The Ultrasonic/Shear-Force Microscope: A Metrology Tool for Surface Science and Technology

This paper describes recent results obtained with the Ultrasonic/Shear-Force Microscope (SUNM), an analytical tool suitable for investigating the quite different dynamic displayed by fluid-like films when subjected to mesoscopic confinement and while in intimate contact with two sliding solid boundaries. The SUNM uses two sensory modules to concurrently but independently monitor the effects that fluid-mediated interactions exert on two sliding bodies: the microscope’s sharp probe (attached to a piezoelectric sensor) and the analyzed sample (attached to an ultrasonic transducer). This dual capability allows correlating the fluid-like film’s viscoelastic properties with changes in the probe’s resonance frequency and the generation of sound. A detailed monitoring of sliding friction by ultrasonic means and with nanometer resolution is unprecedented, which opens potential uses of the versatile microscope as a surface and subsurface material characterization tool. As a surface metrology tool, the SUNM presents a potential impact in diverse areas ranging from fundamental studies of nanotribology, confinement-driven solid to liquid phase transformation of polymer films, characterization of industrial lubricants, and the study of elastic properties of bio-membranes. As a sub-surface metrology tool, the SUNM can be used in the investigation of the elastic properties of low- and high-k dielectric materials, piezoelectric and ferroelectric films, as well as quality control in the construction of micro- and nano-fluidics devices

Possible complex annihilation and B -> K pi direct CP asymmetry

We point out that a sizable strong phase could be generated from the penguin annihilation in the soft-collinear effective theory for B meson decays. Keeping a small scale suppressed by O(Lambda/m_b), Lambda being a hadronic scale and m_b the b quark mass, in the denominators of internal particle propagators without expansion, the resultant strong phase can accommodate the data of the B^0 -> K^-+ pi^+- direct CP asymmetry. Our study reconciles the opposite conclusions on the real or complex penguin annihilation amplitude drawn in the soft-collinear effective theory and in the perturbative QCD approach based on k_T factorization theorem.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, added reference

Human treelike tubular structure segmentation: A comprehensive review and future perspectives

Various structures in human physiology follow a treelike morphology, which often expresses complexity at very fine scales. Examples of such structures are intrathoracic airways, retinal blood vessels, and hepatic blood vessels. Large collections of 2D and 3D images have been made available by medical imaging modalities such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and ultrasound in which the spatial arrangement can be observed. Segmentation of these structures in medical imaging is of great importance since the analysis of the structure provides insights into disease diagnosis, treatment planning, and prognosis. Manually labelling extensive data by radiologists is often time-consuming and error-prone. As a result, automated or semi-automated computational models have become a popular research field of medical imaging in the past two decades, and many have been developed to date. In this survey, we aim to provide a comprehensive review of currently publicly available datasets, segmentation algorithms, and evaluation metrics. In addition, current challenges and future research directions are discussed

Enhancement of type 1 interferon induction with drug and radiation treatments to increase anti-tumor immunity

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp21/1185/thumbnail.jp

Possible Way to Synthesize Superheavy Element Z=117

Within the framework of the dinuclear system model, the production of superheavy element Z=117 in possible projectile-target combinations is analyzed systematically. The calculated results show that the production cross sections are strongly dependent on the reaction systems. Optimal combinations, corresponding excitation energies and evaporation channels are proposed in this letter, such as the isotopes ^{248,249}Bk in ^{48}Ca induced reactions in 3n evaporation channels and the reactions ^{45}Sc+^{246,248}Cm in 3n and 4n channels, and the system ^{51}V+^{244}Pu in 3n channel.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Region-based evidential deep learning to quantify uncertainty and improve robustness of brain tumor segmentation

