Dephasing processes as studied by two pulse photon echoes and photochemically accumulated echoes: The question of spectral diffusion in a doped organic polymer matrix

Two pulse photon echoes (2PPE) and photochemically accumulated stimulated photon echoes (PASPE) were measured under identical conditions for the system octaethylporphin in a polystyrene matrix. Experiments at 1.9 K show that both echoes have a different decay behavior. Whereas the 2PPE-signal decays with a time constant of 1300 ps, the PASPE-signal decays faster with a time constant of 600 ps. The different temporal behavior of both signals is tentatively attributed to spectral diffusion.     

Perception-based automatic classification of impulsive-source active sonar echoes

Impulsive-source active sonar systems are often plagued by false alarm echoes resulting from the presence of naturally occurring clutter objects in the environment. Sonar performance could be improved by a technique for discriminating between echoes from true targets and echoes from clutter. Motivated by anecdotal evidence that target echoes sound very different than clutter echoes when auditioned by a human operator, this paper describes the implementation of an automatic classifier for impulsive-source active sonar echoes that is based on perceptual signal features that have been previously identified in the musical acoustics literature as underlying timbre. Perceptual signal features found in this paper to be particularly useful to the problem of active sonar classification include: the centroid and peak value of the perceptual loudness function, as well as several features based on subband attack and decay times. This paper uses subsets of these perceptual signal features to train and test an automatic classifier capable of discriminating between target and clutter echoes with an equal error rate of roughly 10%; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve corresponding to this classifier is found to be 0.975.     

Clutter interference and the integration time of echoes in the echolocating bat, Eptesicus fuscus

The ability of the echolocating bat, Eptesicus fuscus, to detect a sonar target is affected by the presence of other targets along the same axis at slightly different ranges. If echoes from one target arrive at about the same delay as echoes from another target, clutter interference occurs and one set of echoes masks the other. Although the bat's sonar emissions and the echoes themselves are 2 to 5 ms long, echoes (of approximately equal sensation levels--around 15 dB SL) only interfere with each other if they arrive within 200 to 400 microseconds of the same arrival time. This figure is an estimate of the integration time of the bat's sonar receiver for echoes. The fine structure of the clutter-interference data reflects the reinforcement and cancellation of echoes according to their time separation. When clutter interference first occurs, the waveforms of test and cluttering echoes already overlap for much of their duration. The masking effect underlying clutter interference appears specifically due to overlap, not between raw echo waveforms, but between the patterns of mechanical excitation created when echoes pass through bandpass filters equivalent to auditory-nerve tuning curves. While the time scale of clutter interference is substantially shorter than the duration of echo waveforms, it still is much longer than the eventual width of a target's range-axis image expressed in terms of echo delay.     

Detection of complex echoes in noise by an echolocating dolphin

Dolphins echolocate with short broadband acoustic signals that have good time resolution properties. Received echoes are often complex, with many resolvable highlights or components caused by reflection of the incident signal from external and internal boundaries of a target and from different propagational modes within a target. A series of experiments was performed to investigate how dolphins perceive complex echoes. Echoes were produced by a microprocessor-controlled electronic target simulator that captured each emitted click and retransmitted the signal back to the animal after an appropriate time delay. The use of this "phantom" target allowed for precise control of the number of highlights, the time separation between highlights, and the relative amplitudes of highlights in the simulated echoes. An echolocating dolphin was trained to perform a target detection task in the presence of masking noise using these phantom echoes. The properties of simulated echoes were systematically varied, and corresponding shifts in the dolphin's detection threshold were observed, allowing for inferences of how the dolphin perceived echoes. The dolphin performed like an energy detector with an integration time of approximately 264 microseconds.     

Heteronuclear 1H-13C spin echoes mediated by cross-polarization

Heteronuclear spin echoes having the spin coherence transferred by means of cross-polarization (CP) under Hartmann-Hahn condition are reported. The particular characteristic of heteronuclear spin echoes is that the dephasing and refocusing processes take place within different nuclear species. Originally, they were demonstrated using the heteronuclear scalar interaction to transfer the spin coherence between the two spin systems. In this work, it is shown that spin coherence transferred by CP can also lead to the formation of heteronuclear spin echoes. A semiclassical formalism was used to explain the mechanism of generation of the spin echoes. These spin echoes were observed so far in elastomeric materials.     

