Wide-field optical sectioning for live-tissue imaging by plane-projection multiphoton microscopy

Optical sectioning provides three-dimensional (3D) information in biological tissues. However, most imaging techniques implemented with optical sectioning are either slow or deleterious to live tissues. Here, we present a simple design for wide-field multiphoton microscopy, which provides optical sectioning at a reasonable frame rate and with a biocompatible laser dosage. The underlying mechanism of optical sectioning is diffuser-based temporal focusing. Axial resolution comparable to confocal microscopy is theoretically derived and experimentally demonstrated. To achieve a reasonable frame rate without increasing the laser power, a low-repetition-rate ultrafast laser amplifier was used in our setup. A frame rate comparable to that of epifluorescence microscopy was demonstrated in the 3D imaging of fluorescent protein expressed in live epithelial cell clusters. In this report, our design displays the potential to be widely used for video-rate live-tissue and embryo imaging with axial resolution comparable to laser scanning microscopy

Localizing the Latent Structure Canonical Uncertainty: Entropy Profiles for Hidden Markov Models

This report addresses state inference for hidden Markov models. These models rely on unobserved states, which often have a meaningful interpretation. This makes it necessary to develop diagnostic tools for quantification of state uncertainty. The entropy of the state sequence that explains an observed sequence for a given hidden Markov chain model can be considered as the canonical measure of state sequence uncertainty. This canonical measure of state sequence uncertainty is not reflected by the classic multivariate state profiles computed by the smoothing algorithm, which summarizes the possible state sequences. Here, we introduce a new type of profiles which have the following properties: (i) these profiles of conditional entropies are a decomposition of the canonical measure of state sequence uncertainty along the sequence and makes it possible to localize this uncertainty, (ii) these profiles are univariate and thus remain easily interpretable on tree structures. We show how to extend the smoothing algorithms for hidden Markov chain and tree models to compute these entropy profiles efficiently.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Machine Learning Research; No RR-7896 (2012

Passivity-based nonlinear control of CSTR via asymptotic observers.

International audienceThis work makes use of a passivity-based approach (PBA) and tools from Lyapunov theory to design a nonlinear controller for the asymptotic stabilization of a class of non isothermal Continuous Stirred Tank Reactors (CSTR) around any desired stationary point. The convergence and stability proofs are derived in the port Hamiltonian framework. Asymptotic observers that do not require knowledge of reaction kinetics are also proposed for a system with incomplete state measurement. Numerical simulations are given to illustrate the application of the theoretical results to a CSTR with multiple steady states

Disaster Operations Management: an Empirical Study from Thailand

Disasters have unpredictable and deleterious impacts on modern societies. While recent operations management research has increasingly focused on disaster operations, only a few studies have examined the recovery phase of post-disaster operations. This research presents an overview of Disaster Operations Management as well as an empirical study using econometrics analysis to examine the recovery phase of post-disaster operations. The results suggest that when resources are scarce, at a strategic level we need to understand where to begin when planning the recovery process. This study is an exploratory analysis of the question of how flooding affects per capita income in areas with different levels of industrialization. We developed multiple regression models using panel data from Thailand to examine this effect, finding that flooding in a previous year has a positive effect on areas with a low level of industrialization, but a negative one on highly industrialized areas, meaning the residents of the latter are affected differently. Our results suggest the level of industrialization impacts the effectiveness of the recovery process. Finally, we discuss the implications of the study as well as suggestions for future research

The wide-field optical sectioning of microlens array and structured illumination-based plane-projection multiphoton microscopy

We present a theoretical investigation of an optical microscope design that achieves wide-field, multiphoton fluorescence microscopy with finer axial resolution than confocal microscopy. Our technique creates a thin plane of excitation light at the sample using height-staggered microlens arrays (HSMAs), wherein the height staggering of microlenses generate temporal focusing to suppress out-of-focus excitation, and the dense spacing of microlenses enables the implementation of structured illumination technique to eliminate residual out-of-focus signal. We use physical optics-based numerical simulations to demonstrate that our proposed technique can achieve diffraction-limited three-dimensional imaging through a simple optical design

Higher Derivative Corrections, Dimensional Reduction and Ehlers Duality

Motivated by applications to black hole physics and duality, we study the effect of higher derivative corrections on the dimensional reduction of four-dimensional Einstein, Einstein Liouville and Einstein-Maxwell gravity to one direction, as appropriate for stationary, spherically symmetric solutions. We construct a field redefinition scheme such that the one-dimensional Lagrangian is corrected only by powers of first derivatives of the fields, eliminating spurious modes and providing a suitable starting point for quantization. We show that the Ehlers symmetry, broken by the leading $R^2$ corrections in Einstein-Liouville gravity, can be restored by including contributions of Taub-NUT instantons. Finally, we give a preliminary discussion of the duality between higher-derivative F-term corrections on the vector and hypermultiplet branches in N=2 supergravity in four dimensions.Comment: 21 pages, uses JHEP3.cls; v3: minor corrections, final version published in JHE