3,253 research outputs found
SLIC Based Digital Image Enlargement
Low resolution image enhancement is a classical computer vision problem.
Selecting the best method to reconstruct an image to a higher resolution with
the limited data available in the low-resolution image is quite a challenge. A
major drawback from the existing enlargement techniques is the introduction of
color bleeding while interpolating pixels over the edges that separate distinct
colors in an image. The color bleeding causes to accentuate the edges with new
colors as a result of blending multiple colors over adjacent regions. This
paper proposes a novel approach to mitigate the color bleeding by segmenting
the homogeneous color regions of the image using Simple Linear Iterative
Clustering (SLIC) and applying a higher order interpolation technique
separately on the isolated segments. The interpolation at the boundaries of
each of the isolated segments is handled by using a morphological operation.
The approach is evaluated by comparing against several frequently used image
enlargement methods such as bilinear and bicubic interpolation by means of Peak
Signal-to-Noise-Ratio (PSNR) value. The results obtained exhibit that the
proposed method outperforms the baseline methods by means of PSNR and also
mitigates the color bleeding at the edges which improves the overall
appearance.Comment: 6 page
Optimized Principal Component Analysis on Coronagraphic Images of the Fomalhaut System
We present the results of a study to optimize the principal component
analysis (PCA) algorithm for planet detection, a new algorithm complementing
ADI and LOCI for increasing the contrast achievable next to a bright star. The
stellar PSF is constructed by removing linear combinations of principal
components, allowing the flux from an extrasolar planet to shine through. The
number of principal components used determines how well the stellar PSF is
globally modelled. Using more principal components may decrease the number of
speckles in the final image, but also increases the background noise. We apply
PCA to Fomalhaut VLT NaCo images acquired at 4.05 micron with an apodized phase
plate. We do not detect any companions, with a model dependent upper mass limit
of 13-18 M_Jup from 4-10 AU. PCA achieves greater sensitivity than the LOCI
algorithm for the Fomalhaut coronagraphic data by up to 1 magnitude. We make
several adaptations to the PCA code and determine which of these prove the most
effective at maximizing the signal-to-noise from a planet very close to its
parent star. We demonstrate that optimizing the number of principal components
used in PCA proves most effective for pulling out a planet signal.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, 7 pages, 9 figure
Importance of carbon solubility and wetting properties of nickel nanoparticles for single wall nanotube growth
Optimized growth of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes requires a full knowledge of
the actual state of the catalyst nanoparticle and its interface with the tube.
Using Tight Binding based atomistic computer simulations, we calculate carbon
adsorption isotherms on nanoparticles of nickel, a typical catalyst, and show
that carbon solubility increases for smaller nanoparticles that are either
molten or surface molten under experimental conditions. Increasing carbon
content favors the dewetting of Ni nanoparticles with respect to sp2 carbon
walls, a necessary property to limit catalyst encapsulation and deactivation.
Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations of the growth of tube embryos show that
wetting properties of the nanoparticles, controlled by carbon solubility, are
of fundamental importance to enable the growth, shedding a new light on the
growth mechanisms
A simple thermodynamical witness showing universality of macroscopic entanglement
We show that if the ground state entanglement exceeds the total entropy of a
given system, then this system is in an entangled state. This is a universal
entanglement witness that applies to any physical system and yields a
temperature below which we are certain to find some entanglement. Our witness
is then applied to generic bosonic and fermionic many body systems to derive
the corresponding "critical" temperatures that have a very broad validity.Comment: 3 pages, Torun conference, June 25-28, 200
Cosmic shear requirements on the wavelength-dependence of telescope point spread functions
Cosmic shear requires high precision measurement of galaxy shapes in the
presence of the observational Point Spread Function (PSF) that smears out the
image. The PSF must therefore be known for each galaxy to a high accuracy.
However, for several reasons, the PSF is usually wavelength dependent,
therefore the differences between the spectral energy distribution of the
observed objects introduces further complexity. In this paper we investigate
the effect of the wavelength-dependence of the PSF, focusing on instruments in
which the PSF size is dominated by the diffraction-limit of the telescope and
which use broad-band filters for shape measurement.
