Auditory temporal resolution in normal-hearing preschool children revealed by word recognition in continuous and interrupted noise

The purpose of this study was to examine temporal resolution in normal-hearing preschool children. Word recognition was evaluated in quiet and in spectrally identical continuous and interrupted noise at signal-to-noise ratios (S/Ns) of 10, 0, and -10 dB. Sixteen children 4 to 5 years of age and eight adults participated. Performance decreased with decreasing S/N. At poorer S/Ns, participants demonstrated superior performance or a release from masking in the interrupted noise. Adults performed better than children, yet the release from masking was equivalent. Collectively these findings are consistent with the notion that preschool children suffer from poorer processing efficiency rather than temporal resolution per se.     

Field propagation phenomena in ultra high field NMR: a Maxwell-Bloch formulation

The principal advantage of NMR at high field is the concomitant increase in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). This can be traded for improved spatial resolution and combined with parallel imaging to achieve higher temporal resolution. At high field strength, the RF-wavelength and the dimension of the human body complicate the development of NMR coils. For example, at 7 T, the wavelength in free space corresponds to about 1m. The dielectric constant in tissue with a high water content can be as high as 70 and at a larmor frequency of 300 MHz, this corresponds to a wavelength inside tissue of less than 15 cm. The operating wavelength is thus comparable to the diameter of most body parts. To this end, both temporal and spatial variations of the excitation field must be taken into account in addition to the expected increase in conductivity. For all these reasons, we find the propagation of radiation at ultra high fields (>4 T) new phenomena commonly observed in quantum optics but traditionally negligible in NMR such as phase modulation of the excitation field such that the identity between pulse area and flip angle is no longer valid. In this paper, the emergence of field propagation phenomena in NMR experiments is analytically and numerically demonstrated. It is shown that in addition to the well-studied dielectric resonance phenomena at high magnetic fields (>4 T), field propagation effects transform the excitation pulse into an adiabatic excitation. The high field strength also mean that nonlinear effects such as self-induced transparency are now possible in NMR experiments.     

The use of visual cues in the perception of non-native consonant contrasts

This study assessed the extent to which second-language learners are sensitive to phonetic information contained in visual cues when identifying a non-native phonemic contrast. In experiment 1, Spanish and Japanese learners of English were tested on their perception of a labial/ labiodental consonant contrast in audio (A), visual (V), and audio-visual (AV) modalities. Spanish students showed better performance overall, and much greater sensitivity to visual cues than Japanese students. Both learner groups achieved higher scores in the AV than in the A test condition, thus showing evidence of audio-visual benefit. Experiment 2 examined the perception of the less visually-salient /1/-/r/ contrast in Japanese and Korean learners of English. Korean learners obtained much higher scores in auditory and audio-visual conditions than in the visual condition, while Japanese learners generally performed poorly in both modalities. Neither group showed evidence of audio-visual benefit. These results show the impact of the language background of the learner and visual salience of the contrast on the use of visual cues for a non-native contrast. Significant correlations between scores in the auditory and visual conditions suggest that increasing auditory proficiency in identifying a non-native contrast is linked with an increasing proficiency in using visual cues to the contrast.     

A Lie theoretic galois theory for the spectral curves of an integrable system: I

In the study of integrable systems of ODE's arising from a Lax pair with a parameter, the constants of the motion occur as spectral curves. The specific curves depend upon the representation of the Lie algebra. In this paper a Galois theory of spectral curves is given that classifies the spectral curves from an integrable system. The spectral curves correspond to conjugacy classes of certain subgroups of the Weyl group for the Lie algebra. The theory is illustrated with the periodic Toda lattice.Partially supported by a Louisiana Education Quality Support Fund grant LEQSF (87-89)-RD-A-8     

Chirped pulse amplification in single mode Tm:fiber using a chirped Bragg grating

We report femtosecond pulse generation and chirped pulse amplification in Tm:fiber. A mode-locked oscillator operating in the soliton regime produced 800 fs pulses with 5 nm spectral bandwidth, at 40 pJ pulse energy. This oscillator seeded a pre-amplifier that utilizes a Raman soliton self-frequency shift to produce wavelength tunable pulses with 3 nJ energy, reduced pulse duration of 150 fs, and increased bandwidth of 30 nm. For further amplification, the pulses were stretched up to 160 ps using a chirped Bragg grating (CBG). Stretched pulses were amplified to 85 nJ after compression in single-mode Tm:fiber and recompressed with the CBG as short as 400 fs. Compressed pulses were coupled into a highly nonlinear tellurite fiber to investigate the potential of this ultrashort pulse 2-μm fiber source as a pump for mid-IR supercontinuum generation.     

A moving grid finite element method applied to a model biological pattern generator

Many problems in biology involve growth. In numerical simulations it can therefore be very convenient to employ a moving computational grid on a continuously deforming domain. In this paper we present a novel application of the moving grid finite element method to compute solutions of reaction–diffusion systems in two-dimensional continuously deforming Euclidean domains. A numerical software package has been developed as a result of this research that is capable of solving generalised Turing models for morphogenesis.     

Wet-etch optimization of free-standing terahertz frequency-selective structures

Free-standing frequency-selective surfaces consisting of approximately 10-microm-thick copper films with cross-aperture arrays are found to be tunable toward lower frequencies by means of wet chemical etching. Center frequencies were tuned from 1.57 to 1.53 THz while maintaining high transmittance. Wet etching also adjusts bandwidth, peak transmittance, and sidelobe transmittance. The advantage of the wet-etch technique is demonstrated by employment of these devices as bandpass filters for difluoromethane-based terahertz lasers. Adjustment in aperture dimensions because of etching results in suppression of a competing laser line (133.93 microm) by 15 dB while maintaining high transmittance at the operating wavelength of 192.06 microm.     

Experimental observations of a left-handed material that obeys Snell's law

We measure two-dimensional profiles of collimated microwave beams transmitted through composite wire and split-ring resonator prisms. Prior experiments suggest these structures have a negative index of refraction, though these claims have been questioned. Our 2D measurements demonstrate that transmission obeys Snell's law with a negative index, confirming the refractive nature of this signal and refuting alternatives posed in the criticisms. In addition, we present preliminary evidence that a flat rectangular slab of this material can focus power from a point source.     

Molecular contrast in optical coherence tomography by use of a pump-probe technique

We describe a novel technique for contrast enhancement in optical coherence tomography (OCT) that makes possible molecular-specific imaging for what is believed to be the first time. A pump-probe technique is employed in which a pulsed pump laser is tuned to ground-state absorption in a molecule of interest. The location of the target molecule population is derived from the resulting transient absorption of OCT sample-arm light acting as probe light. A signal processing technique for three-dimensional localization of the transient absorption signal is described, and preliminary results exhibiting OCT contrast from methylene blue dye in multilayer and scattering phantoms are presented.