Despite recent advances in the accuracy of brain tumor segmentation, the results still suffer from low reliability and robustness. Uncertainty estimation is an efficient solution to this problem, as it provides a measure of confidence in the segmentation results. The current uncertainty estimation methods based on quantile regression, Bayesian neural network, ensemble, and Monte Carlo dropout are limited by their high computational cost and inconsistency. In order to overcome these challenges, Evidential Deep Learning (EDL) was developed in recent work but primarily for natural image classification and showed inferior segmentation results. In this paper, we proposed a region-based EDL segmentation framework that can generate reliable uncertainty maps and accurate segmentation results, which is robust to noise and image corruption. We used the Theory of Evidence to interpret the output of a neural network as evidence values gathered from input features. Following Subjective Logic, evidence was parameterized as a Dirichlet distribution, and predicted probabilities were treated as subjective opinions. To evaluate the performance of our model on segmentation and uncertainty estimation, we conducted quantitative and qualitative experiments on the BraTS 2020 dataset. The results demonstrated the top performance of the proposed method in quantifying segmentation uncertainty and robustly segmenting tumors. Furthermore, our proposed new framework maintained the advantages of low computational cost and easy implementation and showed the potential for clinical application

Phenolic Compound Profiles in Skins of White Wine and Table Grape Cultivars Grown in the National Grape Germplasm Resource Nursery of China

The phenolic compound profiles in the skins of white grapes, containing ten wine grape and six table grapecultivars grown in the National Grape Germplasm Resource Nursery at the Zhengzhou Fruit ResearchInstitute of China, were investigated using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled withmass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS). The objective of this study was to evaluate if phenolic compoundprofiles can be used as indictors to differentiate the quality of wine and table grape cultivars. Significantdifferences in phenolic compound profiles were observed among these grape cultivar skins. The highestcontent of total hydroxybenzoic acids, total hydroxycinnamic acids, total flavan-3-ols, total flavones andflavonols and total stilbenes was observed in the skin of the Canada Muscat, Rommel, Kadin parmac,Bacchus and Silvaner cultivars respectively. A great compositional difference was observed among thesegrape cultivars regarding the individual hydroxycinnamic acids and flavonols. Cluster analysis showed thatthree table grape cultivars, namely Canada Muscat, Rommel and Kadin parmac, possessed significantlydifferent phenolic compound profiles compared to the other grape cultivars. These results suggested thatphenolic compound patterns and contents played important roles in evaluating the quality of table andwine grapes and might provide useful information on grape breeding and winemaking in China

kTk_T factorization of exclusive processes

We prove $k_T$ factorization theorem in perturbative QCD (PQCD) for exclusive processes by considering $\pi\gamma^*\to \gamma(\pi)$ and $B\to\gamma(\pi) l\bar\nu$. The relevant form factors are expressed as the convolution of hard amplitudes with two-parton meson wave functions in the impact parameter $b$ space, $b$ being conjugate to the parton transverse momenta $k_T$. The point is that on-shell valence partons carry longitudinal momenta initially, and acquire $k_T$ through collinear gluon exchanges. The $b$-dependent two-parton wave functions with an appropriate path for the Wilson links are gauge-invariant. The hard amplitudes, defined as the difference between the parton-level diagrams of on-shell external particles and their collinear approximation, are also gauge-invariant. We compare the predictions for two-body nonleptonic $B$ meson decays derived from $k_T$ factorization (the PQCD approach) and from collinear factorization (the QCD factorization approach).Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, 5 figure

Safe Control and Learning Using Generalized Action Governor

This paper introduces the Generalized Action Governor, which is a supervisory scheme for augmenting a nominal closed-loop system with the capability of strictly handling constraints. After presenting its theory for general systems and introducing tailored design approaches for linear and discrete systems, we discuss its application to safe online learning, which aims to safely evolve control parameters using real-time data to improve performance for uncertain systems. In particular, we propose two safe learning algorithms based on integration of reinforcement learning/data-driven Koopman operator-based control with the generalized action governor. The developments are illustrated with a numerical example.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

A new framework for privacy-preserving biometric-based remote user authentication

tru