Discovery learning approach to classic electrical machines principles

This paper aims at presenting the concept of Socratic interactions and discovery learning of classic electrical machines principles. The theories of electrical machines are by nature quite boring and abstract although there are a lot of experiments supported the theories. Traditional, students learnt the subject by drill and practice approach with standard textbooks. In the past two decades, computer is no doubt recognized to be the educational tool. The so-called “interactive” approach is applied to the learning process. Most of this approach applied to various subjects in different levels is mainly based on drill and practice. However, few packages are developed for electrical machine subject. In this paper, two different approaches “Rote Learning” and “Discovery Learning” applied to the interactive computer aided learning package of classic electric machine principles are discussed. Design of a discovery learning approach will also be presented

Fast label-free multilayered histology-like imaging of human breast cancer by photoacoustic microscopy

The goal of breast-conserving surgery is to completely remove all of the cancer. Currently, no intraoperative tools can microscopically analyze the entire lumpectomy specimen, which results in 20 to 60% of patients undergoing second surgeries to achieve clear margins. To address this critical need, we have laid the foundation for the development of a device that could allow accurate intraoperative margin assessment. We demonstrate that by taking advantage of the intrinsic optical contrast of breast tissue, photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) can achieve multilayered histology-like imaging of the tissue surface. The high correlation of the PAM images to the conventional histologic images allows rapid computations of diagnostic features such as nuclear size and packing density, potentially identifying small clusters of cancer cells. Because PAM does not require tissue processing or staining, it can be performed promptly and intraoperatively, enabling immediate directed re-excision and reducing the number of second surgeries

Electroproduction of the d* dibaryon

The unpolarized cross section for the electroproduction of the isoscalar $J^\pi = 3^+$ di-delta dibaryon $d^*$ is calculated for deuteron target using a simple picture of elastic electron-baryon scattering from the $\Delta \Delta (^7D_1)$ and the $NN (^3S_1)$ components of the deuteron. The calculated differential cross section at the electron lab energy of 1 GeV has the value of about 0.24 (0.05) nb/sr at the lab angle of 10$^\circ$ (30$^\circ$) for the Bonn B potential when the dibaryon mass is taken to be 2.1 GeV. The cross section decreases rapidly with increasing dibaryon mass. A large calculated width of 40 MeV for $d^*(\Delta\Delta ^7S_3)$ combined with a small experimental upper bound of 0.08 MeV for the $d^*$ decay width appears to have excluded any low-mass $d^*$ model containing a significant admixture of the $\Delta\Delta (^7S_3)$ configuration.Comment: 11 journal-style pages, 8 figure

The Relationship Between Consumption of Beverages and Tooth Wear Among Adults in The United States

Objectives: To investigate the prevalence and severity of tooth wear (TW) and its relationship with consumption of beverages among adults in the United States. Methods: The National Health and Nutrition Examinations Survey data for 2003-2004 was analyzed. TW was defined as “wear on at least one surface of at least one examined tooth.” Drink/juice consumption was ascertained via a Food Frequency Questionnaire processed with Diet*Calc software to obtain the average daily consumption frequency for all queried drinks and juice categories including milk. Survey-weighted descriptive and multivariable analyses with interaction terms were performed. Results: Our study sample consisted of 3,773 adults (aged 20 and above). Eighty percent of the subjects had evidence of TW, and soft drinks were the most consumed beverage. Significant interactions between the effects of age, gender, and race/ethnicity on TW were found (P \u3c  0.001). After adjustment for demographic factors, consumption of fruit drinks was found to be significantly associated with the severity [odds ratio (OR) = 1.32 and 1.42], but not prevalence of TW. However, this trend was reversed for grape juice consumption (OR = 0.34, 0.41). Conclusions: This study demonstrates that a substantial proportion of adults had evidence of TW, which was affected by demographic factors in a complex way. Fruit drinks consumption in adults was associated with the severity of TW, but not with the prevalence of TW after adjusting for demographics. These findings are important for the development of appropriate treatment guidelines, public policy, and programs aimed at reducing TW in adults

Compensated Row-Column Ultrasound Imaging System Using Edge-Guided Three Dimensional Random Fields

The row-column method is a simplification technique used to reducethe complexity of a fully addressed 2-D array. Although itgreatly reduces the number of physical connections required aswell as the amount of data to be handled, it still has limitations; itsimaging data output is sparse, it suffers from speckle noise, and itsspatially-dependant point spread function is riddled with edge artifacts.In this work, we propose a row-column ultrasound imagingsystem, termed CRUIS3D, that uses a 3-D edge-guided randomfield approach to compensate for the limitations of the row-columnmethod. Tests on CRUIS3D and previously published row-columnsystems show the effectiveness of our proposed system as a toolfor enhancing 3-D row-column ultrasound imaging

Density and expansion effects on pion spectra in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

We compute the pion inclusive momentum distribution in heavy-ion collisions at AGS energies, assuming thermal equilibrium and accounting for density and expansion effects at the time of decoupling. We compare to data on mid rapidity charged pions produced in central Au + Au collisions and find a very good agreement. The shape of the distribution at low $m_t-m$ is explained in part as an effect arising from the high mean pion density achieved in these reactions. The difference between the positive and negative pion distributions in the same region is attributed in part to the different average yields of each kind of charged pions.Comment: Minor changes, typo in Fig. 2b corrected, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Persistence in a Stationary Time-series

