Digital Optical Switches with a Silicon-on-Insulator Waveguide Corner

In this chapter, the quantum process of the Goos-Hänchen (GH) spatial shift is first derived out, then the coherence between spatial and angular shifts in the GH effect in the quantum state is discovered and a function of digital optical switch is developed. It is found that a waveguide corner structure always makes the reflected guide-mode have both the GH spatial and angular shifts when the incident beam is in the vicinity area of critical and Brewster angles. Meanwhile, these two GH shifts have the interesting coherent distributions with the incident angle, and only in the common linear response area the two GH shifts are mutual enhancing, then a mini refractive index modulation (RIM) of guided mode at the reflecting interface can create a great stable jump of reflected beam displacement at an eigenstate. As a result, on 220 nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) waveguide platform, with a tapered multimode interference (MMI) waveguide a 5.0 × 10 18 cm − 3 concentration variation of free carriers can cause a digital total 8–25 μm displacement of the reflected beam on the MMI output end, leading to a 1 × N scale digital optical switching function. As a series of verifications, the numerical calculations, finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations and experiments, are sustainable to the quantum GH shifts

Comparison of disease resistance of maize varieties from the 1950s to the 2000s in China

The objective of this investigation was to analyze trends in diseases resistance along with genetic gain. Experimental materials consisted of maize varieties selected from each decade beginning with the 1950s. These varieties were evaluated for resistance to maize dwarf mosaic virus (MDMV), maize rough dwarf virus (MRDV), common smut disease (CSD) and head smut disease (HSD) in several different locations. Artificial inoculation was adopted for infection with MDMV and HSD, whereas natural infection was used for infection MRDV and CSD. Results indicated that resistance of the newer varieties to MDMV, CSD, and HSD was greater than that of older varieties, but the correlation to decades was not significant. To date, no variety tested in China has shown resistance to MRDV, which is likely due to a lack of maize germplasm resources resistant to MRDV in China. So the next goal will be to import new germplasm resources and select resistant germplasm as the basis of breeding resistant varieties

Association of DNA Methylation at \u3cem\u3eCPT1A\u3c/em\u3e Locus with Metabolic Syndrome in the Genetics of Lipid Lowering Drugs and Diet Network (GOLDN) Study

In this study, we conducted an epigenome-wide association study of metabolic syndrome (MetS) among 846 participants of European descent in the Genetics of Lipid Lowering Drugs and Diet Network (GOLDN). DNA was isolated from CD4+ T cells and methylation at ~470,000 cytosine-phosphate-guanine dinucleotide (CpG) pairs was assayed using the Illumina Infinium HumanMethylation450 BeadChip. We modeled the percentage methylation at individual CpGs as a function of MetS using linear mixed models. A Bonferroni-corrected P-value of 1.1 x 10−7 was considered significant. Methylation at two CpG sites in CPT1A on chromosome 11 was significantly associated with MetS (P for cg00574958 = 2.6x10-14 and P for cg17058475 = 1.2x10-9). Significant associations were replicated in both European and African ancestry participants of the Bogalusa Heart Study. Our findings suggest that methylation in CPT1A is a promising epigenetic marker for MetS risk which could become useful as a treatment target in the future

Evaluation of association tests for rare variants using simulated data sets in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 17 data

We evaluate four association tests for rare variants—the combined multivariate and collapsing (CMC) method, two weighted-sum methods, and a variable threshold method—by applying them to the simulated data sets of unrelated individuals in the Genetic Analysis Workshop 17 (GAW17) data. The family-wise error rate (FWER) and average power are used as criteria for evaluation. Our results show that when all nonsynonymous SNPs (rare variants and common variants) in a gene are jointly analyzed, the CMC method fails to control the FWER; when only rare variants (single-nucleotide polymorphisms with minor allele frequency less than 0.05) are analyzed, all four methods can control FWER well. All four methods have comparable power, which is low for the analysis of the GAW17 data sets. Three of the methods (not including the CMC method) involve estimation of p-values using permutation procedures that either can be computationally intensive or generate inflated FWERs. We adapt a fast permutation procedure into these three methods. The results show that using the fast permutation procedure can produce FWERs and average powers close to the values obtained from the standard permutation procedure on the GAW17 data sets. The standard permutation procedure is computationally intensive

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS): A New Operational Sensor Series

ATMS is a new satellite microwave sounding sensor designed to provide operational weather agencies with atmospheric temperature and moisture profile information for global weather forecasting and climate applications. ATMS will continue the microwave sounding capabilities first provided by its predecessors, the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). The first ATMS was launched October 28, 2011 on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) satellite. Microwave soundings by themselves are the highest-impact input data used by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models; and ATMS, when combined with the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), forms the Cross-track Infrared and Microwave Sounding Suite (CrIMSS). The microwave soundings help meet NWP sounding requirements under cloudy sky conditions and provide key profile information near the surfac

