Baseband version of the bat-inspired spectrogram correlation and transformation receiver

Echolocating bats have evolved an excellent ability to detect and discriminate targets in highly challenging environments. They have had more than 50 million years of evolution to optimise their echolocation system with respect to their surrounding environment. Behavioural experiments have shown their exceptional ability to detect and classify targets even in highly cluttered surroundings. The way bats process signals is not exactly the same as in radar and hence it can be useful to investigate the differences. The Spectrogram Correlation And Transformation receiver (SCAT) is an existing model of the bat auditory system that takes into account the physiology and underlying neural organisation in bats which emit chirped signals. In this paper, we propose a baseband receiver equivalent to the SCAT. This will allow biologically inspired signal processing to be applied to radar baseband signals. It will also enable further theoretical analysis of the key concepts, advantages and limitations of the "bat signal processing" for the purpose of target detection, localisation and resolution. The equivalence is demonstrated by comparing the output of the original SCAT to that of our proposed baseband version using both simulated and experimental target echoes. Results show that the baseband receiver provides compatible frequency interference pattern for two closely located scatterers

Starting From Scratch: Implementing a Successful, Multifaceted Information Literacy Program for the First-Year Course

This study describes a program created from scratch in which collaboration is initiated by librarians with teaching faculty in the first-year program to provide information literacy skills to incoming freshmen. The program is not only successful logistically, but is designed with assessment needs and evidence of student learning in mind. Additionally, the program design takes into account the needs of learners through utilization of a variety of learning activities and teaching tools that include group interaction, web-based tutorials, individual assignments, and peer-learning

Comparison study of SEASAT scatterometer and conventional wind fields

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution September 1988This thesis is not subject to U.S. copyright.A demonstrated need exists for better wind field information over the open ocean, especially as a forcing function for ocean circulation models. Microwave scatterometry, as a means of remotely sensing surface wind information, developed in response to this requirement for a surface wind field with global coverage and improved spatial and temporal resolution. This development led to the 1978 deployment of the SEASAT Satellite Scatterometer (SASS). Evaluations of the three months of SEASAT data have established the consistency of SASS winds with high quality surface wind data from field experiments over limited areas and time periods. The directional ambiguity of the original SASS vectors has been removed by Atlas et al. (1987) for the entire data set, and the resulting SASS winds provide a unique set of scatterometer wind information for a global comparison with winds from conventional sources. A one-month (12 August to 9 September 1978) subset of these dealiased winds, in the western North Atlantic, is compared here with a conventional, pressure-derived wind field from the 6-hourly surface wind analyses of the Fleet Numerical Oceanographic Center (FNOC), Monterey, CA. Through an objective mapping procedure, the irregularly spaced SASS winds are regridded to a latitude-longitude grid, facilitating statistical comparisons with the regularly spaced FNOC wind vectors and wind stress curl calculations. The study includes qualitative comparisons to synoptic weather maps; calculations of field statistics and boxed mean differences; scatter plots of wind speed, direction, and standard deviation; statistical descriptions of the SASS-FNOC difference field, and wind stress curl calculations. The SASS and FNOC fields are consistent with each other in a broad statistical sense, with wide scatter of individual values about a pattern of general agreement. The FNOC wind variances are slightly smaller than the SASS values, reflecting smoothing on larger spatial scales than the SASS winds, and the SASS mean values tend to be slightly higher than the FNOC means, though the increase is frequently lost in the large scatter. Exceptions to the pattern of relatively small consistent variations between the two fields are the pronounced differences associated with extremely strong winds, especially during Hurricane Ella, which traveled up the East Coast of the United States during the latter part of the study period. These large differences are attributed mainly to differences in the inferred positions of the pressure centers and in the response at the highest wind speeds (> 20m/s). The large statistical differences between the SASS and FNOC fields, present under high wind conditions, may yield significantly different ocean forcing, especially when the strong winds persist over longer periods of time. Under less intense wind conditions, usually prevailing over the ocean, the two fields correspond well statistically and the ocean responses forced by each should be similar

