High-Resolution Nanoscale Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

We present a new method for high-resolution nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging (nano-MRI) that combines the high spin sensitivity of nanowire-based magnetic resonance detection with high spectral resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. By applying NMR pulses designed using optimal control theory, we demonstrate a factor of $500$ reduction of the proton spin resonance linewidth in a $(50\text{-nm})^{\text{3}}$ volume of polystyrene and image proton spins in one dimension with a spatial resolution below $2~\text{nm}$.Comment: Main text: 8 pages, 6 figures; supplementary information: 10 pages, 10 figure

A Monte Carlo analysis of the liquid xenon TPC as gamma ray telescope

Extensive Monte Carlo modeling of a coded aperture x ray telescope based on a high resolution liquid xenon TPC has been performed. Results on efficiency, background reduction capability and source flux sensitivity are presented. We discuss in particular the development of a reconstruction algorithm for events with multiple interaction points. From the energy and spatial information, the kinematics of Compton scattering is used to identify and reduce background events, as well as to improve the detector response in the few MeV region. Assuming a spatial resolution of 1 mm RMS and an energy resolution of 4.5 percent FWHM at 1 MeV, the algorithm is capable of reducing by an order of magnitude the background rate expected at balloon altitude, thus significantly improving the telescope sensitivity

δ Orionis: Further temporal variability and evidence for small-scale structure in the interstellar medium

We report here the detection of both spatial and temporal variations in interstellar absorption in the line of sight to δ Orionis. First, we present new high-resolution (R≈110 000) observations of the interstellar D lines of Na i towards both δ Ori A and C. Comparison of these spectra highlights variations in absorption between the two stars, indicative of small-scale spatial structure in the interstellar medium in this direction over distances of less than ≈15 000 au (the projected separation of the two stars). Components with the largest Na i column densities and lowest velocity dispersions are, in general, found to be subject to the greatest differences; in fact the narrowest component detected is only observed in one of the sightlines. This effect has also been reported by Meyer & Blades. Secondly, we present new ultra-high-resolution (R≈900 000) Na i D1 observations and high-resolution (R≈110 000) Ca ii H & K observations of δ Ori A which, through ultra-high-resolution work conducted between 1994 and 2000, has been shown to exhibit a time-variable interstellar Na i absorption component. These new observations, while revealing the further reduction in intensity of the time-variable Na i absorption, indicate constant Ca ii absorption over the same period. This results in a dramatic reduction in the Na°/Ca+ abundance ratio, perhaps indicating the line of sight to be gradually probing a less-dense outer region of an absorbing filament

Wavelet-based denoising for 3D OCT images

Optical coherence tomography produces high resolution medical images based on spatial and temporal coherence of the optical waves backscattered from the scanned tissue. However, the same coherence introduces speckle noise as well; this degrades the quality of acquired images. In this paper we propose a technique for noise reduction of 3D OCT images, where the 3D volume is considered as a sequence of 2D images, i.e., 2D slices in depth-lateral projection plane. In the proposed method we first perform recursive temporal filtering through the estimated motion trajectory between the 2D slices using noise-robust motion estimation/compensation scheme previously proposed for video denoising. The temporal filtering scheme reduces the noise level and adapts the motion compensation on it. Subsequently, we apply a spatial filter for speckle reduction in order to remove the remainder of noise in the 2D slices. In this scheme the spatial (2D) speckle-nature of noise in OCT is modeled and used for spatially adaptive denoising. Both the temporal and the spatial filter are wavelet-based techniques, where for the temporal filter two resolution scales are used and for the spatial one four resolution scales. The evaluation of the proposed denoising approach is done on demodulated 3D OCT images on different sources and of different resolution. For optimizing the parameters for best denoising performance fantom OCT images were used. The denoising performance of the proposed method was measured in terms of SNR, edge sharpness preservation and contrast-to-noise ratio. A comparison was made to the state-of-the-art methods for noise reduction in 2D OCT images, where the proposed approach showed to be advantageous in terms of both objective and subjective quality measures

Separation of Parallel Encoded Complex-Valued Slices (SPECS) From A Single Complex-Valued Aliased Coil Image

Purpose Achieving a reduction in scan time with minimal inter-slice signal leakage is one of the significant obstacles in parallel MR imaging. In fMRI, multiband-imaging techniques accelerate data acquisition by simultaneously magnetizing the spatial frequency spectrum of multiple slices. The SPECS model eliminates the consequential inter-slice signal leakage from the slice unaliasing, while maintaining an optimal reduction in scan time and activation statistics in fMRI studies. Materials and Methods When the combined k-space array is inverse Fourier reconstructed, the resulting aliased image is separated into the un-aliased slices through a least squares estimator. Without the additional spatial information from a phased array of receiver coils, slice separation in SPECS is accomplished with acquired aliased images in shifted FOV aliasing pattern, and a bootstrapping approach of incorporating reference calibration images in an orthogonal Hadamard pattern. Result The aliased slices are effectively separated with minimal expense to the spatial and temporal resolution. Functional activation is observed in the motor cortex, as the number of aliased slices is increased, in a bilateral finger tapping fMRI experiment. Conclusion The SPECS model incorporates calibration reference images together with coefficients of orthogonal polynomials into an un-aliasing estimator to achieve separated images, with virtually no residual artifacts and functional activation detection in separated images

Copernicus high-resolution layers for land cover classification in Italy

The high-resolution layers (HRLs) are land cover maps produced for the entire Italian territory (approximately 30 million hectares) in 2012 by the European Environment Agency, aimed at monitoring soil imperviousness and natural cover, such as forest, grassland, wetland, and water surface, with a high spatial resolution of 20 m. This study presents the methodologies developed for the production, verification, and enhancement of the HRLs in Italy. The innovative approach is mainly based on (a) the use of available reference data for the enhancement process, (b) the reduction of the manual work of operators by using a semi-automatic approach, and (c) the overall increase in the cost-efficiency in relation to the production and updating of land cover maps. The results show the reliability of these methodologies in assessing and enhancing the quality of the HRLs. Finally, an integration of the individual layers, represented by the HRLs, was performed in order to produce a National High-Resolution Land Cover ma

Adaptive Smoothing of Digital Images: The R Package adimpro

Digital imaging has become omnipresent in the past years with a bulk of applications ranging from medical imaging to photography. When pushing the limits of resolution and sensitivity noise has ever been a major issue. However, commonly used non-adaptive filters can do noise reduction at the cost of a reduced effective spatial resolution only. Here we present a new package adimpro for R, which implements the propagationseparation approach by (Polzehl and Spokoiny 2006) for smoothing digital images. This method naturally adapts to different structures of different size in the image and thus avoids oversmoothing edges and fine structures. We extend the method for imaging data with spatial correlation. Furthermore we show how the estimation of the dependence between variance and mean value can be included. We illustrate the use of the package through some examples.