A new approach to estimating the signal dimension of concatenated resting-state functional MRI data sets

Estimating the effective signal dimension of resting-state functional MRI (fMRI) data sets (i.e., selecting an appropriate number of signal components) is essential for data-driven analysis. However, current methods are prone to overestimate the dimensions, especially for concatenated group data sets. This work aims to develop improved dimension estimation methods for group fMRI data generated by data reduction and grouping procedure at multiple levels. We proposed a “noise-blurring” approach to suppress intragroup signal variations and to correct spectral alterations caused by the data reduction, which should be responsible for the group dimension overestimation. This technique was evaluated on both simulated group data sets and in vivo resting-state fMRI data sets acquired from 14 normal human subjects during five different scan sessions. Reduction and grouping procedures were repeated at three levels in either “scan–session–subject” or “scan–subject–session” order. Compared with traditional estimation methods, our approach exhibits a stronger immunity against intragroup signal variation, less sensitivity to group size and a better agreement on the dimensions at the third level between the two grouping orders.     

A zero-point energy approach for estimating the photon mass

An upper bound for the photon rest-mass is calculated on the basis of zero-point energy considerations within the context of fluctuations in the quantum foam, our results being compared with experimental data. Furthermore, some aspects related to energy spectrum are discussed.     

A geometric approach to direct minimization

The approach presented, geometric direct minimization (GDM), is derived from purely geometrical arguments, and is designed to minimize a function of a set of orthonormal orbitals. The optimization steps consist of sequential unitary transformations of the orbitals, and convergence is accelerated using the Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS) approach in the iterative subspace, together with a diagonal approximation to the Hessian for the remaining degrees of freedom. The approach is tested by implementing the solution of the self-consistent field (SCF) equations and comparing results with the standard direct inversion in the iterative subspace (DIIS) method. It is found that GDM is very robust and converges in every system studied, including several cases in which DIIS fails to find a solution. For main group compounds, GDM convergence is nearly as rapid as DIIS, whereas for transition metal-containing systems we find that GDM is significantly slower than DIIS. A hybrid procedure where DIIS is used for the first several iterations and GDM is used thereafter is found to provide a robust solution for transition metal-containing systems.     

A recursive approach to prony parameter estimation

The Prony series method of fitting a series of complex exponentials to a time series can be applied to many acoustic and vibration signals. For example, in the analysis of a structure's response to transient excitation the Prony series method can be used to find the natural frequencies, damping ratios, amplitudes and relative phases of the modes of the structure. One of the main problems with this method is the need to calculate and invert matrices. In this paper an algorithm that combines the Prony series method with the recursive least squares algorithm is described. This eliminates the need to invert any matrices and also requires only part of the data to be available at one particular time. The method is applied to analyze a simulated structure's response and also to analyze the response of a beam to transient excitation.     

A direct variational approach to Skyrme's model for meson fields

The solutions of Skyrme's variational problem describe the structure of mesons in a field of weak energy. The problem consists in minimizing the corresponding energy among the functions from ³ toS ³ which have a fixed degree without making any symmetry assumptions. We prove the existence of minima and study their properties.     

A novel approach to direct measurement of the plasma potential

A novel probe and approach to the direct measurements of the plasma potential in a strong magnetic field is suggested. The principle of this method is to reduce the electron saturation current to the same magnitude as that of the ion saturation current. In this case, the floating potential of the probe becomes indentical to the plasma potential. This goal is attained by a shield, which screens off an adjustable part of the electron current from the probe collector due to the much smaller gyro-radius of the electrons. First systematic measurements have been perfomred in the CASTOR tokamak.     

A direct renormalization group approach for the excluded volume problem

We propose a position-space renormalization group approach for the excluded volume problem in a square lattice by considering percolating self-avoiding paths in ab×b cell, whereb=2,3,4: Two ways of counting the paths are presented. The values obtained for the exponentv converge respectively to 0.731 and 0.720, close to the usually accepted valuev=0.75. Comments on the relation between percolation and self-avoiding walks are made.Work supported by Brazilian Agencies FINEP, CNPq and CNRS, France     

A direct renormalization group approach for the excluded volume problem

We propose a position-space renormalization group approach for the excluded volume problem in a square lattice by considering “percolating” self-avoiding paths in ab×b cell, whereb=2,3,4: Two ways of counting the paths are presented. The values obtained for the exponentv converge respectively to 0.731 and 0.720, close to the usually accepted valuev=0.75. Comments on the relation between percolation and self-avoiding walks are made.     

