Deterministic mechanical model of T-killer cell polarization reproduces the wandering of aim between simultaneously engaged targets

T-killer cells of the immune system eliminate virus-infected and tumorous cells through direct cell-cell interactions. Reorientation of the killing apparatus inside the T cell to the T-cell interface with the target cell ensures specificity of the immune response. The killing apparatus can also oscillate next to the cell-cell interface. When two target cells are engaged by the T cell simultaneously, the killing apparatus can oscillate between the two interface areas. This oscillation is one of the most striking examples of cell movements that give the microscopist an unmechanistic impression of the cell's fidgety indecision. We have constructed a three-dimensional, numerical biomechanical model of the molecular-motor-driven microtubule cytoskeleton that positions the killing apparatus. The model demonstrates that the cortical pulling mechanism is indeed capable of orienting the killing apparatus into the functional position under a range of conditions. The model also predicts experimentally testable limitations of this commonly hypothesized mechanism of T-cell polarization. After the reorientation, the numerical solution exhibits complex, multidirectional, multiperiodic, and sustained oscillations in the absence of any external guidance or stochasticity. These computational results demonstrate that the strikingly animate wandering of aim in T-killer cells has a purely mechanical and deterministic explanation. © 2009 Kim, Maly

Real-time analysis of video signals

Many practical and experimental systems employing image processing techniques have been built by other workers for various applications. Most of these systems are computer-based and very few operate in a real time environment. The objective of this work is to build a microprocessor-based system for video image processing. The system is used in conjunction with an on-line TV camera and processing is carried out in real time. The enormous storage requirement of digitized TV signals and the real time constraint suggest that some simplification of the data must take place prior to any viable processing. Data reduction is attained through the representation of objects by their edges, an approach often adopted for feature extraction in pattern recognition systems. A new technique for edge detection by applying comparison criteria to differentials at adjacent pixels of the video image is developed and implemented as a preprocessing hardware unit. A circuit for the generation of the co-ordinates of edge points is constructed to free the processing computer of this task, allowing it more time for on-line analysis of video signals. Besides the edge detector and co-ordinate generator the hardware built consists of a microprocessor system based on a Texas Instruments T.US 9900 device, a first-in-first-out buffer store and interface circuitry to a TV camera and display devices. All hardware modules and their power supplies are assembled in one unit to provide a standalone instrument. The problem chosen for investigation is analysis of motion in a visual scene. Aspects of motion studied concern the tracking of moving objects with simple geometric shapes and description of their motion. More emphasis is paid to the analysis of human eye movements and measurement of its point-of-regard which has many practical applications in the fields of physiology and psychology. This study provides a basis for the design of a processing unit attached to an oculometer to replace bulky minicomputer-based eye motion analysis systems. Programs are written for storage, analysis and display of results in real time

Modeling the self-assembly of functionalized fullerenes on solid surfaces using Monte Carlo simulations

Since their discovery 25 years ago, carbon fullerenes have been widely studied for their unique physicochemical properties and for applications including organic electronics and photovoltaics. For these applications it is highly desirable for crystalline fullerene thin films to spontaneously self-assemble on surfaces. Accordingly, many studies have functionalized fullerenes with the aim of tailoring their intermolecular interactions and controlling interactions with the solid substrate. The success of these rational design approaches hinges on the subtle interplay of intermolecular forces and molecule-substrate interactions. Molecular modeling is well-suited to studying these interactions by directly simulating self-assembly. In this work, we consider three different fullerene functionalization approaches and for each approach we carry out Monte Carlo simulations of the self-assembly process. In all cases, we use a coarse-grained molecular representation that preserves the dominant physical interactions between molecules and maximizes computational efficiency. The first approach we consider is the traditional gold-thiolate SAM (self-assembled monolayer) strategy which tethers molecules to a gold substrate via covalent sulfur-gold bonds. For this we study an asymmetric fullerene thiolate bridged by a phenyl group. Clusters of 40 molecules are simulated on the Au(111) substrate at different temperatures and surface coverage densities. Fullerenes and S atoms are found to compete for Au(111) surface sites, and this competition prevents self-assembly of highly ordered monolayers. Next, we investigate self-assembled monolayers formed by fullerenes with hydrogen-bonding carboxylic acid substituents. We consider five molecules with different dimensions and symmetries. Monte Carlo cooling simulations are used to find the most stable solid structures of clusters adsorbed to Au(111). The results show cases where fullerene-Au(111) attraction, fullerene close-packing, and hydrogen-bonding interactions can cooperate to guide self-assembly or compete to hinder it. Finally, we consider three bis-fullerene molecules, each with a different bridging group covalently joining two fullerenes. To effectively study the competing standing-up and lying-down morphologies, we use Monte Carlo simulations in conjunction with replica exchange and force field biasing methods. For clusters adsorbed to smooth model surfaces, we determine free energy landscapes and demonstrate their utility for rationalizing and predicting self-assembly

