the surface of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by using a reusable template and a dry-transfer process. Vertical Au-nanosheets (Au-NS) were successfully transferred onto the PDMS surface. Although a high density of embedded vertical nanosheets on the PDMS, the optical properties of the PDMS sheet in transmission were high enough for a low cost and high-resolution flexible photomask application. Sub-micron photolithography was demonstrated using inexpensive UV mask aligner and photoresist.

Trabajo presentado en el Workshop on UAV-based Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Vegetation, celebrado en Colonia (Alemania) el 9 y 10 de septiembre de 2013. Mas informacion en http://www.tr32db.uni-koeln.de/workshops/proceedings.php?wsID=3.

The effects of g irradiation on polymers used in food packaging have been studied by NMR. In order to assess the presence of a threshold dose for an observable effect, the whole range of 1-100 kGy was investigated. Polystyrene, poly-butadiene, styrene-acrylonitrile, highimpact polystyrene and acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene were studied before and after the g irradiation treatment and in the presence or in the absence of antioxidants and stabilizers. In the absence of stabilizers, the effect of g irradiation on polystyrene is negligible even when operating at high doses. In contrast, the role of antioxidants and stabilizers is crucial in poly-butadiene and butadiene-containing copolymers. High-resolution NMR, dynamic mechanical analysis, impact analysis and gel permeation chromatography performed on irradiated polystyrene samples do not show any detectable effect, confirming polystyrene as an ideal polymer for food packaging use.

Vertical-Cavity Surface-Emitting Laser (VCSEL) diodes are among the youngest members of the semiconductor laser diode family. The main aim of our work focuses on the measurement of the basic properties (the spectral range of the laser emission, temperature and current tunability) of experimental VCSEL diode lasers based on GaSb operating in the infrared region around 4250 cm −1. A high-resolution FTIR Bruker IFS 120 HR spectrometer with a maximum resolution of 0.0035 cm −1 was used in the emission setup for the laser diagnostic research. The absorption spectra of atmospheric pollutants like methane, carbon monoxide and ammonia have been measured using these VCSELs for the first time.

Sequencing based typing (SBT) has become the gold standard in HLA-typing. In recent years various strategies have been developed. However the most time consuming and error prone part of SBT is still dataanalysis including reporting and archiving of the generated data. In addition, the ever vast increasing number of HLA alleles, increase the number of ambiguous results which require a special approach to resolve. In recent IMGT/HLA database release the total number has succeeded even 6000 different HLA-alleles. Methods: We have improved our software package SBTengine® significantly; e.g allowing now a reduced number of crucial position to check manually, as the software is using a quality scoring per nucleotide. Moreover also the CWD list and NMDP allele frequency list are exploited elegantly such that the attention of the reviewer is directed to most important crucial positions. Results: SBTengine® combines all sequences of a single sample, either homozygous or heterozygous to a conclusive allele assignment. The software guides the user easily through the typing process. In case of an ambiguity, the DART system of SBTengine® suggests a consecutive action, either to sequence an additional region or to apply a Group Specific Sequencing Primer to separate the HLA alleles. Furthermore, almost all known null-alleles are excluded or confirmed automatically. SBTengine® is an open software package and accepts any HLA sequencing data generated independently of the reagents used. Conclusions: We will show new and unique features of the latest version of SBTengine®. The versatility of SBTengine® will enable laboratories to easily implement SBT Typing into their daily routine laboratory activities and to obtain high resolution and accurate HLA typing in a straightforward manner.

Accurate wind and severe-weather forecasts are crucial for wind-energy production and grid-load management. Most of the prevailing wind power forecast methods rely heavily on statistical approaches that typically do not deal directly with weather processes. Currently employed numerical weather prediction (NWP) models are deemed insufficiently accurate by many industry stakeholders for wind power prediction, even though they have been used for such applications. The reason is partly because the NWP products used for power forecasting are typically produced by the coarse-resolution models at the major operational weather centers. Although a few of high-resolution models are run by some wind energy industries, most of these model do not contain advanced data assimilation capabilities that are required to initialize the model prediction with the important high-resolution weather information.

