129,134 research outputs found
Second harmonic generating (SHG) nanoprobes for in vivo imaging
Fluorescence microscopy has profoundly changed cell and molecular biology studies by permitting tagged gene products to be followed as they function and interact. The ability of a fluorescent dye to absorb and emit light of different wavelengths allows it to generate startling contrast that, in the best cases, can permit single molecule detection and tracking. However, in many experimental settings, fluorescent probes fall short of their potential due to dye bleaching, dye signal saturation, and tissue autofluorescence. Here, we demonstrate that second harmonic generating (SHG) nanoprobes can be used for in vivo imaging, circumventing many of the limitations of classical fluorescence probes. Under intense illumination, such as at the focus of a laser-scanning microscope, these SHG nanocrystals convert two photons into one photon of half the wavelength; thus, when imaged by conventional two-photon microscopy, SHG nanoprobes appear to generate a signal with an inverse Stokes shift like a fluorescent dye, but with a narrower emission. Unlike commonly used fluorescent probes, SHG nanoprobes neither bleach nor blink, and the signal they generate does not saturate with increasing illumination intensity. The resulting contrast and detectability of SHG nanoprobes provide unique advantages for molecular imaging of living cells and tissues
Magneto-optical trap for metastable helium at 389 nm
We have constructed a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for metastable triplet
helium atoms utilizing the 2 3S1 -> 3 3P2 line at 389 nm as the trapping and
cooling transition. The far-red-detuned MOT (detuning Delta = -41 MHz)
typically contains few times 10^7 atoms at a relatively high (~10^9 cm^-3)
density, which is a consequence of the large momentum transfer per photon at
389 nm and a small two-body loss rate coefficient (2 * 10^-10 cm^3/s < beta <
1.0 * 10^-9 cm^3/s). The two-body loss rate is more than five times smaller
than in a MOT on the commonly used 2 3S1 -> 2 3P2 line at 1083 nm. Furthermore,
we measure a temperature of 0.46(1) mK, a factor 2.5 lower as compared to the
1083 nm case. Decreasing the detuning to Delta= -9 MHz results in a cloud
temperature as low as 0.25(1) mK, at small number of trapped atoms. The 389 nm
MOT exhibits small losses due to two-photon ionization, which have been
investigated as well.Comment: 11 page
A deep learning framework for quality assessment and restoration in video endoscopy
Endoscopy is a routine imaging technique used for both diagnosis and
minimally invasive surgical treatment. Artifacts such as motion blur, bubbles,
specular reflections, floating objects and pixel saturation impede the visual
interpretation and the automated analysis of endoscopy videos. Given the
widespread use of endoscopy in different clinical applications, we contend that
the robust and reliable identification of such artifacts and the automated
restoration of corrupted video frames is a fundamental medical imaging problem.
Existing state-of-the-art methods only deal with the detection and restoration
of selected artifacts. However, typically endoscopy videos contain numerous
artifacts which motivates to establish a comprehensive solution.
We propose a fully automatic framework that can: 1) detect and classify six
different primary artifacts, 2) provide a quality score for each frame and 3)
restore mildly corrupted frames. To detect different artifacts our framework
exploits fast multi-scale, single stage convolutional neural network detector.
We introduce a quality metric to assess frame quality and predict image
restoration success. Generative adversarial networks with carefully chosen
regularization are finally used to restore corrupted frames.