Relaxation effects in the quantification of fat using gradient echo imaging

Quantification of fat has been investigated using images acquired from multiple gradient echoes. The evolution of the signal with echo time and flip angle was measured in phantoms of known fat and water composition and in 21 research subjects with fatty liver. Data were compared to different models of the signal equation, in which each model makes different assumptions about the T1 and/or T2* relaxation effects. A range of T1, T2*, fat fraction and number of echoes was investigated to cover situations of relevance to clinical imaging. Results indicate that quantification is most accurate at low flip angles (to minimize T1 effects) with a small number of echoes (to minimize spectral broadening effects). At short echo times, the spectral broadening effects manifest as a short apparent T2 for the fat component.     

Encoding of diffusion and T1 in the CPMG echo shape: single-shot D and T1 measurements in grossly inhomogeneous fields

We present a new approach of NMR measurements in the presence of grossly inhomogeneous fields where information is encoded in the echo shape of CPMG trains. The method is based on sequences that consist of an initial encoding sequence that generates echoes with contributions from at least two different coherence pathways that are then both refocused many times by a long string of closely spaced identical pulses. The generated echoes quickly assume an asymptotic shape that encodes the information of interest. High signal-to-noise ratios can be achieved by averaging the large number of echoes. We demonstrate this approach with different implementations of the measurements of longitudinal relaxation time, T(1), and diffusion coefficient, D. It is shown that the method can be used for novel single-shot measurements.     

Interference of multimode photon echoes generated in spatially separated solid-state atomic ensembles

High-visibility interference of photon echoes generated in spatially separated solid-state atomic ensembles is demonstrated. The solid-state ensembles were LiNbO(3) waveguides doped with erbium ions absorbing at 1.53 microm. Bright coherent states of light in several temporal modes (up to 3) are stored and retrieved from the optical memories using two-pulse photon echoes. The stored and retrieved optical pulses, when combined at a beam splitter, show almost perfect interference, which demonstrates both phase preserving storage and indistinguishability of photon echoes from separate optical memories. By measuring interference fringes for different storage times, we also show explicitly that the visibility is not limited by atomic decoherence. These results are relevant for novel quantum-repeater architectures with photon-echo based multimode quantum memories.     

Discrimination of amplitude-modulated synthetic echo trains by an echolocating bottlenose dolphin

Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) have an acute ability to use target echoes to judge attributes such as size, shape, and material composition. Most target recognition studies have focused on features associated with individual echoes as opposed to information conveyed across echo sequences (feature envelope of the multi-echo train). One feature of aspect-dependent targets is an amplitude modulation (AM) across the return echoes in the echo train created by relative movement of the target and dolphin. The current study examined whether dolphins could discriminate targets with different AM envelopes. "Electronic echoes" triggered by a dolphin's outgoing echolocation clicks were manipulated to create sinusoidal envelopes with varying AM rate and depth. Echo trains were equated for energy, requiring the dolphin to extract and retain information from multiple echoes in order to detect and report the presence of AM. The dolphin discriminated amplitude-modulated echo trains from those that were not modulated. AM depth thresholds were approximately 0.8 dB, similar to other published amplitude limens. Decreasing the rate of modulation from approximately 16 to 2 cycles per second did not affect the dolphin's AM depth sensitivity. The results support multiple-echo processing in bottlenose dolphin echolocation. This capability provides additional theoretical justification for exploring synthetic aperture sonar concepts in models of animal echolocation that potentially support theories postulating formation of images as an ultimate means for target identification.     

Acoustic response from adherent targeted contrast agents

In ultrasonic molecular imaging, encapsulated micron-sized gas bubbles are tethered to a blood vessel wall by targeting ligands. A challenging problem is to detect the echoes from adherent microbubbles and distinguish them from echoes from nonadherent agents and tissue. Echoes from adherent contrast agents are observed to include a high amplitude at the fundamental frequency, and significantly different spectral shape compared with free agents (p <0.0003). Mechanisms for the observed acoustical difference and potential techniques to utilize these differences for molecular imaging are proposed.     

