Unrolled primal-dual networks for lensless cameras

Conventional models for lensless imaging assume that each measurement results from convolving a given scene with a single experimentally measured point-spread function. These models fail to simulate lensless cameras truthfully, as these models do not account for optical aberrations or scenes with depth variations. Our work shows that learning a supervised primal-dual reconstruction method results in image quality matching state of the art in the literature without demanding a large network capacity. We show that embedding learnable forward and adjoint models improves the reconstruction quality of lensless images (+5dB PSNR) compared to works that assume a fixed point-spread function

Occurrence of Pospiviroid in potato, tomato and some ornamental plants in Turkey

In order to investigate the Pospiviroid in potato, tomato and some ornamental plants in Turkey, a survey study was carried out from 2006 to 2009. During this survey study, a total of 1766 samples (1047potato samples, 258 tomato leaves and 461 ornamental plants) were tested by reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and, the samples found to be positive in RT-PCR were also checked in return polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (R-PAGE). Of these samples, potato tubers were collected from markets, leaf samples from potato fields (Erzurum), tomato samples from field (Tokat, Amasya, Balýkesir and Bursa) and greenhouses (Antalya and Mula), leaves and vines of ornamental plants from greenhouses (Yalova) and florists (Erzurum) and recreation areas (Ankara, zmir and Trabzon). In the result of RT-PCR test, PSTVd was detected in 6 out of 891 potato tubers and CSVd in 2out of 154 chrysanthemums. On the other side, tomato, citrus and most ornamental plants belonging to different families were found to be free from pospiviroid. This is the first report of CSVd in Turkey

Effects of activated lactoperoxidase system on microbiological quality of raw milk

The poor microbiological quality of raw cow milk in Turkey is a major concern. It has been speculated that less activation of naturally present lactoperoxidase system in the milk is the reason for its poor microbiological quality. Hence, the objective of this study was to investigate the effects of activation of the lactoperoxidase (LP) system on microbiological quality of the raw milk. The milk samples collected from a dairy farm were analyzed in the laboratory by dividing into two equal parts as activated (experimental) and control group. The experimental group was activated by treatment with equal concentration of sodium thiocyanate and hydrogen peroxide (20:20 mg/kg) whereas the control sample remained unactivated. All samples were stored at 4°C during 12 h. The microbial load in all the samples was quantitatively determined at 0, 3, 6, 9 and 12 h. The quantitative changes in each microbial species in both growth were recorded and statistically analyzed. The initial count of total mesophilic aerobic bacteria, psychrotroph bacteria, Pseudomonas spp., Enterobacteriaceae and yeast number were 7.10, 5.14, 6.42, 5.93 and 4.31 log cfu/mL, respectively, and at the end of 3 h the counts were 0.43, 2.23, 1.09, 0.93 and 0.37 log cfu/mL, respectively, were lower than controls. Significant (P<0.05) differences were observed for microbial count of activated and control samples except in case of lactic acid bacteria. The results of this study indicate that the addition of thiocyanate and hydrogen peroxidase to the milk activated lactoperoxidase enzyme already present in the milk and slowed down the microbiological growth, especially of the reducing proteolytic Pseudomonas spp. On comparison, the results for total mesophilic aerobic bacteria, psychrotroph bacteria, Pseudomonas spp., Enterobacteriaceae and yeast were statistically significant (P<0.05) and no significant change was observed in case of lactic acid bacteria

Difference system for Selberg correlation integrals

The Selberg correlation integrals are averages of the products $\prod_{s=1}^m\prod_{l=1}^n (x_s - z_l)^{\mu_s}$ with respect to the Selberg density. Our interest is in the case $m=1$, $\mu_1 = \mu$, when this corresponds to the $\mu$-th moment of the corresponding characteristic polynomial. We give the explicit form of a $(n+1) \times (n+1)$ matrix linear difference system in the variable $\mu$ which determines the average, and we give the Gauss decomposition of the corresponding $(n+1) \times (n+1)$ matrix. For $\mu$ a positive integer the difference system can be used to efficiently compute the power series defined by this average.Comment: 21 page

NuMI Beam Monitoring Simulation and Data Analysis Status and Progress

With the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search (MINOS) experiment decommissioned, muon and hadron monitors became an important diagnostic tool for the NuMI Off-axis v Appearance (NOvA) experiment at Fermilab to monitor the Neutrinos at the Main Injector (NuMI) beam. The goal of this study is to maintain the quality of the monitor signals and to establish correlations with the neutrino beam profile. And we carry out a systematic study of the response of the muon monitors to the changes in the parameters of the proton beam and lattice parameters. We report here on the progress of the beam data analysis and comparison with the simulation results