Our detector yields the highest mean average precision (mAP at 5% threshold)
of 49.0 and the lowest computational time of 88 ms allowing for accurate
real-time processing. Our restoration models for blind deblurring, saturation
correction and inpainting demonstrate significant improvements over previous
methods. On a set of 10 test videos we show that our approach preserves an
average of 68.7% which is 25% more frames than that retained from the raw
videos.Comment: 14 page
Fast traffic sign recognition using color segmentation and deep convolutional networks
The use of Computer Vision techniques for the automatic
recognition of road signs is fundamental for the development of intelli-
gent vehicles and advanced driver assistance systems. In this paper, we
describe a procedure based on color segmentation, Histogram of Ori-
ented Gradients (HOG), and Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for
detecting and classifying road signs. Detection is speeded up by a pre-
processing step to reduce the search space, while classication is carried
out by using a Deep Learning technique. A quantitative evaluation of the
proposed approach has been conducted on the well-known German Traf-
c Sign data set and on the novel Data set of Italian Trac Signs (DITS),
which is publicly available and contains challenging sequences captured
in adverse weather conditions and in an urban scenario at night-time.
Experimental results demonstrate the eectiveness of the proposed ap-
proach in terms of both classication accuracy and computational speed
Laser Based Mid-Infrared Spectroscopic Imaging – Exploring a Novel Method for Application in Cancer Diagnosis
A number of biomedical studies have shown that mid-infrared spectroscopic images can provide
both morphological and biochemical information that can be used for the diagnosis of cancer. Whilst
this technique has shown great potential it has yet to be employed by the medical profession. By
replacing the conventional broadband thermal source employed in modern FTIR spectrometers with
high-brightness, broadly tuneable laser based sources (QCLs and OPGs) we aim to solve one of the
main obstacles to the transfer of this technology to the medical arena; namely poor signal to noise
ratios at high spatial resolutions and short image acquisition times. In this thesis we take the first
steps towards developing the optimum experimental configuration, the data processing algorithms
and the spectroscopic image contrast and enhancement methods needed to utilise these high
intensity laser based sources. We show that a QCL system is better suited to providing numerical
absorbance values (biochemical information) than an OPG system primarily due to the QCL pulse
stability. We also discuss practical protocols for the application of spectroscopic imaging to cancer
diagnosis and present our spectroscopic imaging results from our laser based spectroscopic imaging
experiments of oesophageal cancer tissue
Large-Scale Image Processing with the ROTSE Pipeline for Follow-Up of Gravitational Wave Events
Electromagnetic (EM) observations of gravitational-wave (GW) sources would
bring unique insights into a source which are not available from either channel
alone. However EM follow-up of GW events presents new challenges. GW events
will have large sky error regions, on the order of 10-100 square degrees, which
can be made up of many disjoint patches. When searching such large areas there
is potential contamination by EM transients unrelated to the GW event.
Furthermore, the characteristics of possible EM counterparts to GW events are
also uncertain. It is therefore desirable to be able to assess the statistical
significance of a candidate EM counterpart, which can only be done by
performing background studies of large data sets. Current image processing
pipelines such as that used by ROTSE are not usually optimised for large-scale
processing. We have automated the ROTSE image analysis, and supplemented it
with a post-processing unit for candidate validation and classification. We
also propose a simple ad hoc statistic for ranking candidates as more likely to
be associated with the GW trigger. We demonstrate the performance of the
automated pipeline and ranking statistic using archival ROTSE data. EM
candidates from a randomly selected set of images are compared to a background
estimated from the analysis of 102 additional sets of archival images. The
pipeline's detection efficiency is computed empirically by re-analysis of the
images after adding simulated optical transients that follow typical light
curves for gamma-ray burst afterglows and kilonovae. We show that the automated
pipeline rejects most background events and is sensitive to simulated
transients to limiting magnitudes consistent with the limiting magnitude of the
images
Hybrid Coding Technique for Pulse Detection in an Optical Time Domain Reflectometer
The paper introduces a novel hybrid coding technique for improved pulse detection in an optical time domain reflectometer. The hybrid schemes combines Simplex codes with signal averaging to articulate a very sophisticated coding technique that considerably reduces the processing time to extract specified coding gains in comparison to the existing techniques. The paper quantifies the coding gain of the hybrid scheme mathematically and provide simulative results in direct agreement with the theoretical performance. Furthermore, the hybrid scheme has been tested on our self-developed OTDR
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