24,019 research outputs found
Locally Adaptive Frames in the Roto-Translation Group and their Applications in Medical Imaging
Locally adaptive differential frames (gauge frames) are a well-known
effective tool in image analysis, used in differential invariants and
PDE-flows. However, at complex structures such as crossings or junctions, these
frames are not well-defined. Therefore, we generalize the notion of gauge
frames on images to gauge frames on data representations defined on the extended space of positions and
orientations, which we relate to data on the roto-translation group ,
. This allows to define multiple frames per position, one per
orientation. We compute these frames via exponential curve fits in the extended
data representations in . These curve fits minimize first or second
order variational problems which are solved by spectral decomposition of,
respectively, a structure tensor or Hessian of data on . We include
these gauge frames in differential invariants and crossing preserving PDE-flows
acting on extended data representation and we show their advantage compared
to the standard left-invariant frame on . Applications include
crossing-preserving filtering and improved segmentations of the vascular tree
in retinal images, and new 3D extensions of coherence-enhancing diffusion via
invertible orientation scores
On the lack of stellar bars in Coma dwarf galaxies
We present a study of the bar fraction in the Coma cluster galaxies based on
a sample of ~190 galaxies selected from the SDSS-DR6 and observed with the
Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Advanced Camera for Survey (ACS). The
unprecedented resolution of the HST-ACS images allows us to explore the
presence of bars, detected by visual classification, throughout a luminosity
range of 9 mag (-23 < M_r < -14), permitting us to study the poor known region
of dwarf galaxies. We find that bars are hosted by galaxies in a tight range of
both luminosities (-22 < M_r < -17) and masses (10^9 < M*/Msun < 10^11). In
addition, we find that the bar fraction does not vary significantly when going
from the center to the cluster outskirts, implying that cluster environment
plays a second-order role in bar formation/evolution. The shape of the bar
fraction distribution with respect to both luminosity and mass is well matched
by the luminosity distribution of disk galaxies in Coma, indicating that bars
are good tracers of cold stellar disks.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of the conference "A
Universe of Dwarf Galaxies" (Lyon, June 14-18, 2010
Dutch listeners' use of suprasegmental cues to English stress
Dutch listeners outperform native listeners in identifying syllable stress in English. This is because lexical stress is more useful in recognition of spoken words of Dutch than of English, so that Dutch listeners pay greater attention to stress in general. We examined Dutch listeners’ use of the acoustic correlates of English stress. Primary- and secondary-stressed syllables differ significantly on acoustic measures, and some differences, in F0 especially, correlate with data of earlier listening experiments. The correlations found in the Dutch responses were not paralleled in data from native listeners. Thus the acoustic cues which distinguish English primary versus secondary stress are better exploited by Dutch than by native listeners
Strongly anisotropic roughness in surfaces driven by an oblique particle flux
Using field theoretic renormalization, an MBE-type growth process with an
obliquely incident influx of atoms is examined. The projection of the beam on
the substrate plane selects a "parallel" direction, with rotational invariance
restricted to the transverse directions. Depending on the behavior of an
effective anisotropic surface tension, a line of second order transitions is
identified, as well as a line of potentially first order transitions, joined by
a multicritical point. Near the second order transitions and the multicritical
point, the surface roughness is strongly anisotropic. Four different roughness
exponents are introduced and computed, describing the surface in different
directions, in real or momentum space. The results presented challenge an
earlier study of the multicritical point.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX
Non-Abelian Giant Gravitons
We argue that the giant graviton configurations known from the literature
have a complementary, microscopical description in terms of multiple
gravitational waves undergoing a dielectric (or magnetic moment) effect. We
present a non-Abelian effective action for these gravitational waves with
dielectric couplings and show that stable dielectric solutions exist. These
solutions agree in the large limit with the giant graviton configurations
in the literature.Comment: 8 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of the RTN workshop in
Leuven, Belgium, September 200
Robust and Efficient Uncertainty Quantification and Validation of RFIC Isolation
Modern communication and identification products impose demanding constraints on reliability of components. Due to this statistical constraints more and more enter optimization formulations of electronic products. Yield constraints often require efficient sampling techniques to obtain uncertainty quantification also at the tails of the distributions. These sampling techniques should outperform standard Monte Carlo techniques, since these latter ones are normally not efficient enough to deal with tail probabilities. One such a technique, Importance Sampling, has successfully been applied to optimize Static Random Access Memories (SRAMs) while guaranteeing very small failure probabilities, even going beyond 6-sigma variations of parameters involved. Apart from this, emerging uncertainty quantifications techniques offer expansions of the solution that serve as a response surface facility when doing statistics and optimization. To efficiently derive the coefficients in the expansions one either has to solve a large number of problems or a huge combined problem. Here parameterized Model Order Reduction (MOR) techniques can be used to reduce the work load. To also reduce the amount of parameters we identify those that only affect the variance in a minor way. These parameters can simply be set to a fixed value. The remaining parameters can be viewed as dominant. Preservation of the variation also allows to make statements about the approximation accuracy obtained by the parameter-reduced problem. This is illustrated on an RLC circuit. Additionally, the MOR technique used should not affect the variance significantly. Finally we consider a methodology for reliable RFIC isolation using floor-plan modeling and isolation grounding. Simulations show good comparison with measurements
Exploring prospects of novel drugs for tuberculosis
Tuberculosis remains a disease with an enormous impact on public health worldwide. With the continuously increasing epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis, new drugs are desperately needed. However, even for the treatment of drug-sensitive tuberculosis, new drugs are required to shorten the treatment duration and thereby prevent development of drug resistance. Within the past ten years, major advances in tuberculosis drug research have been made, leading to a considerable number of antimycobacterial compounds which are now in the pipeline. Here we discuss a number of these novel promising tuberculosis drugs, as well as the discovery of two new potential drug targets for the development of novel effective drugs to curb the tuberculosis pandemic, ie, the coronin 1 and protein kinase G pathways. Protein kinase G is secreted by mycobacteria and is responsible for blocking lysosomal delivery within the macrophage. Coronin 1 is responsible for activating the phosphatase, calcineurin, and thereby preventing phagosome-lysosome fusion within the macrophage. Blocking these two pathways may lead to rapid killing of mycobacteri
Pulmonary giant cells and their significance for the diagnosis of asphyxiation
This study was performed to prove whether the detection of polynuclear giant cells in lungs is useful for the diagnosis of asphyxiation due to throttling or strangulation. Therefore, lung specimens of 54 individuals with different natural and unnatural causes of death were investigated. In most lungs examined numerous alveolar macrophages with 1-2 nuclei were found. Polynuclear giant cells, which were arbitrarily defined as alveolar macrophages containing 3 or more nuclei, were observed in all groups investigated except in the cases of hypoxia due to covering the head with plastic bags. Apparent differences between the other groups in particular an increased number in cases of throttling or strangulation, could not be observed. Immunohistochemical investigations confirmed the hypothesis that the observed polynuclear giant cells were derived from alveolar macrophages. The immunohistochemical analysis of the proliferation marker antigen Ki 67 revealed no positive reaction in the nuclei of polynuclear giant cells indicating that these cells had not developed shortly before death by endomitosis as an adaptative change following reduction in oxygen supply. The results provide evidence that the detection of pulmonary polynuclear giant cells cannot be used as a practical indicator for death by asphyxiation due to throttling or strangulation
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