Acoustic shadows help gleaning bats find prey, but may be defeated by prey acoustic camouflage on rough surfaces

Copyright Clare and Holderied. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited

Sensorimotor Model of Obstacle Avoidance in Echolocating Bats

Bat echolocation is an ability consisting of many subtasks such as navigation, prey detection and object recognition. Understanding the echolocation capabilities of bats comes down to isolating the minimal set of acoustic cues needed to complete each task. For some tasks, the minimal cues have already been identified. However, while a number of possible cues have been suggested, little is known about the minimal cues supporting obstacle avoidance in echolocating bats. In this paper, we propose that the Interaural Intensity Difference (IID) and travel time of the first millisecond of the echo train are sufficient cues for obstacle avoidance. We describe a simple control algorithm based on the use of these cues in combination with alternating ear positions modeled after the constant frequency bat Rhinolophus rouxii. Using spatial simulations (2D and 3D), we show that simple phonotaxis can steer a bat clear from obstacles without performing a reconstruction of the 3D layout of the scene. As such, this paper presents the first computationally explicit explanation for obstacle avoidance validated in complex simulated environments. Based on additional simulations modelling the FM bat Phyllostomus discolor, we conjecture that the proposed cues can be exploited by constant frequency (CF) bats and frequency modulated (FM) bats alike. We hypothesize that using a low level yet robust cue for obstacle avoidance allows bats to comply with the hard real-time constraints of this basic behaviour

Delayed Response and Biosonar Perception Explain Movement Coordination in Trawling Bats

Animal coordinated movement interactions are commonly explained by assuming unspecified social forces of attraction, repulsion and alignment with parameters drawn from observed movement data. Here we propose and test a biologically realistic and quantifiable biosonar movement interaction mechanism for echolocating bats based on spatial perceptual bias, i.e. actual sound field, a reaction delay, and observed motor constraints in speed and acceleration. We found that foraging pairs of bats flying over a water surface swapped leader-follower roles and performed chases or coordinated manoeuvres by copying the heading a nearby individual has had up to 500 ms earlier. Our proposed mechanism based on the interplay between sensory-motor constraints and delayed alignment was able to recreate the observed spatial actor-reactor patterns. Remarkably, when we varied model parameters (response delay, hearing threshold and echolocation directionality) beyond those observed in nature, the spatio-temporal interaction patterns created by the model only recreated the observed interactions, i.e. chases, and best matched the observed spatial patterns for just those response delays, hearing thresholds and echolocation directionalities found to be used by bats. This supports the validity of our sensory ecology approach of movement coordination, where interacting bats localise each other by active echolocation rather than eavesdropping

Canonical momentum based numerical schemes for hybrid plasma models with kinetic ions and massless electrons

We study the canonical momentum based discretizations of a hybrid model with kinetic ions and mass-less electrons. Two equivalent formulations of the hybrid model are presented, in which the vector potentials are in different gauges and the distribution functions depend on canonical momentum (not velocity). Particle-in-cell methods are used for the distribution functions, and the vector potentials are discretized by the finite element methods in the framework of finite element exterior calculus. Splitting methods are used for the time discretizations. It is illustrated that the second formulation is numerically superior and the schemes constructed based on the anti-symmetric bracket proposed have better conservation properties, although the filters can be used to improve the schemes of the first formulation.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figure

Einfluss der parietalen Epithelzellen auf die Bowman’sche Kapsel bei diabetischer Nephropathie

