Development of a high-performance cryogenic shock tube

A cryogenic shock tube has been developed as a tool for research in fluid mechanics and low-temperature physics. The shock tube was designed to operate with the test section immersed in a cryogenic liquid. A unique diaphragm-changing mechanism makes this shock tube an economical and practical device. There are several advantages in operating a shock tube at cryogenic temperatures. Shock waves of very large Mach number can be produced. The flow field can be accurately calculated using ideal-shock-tube/perfect-gas theory. Boundary-layer effects are decreased, so that long test times are possible

Circle Detection Using the Image Ray Transform

Physical analogies are an exciting paradigm for creating techniques for image feature extraction. A transform using an analogy to light rays has been developed for the detection of circular and tubular features. It uses a 2D ray tracing algorithm to follow rays through an image, interacting at a low level, to emphasise higher level features. It has been empirically tested as a pre-processor to aid circle detection with the Hough Transform and has been shown to provide a clear improvement over standard techniques. The transform was also used on natural images and we show its ability to highlight circles even in complex scenes. We also show the flexibility available to the technique through adjustment of parameters

The effects of hypnosis on flow states and three-point shooting performance in basketball players.

This study examined the effects of hypnosis on flow states and three-point shooting performance in 5 collegiate basketball players. The investigation uti- lized an ideographic single-subject multiple baselines across subjects design combined with a procedure that monitors the internal experience of the par- ticipants (Wollman, 1986). The method of intervention utilized in this study involved relaxation, imagery, hypnotic induction, hypnotic regression, and trigger control procedures. The results indicated that all five participants in- creased both their mean basketball three-point shooting performance and their mean flow scores from baseline to intervention. There were no overlapping data points between the baseline and intervention for either performance or flow state. Additionally, each participant indicated that they had felt the inter- vention was useful in keeping them confident, relaxed, and calm. These re- sults support the hypothesis that a hypnosis intervention can improve three- point shooting performance in basketball players and increase feelings and cognitions that are associated with flow

Demonstration of earlier detection of Salmonella species from stool samples by using chromogenic media

Background: Salmonellosis is a worldwide public health issue and non-typhoid species are one of the most common causative agents of gastroenteritis in the western world.1 Typhoidal and Paratyphoidal salmonellae cause systemic syndromes characterised by sustained bacteraemia.2 Although the number of cases is under reported and therefore the incidence rates are underestimated,3 worldwide up to 1.3 billion non-typhoidal and an estimated 20 million typhoidal cases of Salmonella infection are reported annually.4,

The image ray transform for structural feature detection

The use of analogies to physical phenomena is an exciting paradigm in computer vision that allows unorthodox approaches to feature extraction, creating new techniques with unique properties. A technique known as the "image ray transform" has been developed based upon an analogy to the propagation of light as rays. The transform analogises an image to a set of glass blocks with refractive index linked to pixel properties and then casts a large number of rays through the image. The course of these rays is accumulated into an output image. The technique can successfully extract tubular and circular features and we show successful circle detection, ear biometrics and retinal vessel extraction. The transform has also been extended through the use of multiple rays arranged as a beam to increase robustness to noise, and we show quantitative results for fully automatic ear recognition, achieving 95.2% rank one recognition across 63 subjects

Development of an analytical method for the detection of specific cations using flow injection analysis

A general approach for the development of an analytical method for the detection of specific cations using flow injection analysis has been investigated. In this approach, an ionophore (I), which is selective for the cation (M+) of interest, is noncovalently immobilized on a controlled pore glass (CPG) surface. A column of tygon tubing is then filled with the 1-CPG phase and placed in the cell compartment of a spectrofluorometer. When an aqueous mobile phase containing M+ and 8-anilino+naphthalene sulfonic acid (ANS) is pumped through the column, the M+ reversibly binds to the immobilized I, and the resulting complex then forms an ion-pair on the CPG surface with the negatively charged ANS. The ANS fluorescence signal, which is highly quenched in aqueous solution, increases dramatically for the ANS bound to the hydrophobic CPG surface and this signal can be used to determine the amount of M+ originally in the mobile phase. Selectivities and detection limits for a number of M+ / I combinations, including K+ / dibenzo-18-crown-6, K+ / valinomycin, Na+ / sodium ionophore II, K+ / kryptofix, and NH4+ / nonactin, have been studied