We first calculate biases on cosmological parameter estimation from cosmic
shear when the stellar PSF is used uncorrected. Using realistic galaxy and star
spectral energy distributions and populations and a simple three-component
circular PSF we find that the colour-dependence must be taken into account for
the next generation of telescopes. We then consider two different methods for
removing the effect (i) the use of stars of the same colour as the galaxies and
(ii) estimation of the galaxy spectral energy distribution using multiple
colours and using a telescope model for the PSF. We find that both of these
methods correct the effect to levels below the tolerances required for per-cent
level measurements of dark energy parameters. Comparison of the two methods
favours the template-fitting method because its efficiency is less dependent on
galaxy redshift than the broad-band colour method and takes full advantage of
deeper photometry.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, version accepted for publication in MNRA
The Toxoplasma gondii active serine hydrolase 4 regulates parasite division and intravacuolar parasite architecture
ABSTRACT Hydrolase are enzymes that regulate diverse biological processes, including posttranslational protein modifications. Recent work identified four active serine hydrolases (ASHs) in Toxoplasma gondii as candidate depalmitoylases. However, only TgPPT1 (ASH1) has been confirmed to remove palmitate from proteins. ASH4 (TgME49_264290) was reported to be refractory to genetic disruption. We demonstrate that recombinant ASH4 is an esterase that processes short acyl esters but not palmitoyl thioesters. Genetic disruption of ASH4 causes defects in cell division and premature scission of parasites from residual bodies. These defects lead to the presence of vacuoles with a disordered intravacuolar architecture, with parasites arranged in pairs around multiple residual bodies. Importantly, we found that the deletion of ASH4 correlates with a defect in radial dispersion from host cells after egress. This defect in dispersion of parasites is a general phenomenon that is observed for disordered vacuoles that occur at low frequency in wild-type parasites, suggesting a possible general link between intravacuolar organization and dispersion after egress. IMPORTANCE This work defines the function of an enzyme in the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii. We show that this previously uncharacterized enzyme is critical for aspects of cellular division by the parasite and that loss of this enzyme leads to parasites with cell division defects and which also are disorganized inside their vacuoles. This leads to defects in the ability of the parasite to disseminate from the site of an infection and may have a significant impact on the parasite's overall infectivity of a host organism
A modified discontinuous Galerkin method for solving efficiently Helmholtz problems
A new solution methodology is proposed for solving efficiently Helmholtz problems. The proposed method falls in the category of the discontinuous Galerkin methods. However, unlike the existing solution methodologies, this method requires solving (a) well-posed local problems to determine the primal variable, and (b) a global positive semi-definite Hermitian system to evaluate the Lagrange multiplier needed to restore the continuity across the element edges. Illustrative numerical results obtained for two-dimensional interior Helmholtz problems are presented to assess the accuracy and the stability of the proposed solution methodology
Weak gravitational lensing with DEIMOS
We introduce a novel method for weak-lensing measurements, which is based on
a mathematically exact deconvolution of the moments of the apparent brightness
distribution of galaxies from the telescope's PSF. No assumptions on the shape
of the galaxy or the PSF are made. The (de)convolution equations are exact for
unweighted moments only, while in practice a compact weight function needs to
be applied to the noisy images to ensure that the moment measurement yields
significant results. We employ a Gaussian weight function, whose centroid and
ellipticity are iteratively adjusted to match the corresponding quantities of
the source. The change of the moments caused by the application of the weight
function can then be corrected by considering higher-order weighted moments of
the same source. Because of the form of the deconvolution equations, even an
incomplete weighting correction leads to an excellent shear estimation if
galaxies and PSF are measured with a weight function of identical size. We
demonstrate the accuracy and capabilities of this new method in the context of
weak gravitational lensing measurements with a set of specialized tests and
show its competitive performance on the GREAT08 challenge data. A complete C++
implementation of the method can be requested from the authors.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, fixed typo in Eq. 1
Magnetic structure of antiferromagnetic NdRhIn5
The magnetic structure of antiferromagnetic NdRhIn5 has been determined using
neutron diffraction. It has a commensurate antiferromagnetic structure with a
magnetic wave vector (1/2,0,1/2) below T_N = 11K. The staggered Nd moment at
1.6K is 2.6mu_B aligned along the c-axis. We find the magnetic structure to be
closely related to that of its cubic parent compound NdIn3 below 4.6K. The
enhanced T_N and the absence of additional transitions below T_N for NdRhIn5
are interpreted in terms of an improved matching of the
crystalline-electric-field (CEF), magnetocrystalline, and exchange interaction
anisotropies. In comparison, the role of these competing anisotropies on the
magnetic properties of the structurally related compound CeRhIn5 is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
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