577 research outputs found
Spatially Resolved Mapping of Local Polarization Dynamics in an Ergodic Phase of Ferroelectric Relaxor
Spatial variability of polarization relaxation kinetics in relaxor
ferroelectric 0.9Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3-0.1PbTiO3 is studied using time-resolved
Piezoresponse Force Microscopy. Local relaxation attributed to the
reorientation of polar nanoregions is shown to follow stretched exponential
dependence, exp(-(t/tau)^beta), with beta~~0.4, much larger than the
macroscopic value determined from dielectric spectra (beta~~0.09). The spatial
inhomogeneity of relaxation time distributions with the presence of 100-200 nm
"fast" and "slow" regions is observed. The results are analyzed to map the
Vogel-Fulcher temperatures on the nanoscale.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures, supplementary materials attached; to be
submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Field ultrasound evaluation of some gestational parameters in jennies
The aim of this study was to collect and analyze ultrasound measurements of fetal-maternal structures during normal and pathological pregnancies in jennies, a livestock species of growing interest. For two breeding seasons, 38 jennies of different breeds and crossbreeds aged between 3 and 18 years were monitored weekly by transrectal examination using a portable Esaote ultrasound (MyLab\u2122 30 GOLD VET) with a 5\u20137.5 MHz probe. The jennies were divided into two groups, < 250 kg and >250 kg body weight, and the dates of conception and parturition/abortion were recorded to calculate pregnancy length. Descriptive statistics were performed for the following variables: pregnancy length and maternal-fetal parameters (measurements of the orbit, gastric bubble, thorax, abdomen, gonads, heart rate, umbilical artery velocimetry, and combined utero-placental thickness). A total of 68 pregnancies were studied, 36 of which ended during the study period. The average pregnancy length was 370.82 \ub1 16.6 days for full-term pregnancies (N = 28, 77.8%) and 316.13 \ub1 36.6 days for abortions (N = 8, 22.2%). The season of conception and fetal gender did not affect the pregnancy length. Pregnancy examination can reasonably be performed by two weeks after last service if ovulation date is not known. The orbital diameter was the most reliable parameter for monitoring the physiological development of the embryo and fetus, and it was strongly related to the gestational age. No differences in fetal development were observed in relation to the mother's body weight. The combined utero-placental thickness was not associated with the gestational age and thickening and edema, frequently observed, were not associated with fetal pathologies
Structural Measurements for Enhanced MAV Flight
Our sense of touch allows us to feel the forces in our limbs when we walk, swim, or hold our arms out the window of a moving car. We anticipate this sense is key in the locomotion of natural flyers. Inspired by the sense of touch, the overall goal of this research is to develop techniques for the estimation of aerodynamic loads from structural measurements for flight control applications. We submit a general algorithm for the direct estimation of distributed steady loads over bodies from embedded noisy deformation-based measurements. The estimation algorithm is applied to a linearly elastic membrane test problem where three applied distributed loads are estimated using three measurement configurations with various amounts of noise. We demonstrate accurate load estimates with simple sensor configurations, despite noisy measurements. Online real-time aerodynamic load estimates may lead to flight control designs that improve the stability and agility of micro air vehicles
Analytical continuation of imaginary axis data for optical conductivity
We compare different methods for performing analytical continuation of
spectral data from the imaginary time or frequency axis to the real frequency
axis for the optical conductivity sigma(omega). We compare the maximum entropy
(MaxEnt), singular value decomposition (SVD), sampling and Pade methods for
analytical continuation. We also study two direct methods for obtaining
sigma(0). For the MaxEnt approach we focus on a recent modification. The data
are split up in batches, a separate MaxEnt calculation is done for each batch
and the results are averaged. For the problems studied here, we find that
typically the SVD, sampling and modified MaxEnt methods give comparable
accuracy, while the Pade approximation is usually less reliable.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure
Convergence rates in expectation for Tikhonov-type regularization of Inverse Problems with Poisson data
In this paper we study a Tikhonov-type method for ill-posed nonlinear
operator equations \gdag = F(
ag) where \gdag is an integrable,
non-negative function. We assume that data are drawn from a Poisson process
with density t\gdag where may be interpreted as an exposure time. Such
problems occur in many photonic imaging applications including positron
emission tomography, confocal fluorescence microscopy, astronomic observations,
and phase retrieval problems in optics. Our approach uses a
Kullback-Leibler-type data fidelity functional and allows for general convex
penalty terms. We prove convergence rates of the expectation of the
reconstruction error under a variational source condition as both
for an a priori and for a Lepski{\u\i}-type parameter choice rule
Necessary conditions for variational regularization schemes
We study variational regularization methods in a general framework, more
precisely those methods that use a discrepancy and a regularization functional.