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS): The First 10 Months On-Orbit

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) is a new satellite microwave sounding sensor designed to provide operational weather agencies with atmospheric temperature and moisture profile information for global weather forecasting and climate applications. A TMS will continue the microwave sounding capabilities first provided by its predecessors, the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU) and Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU). The first ATMS was launched October 28, 2011 on board the NPOESS Preparatory Project (NPP) satellite. Microwave soundings by themselves are the highest-impact input data used by Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models, especially under cloudy sky conditions. ATMS has 22 channels spanning 23-183 GHz, closely following the channel set of the MSU, AMSU-A1/2, AMSU-B, Microwave Humidity Sounder (MHS), and Humidity Sounder for Brazil (HSB). All this is accomplished with approximately 1/4 the volume, 1/2 the mass, and 1/2 the power of the three AMSUs. A description of ATMS cal/val activities will be presented followed by examples of its performance after its first 10 months on orbit

Significant Near-Field Enhancement over Large Volumes around Metal Nanorods via Strong Coupling of Surface Lattice Resonances and Fabry–Pérot Resonance

Metal nanoparticles supporting plasmons are widely used to enhance electromagnetic fields, resulting in strong light–matter interactions at the nanoscale in a diverse range of applications. Recently, it has been shown that when metal nanorods are periodically arranged with proper lattice periods, surface lattice resonances (SLRs) can be excited and near fields can be greatly enhanced over extended volumes. In this work, we report significant near field enhancement over even larger volumes by placing the metal nanorod array within a Fabry–Pérot (F-P) microcavity. Simulation results show that by taking advantage of strong coupling between the SLR and the photonic F-P resonances, the electric field intensity of the bonding split mode can be enhanced by up to 1935 times, which is about three times of the enhancement of the SLR, and the greatly enhanced field can extend over most of the F-P microcavity. We further show that the F-P resonances of both odd and even orders can strongly couple to the SLR by varying the nanorods position from the middle of the microcavity. We expect that the proposed plasmonic-photonic coupling system will find promising applications in nanolasers, nonlinear optics and sensing

Antenna Selection and Placement Analysis of MIMO Radar Networks for Target Localization

A distributed MIMO radar network consists of a large number of transmitters/receivers to cover a sensing area of interest but under the constraint that the number of antennas is limited. The problem of selecting a subset of antennas at a sampling time to maximize the diversity capability of the MIMO radar in terms of target resolvability is addressed from the information geometric viewpoint in this paper. Fisher information matrix of distributed MIMO radar which takes both radar waveform and SNR into account is derived as a function of individual antenna locations. The Fisher information distance (FID) between the measurement distribution based on all antennas and that based on only the selected set of antennas is calculated and is adopted as the criterion of selecting a subset of antennas. The underlying antenna selection problem is then to select a subset of antennas from all antennas which can result in the “shortest” FID with respect to a given target location. Since an NP hard search process is involved, an exhaustive search method is considered for efficient antenna subset selection. Simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm compared with other criteria in different antenna configurations

Bonding-strengthening technology in coalbed cementing through wettability improvement

Coalbeds are characterized by high organic matter content, presence of joints and smooth joint surface, which lead to weak bonding between coal and set cement and poor cementing quality of coalbeds, and consequently the economic and effective development of coalbed methane (CBM) is restricted seriously. In this paper, components, compositions and wetting characteristics of coal were analyzed in order to improve the water wettability of coal, the effects of different surfactants and their concentration and soaking time on the surface wetting angle of coal and interfacial bonding strength were tested and measured. The high-efficiency hydrophilic wettability modifier was optimized. The strengthened coalbed bonding prepad fluid system was developed and applied practically in the Qinshui Basin, Shanxi province. The results of laboratory tests and field applications show that the compact adsorption of surfactant containing ether and sulfate radical on the surface of coal can convert the surface wettability into strong hydrophilicity at the concentration of 0.3% within 30 s, thus improving significantly the interface bonding strength (up to 65.5%) between coal and set cement. The field application in CBM well cementing shows that the strengthened coalbed bonding prepad fluid can improve the cementing quality from unqualified level to high level, and play a significant role in improving CBM hole interval cementing quality. It is concluded that this technology provides an effective guarantee for coalbed cementing quality improvement and smooth implementation of stimulation measures like fracturing. Keywords: Coalbed methane (CBM), Coal, Well cementing, Wettability, Interfacial bonding strength, Cementing quality, Surfactant, Prepad flui