Joining of dissimilar materials is of increasing interest for a wide range of industrial applications. The automotive industry, in particular, views dissimilar materials joining as a gateway for the implementation of lightweight materials. Specifically, the introduction of aluminum alloy parts into a steel car body requires the development of reliable, efficient and economic joining processes. Since aluminum and steel demonstrate

Several types of X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core scanners have been developed to fulfill the demands for high-resolution, rapid, chemical analysis of wet sediment cores. However, their application to quantitative analysis has been hampered by the difficulty of evaluating the XRF absorption effect of water in a water film on the sediment surface and interstitial water within the sediments, especially for lighter elements. In this study, we established a non-destructive, rapid, high-resolution, and quantitative chemical analysis method for wet fine-grained sediment samples using an XRF microscanner. Results of our experiments suggest that the degree of XRF absorption by the water film, which develops on the wet sample surface covered with Mylar film, shows a clear positive correlation with the water content of the sediments under the measurement area. A clear positive correlation also exists between the degree of XRF absorption by the interstitial water and the water content of the sediments under the measurement area. We evaluated the XRF absorption by the thin water film using the relationship between the water content and thickness of the thin water film, and the XRF absorption by the interstitial water using its relation with the water content. The water content under the measurement area is estimated from the average transmitted X-ray intensity that is measured on the same measurement area simultaneously with the measurement of XRF intensities. The dry sample equivalent XRF intensities of major elements (Al, Si, K, Ca, Ti, and Fe), which are the XRF intensities of wet samples corrected for the XRF absorption by the thin water film and the interstitial water, show better correlation with the major element concentrations determined by conventional XRF methods. Using this new method, it is possible to measure the average water content and average concentrations of the 6 major elements simultaneously for a square area as small as 0.5 × 0.5 mm on the wet fine-grained sediment within 6 min, which is nearly ten times faster than the conventional XRF method.

High resolution radio observations of the nearby starburst galaxy M82 at both 1.6 GHz and 5 GHz are presented. The combination of simultaneous Global VLBI and MERLIN observations of M82, made on the 3rd Mar. 2005, have produced the first detailed observations of the majority of the supernova remnants within the central starburst of M82 at a frequency of 1.6 GHz. These data also provide the fifth epoch of milliarcsec resolution images of the four most compact sources, allowing monitoring of their evolution over a 19 year timeline. In addition, MERLIN 5 GHz observations over an 8 day period have been used to study the expansion of ten of the supernova remnants within the central starburst.

The 26-residue toxin from Staphylococcus aureus, &hemolysin, is thought to act by traversing the plasma membrane. The structure of this peptide, in methanol solution, has been investigated by using high-resolution N M R in combination with molecular dynamics calculations. The 'H N M R spectrum has been completely assigned, and it is shown that residues 2-20 form a relatively stable helix while the residues at the C-terminal end appear to be more flexible. The structures were calculated only from nuclear Overhauser effect data and standard bond lengths. It is shown that the results are consistent with 3JNH-o,CH coupling constants and amide hydrogen exchange rates.

his paper is concerned with a computational solution for normal optical flow estimation using space-variant image sampling. The article describes one solution for the problem based on log-Tpol ar images, including the algorithm implementation on digital signal processing hardware. The log-polar structure achieves high data compressing rates by maintaining a high resolution area-the fovea-and a space-variant resolution-the retinal periphery. This sampling scheme enables the implementation of selective processing, characteristic of attentive vision. The solution was developed to be used with an active vision system to pursue moving objects, assuming that the cameras could also move. Some properties of the log-polar structure are also described and the main results of the implementation are presented.

