Feedback control optimisation of ESR experiments

Numerically optimised microwave pulses are used to increase excitation efficiency and modulation depth in electron spin resonance experiments performed on a spectrometer equipped with an arbitrary waveform generator. The optimisation procedure is sample-specific and reminiscent of the magnet shimming process used in the early days of nuclear magnetic resonance -- an objective function (for example, echo integral in a spin echo experiment) is defined and optimised numerically as a function of the pulse waveform vector using noise-resilient gradient-free methods. We found that the resulting shaped microwave pulses achieve higher excitation bandwidth and better echo modulation depth than the pulse shapes used as the initial guess. Although the method is theoretically less sophisticated than simulation based quantum optimal control techniques, it has the advantage of being free of the linear response approximation; rapid electron spin relaxation also means that the optimisation takes only a few seconds. This makes the procedure fast, convenient, and easy to use. An important application of this method is at the final stage of the implementation of theoretically designed pulse shapes: compensation of pulse distortions introduced by the instrument. The performance is illustrated using spin echo and out-of-phase electron spin echo envelope modulation experiments. Interface code between Bruker SpinJet arbitrary waveform generator and Matlab is included in versions 2.2 and later of the Spinach library

Write-limited sorts and joins for persistent memory

To mitigate the impact of the widening gap between the memory needs of CPUs and what standard memory technology can deliver, system architects have introduced a new class of memory technology termed persistent memory. Persistent memory is byteaddressable, but exhibits asymmetric I/O: writes are typically one order of magnitude more expensive than reads. Byte addressability combined with I/O asymmetry render the performance profile of persistent memory unique. Thus, it becomes imperative to find new ways to seamlessly incorporate it into database systems. We do so in the context of query processing. We focus on the fundamental operations of sort and join processing. We introduce the notion of write-limited algorithms that effectively minimize the I/O cost. We give a high-level API that enables the system to dynamically optimize the workflow of the algorithms; or, alternatively, allows the developer to tune the write profile of the algorithms. We present four different techniques to incorporate persistent memory into the database processing stack in light of this API. We have implemented and extensively evaluated all our proposals. Our results show that the algorithms deliver on their promise of I/O-minimality and tunable performance. We showcase the merits and deficiencies of each implementation technique, thus taking a solid first step towards incorporating persistent memory into query processing. 1

Effective use of ERTS multisensor data in the Northern Great Plains

The author has identified the following significant results. ERTS imagery was used as a tool in the identification and refinement of soil association areas; to classify land use patterns between crop and fallow fields; to identify corn, soybeans, and oats; and to identify broad generalized range ecosystems. Various data handling techniques were developed and applied to accomplish these tasks. A map outlining soil associations and relative land values was completed on a base mosaic of ERTS imagery and is included as an appendix to the report

Abundant cyanopolyynes as a probe of infall in the Serpens South cluster-forming region

We have detected bright HC7N J = 21-20 emission toward multiple locations in the Serpens South cluster-forming region using the K-Band Focal Plane Array at the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope. HC7N is seen primarily toward cold filamentary structures that have yet to form stars, largely avoiding the dense gas associated with small protostellar groups and the main central cluster of Serpens South. Where detected, the HC7N abundances are similar to those found in other nearby star forming regions. Toward some HC7N `clumps', we find consistent variations in the line centroids relative to NH3 (1,1) emission, as well as systematic increases in the HC7N non-thermal line widths, which we argue reveal infall motions onto dense filaments within Serpens South with minimum mass accretion rates of M ~ 2-5 M_sun Myr^-1. The relative abundance of NH3 to HC7N suggests that the HC7N is tracing gas that has been at densities n ~ 10^4 cm^-3, for timescales t < 1-2 x 10^5 yr. Since HC7N emission peaks are rarely co-located with those of either NH3 or continuum, it is likely that Serpens South is not particularly remarkable in its abundance of HC7N, but instead the serendipitous mapping of HC7N simultaneously with NH3 has allowed us to detect HC7N at low abundances in regions where it otherwise may not have been looked for. This result extends the known star-forming regions containing significant HC7N emission from typically quiescent regions, like the Taurus molecular cloud, to more complex, active environments.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, accepted to MNRAS. Version with full resolution figures available at http://www.dunlap.utoronto.ca/~friesen/Friesen_HC7N.pd

Sea surface and remotely sensed temperatures off Cape Mendocino, California

During September 3 to 5, 1979, a multisensor oceanographic experiment was conducted off Cape Mendocino, California. The purpose of this experiment was to validate the use of remote sensing techniques over an area along the U.S. west coast where coasted upwelling is known to be intense. Remotely sensed mutlispectral data, including thermal infrared imagery, were collected above an upwelling feature off Cape Mendocino. Data were acquired from the TIRNOS-N and NOAA-6 polar orbiting satellites, the NASA Ames Research Center's high altitude U-2 aircraft, and a U.S. Coast Guard C-130 aircraft. Supporting surface truth data over the same feature were collected aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ship, OCEANOGRAPHER. Atmospheric soundings were also taken aboard the ship. The results indicate that shipboard measurements of sea surface temperatures can be reproduction within 1 C or better through remote observation of absolute infrared radiance values (whether measured aboard the NOAA polar orbiting satellite, the U-2 aircraft, or the Coast Guard aircraft) by using appropriate atmospheric corrections. Also, the patterns of sea surface temperature which were derived independently from the various remote platforms provide a consistent interpretation of the surface temperature field

Pupillometry, a bioengineering overview

The pupillary control system is examined using a microprocessor based integrative pupillometer. The real time software functions of the microprocessor include: data collection, stimulus generation and area to diameter conversion. Results of an analysis of linear and nonlinear phenomena are presented