Optical Physics of Imaging and Interferometric Phased Arrays

Microwave, submillimetre-wave, and far-infrared phased arrays are of considerable importance for astronomy. We consider the behaviour imaging phased arrays and interferometric phased arrays from a functional perspective. It is shown that the average powers, field correlations, power fluctuations, and correlations between power fluctuations at the output ports of an imaging or interferometric phased array can be found once the synthesised reception patterns are known. The reception patterns do not have to be orthogonal or even linearly independent. It is shown that the operation of phased arrays is intimately related to the mathematical theory of frames, and that the theory of frames can be used to determine the degree to which any class of intensity or field distribution can be reconstructed unambiguously from the complex amplitudes of the travelling waves at the output ports. The theory can be used to set up a likelihood function that can, through Fisher information, be used to determine the degree to which a phased array can be used to recover the parameters of a parameterised source. For example, it would be possible to explore the way in which a system, perhaps interferometric, might observe two widely separated regions of the sky simultaneously

Simulations of astronomical imaging phased arrays

We describe a theoretical procedure for analyzing astronomical phased arrays with overlapping beams, and apply the procedure to simulate a simple example. We demonstrate the effect of overlapping beams on the number of degrees of freedom of the array, and on the ability of the array to recover a source. We show that the best images are obtained using overlapping beams, contrary to common practise, and show how the dynamic range of a phased array directly affects the image quality.Comment: 16 pages, 26 figures, submitted to Journal of the Optical Society of America

Simulations of partially coherent focal plane imaging arrays: Fisher matrix approach to performance evaluation

Focal plane arrays of bolometers are increasingly employed in astronomy at far--infrared to millimetre wavelengths. The focal plane fields and the detectors are both partially coherent in these systems, but no account has previously been taken of the effect of partial coherence on array performance. In this paper, we use our recently developed coupled--mode theory of detection together with Fisher information matrix techniques from signal processing to characterize the behaviour of partially coherent imaging arrays. We investigate the effects of the size and coherence length of both the source and the detectors, and the packing density of the array, on the amount of information that can be extracted from observations with such arrays.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figures, submitted to MNRAS 7th March 200

Glucocorticoids: do we know how they work?

It is not known to what extent glucocorticoid hormones cause their anti-inflammatory actions and their undesirable side effects by the same or different molecular mechanisms. Glucocorticoids combine with a cytoplasmic receptor that alters gene expression in two ways. One way is dependent on the receptor's binding directly to DNA and acting (positively or negatively) as a transcription factor. The other is dependent on its binding to and interfering with other transcription factors. Both mechanisms could underlie suppression of inflammation. The liganded receptor binds and inhibits the inflammatory transcription factors activator protein-1 and NF-κB. It also directly induces anti-inflammatory genes such as that encoding the protein inhibitor of NF-κB. Recent work has shown that glucocorticoids inhibit signalling in the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways that mediate the expression of inflammatory genes. This inhibition is dependent on de novo gene expression. It is important to establish the significance of these different mechanisms for the various physiological effects of glucocorticoids, because it may be possible to produce steroid-related drugs that selectively target the inflammatory process

Interleukin 1 and tumour necrosis factor increase phosphorylation of fibroblast proteins

AbstractInterleukin 1 (IL1) or tumour necrosis factor (TNF) stimulated phosphorylation of a triad of 27 kDa phosphoproteins (pI 6.0, 5.7 and 5.5) in human dermal fibroblasts. The change was dependent on the dose of cytokine in the range 0.1–20 ng, was detectable between 3 and 5 min after stimulation and was maximal by 10 min. The proteins were found in the cytosol after subcellular fractionation. The 32P was removed from them by alkali, indicating the presence of phosphoserine and/or phosphothreonine. The results suggest that early changes in serine/threonine protein kinase activity may be involved in responses of fibroblasts to IL1 and TNF

OSTEOBLASTS MEDIATE INTERLEUKIN-1 STIMULATION OF BONE-RESORPTION BY RAT OSTEOCLASTS

A monocyte-derived factor with IL-1-like properties has recently been shown to cause resorption of bone in organ culture. We have investigated the action of IL-1 on disaggregated populations of osteoclasts, incubated alone or in the presence of osteoblastic cells, in an attempt to identify the target cell for IL-1 in bone, and to elucidate the mechanism by which IL-1 induces osteoclastic resorption. Osteoclasts were disaggregated from neonatal rat long bones and incubated on slices of human femoral cortical bone. Under these conditions, the majority of osteoclasts form distinctive excavations in the bone surface within 24 h, the volume of which can be quantified by computer-assisted morphometric and stereophotogrammetic techniques. IL- 1 had no effect on bone resorption by osteoclasts alone, but when incubated in the presence of calvarial cells or cloned osteosarcoma cells, it induced a 3.8 (+/- 0.38)-fold increase in osteoclastic bone resorption, with significant enhancement at concentrations of greater than or equal to 30 pg/ml. The osteoblastic populations themselves did not resorb bone. The mechanism by which osteoblastic cells stimulate osteoclasts did not appear to depend upon PG synthesis; nor could we detect a diffusible substance in the medium of stimulated cocultures. These results indicate that IL-1 stimulates bone resorption through a primary action on osteoblasts, which are induced by IL-1 to transmit a short-range signal that stimulates osteoclastic bone resorption