High-selectivity single-ended and balanced bandpass filters using ring resonators and coupled lines loaded with multiple stubs

© 2018 Elsevier GmbH High-selectivity single-ended and balanced bandpass filters (BPFs) using dual-mode ring resonators and coupled lines loaded with multiple stubs are proposed in this paper. With the help of the loaded short-circuited and open-circuited stubs, six deep transmission zeros (TZs) from 0 to 2f0 (f0: center frequency of the passband) can be realized in both of single-ended and balanced BPFs to improve the stopband suppressions. The functions of the loaded short/open stubs and calculated analysis of TZs’ positions have been presented. For further demonstration, two examples of single-ended BPF and balanced BPF with high common-mode suppression are designed and fabricated, whose center frequencies are both at 2.1 GHz. Their measured 3-dB fractional bandwidths are 23.7% and 24.7% (differential-mode), respectively. The simulated results and measurements of these two filters are in good agreement

Printed Quasi-Yagi Antennas Using Double Dipoles and Stub-Loaded Technique for Multi-Band and Broadband Applications

© 2013 IEEE. Double dipoles on a single-layer substrate are utilized to construct a triple-mode printed quasi-Yagi antenna for the multi-band and broadband antenna applications. A stub-loaded dipole generating two resonant modes (i.e., lower dual-mode dipole) is allocated on the underside of a simple dipole (i.e., upper single-mode dipole) introducing the third resonant mode. Using these three resonant modes, three compact printed quasi-Yagi antennas, i.e., tri-band, dual-band, and broadband printed quasi-Yagi antennas, are designed with the same antenna prototype but different parameter values. Seen from the measured results, all of these three antennas have good unidirectional radiations, high radiation efficiencies, and low cross-polarization levels at the operating frequencies within the impedance bandwidths

Time-frequency analysis of somatosensory evoked potentials for intraoperative spinal cord monitoring

PURPOSE: To evaluate the potential use of time-frequency analysis and its reliability in intraoperative somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) monitoring. METHODS: One hundred ninety-one patients undergoing thoracic and/or lumbar spinal surgery were studied retrospectively. The SEP signals were recorded during different stages of surgery. Averaged SEP was analyzed by short-time Fourier transform. The main peak in the time-frequency interpretation of SEP was measured in peak power, peak time, and peak frequency. The variability of these parameters was compared with that of amplitude and latency during different stages of surgery. The reliability of these parameters was also compared in true-positive and false-positive cases. RESULTS: During different surgical stages for the posterior tibial nerve SEP, the intrasubject variability of peak power was found to be more stable than that of amplitude, while the intrasubject variability of peak time did not show any difference compared with that of latency. The peak frequency presented stable during surgery. Moreover, the true-positive SEP case showed that peak power may detect the potential injury earlier than amplitude does. The false-positive outcomes could be reduced by the proposed method. CONCLUSIONS: The SEP peak component was found stable and reliable during the different stages of surgery. For clinical application purpose, time-frequency analysis was suggested to be an additional monitoring method besides the conventional amplitude/latency measurement since it provided a more reproducible and prompt response to the potential injury in intraoperative SEP monitoring. Copyright © 2011 by the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.postprin

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Response

The epistolic response to other letters published in The New England Journal of Medicine 337 (2017), no. 19, pp. 1903-1905, as a result of the Review Article: B. Taylor Thompson, Rachel C. Chambers, Kathleen D. Liu, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, The New England of Medicine 377, no. 6, (2017), pp. 562-572

Compact Bandpass Filter Using Two Ring Resonators and Two Open Stubs

© 2018 IEEE. A compact bandpass filter (BPF) using two ring resonators and two open stubs is proposed, where fifth-order passband with twelve transmission zeros at the stopband is realized. For demonstration, a filter example with center frequency of 2.04 GHz and 3 dB fractional bandwidth of 18.6% is designed. Good performance including high selectivity in the passband and sharp stopband rejection for the filter has been realized

Microstrip Patch Antennas with Multiple Parasitic Patches and Shorting Vias for Bandwidth Enhancement

© 2013 IEEE. Two novel microstrip patch antennas with multiple parasitic patches and shorting vias have been presented for the bandwidth enhancement. Based on the conventional triangular patch antenna, two more resonances can be obtained with the introduction of multiple parasitic patches, and consequently, the antenna bandwidth can be broadened. Parametric analysis of the patches has been studied for the verification of bandwidth enhancement. An example of the proposed antenna with multiple parasitic patches is designed, fabricated, and tested. The measured bandwidth with vert S11}vert < -10 dB ranges from 5.46 to 6.27 GHz (13.8%), and good far-field radiation patterns can be obtained within the frequency band. In addition, two shorting vias are inserted into the above proposed antenna to decrease the input impedance, resulting in further bandwidth enhancement of the antenna. This antenna is fabricated and tested as well, which achieves a measured 10-dB impedance bandwidth of 17.4% from 5.5 to 6.55 GHz