Nuclear magnetic resonance in inhomogeneous magnetic fields

The response of the spin system has been investigated by numerical simulations in the case of a nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiment performed in inhomogeneous static and radiofrequency fields. The particular case of the NMR-MOUSE was considered. The static field and the component of the radiofrequency field perpendicular to the static field were evaluated as well as the spatial distribution of the maximum NMR signal detected by the surface coil. The NMR response to various pulse sequences was evaluated numerically for the case of an ensemble of isolated spins (1/2). The behavior of the echo train in Carr-Purcell-like pulse sequences used for measurements of transverse relaxation and self-diffusion was simulated and compared with the experiment. The echo train is shown to behave qualitatively differently depending on the particular phase schemes used in these pulse sequences. Different echo trains are obtained, because of the different superposition of Hahn and stimulated echoes forming mixed echoes as a result of the spatial distribution of pulse flip angles. The superposition of Hahn and stimulated echoes originating from different spatial regions leads to distortions of the mixed echoes in intensity, shape, and phase. The volume selection produced by Carr-Purcell-like pulse sequences is also investigated for the NMR-MOUSE. The developed numerical simulation procedure is useful for understanding a variety of experiments performed with the NMR-MOUSE and for improving its performance. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Wind turbines and bat mortality: Doppler shift profiles and ultrasonic bat-like pulse reflection from moving turbine blades

Bat mortality resulting from actual or near-collision with operational wind turbine rotors is a phenomenon that is widespread but not well understood. Because bats rely on information contained in high-frequency echoes to determine the nature and movement of a target, it is important to consider how ultrasonic pulses similar to those used by bats for echolocation may be interacting with operational turbine rotor blades. By assessing the characteristics of reflected ultrasonic echoes, moving turbine blades operating under low wind speed conditions (<6 m s(-1)) were found to produce distinct Doppler shift profiles at different angles to the rotor. Frequency shifts of up to ±700-800 Hz were produced, which may not be perceptible by some bat species. Monte Carlo simulation of bat-like sampling by echolocation revealed that over 50 rotor echoes could be required by species such as Pipistrellus pipistrellus for accurate interpretation of blade movement, which may not be achieved in the bat's approach time-window. In summary, it was found that echoes returned from moving blades had features which could render them attractive to bats or which might make it difficult for the bat to accurately detect and locate blades in sufficient time to avoid a collision.     

Signal processing for the detection of multiple imperfection echoes drowned in the structural noise

In this work, we propose to develop algorithms based on the split spectrum processing method associated with the multi-steps method based on "Group delay moving entropy" (GDME) allowing detecting and locating multiple imperfection echoes drowned in the structural noise of materials. In fact, GDME is based on the fact that defect echoes have a constant group delay while the noise has a random group delay. The investigation is performed with 4 known defect echoes with different characteristics (position, center frequency and bandwidth). The defect echo frequency is varied around the frequency of the input signal in order to evaluate, by signal to noise ratio calculation, the robustness of the detection method. The grain noise signal is generated first, by a simple clutter model which consider the noise, in the time domain, as the superimposed of signal coming from backscaterers in the medium and second, experimentally by a material with coarse grains.     

An ultrasonic fetal cephalometer with a facility for automatic instantaneous measurement

The design of a fetal cephalometer for use with pulse-echo diagnostic equipment is described. Reading errors and the difficulty of making measurements on a mobile fetus have been reduced by the incorporation of an automatic facility. In the automatic mode, the instrument will instantaneously measure the separation between either the first and second echoes or the first and third echoes beyond a marker pip. In clinical practice such echoes might correspond to the fetal skull echoes or the skull echoes and an intermediate mid-line echo. In the normal mode, proximal and distal marker pips are manually aligned with the leading edges of the echoes of interest. The use of digital circuitry and a crystal-controlled timing source help to eliminate drift problems and recalibration procedures, as well as making the instrument compact.     