A novel physical parameter extraction approach for Schottky diodes

Parameter extraction is an important step for circuit simulation methods that are based on physical models of semiconductor devices. A novel physical parameter extraction approach for Schottky diodes is proposed in this paper. By employing a set of analytical formulas, this approach extracts all of the necessary physical parameters of the diode chip in a unique way. It then extracts the package parasitic parameters with a curve-fitting method. To validate the proposed approach, a model HSMS-282 c commercial Schottky diode is taken as an example. Its physical parameters are extracted and used to simulate the diode's electrical characteristics. The simulated results based on the extracted parameters are compared with the measurements and a good agreement is obtained, which verifies the feasibility and accuracy of the proposed approach.     

A novel calibration approach to structured light 3D vision inspection

Structured light 3D vision inspection is a commonly used method for various 3D surface profiling techniques. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to generate the sufficient calibration points with high accuracy for structured light 3D vision. This approach is based on a flexible calibration target, composed of a photo-electrical aiming device and a 3D translation platform. An improved algorithm of back propagation (BP) neural network is also presented, and is successfully applied to the calibration of structured light 3D vision inspection. Finally, using the calibration points and the improved algorithm of BP neural network, the best network structure is established. The training accuracy for the best BP network structure is 0.083 mm, and its testing accuracy is 0.128 mm.     

一种新的参数估计方法及其在混沌信号盲分离中的应用

为了有效地估计非线性映射中的参数,本文采用一种容积准则近似该映射的加权积分函数. 基于由状态空间模型建模的参数,提出了一种新的参数估计方法. 混沌信号的盲分离是一种具有挑战性的参数估计问题.将新的参数估计方法应用在该问题上, 实现混沌信号的有效重构.仿真结果表明该算法具有较快的收敛速度和较高的数值精度, 并能有效地分离原始混沌信号.     

一种新的快速衰落信道相干时间估计方法

快速衰落信道(FFD)是浅海中常见的畸变信道模型之一,通常用信道相干时间来描述其多普勒扩展程度。分段副本相关器(SRC)是FFD信道的最佳似然比检测器,但当信道相干时间未知时,其性能因失配受到较大影响。针对此种情况,提出了多重假设SRC,该方法能简单有效地估计FFD信道相干时间并解决SRC的失配问题。     

A power mode approach to estimating vibrational power transmitted by multiple sources

A power mode method for the estimation of the power transmitted to a flexible receiver by an array of point force excitations is described. The vibrational power transmitted by N discrete point forces is regarded as the power transmitted by N independent power modes following eigendecomposition of the mobility matrix of the receiving structure. Approximate expressions for the upper and lower bounds and the mean value of the transmitted power are then developed in terms of these power modes. The approach is extended to more general cases, including that where both force and moment excitations are applied to the structure and where there are velocity source excitations. Numerical examples are presented.     

变形镜驱动器参数自动标定系统的设计

变形镜驱动器各通道的offset参数和gain参数直接影响到变形镜驱动器输出电压的精度,采用人工方式对其进行标定,不仅效率低,费时费力,而且参数的一致性也无法得到保证。为此,首先设计了AD采集器,其内部仅含一片24bit的高精度AD采集芯片,其并行的16端子输入接口通过继电器与采集芯片相连,内含的微处理器负责完成输入通道切换、采集时序控制和采集数据上传等功能;同时,还设计了上位机应用程序,实现了对变形镜驱动器以及AD采集器通信链路检查、标定过程控制参数设置、采集通道切换以及数据处理等相关操作命令和状态数据的收发,使得变形镜驱动器、AD采集器和上位机组成一套驱动器参数自动标定系统。结果表明,该系统不仅使得一套变形镜驱动器参数标定时间由原来的两个工作日缩短到2小时左右,而且提高了参数标定精度和一致性,其96通道零电压的最大误差由18.2mV降为13.5mV,均方差由原来的6.2mV降低为4.3mV,其输出最高电压120.000V的最大误差由23.4mV降为17.5mV,均方差由原来的10.1mV降低为8.3mV。     

Gluino and neutralino contribution to the direct CP violation parameter έ

I present a detailed and complete calculation of the gluino and neutralino contribution to the direct CP violating parameter ? within the MSSM. I include the complete mixing matrices of the neutralino and of the scalar partners of the left and right handed down quarks. I find that the neutralino contribution is generally small but can be larger than the gluino contribution for small values m _s ≤ 400 GeV of the supersymmetric breaking scale.     