Die diabetische Nephropathie ist derzeit weltweit der häufigste Grund für die terminale Niereninsuffizienz mit einem Anteil von einem Drittel aller Fälle. Im Verlauf der diabetischen Nephropathie kommt es zu einer zunehmenden Glomerulosklerose. Die Fähigkeit der parietalen Epithelzelle zur Ausbildung von extrazellulärer Matrix und ein möglicher Beitrag zur Glomerulosklerose ist bislang unklar. Daher sollte in dieser Arbeit gezeigt werden, dass die parietale Epithelzelle bei der diabetischen Nephropathie vermehrt extrazelluläre Matrix bildet und dadurch die Bowman’sche Kapsel verdickt. Diese Frage wurde unter Verwendung einer immortalisierten murinen parietalen Epithelzelllinie und einer primären humanen parietalen Epithelzelllinie im Zellversuch und Stimulation dieser Zellen mit hoher Glukosekonzentration (30mM), TGF-β1 und „advanced glycation endproducts“ nachgegangen. Außerdem wurde retrospektiv die Bowman’sche Kapsel von sechs humanen Nierenbiopsien mit diabetischer Nephropathie per Licht- und Transmissionselektronen-mikroskopie untersucht. Im ersten Schritt war die Aktivierung der parietalen Epithelzelle unter diabetischer Kondition Fokus der experimentellen Untersuchung. Hier lag ein zellspezifischer Effekt vor. Während für die humanen parietalen Epithelzellen keine funktionellen oder morphologischen Zeichen der Aktivierung gefunden werden konnte, zeigten murine parietale Epithelzellen eine Aktivierung nach Stimulation mit TGF-β1. Der zweite Schritt bestand in der Untersuchung der Bildung von TGF-β1 in parietalen Epithelzellen. Auch hier konnten unterschiedliche Stimulationseffekte bei den murinen und humanen parietalen Epithelzellen beobachtet werden. Während die humanen parietalen Epithelzellen weder auf Transkriptions-, noch auf Translationsebene eine geänderte Expression zeigten, exprimierten die murinen parietalen Epithelzellen in einem positiven Feedback-Mechanismus auf Transkriptionsebene verstärkt TGF-β1 nach Stimulation mit TGF-β1. Auf Translationsebene konnte eine verstärkte Bildung von TGF-β1 nach Stimulation mit „advanced glycation endproducts“ und eine verminderte Bildung nach Stimulation mit Glukose beobachtet werden. Der dritte Schritt beinhaltete die Untersuchung der Kollagenbildung in den parietalen Epithelzellen und die Vermessung der Bowman’schen Kapsel. Während Glukose in keiner der Zelltypen zu einer Änderung der Kollagengenexpression führte, induzierte TGF-β1 in den humanen und murinen parietalen Epithelzellen eine Hochregulation der Genexpression verschiedener Ketten von Kollagen IV und Kollagen I α 1. „Advanced glycation endproducts“ verstärkten die Transkription der Kollagene in den humanen parietalen Epithelzellen, wohingegen sie diese in murinen parietalen Epithelzellen herunterregulierten. In der retrospektiven histologischen Untersuchung von sechs Patienten mit diabetischer Nephropathie und sechs Vergleichspatienten wurde per Licht- und Transmissionselektronenmikroskopie die Dicke der Bowman’schen Kapsel vermessen. In den lichtmikroskopischen Messungen zeigte sich für die Patienten mit diabetischer Nephropathie eine signifikant verdickte Bowman’schen Kapsel. Diese Verdickung konnte bei Patienten mit diabetischer Nephropathie in den transmissionselektronenmikroskopischen Messungen bestätigt werden. Letztlich ist die Lichtmikroskopie die geeignetere Messmethode, weil hier eine höhere Anzahl an Glomeruli gemessen werden kann und sie einen Selektionsbias ausschließt. Zusammenfassend konnte gezeigt werden, dass die parietale Epithelzelle unter diabetischer Kondition verstärkt extrazelluläre Matrix bildet und diese basal ablagert. In den murinen parietalen Epithelzellen ergaben sich Hinweise auf den Mechanismus der Aktivierung und einen positiven Feedbackmechanismus von TGF-β1 bei der diabetischen Nephropathie. Die Verdickung der Bowman’schen Kapsel ist von klinischer und diagnostischer Bedeutung, da die Ausbildung der parietalen Fibrose viele Funktionen der parietalen Epithelzellen und Bowman’schen Kapsel einschränkt und der Glomerulus letztlich sklerosiert bzw. verödet. Diagnostisch werden künftige Studien den Wert der Dickenmessung der Bowman’schen Kapsel als zusätzliches pathologisches Kriterium der Stadieneinteilung der diabetischen Nephropathie zeigen