The Three-Dimensional Circumstellar Environment of SN 1987A

We present the detailed construction and analysis of the most complete map to date of the circumstellar environment around SN 1987A, using ground and space-based imaging from the past 16 years. PSF-matched difference-imaging analyses of data from 1988 through 1997 reveal material between 1 and 28 ly from the SN. Careful analyses allows the reconstruction of the probable circumstellar environment, revealing a richly-structured bipolar nebula. An outer, double-lobed ``Peanut,'' which is believed to be the contact discontinuity between red supergiant and main sequence winds, is a prolate shell extending 28 ly along the poles and 11 ly near the equator. Napoleon's Hat, previously believed to be an independent structure, is the waist of this Peanut, which is pinched to a radius of 6 ly. Interior to this is a cylindrical hourglass, 1 ly in radius and 4 ly long, which connects to the Peanut by a thick equatorial disk. The nebulae are inclined 41\degr south and 8\degr east of the line of sight, slightly elliptical in cross section, and marginally offset west of the SN. From the hourglass to the large, bipolar lobes, echo fluxes suggest that the gas density drops from 1--3 cm^{-3} to >0.03 cm^{-3}, while the maximum dust-grain size increases from ~0.2 micron to 2 micron, and the Si:C dust ratio decreases. The nebulae have a total mass of ~1.7 Msun. The geometry of the three rings is studied, suggesting the northern and southern rings are located 1.3 and 1.0 ly from the SN, while the equatorial ring is elliptical (b/a < 0.98), and spatially offset in the same direction as the hourglass.Comment: Accepted for publication in the ApJ Supplements. 38 pages in apjemulate format, with 52 figure

Map-Based Localization for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Navigation

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) require precise pose estimation when navigating in indoor and GNSS-denied / GNSS-degraded outdoor environments. The possibility of crashing in these environments is high, as spaces are confined, with many moving obstacles. There are many solutions for localization in GNSS-denied environments, and many different technologies are used. Common solutions involve setting up or using existing infrastructure, such as beacons, Wi-Fi, or surveyed targets. These solutions were avoided because the cost should be proportional to the number of users, not the coverage area. Heavy and expensive sensors, for example a high-end IMU, were also avoided. Given these requirements, a camera-based localization solution was selected for the sensor pose estimation. Several camera-based localization approaches were investigated. Map-based localization methods were shown to be the most efficient because they close loops using a pre-existing map, thus the amount of data and the amount of time spent collecting data are reduced as there is no need to re-observe the same areas multiple times. This dissertation proposes a solution to address the task of fully localizing a monocular camera onboard a UAV with respect to a known environment (i.e., it is assumed that a 3D model of the environment is available) for the purpose of navigation for UAVs in structured environments. Incremental map-based localization involves tracking a map through an image sequence. When the map is a 3D model, this task is referred to as model-based tracking. A by-product of the tracker is the relative 3D pose (position and orientation) between the camera and the object being tracked. State-of-the-art solutions advocate that tracking geometry is more robust than tracking image texture because edges are more invariant to changes in object appearance and lighting. However, model-based trackers have been limited to tracking small simple objects in small environments. An assessment was performed in tracking larger, more complex building models, in larger environments. A state-of-the art model-based tracker called ViSP (Visual Servoing Platform) was applied in tracking outdoor and indoor buildings using a UAVs low-cost camera. The assessment revealed weaknesses at large scales. Specifically, ViSP failed when tracking was lost, and needed to be manually re-initialized. Failure occurred when there was a lack of model features in the cameras field of view, and because of rapid camera motion. Experiments revealed that ViSP achieved positional accuracies similar to single point positioning solutions obtained from single-frequency (L1) GPS observations standard deviations around 10 metres. These errors were considered to be large, considering the geometric accuracy of the 3D model used in the experiments was 10 to 40 cm. The first contribution of this dissertation proposes to increase the performance of the localization system by combining ViSP with map-building incremental localization, also referred to as simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Experimental results in both indoor and outdoor environments show sub-metre positional accuracies were achieved, while reducing the number of tracking losses throughout the image sequence. It is shown that by integrating model-based tracking with SLAM, not only does SLAM improve model tracking performance, but the model-based tracker alleviates the computational expense of SLAMs loop closing procedure to improve runtime performance. Experiments also revealed that ViSP was unable to handle occlusions when a complete 3D building model was used, resulting in large errors in its pose estimates. The second contribution of this dissertation is a novel map-based incremental localization algorithm that improves tracking performance, and increases pose estimation accuracies from ViSP. The novelty of this algorithm is the implementation of an efficient matching process that identifies corresponding linear features from the UAVs RGB image data and a large, complex, and untextured 3D model. The proposed model-based tracker improved positional accuracies from 10 m (obtained with ViSP) to 46 cm in outdoor environments, and improved from an unattainable result using VISP to 2 cm positional accuracies in large indoor environments. The main disadvantage of any incremental algorithm is that it requires the camera pose of the first frame. Initialization is often a manual process. The third contribution of this dissertation is a map-based absolute localization algorithm that automatically estimates the camera pose when no prior pose information is available. The method benefits from vertical line matching to accomplish a registration procedure of the reference model views with a set of initial input images via geometric hashing. Results demonstrate that sub-metre positional accuracies were achieved and a proposed enhancement of conventional geometric hashing produced more correct matches - 75% of the correct matches were identified, compared to 11%. Further the number of incorrect matches was reduced by 80%

