Influence of multichannel combination, parallel imaging and other reconstruction techniques on MRI noise characteristics

The statistical properties of background noise such as its standard deviation and mean value are frequently used to estimate the original noise level of the acquired data. This requires the knowledge of the statistical intensity distribution of the background signal, that is, the probability density of the occurrence of a certain signal intensity. The influence of many new MRI techniques and, in particular, of various parallel-imaging methods on the noise statistics has neither been rigorously investigated nor experimentally demonstrated yet. In this study, the statistical distribution of background noise was analyzed for MR acquisitions with a single-channel and a 32-channel coil, with sum-of-squares (SoS) and spatial-matched-filter (SMF) data combination, with and without parallel imaging using k-space and image-domain algorithms, with real-part and conventional magnitude reconstruction and with several reconstruction filters. Depending on the imaging technique, the background noise could be described by a Rayleigh distribution, a noncentral chi-distribution or the positive half of a Gaussian distribution. In particular, the noise characteristics of SoS-reconstructed multichannel acquisitions (with k-space-based parallel imaging or without parallel imaging) differ substantially from those with image-domain parallel imaging or SMF combination. These effects must be taken into account if mean values or standard deviations of background noise are employed for data analysis such as determination of local noise levels. Assuming a Rayleigh distribution as in conventional MR images or a noncentral chi-distribution for all multichannel acquisitions is invalid in general and may lead to erroneous estimates of the signal-to-noise ratio or the contrast-to-noise ratio.     

New compact Echelle spectrographs with multichannel time-resolved recording capabilities

The paper describes a new type of Echelle spectrograph system that utilises a gated interline CCD camera. The system, that contains no moving parts, records simultaneously 6000 time-resolved spectral channels in the range 200–1100 nm with a lowest gate time of 100 ns and with a constant spectral resolution. Results from time-resolved recordings made both from a Xe-flash source and from laser induced breakdown, are presented. It is concluded that the gated CCD sensors are of great interest for applications in spectroscopy. They are of special interest for the application with Echelle spectrographs. The high resolution of the gatable CCD with 6.7×6.7 μm² surpasses that of any ICCD today and in the foreseeable future. The gated CCD also opens the NIR wavelength region for time-resolved multichannel spectroscopy.     

多通道声光偏转选址开关

本文报道1×N多通道声光偏转选址开关的研究.由 Ti 扩散 LiNbO₃波导上两个短程透镜和一个倾斜 chirp 叉指换能器构成的集成光学声光偏转器,在两端分别对接一根和N根单模光纤时,用作多通道选址开关,在换能器带宽为200MHz,对1.3μm波长,可实现N=24;带宽增加到500MHz,可达到N=64,在波长为0.633μm的 He-Ne 激光下进行的实验和理论符合.     

Sequential simplex optimization and multichannel detection in HPLC: Application to method development

Summary The sequential simplex procedure for the optimisation of mobile phase composition in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is combined with multichannel detection. The operating software already available in a commercial LC system is exploited and extended to incorporate a number of new routines developed to facilitate HPLC method development. An efficient stop criterion for automated simplex procedures is proposed, based on continuous comparison of the chromatographic response function attained with that predicted. The theoretical basis is developed for a new peak homogeneity test, based on the wavelength sensitivity of the chromatographic peak maximum. An algorithm for assigning peak elution order, based on peak areas at multiple wavelengths, is developed for cases where multiple optima are recorded. The simplicity and practical utility of these techniques are demonstrated in the context of an HPLC separation method developed for a model system of six solutes.     

Multichannel autosampler for Curie-point pyrolysis capillary gas chromatography

A multichannel autosampler which can automatically analyze up to 20 samples in sequence has been developed for on-line Curie-point pyrolysis – capillary GC. The results obtained from the system show that the analysis of thermally labile samples could be performed without either thermal degradation or reaction during the waiting time before the final pyrolysis. The reproducibilities of the relative peak areas and retention times of the characteristic pyrolysates of a tricomponent copolymer were significantly better than those obtained by manual sample manipulation.     

