28,435 research outputs found
Efficiency of endoneural stimulation with 5- to 24-fold multielectrodes
Optimal selective stimulation of nerve with endoneurally (intrafascicularly) inserted multi-microelectrodes means that each electrode activates, with its own threshold stimulation current, as few distinct motoneurons as possible, preferably only one, If the latter is the case, the efficiency of a multi-electrode is 100%. However, neighbouring electrodes may control the same motor fiber(s), as there are generally more fibers than electrodes and because the position of fibers is largely unknown. In that case, efficiency is less than 100%. This paper reports on experiments in rat peroneal nerve with 5- and 24-fold wire multi-microelectrode arrays, The threshold force of the twitch recruitment curve of the corresponding EDL muscle was used to monitor nerve activation, It was found that on average the threshold force efficiency was 0.48=48%, After re-inspection of the data, taking into account that neighbouring electrodes have a higher probability to activate the same motor units, in contrast to distant electrodes, the average efficiency even rises to 81%. For several reasons, threshold forces do not correspond to motor unit forces, implying that the threshold-force-efficiency can not be regarded as motor-unit-efficienc
Endoneural selective stimulating using wire-microelectrode arrays
In acute experiments eight 5- to 24-wire-microelectrode arrays were inserted into the common peroneal nerve of the rat, to investigate whether the electrodes could selectively stimulate motor units of the extensor digitorum longus (EDL) muscle. Twitch-force-recruitment curves were measured from the EDL for each array electrode. The curves were plotted on a double-logarithmic scale and parameterized by the low-force slope (which represents the power p in the power-law relationship of force F versus stimulus current I, or F~Ip) and the threshold current. The slopes and threshold currents measured with array electrodes did not differ significantly from those obtained with randomly inserted single wire-microelectrodes. This indicates that, although involving a more invasive insertion procedure, electrode arrays provide neural contacts with low-force recruitment properties similar to those of single wires. Array results revealed partial blocking of neural conduction, similar to that reported with microneurographic insertion with single needles. The efficiency of the array was defined as the fraction of array electrodes selectively contacting a motor unit and evoking the corresponding threshold force. Efficiency thus expresses the practical value of the used electrode array in terms of the total number of distinct threshold forces that can be stimulated by selecting the appropriate electrodes. The eight arrays were capable of evoking threshold forces selectively with an average efficiency of 0.81 (or 81%
Energy efficiency of mmWave massive MIMO precoding with low-resolution DACs
With the congestion of the sub-6 GHz spectrum, the interest in massive
multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems operating on millimeter wave
spectrum grows. In order to reduce the power consumption of such massive MIMO
systems, hybrid analog/digital transceivers and application of low-resolution
digital-to-analog/analog-to-digital converters have been recently proposed. In
this work, we investigate the energy efficiency of quantized hybrid
transmitters equipped with a fully/partially-connected phase-shifting network
composed of active/passive phase-shifters and compare it to that of quantized
digital precoders. We introduce a quantized single-user MIMO system model based
on an additive quantization noise approximation considering realistic power
consumption and loss models to evaluate the spectral and energy efficiencies of
the transmit precoding methods. Simulation results show that
partially-connected hybrid precoders can be more energy-efficient compared to
digital precoders, while fully-connected hybrid precoders exhibit poor energy
efficiency in general. Also, the topology of phase-shifting components offers
an energy-spectral efficiency trade-off: active phase-shifters provide higher
data rates, while passive phase-shifters maintain better energy efficiency.Comment: Published in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processin
An Efficient Representation for Filtrations of Simplicial Complexes
A filtration over a simplicial complex is an ordering of the simplices of
such that all prefixes in the ordering are subcomplexes of . Filtrations
are at the core of Persistent Homology, a major tool in Topological Data
Analysis. In order to represent the filtration of a simplicial complex, the
entire filtration can be appended to any data structure that explicitly stores
all the simplices of the complex such as the Hasse diagram or the recently
introduced Simplex Tree [Algorithmica '14]. However, with the popularity of
various computational methods that need to handle simplicial complexes, and
with the rapidly increasing size of the complexes, the task of finding a
compact data structure that can still support efficient queries is of great
interest.
In this paper, we propose a new data structure called the Critical Simplex
Diagram (CSD) which is a variant of the Simplex Array List (SAL) [Algorithmica
'17]. Our data structure allows one to store in a compact way the filtration of
a simplicial complex, and allows for the efficient implementation of a large
range of basic operations. Moreover, we prove that our data structure is
essentially optimal with respect to the requisite storage space. Finally, we
show that the CSD representation admits fast construction algorithms for Flag
complexes and relaxed Delaunay complexes.Comment: A preliminary version appeared in SODA 201
Dynamic Range Majority Data Structures
Given a set of coloured points on the real line, we study the problem of
answering range -majority (or "heavy hitter") queries on . More
specifically, for a query range , we want to return each colour that is
assigned to more than an -fraction of the points contained in . We
present a new data structure for answering range -majority queries on a
dynamic set of points, where . Our data structure uses O(n)
space, supports queries in time, and updates in amortized time. If the coordinates of the points are integers,
then the query time can be improved to . For constant values of , this improved query
time matches an existing lower bound, for any data structure with
polylogarithmic update time. We also generalize our data structure to handle
sets of points in d-dimensions, for , as well as dynamic arrays, in
which each entry is a colour.Comment: 16 pages, Preliminary version appeared in ISAAC 201
Structure and electronic properties of molybdenum monoatomic wires encapsulated in carbon nanotubes
Monoatomic chains of molybdenum encapsulated in single walled carbon
nanotubes of different chiralities are investigated using density functional
theory. We determine the optimal size of the carbon nanotube for encapsulating
a single atomic wire, as well as the most stable atomic arrangement adopted by
the wire. We also study the transport properties in the ballistic regime by
computing the transmission coefficients and tracing them back to electronic
conduction channels of the wire and the host. We predict that carbon nanotubes
of appropriate radii encapsulating a Mo wire have metallic behavior, even if
both the nanotube and the wire are insulators. Therefore, encapsulating Mo
wires in CNT is a way to create conductive quasi one-dimensional hybrid
nanostructures.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure
A 3D-printed microfluidic-enabled hollow microneedle architecture for transdermal drug delivery.
Embedding microfluidic architectures with microneedles enables fluid management capabilities that present new degrees of freedom for transdermal drug delivery. To this end, fabrication schemes that can simultaneously create and integrate complex millimeter/centimeter-long microfluidic structures and micrometer-scale microneedle features are necessary. Accordingly, three-dimensional (3D) printing techniques are suitable candidates because they allow the rapid realization of customizable yet intricate microfluidic and microneedle features. However, previously reported 3D-printing approaches utilized costly instrumentation that lacked the desired versatility to print both features in a single step and the throughput to render components within distinct length-scales. Here, for the first time in literature, we devise a fabrication scheme to create hollow microneedles interfaced with microfluidic structures in a single step. Our method utilizes stereolithography 3D-printing and pushes its boundaries (achieving print resolutions below the full width half maximum laser spot size resolution) to create complex architectures with lower cost and higher print speed and throughput than previously reported methods. To demonstrate a potential application, a microfluidic-enabled microneedle architecture was printed to render hydrodynamic mixing and transdermal drug delivery within a single device. The presented architectures can be adopted in future biomedical devices to facilitate new modes of operations for transdermal drug delivery applications such as combinational therapy for preclinical testing of biologic treatments
- …