多基地空时码探测信号设计及时反相关检测技术

为实现浅海复杂环境下的多基地声纳多源目标回波分辨,本文设计了一种适用于多入多出垂直阵信道环境下的空时码探测信号,并针对倾斜垂直阵的多途子信道差异问题,提出了信号的时反相关检测技术.空时码探测信号采用伪随机信号调制,具有良好的正交性,能在抗子信道严重衰落的同时,分辨多源目标回波.垂直阵受水流冲击,呈倾斜状态时,其多途子信道不一致性会导致各子信道传递信号无法在接收端聚焦,使阵列增益受损,同时导致时延测量能力下降和信号判决错误率上升,为此本文设计了信道训练信号用以估计多途子信道环境,通过虚拟时间反转镜获得子信道不一致条件下的最佳匹配检测信号,实现对接收信号的时反相关检测.仿真结果表明,本文所设计的探测信号和检测方法,能够克服复杂的信道条件和多途子信道不一致性引起的检测问题,满足多基地声纳探测需求,实现多源目标回波分辨.     

Theory of photon echoes in dressed atoms

A theory is presented which describes the formation of photon echoes in an atomic vapor when a cw laser field (the “dressing” field) drives an atomic transition while a sequence of pulses is applied to a coupled transition. It is found that, with a two-pulse excitation scheme, as many as nine echoes may be produced. The relationship of these “dressed-atom” echoes to conventional photon echoes is discussed.     

Categories of coherence pathways for the CPMG sequence

The CPMG sequence has been extremely useful for efficient measurements of NMR signal, spin-spin relaxation, and diffusion, particularly in inhomogeneous magnetic fields, such as when samples are outside the magnet and RF coil. Due to the inaccuracy of the pulses and the off-resonance effects, the CPMG echoes have contributions from the Hahn echo as well as signals that are similar to stimulated echoes. The systematic understanding of the CPMG pulse sequence requires decomposing the magnetization dynamics into different coherence pathways. In this paper, we describe a method to classify the CPMG coherence pathways and illustrate the nature of these types of pathways. This classification shows that direct echo and stimulated echoes are the major contribution to the CPMG signal. It also provides a clear understanding of the effect of restricted diffusion in porous media.     

Analysis and identification for the electromagnetic ultrasonic interfacial echoes using instantaneous spectrum and artificial neural network

The proper frequency is experimentally chosen to be the operation frequency of the electromagnetic acoustic transducer. The instantaneous amplitude, phase and frequency of the detected ultrasonic echoes from a multilayer adhesive sample of steel and rubber materials are calculated and composed to form three-dimensional instantaneous spectrum which is successful to distinguish the testing signals from different adhesive states qualitatively. Then, average instantaneous parameters in sensitive time window are picked up and used as the input eigenvectors for the BP artificial neural network. Identified results in both training and testing volumes demonstrate that the detected electromagnetic ultrasonic interracial echoes can be identified and classified automatically with the correctness ratio larger than 95%.     

基于超声回波重组相位分析的颗粒粒径测量方法

将超声波作用于沉降的颗粒时,由于颗粒的移动,超声回波会出现相位差异。该文通过对测量杯中某一确定深度处的回波信号进行相位分析和重组,发现重组后信号的频率可以计算出粒径;并分别对两种不同粒径分布的聚甲基丙烯酸甲酯(PMMA)微球悬浮液进行了超声波信号采样重组和去噪的实验,实验结果经小波时频方法分析后,证实了颗粒粒径分布与重组信号频率构成的确存在很高的相关性。     

Sunrise and range distribution of meteors

Summary The influence of the sunrise effect on the ionization of the meteor zone has been found from the comparison of meteor echo range distributions obtained by the meteor radars at Springhill (120 000 echoes) and Budrio (7000 echoes) during the activity of the Geminids meteor shower. The position of the maximum of the echo range distribution corresponding to the motion of the shower radiant was found to be shifted to larger distances, as expected from the sunrise effect, independently of different antenna systems of the two equipments.