While several sets of sufficient conditions are known to obtain a
regularization method, we start with an investigation of the converse question:
How could necessary conditions for a variational method to provide a
regularization method look like? To this end, we formalize the notion of a
variational scheme and start with comparison of three different instances of
variational methods. Then we focus on the data space model and investigate the
role and interplay of the topological structure, the convergence notion and the
discrepancy functional. Especially, we deduce necessary conditions for the
discrepancy functional to fulfill usual continuity assumptions. The results are
applied to discrepancy functionals given by Bregman distances and especially to
the Kullback-Leibler divergence.Comment: To appear in Inverse Problem
Iteratively regularized Newton-type methods for general data misfit functionals and applications to Poisson data
We study Newton type methods for inverse problems described by nonlinear
operator equations in Banach spaces where the Newton equations
are regularized variationally using a general
data misfit functional and a convex regularization term. This generalizes the
well-known iteratively regularized Gauss-Newton method (IRGNM). We prove
convergence and convergence rates as the noise level tends to 0 both for an a
priori stopping rule and for a Lepski{\u\i}-type a posteriori stopping rule.
Our analysis includes previous order optimal convergence rate results for the
IRGNM as special cases. The main focus of this paper is on inverse problems
with Poisson data where the natural data misfit functional is given by the
Kullback-Leibler divergence. Two examples of such problems are discussed in
detail: an inverse obstacle scattering problem with amplitude data of the
far-field pattern and a phase retrieval problem. The performence of the
proposed method for these problems is illustrated in numerical examples
Image labeling and grouping by minimizing linear functionals over cones
We consider energy minimization problems related to image labeling, partitioning, and grouping, which typically show up at mid-level stages of computer vision systems. A common feature of these problems is their intrinsic combinatorial complexity from an optimization pointof-view. Rather than trying to compute the global minimum - a goal we consider as elusive in these cases - we wish to design optimization approaches which exhibit two relevant properties: First, in each application a solution with guaranteed degree of suboptimality can be computed. Secondly, the computations are based on clearly defined algorithms which do not comprise any (hidden) tuning parameters. In this paper, we focus on the second property and introduce a novel and general optimization technique to the field of computer vision which amounts to compute a sub optimal solution by just solving a convex optimization problem. As representative examples, we consider two binary quadratic energy functionals related to image labeling and perceptual grouping. Both problems can be considered as instances of a general quadratic functional in binary variables, which is embedded into a higher-dimensional space such that sub optimal solutions can be computed as minima of linear functionals over cones in that space (semidefinite programs). Extensive numerical results reveal that, on the average, sub optimal solutions can be computed which yield a gap below 5% with respect to the global optimum in case where this is known
The Iteratively Regularized Gau{\ss}-Newton Method with Convex Constraints and Applications in 4Pi-Microscopy
This paper is concerned with the numerical solution of nonlinear ill-posed
operator equations involving convex constraints. We study a Newton-type method
which consists in applying linear Tikhonov regularization with convex
constraints to the Newton equations in each iteration step. Convergence of this
iterative regularization method is analyzed if both the operator and the right
hand side are given with errors and all error levels tend to zero. Our study
has been motivated by the joint estimation of object and phase in 4Pi
microscopy, which leads to a semi-blind deconvolution problem with
nonnegativity constraints. The performance of the proposed algorithm is
illustrated both for simulated and for three-dimensional experimental data
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