Dual nature of localization in guiding systems with randomly corrugated boundaries: Anderson-type versus entropic

A unified theory for the conductance of an infinitely long multimode quantum wire whose finite segment has randomly rough lateral boundaries is developed. It enables one to rigorously take account of all feasible mechanisms of wave scattering, both related to boundary roughness and to contacts between the wire rough section and the perfect leads within the same technical frameworks. The rough part of the conducting wire is shown to act as a mode-specific randomly modulated effective potential barrier whose height is governed essentially by the asperity slope. The mean height of the barrier, which is proportional to the average slope squared, specifies the number of conducting channels. Under relatively small asperity amplitude this number can take on arbitrary small, up to zero, values if the asperities are sufficiently sharp. The consecutive channel cut-off that arises when the asperity sharpness increases can be regarded as a kind of localization, which is not related to the disorder per se but rather is of entropic or (equivalently) geometric origin. The fluctuating part of the effective barrier results in two fundamentally different types of guided wave scattering, viz., inter- and intramode scattering. The intermode scattering is shown to be for the most part very strong except in the cases of (a) extremely smooth asperities, (b) excessively small length of the corrugated segment, and (c) the asperities sharp enough for only one conducting channel to remain in the wire. Under strong intermode scattering, a new set of conducting channels develops in the corrugated waveguide, which have the form of asymptotically decoupled extended modes subject to individual solely intramode random potentials. In view of this fact, two transport regimes only are realizable in randomly corrugated multimode waveguides, specifically, the ballistic and the localized regime, the latter characteristic of one-dimensional random systems. Two kinds of localization are thus shown to coexist in waveguide-like systems with randomly corrugated boundaries, specifically, the entropic localization and the one-dimensional Anderson (disorder-driven) localization. If the particular mode propagates across the rough segment ballistically, the Fabry–Pérot-type oscillations should be observed in the conductance, which are suppressed for the mode transferred in the Anderson-localized regime.     

Axial resonances in the open and hidden charm sectors

A SU(4) flavor symmetrical Lagrangian is constructed for the interaction of the pseudo-scalar mesons with the vector mesons. SU(4) symmetry is broken to SU(3) by suppression of terms in the Lagrangian where the interaction should be driven by charmed mesons. Chiral symmetry can be restored by setting this new SU(4) symmetry-breaking parameters to zero. Unitarization in coupled channels leads to the dynamical generation of resonances. Many known axial resonances can be identified including the new controversial X(3872) and the structure found recently by Belle around 3875MeV in the hidden charm sector. Also new resonances are predicted, some of them with exotic quantum numbers.     

Variable step-size based method for acoustic feedback modeling and neutralization in active noise control systems

This paper investigates the issue of the acoustic feedback during online operation of active noise control (ANC) systems. In the existing approach, two FIR filters are used for this task: adaptive for feedback path modeling (FBPM) and fixed for feedback neutralization (FBN). Previously, a simplified method is proposed where these two tasks of modeling and neutralization have been combined into one feedback path modeling and neutralization (FBPMN) adaptive filter. Here we introduce an intuition based variable step size (VSS) parameter, for LMS equation of FBPMN filter. This VSS is motivated from the fact that the error signal of FBPMN filter contains a disturbance-component that is decreasing in nature. The computer simulations are carried out for single-channel and multichannel ANC systems. It is demonstrated that the proposed method achieves better performance than the existing methods.     

Multichannel sampling expansion in the linear canonical transform domain and its application to superresolution

The linear canonical transform (LCT) describes the effect of first-order quadratic phase optical system on a wave field. In this paper, we address the problem of signal reconstruction from multichannel samples in the LCT domain based on a new convolution theorem. Firstly, a new convolution structure is proposed for the LCT, which states that a modified ordinary convolution in the time domain is equivalent to a simple multiplication operation for LCT and Fourier transform (FT). Moreover, it is expressible by a one dimensional integral and easy to implement in the designing of filters. The convolution theorem in FT domain is shown to be a special case of our achieved results. Then, a practical multichannel sampling expansion for band limited signal with the LCT is introduced. This sampling expansion which is constructed by the new convolution structure can reduce the effect of spectral leakage and is easy to implement. Last, the potential application of the multichannel sampling is presented to show the advantage of the theory. Especially, the application of multichannel sampling in the context of the image superresolution is also discussed. The simulation results of superresolution are also presented.