Efficient Interconnection Schemes for VLSI and Parallel Computation

This thesis is primarily concerned with two problems of interconnecting components in VLSI technologies. In the first case, the goal is to construct efficient interconnection networks for general-purpose parallel computers. The second problem is a more specialized problem in the design of VLSI chips, namely multilayer channel routing. In addition, a final part of this thesis provides lower bounds on the area required for VLSI implementations of finite-state machines. This thesis shows that networks based on Leiserson\u27s fat-tree architecture are nearly as good as any network built in a comparable amount of physical space. It shows that these universal networks can efficiently simulate competing networks by means of an appropriate correspondence between network components and efficient algorithms for routing messages on the universal network. In particular, a universal network of area A can simulate competing networks with O(lg^3A) slowdown (in bit-times), using a very simple randomized routing algorithm and simple network components. Alternatively, a packet routing scheme of Leighton, Maggs, and Rao can be used in conjunction with more sophisticated switching components to achieve O(lg^2 A) slowdown. Several other important aspects of universality are also discussed. It is shown that universal networks can be constructed in area linear in the number of processors, so that there is no need to restrict the density of processors in competing networks. Also results are presented for comparisons between networks of different size or with processors of different sizes (as determined by the amount of attached memory). Of particular interest is the fact that a universal network built from sufficiently small processors can simulate (with the slowdown already quoted) any competing network of comparable size regardless of the size of processors in the competing network. In addition, many of the results given do not require the usual assumption of unit wire delay. Finally, though most of the discussion is in the two-dimensional world, the results are shown to apply in three dimensions by way of a simple demonstration of general results on graph layout in three dimensions. The second main problem considered in this thesis is channel routing when many layers of interconnect are available, a scenario that is becoming more and more meaningful as chip fabrication technologies advance. This thesis describes a system MulCh for multilayer channel routing which extends the Chameleon system developed at U. C. Berkeley. Like Chameleon, MulCh divides a multilayer problem into essentially independent subproblems of at most three layers, but unlike Chameleon, MulCh considers the possibility of using partitions comprised of a single layer instead of only partitions of two or three layers. Experimental results show that MulCh often performs better than Chameleon in terms of channel width, total net length, and number of vias. In addition to a description of MulCh as implemented, this thesis provides improved algorithms for subtasks performed by MulCh, thereby indicating potential improvements in the speed and performance of multilayer channel routing. In particular, a linear time algorithm is given for determining the minimum width required for a single-layer channel routing problem, and an algorithm is given for maintaining the density of a collection of nets in logarithmic time per net insertion. The last part of this thesis shows that straightforward techniques for implementing finite-state machines are optimal in the worst case. Specifically, for any s and k, there is a deterministic finite-state machine with s states and k symbols such that any layout algorithm requires (ks lg s) area to lay out its realization. For nondeterministic machines, there is an analogous lower bound of (ks^2) area