A composite-structured-light 3D measurement method based on fringe parameter calibration

This paper proposes a novel method for reducing measurement error caused by spectrum overlapping in composite-structured-light 3D measurement systems. For a composite-structured-light 3D measurement system, spectrum overlapping causes parameters of each deformed phase-shifting fringe to change, and therefore leads to phase measurement errors. The proposed fringe parameter calibration method is based on the fact that variations in each deformed fringe's parameters are independent of height and reflectivity of the measured object. Three frames of composite grating are projected on the reference plane, and each carrier channel includes the information of three phase-shifting sinusoidal gratings used in Phase Measuring Profilometry (PMP). With the parameter calculation formulas of PMP, the parameters of fringes demodulated from the same carrier channel can be calculated, and therefore parameter relation coefficients between fringes demodulated from different carrier channels may be obtained. When an object is measured, these relation coefficients can be used to calibrate the parameters of the deformed phase-shifting fringes. A new 3D measurement mathematical model is established to reconstruct the shape of the object. Experimental data proved that the proposed method can effectively restrain the effect of spectrum overlapping and improve measurement accuracy by more than three times.     

A direct approach for the reduction of diatomic spectra to molecular constants for the construction of RKR potentials

A nonlinear fitting procedure is presented that employs all measured line positions and iteratively compares their values with those calculated from numerically diagonalized model Hamiltonians with adjustable molecular constants. Case (a) wavefunctions with definite parity are introduced as a convenient basis set, and the effects of spin-orbit, spin-spin, spin-rotation, and centrifugal distortion interactions neglected in the Born-Oppenheimer separation are included simultaneously using the Van Vleck transformation. The spectroscopic constants found by this procedure represent the minimum-variance, unbiased set and maintain, to a high degree of accuracy, the separate mechanical and magnetic meanings of the molecular constants. Arguments are presented that such spectroscopic constants with mechanical meaning allow the most accurate construction of potential energy functions using the Rydberg-Klein-Rees (RKR) procedure. Residual mechanical and magnetic ambiguities, such as engendered by Λ-type doubling, are discussed.     

A data readout approach for physics experiments

With increasing physical event rates and the number of electronic channels, traditional readout schemes meet the challenge of improving readout speed caused by the limited bandwidth of the crate backplane. In this paper, a high-speed data readout method based on the Ethernet is presented to make each readout module capable of transmitting data to the DAQ. Features of explicitly parallel data transmitting and distributed network architecture give the readout system the advantage of adapting varying requirements of particle physics experiments. Furthermore, to guarantee the readout performance and flexibility, a standalone embedded CPU system is utilized for network protocol stack processing. To receive the customized data format and protocol from front-end electronics, a field programmable gate array (FPGA) is used for logic reconfiguration. To optimize the interface and to improve the data throughput between CPU and FPGA, a sophisticated method based on SRAM is presented in this paper. For the purpose of evaluating this high-speed readout method, a simplified readout module is designed and implemented. Test results show that this module can support up to 70 Mbps data throughput from the readout module to DAQ.     

A complex networks approach for data clustering

This work proposes a method for data clustering based on complex networks theory. A data set is represented as a network by considering different metrics to establish the connection between each pair of objects. The clusters are obtained by taking into account five community detection algorithms. The network-based clustering approach is applied in two real-world databases and two sets of artificially generated data. The obtained results suggest that the exponential of the Minkowski distance is the most suitable metric to quantify the similarities between pairs of objects. In addition, the community identification method based on the greedy optimization provides the best cluster solution. We compare the network-based clustering approach with some traditional clustering algorithms and verify that it provides the lowest classification error rate.