We study the persistence in a class of continuous stochastic processes that are stationary only under integer shifts of time. We show that under certain conditions, the persistence of such a continuous process reduces to the persistence of a corresponding discrete sequence obtained from the measurement of the process only at integer times. We then construct a specific sequence for which the persistence can be computed even though the sequence is non-Markovian. We show that this may be considered as a limiting case of persistence in the diffusion process on a hierarchical lattice.Comment: 8 pages revte

Discovery and Prevalidation of Salivary Extracellular microRNA Biomarkers Panel for the Noninvasive Detection of Benign and Malignant Parotid Gland Tumors

Purpose: This study was conducted to explore the differences in salivary microRNA (miRNA) profiles between patients with malignant or benign parotid gland tumors as a potential preoperative diagnostic tool of tumors in the salivary glands. Experimental Design: Whole saliva samples from patients with malignant (n = 38) or benign (n = 29) parotid gland tumors were obtained from the Salivary Gland Tumor Biorepository (SGTB). After total RNA isolation, human miRNA cards were used for miRNA profiling. The differential miRNA expression was analyzed using two-sided Wilcoxon test. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) was used to validate selected miRNAs in an independent sample set. Receiver-operating characteristics curve and probability of malignancy was exploited to evaluate the diagnostic power of the validated miRNAs. Results: With miRNA profiling, 57 of 750 investigated miRNAs were differently expressed, of which 54 showed higher miRNA expression in samples from patients with malignant tumors than those from patients with benign tumors. Validating the expression in an independent sample set of 9 miRNAs revealed indeed higher expression of miRNAs in malignant samples compared with benign samples. The expression of 6 validated miRNAs was statistically significantly different between the two groups (P < 0.05). A four miRNA combination was able to discriminate between saliva samples from patients with malignant tumors from those of patients with benign parotid gland tumors (sensitivity 69%, specificity 95%). Conclusions: Salivary miRNA profiles differ in saliva from patients with malignant from saliva from patients with a benign parotid gland tumor. These preliminary results are promising to develop a noninvasive diagnostic tool for diagnosing tumors in the salivary glands

Persistence of a Continuous Stochastic Process with Discrete-Time Sampling: Non-Markov Processes

We consider the problem of `discrete-time persistence', which deals with the zero-crossings of a continuous stochastic process, X(T), measured at discrete times, T = n(\Delta T). For a Gaussian Stationary Process the persistence (no crossing) probability decays as exp(-\theta_D T) = [\rho(a)]^n for large n, where a = \exp[-(\Delta T)/2], and the discrete persistence exponent, \theta_D, is given by \theta_D = \ln(\rho)/2\ln(a). Using the `Independent Interval Approximation', we show how \theta_D varies with (\Delta T) for small (\Delta T) and conclude that experimental measurements of persistence for smooth processes, such as diffusion, are less sensitive to the effects of discrete sampling than measurements of a randomly accelerated particle or random walker. We extend the matrix method developed by us previously [Phys. Rev. E 64, 015151(R) (2001)] to determine \rho(a) for a two-dimensional random walk and the one-dimensional random acceleration problem. We also consider `alternating persistence', which corresponds to a < 0, and calculate \rho(a) for this case.Comment: 14 pages plus 8 figure

Real Roots of Random Polynomials and Zero Crossing Properties of Diffusion Equation

We study various statistical properties of real roots of three different classes of random polynomials which recently attracted a vivid interest in the context of probability theory and quantum chaos. We first focus on gap probabilities on the real axis, i.e. the probability that these polynomials have no real root in a given interval. For generalized Kac polynomials, indexed by an integer d, of large degree n, one finds that the probability of no real root in the interval [0,1] decays as a power law n^{-\theta(d)} where \theta(d) > 0 is the persistence exponent of the diffusion equation with random initial conditions in spatial dimension d. For n \gg 1 even, the probability that they have no real root on the full real axis decays like n^{-2(\theta(2)+\theta(d))}. For Weyl polynomials and Binomial polynomials, this probability decays respectively like \exp{(-2\theta_{\infty}} \sqrt{n}) and \exp{(-\pi \theta_{\infty} \sqrt{n})} where \theta_{\infty} is such that \theta(d) = 2^{-3/2} \theta_{\infty} \sqrt{d} in large dimension d. We also show that the probability that such polynomials have exactly k roots on a given interval [a,b] has a scaling form given by \exp{(-N_{ab} \tilde \phi(k/N_{ab}))} where N_{ab} is the mean number of real roots in [a,b] and \tilde \phi(x) a universal scaling function. We develop a simple Mean Field (MF) theory reproducing qualitatively these scaling behaviors, and improve systematically this MF approach using the method of persistence with partial survival, which in some cases yields exact results. Finally, we show that the probability density function of the largest absolute value of the real roots has a universal algebraic tail with exponent {-2}. These analytical results are confirmed by detailed numerical computations.Comment: 32 pages, 16 figure