On the functions counting walks with small steps in the quarter plane

Models of spatially homogeneous walks in the quarter plane ${\bf Z}_+^{2}$ with steps taken from a subset $\mathcal{S}$ of the set of jumps to the eight nearest neighbors are considered. The generating function $(x,y,z)\mapsto Q(x,y;z)$ of the numbers $q(i,j;n)$ of such walks starting at the origin and ending at $(i,j) \in {\bf Z}_+^{2}$ after $n$ steps is studied. For all non-singular models of walks, the functions $x \mapsto Q(x,0;z)$ and $y\mapsto Q(0,y;z)$ are continued as multi-valued functions on ${\bf C}$ having infinitely many meromorphic branches, of which the set of poles is identified. The nature of these functions is derived from this result: namely, for all the 51 walks which admit a certain infinite group of birational transformations of ${\bf C}^2$, the interval $]0,1/|\mathcal{S}|[$ of variation of $z$ splits into two dense subsets such that the functions $x \mapsto Q(x,0;z)$ and $y\mapsto Q(0,y;z)$ are shown to be holonomic for any $z$ from the one of them and non-holonomic for any $z$ from the other. This entails the non-holonomy of $(x,y,z)\mapsto Q(x,y;z)$, and therefore proves a conjecture of Bousquet-M\'elou and Mishna.Comment: 40 pages, 17 figure

Wearable electrical stimulation to improve lymphatic function

The lymphatic system is a network of vessels and glands spread throughout the body. It plays a vital role in transport mechanisms and overall functioning of tissues. Lymphoedema is a long-term condition caused by impaired lymphatic drainage. It can lead to skin damage, recurring infections and reduced body functions. This work has developed and tested a fabric based wearable electrical stimulation device for lymphoedema management. The electrodes and conductive interconnections were directly printed onto an everyday clothing fabric using screen-printing technique. The wearable device is lightweight, highly flexible, breathable, conformable, and can be cleaned to enable reuse. Lymphatic imaging was used to identify changes in lymph behaviour resulting from use of the e-textile device. Preliminary results confirm increase in lymphatic function through use of the wearable device

Prospects for progress on health inequalities in England in the post-primary care trust era : professional views on challenges, risks and opportunities

Background - Addressing health inequalities remains a prominent policy objective of the current UK government, but current NHS reforms involve a significant shift in roles and responsibilities. Clinicians are now placed at the heart of healthcare commissioning through which significant inequalities in access, uptake and impact of healthcare services must be addressed. Questions arise as to whether these new arrangements will help or hinder progress on health inequalities. This paper explores the perspectives of experienced healthcare professionals working within the commissioning arena; many of whom are likely to remain key actors in this unfolding scenario. Methods - Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 42 professionals involved with health and social care commissioning at national and local levels. These included representatives from the Department of Health, Primary Care Trusts, Strategic Health Authorities, Local Authorities, and third sector organisations. Results - In general, respondents lamented the lack of progress on health inequalities during the PCT commissioning era, where strong policy had not resulted in measurable improvements. However, there was concern that GP-led commissioning will fare little better, particularly in a time of reduced spending. Specific concerns centred on: reduced commitment to a health inequalities agenda; inadequate skills and loss of expertise; and weakened partnership working and engagement. There were more mixed opinions as to whether GP commissioners would be better able than their predecessors to challenge large provider trusts and shift spend towards prevention and early intervention, and whether GPs’ clinical experience would support commissioning action on inequalities. Though largely pessimistic, respondents highlighted some opportunities, including the potential for greater accountability of healthcare commissioners to the public and more influential needs assessments via emergent Health & Wellbeing Boards. Conclusions - There is doubt about the ability of GP commissioners to take clearer action on health inequalities than PCTs have historically achieved. Key actors expect the contribution from commissioning to address health inequalities to become even more piecemeal in the new arrangements, as it will be dependent upon the interest and agency of particular individuals within the new commissioning groups to engage and influence a wider range of stakeholders.</p

Solving Phase Retrieval with a Learned Reference

Fourier phase retrieval is a classical problem that deals with the recovery of an image from the amplitude measurements of its Fourier coefficients. Conventional methods solve this problem via iterative (alternating) minimization by leveraging some prior knowledge about the structure of the unknown image. The inherent ambiguities about shift and flip in the Fourier measurements make this problem especially difficult; and most of the existing methods use several random restarts with different permutations. In this paper, we assume that a known (learned) reference is added to the signal before capturing the Fourier amplitude measurements. Our method is inspired by the principle of adding a reference signal in holography. To recover the signal, we implement an iterative phase retrieval method as an unrolled network. Then we use back propagation to learn the reference that provides us the best reconstruction for a fixed number of phase retrieval iterations. We performed a number of simulations on a variety of datasets under different conditions and found that our proposed method for phase retrieval via unrolled network and learned reference provides near-perfect recovery at fixed (small) computational cost. We compared our method with standard Fourier phase retrieval methods and observed significant performance enhancement using the learned reference.Comment: Accepted to ECCV 2020. Code is available at https://github.com/CSIPlab/learnPR_referenc