The high-resolution incoherent quasi-elastic neutron scattering (IQENS) technique is applied to study the translational diffusive motion of water protons in aqueous ionic solution. It is shown that the measured spectra give information on the cation-proton binding time and proton diffusion coefficients in solution.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Radiologic evaluation of CSF leaks is a diagnostic challenge that often involves multiple imaging studies with the associated expense and patient discomfort. We evaluated the use of screening noncontrast high-resolution CT in identifying the presence and site of CSF rhinorrhea and otorrhea and compared it with contrast-enhanced CT cisternography and radionuclide cisternography.

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is thought to be the neuroanatomical interface between emotion and cognition. Because effective emotion-cognition interactions are essential to optimal decision making, clarifying how the functionality of the ACC changes in older age using functional imaging holds great promise for ultimately understanding what contributes to the psychological changes occurring in late life. However, the interpretation of functional imaging studies is complicated by the fact that aging is associated with changes in grey matter volume and in the cerebral vasculature. In the present study, we obtained high-resolution structural magnetic resonance (MR) imaging data and quantitative blood flow images to examine the association between aging, blood flow, and grey matter volume in the ACC. Twenty-six healthy individuals between 25 and 79 years of age underwent quantitative [ 15 O]water positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. The ACC was traced onto tissue-classified images derived from T1-and T2-weighted MRIs using previously defined methods. The ACC was divided into dorsal, rostral, and subgenual regions. Age was negatively correlated with blood flow in dorsal and rostral ACC regions. Effects were weaker but in a similar direction for the subgenual ACC. While older age and lower blood flow were both associated with smaller rostral ACC grey matter volumes, mediation analysis revealed that grey matter volume only partially mediated the effect of age on blood flow in the rostral ACC. Neural alterations not detectable on MR images may lead to reduced blood flow due to fewer and/or less metabolically active neurons. Alternatively, lower blood flow may be a cause, rather than a consequence, of smaller grey matter volume in the ACC. M., 2002. Changes in regional cerebral blood flow abnormalities in late-life depression following response to electroconvulsive therapy. Psychiatry Clin. Neurosci. 56, 31-40. Baron, R.M., Kenny, D.A., 1986. The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51, 1173-1182. Bennett, S.A., Tenniswood, M., Chen, J.H., Davidson, C.M., Keyes, M.T., Fortin, T., Pappas, B.A., 1998. Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion elicits neuronal apoptosis and behavioral impairment. NeuroReport 9, 161-166. ., 2001. Hippocampal and anterior cingulate activation deficits in patients with geriatric depression. Am. J. Psychiatry 158, 1321-1323. Denburg, N.L., Recknor, E.C., Bechara, A., Tranel, D., 2006. Psychophysiological anticipation of positive outcomes promotes advantageous decision-making in normal older persons. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 61, 19-25. Devinsky, O., Morrell, M.J., Vogt, B.A., 1995. Contributions of anterior cingulate cortex to behaviour. Brain 118, 279-306.

A new dual-loop digital PLL (DPLL) architecture is presented. It employs a stochastic time-to-digital converter (STDC) and a high frequency delta-sigma dithering to achieve a wide PLL bandwidth and low jitter at the same time. The test chip has been fabricated in a 0.13µm CMOS process. The DPLL features a 0.7-1.7 GHz oscillator tuning range, 6.9ps rms jitter and consumes 17mW while operating at 1.2GHz.

Multi-Agent transport simulation models, e.g. MATSim have proven to be suitable for modeling microscopic demand for large scale scenarios based on planning networks. In the recent years survey methods are using technologies which provides mobility information with a much higher spatial resolution (e.g. GPS tracking). Therefore, the need to model travel demand on detailed navigation networks rises, which slows down simulation speed significantly. This paper presents methods to increase the performance of the micro simulation model of MATSim using event driven concepts as well as a parallel implementation. The performance experiments with navigation networks of Switzerland containing up to one million roads and 7.3 million agents clearly show that large-scale, multi-agent micro-simulation can also be applied on high resolution networks.