Design of Triplexer Using E-Stub-Loaded Composite Right-/Left-Handed Resonators and Quasi-Lumped Impedance Matching Network

© 2013 IEEE. A compact triplexer based on E-stub-loaded composite right-/left-handed (ESL-CRLH) resonators with quasi-lumped impedance matching network is presented in this paper. The equivalent circuit model of the ESL-CRLH resonator is presented first and its left-/right-handed capacitance/inductance elements are fully derived. Then, a quasi-lumped impedance matching circuit is designed to connect the three ESL-CRLH resonator based filter channels for the triplexer construction. Finally, the designed triplexer obtains high isolations among the ports and low in-band insertion losses of the three filter channels centered at 1.86, 2.41, and 3.25 GHz, of which a miniaturized layout has been realized. Good agreement between the simulated and measured results can be observed to validate the design idea

Novel Surface Plasmon Polariton Waveguides with Enhanced Field Confinement for Microwave-Frequency Ultra-Wideband Bandpass Filters

© 2013 IEEE. In this paper, a novel planar waveguide based on spoof surface plasmon polaritons (SSPPs) using fish-bone corrugated slot structure is first proposed in the microwave region. Low-dispersion band can be realized by such structure with tight field confinement of SSPPs, resulting in size miniaturization of the proposed waveguide. The high frequency stopband of the proposed ultra-wideband bandpass filter (BPF) is created by using this proposed waveguide, while the low frequency stopband is properly designed through introducing the microstrip-to-slotline transition. The 2-D E-fields distribution, surface current flow, and energy flow patterns are all calculated and illustrated to demonstrate the electromagnetic (EM) characteristics of the proposed ultra-wideband BPF. The BPF tuning characteristics is explored to provide a guideline for facilitating the design process. To validate the predicted performance, the proposed filter is finally designed, fabricated, and measured. Measured results illustrate high performance of the filter, in which the reflection coefficient is better than -10 dB from 2.1 to 8 GHz with the smallest insertion loss of 0.37 dB at 4.9 GHz, showing good agreement with numerical simulations. The proposed surface plasmon polariton waveguides are believed to be significantly promising for further developing plasmonic functional devices and integrated 2-D circuits with enhanced confinement of SSPPs in microwave and even terahertz bands

Reducing the number of elements in the synthesis of a broadband linear array with multiple simultaneous frequency-invariant beam patterns

© 2018 IEEE. The problem of reducing the number of elements in a broadband linear array with multiple simultaneous crossover frequency-invariant (FI) patterns is considered. Different from the single FI pattern array case, every element channel in the multiple FI pattern array is divided and followed by multiple finite-impulse-response (FIR) filters, and each of the multiple FIR filters has a set of coefficients. In this situation, a collective filter coefficient vector and its energy bound are introduced for each element, and then the problem of reducing the number of elements is transformed as minimizing the number of active collective filter coefficient vectors. In addition, the radiation characteristics including beam pointing direction, mainlobe FI property, sidelobe level, and space-frequency notching requirement for each of the multiple patterns can be formulated as multiple convex constraints. The whole synthesis method is implemented by performing an iterative second-order cone programming (SOCP). This method can be considered as a significant extension of the original SOCP for synthesizing broadband sparse array with single FI pattern. Numerical synthesis results show that the proposed method by synthesizing multiple discretized crossover FI patterns can save more elements than the original iterative SOCP by using a single continuously scannable FI pattern for covering the same space range. Moreover, even for multiple FI-patterns case with complicated space-frequency notching, the proposed method is still effective in the reduction of the number of elements

Linearly Polarized Shaped Power Pattern Synthesis With Sidelobe and Cross-Polarization Control by Using Semidefinite Relaxation

© 1963-2012 IEEE. In this communication, the problem of synthesizing a linearly polarized shaped power pattern with accurate control on both sidelobe and cross-polarization (XP) levels is considered. For a user-defined desired polarization direction, the definitions of realizable co-polarization (COP) and XP directions for an arbitrary propagation direction in the shaped pattern are presented. With the help of such definitions, the considered problem is formulated as finding appropriate excitations so as to produce a shaped power pattern in which the realizable COP component meets prescribed lower and upper bounds, the realizable XP component and the total power pattern are less than their upper bounds in the regions of interest. The semidefinite relaxation method in the literature is then extended to solve this vectorial pattern synthesis problem. The proposed method can include the mutual coupling and platform effects by using vectorial active element patterns of an antenna array. A set of synthesis examples with different array geometries and radiation requirements are conducted to validate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed method