The effect of artifacts on dependence measurement in fMRI

The study of effective connectivity by means of neuroimaging depends on the measurement of similarity between activity patterns at different locations in the brain, without necessarily presupposing a particular model for this dependence. When these interactions are measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques, however, imaging and physiological artifacts create patterns of dependence that may be unrelated to cortical activity. We demonstrate some of these effects through the measurement of short-range dependencies present in fMRI scans of the primary visual cortex (V1) in the anaesthetized macaque monkey. High-field (4.7 T) fMRI scans were conducted to measure responses based on the blood oxygen level-dependent contrast mechanism, during periods of no sensory stimulation and of visual stimulation with rotating polar-transformed checkerboard gratings. Dependence between the haemodynamic activity at different spatial locations (i.e., different voxels) was measured using correlation, mutual information and functional covariance. Particular attention was paid to understanding the sources of spurious dependence that may be observed during such investigations. Two main effects were detected: (a) short-range correlations introduced by the process of image reconstruction and (b) perturbations in the haemodynamic response caused by breathing. The image reconstruction artifacts were shown to create an artificially high short-range dependence in the readout direction of the scan, and the breathing artifacts caused enhanced short-range dependence in both the readout and phase-encode directions. Additional dependence in the phase-encode direction due to image-ghosting is also possible but will not be discussed in this report, as it can be alleviated by fine adjustment of preemphasis (elimination of eddy currents). A technique is described for removing breathing artifacts, and the effect of breathing on the apparent dependence between voxels is illustrated. The correlation of haemodynamic activity with the stimulus was found to be affected by breathing, although this effect can be neutralised by averaging the haemodynamic responses over many repetitions of the stimulus. Nonetheless, patterns of dependent activity between voxels may be lost in this averaging process, which makes the removal of breathing artifacts necessary if statistical dependence and the study of effective connectivity is the primary aim of an investigation.     

Peak suppression in ESEEM spectra of multinuclear spin systems

We have observed a disturbing suppression effect in three-pulse ESEEM and HYSCORE spectra of systems with more than one nucleus coupled to the electron spin. For such systems, the ESEEM signal contains internuclear combination peaks of varying intensity. At the same time, the peaks at the basic ESEEM frequencies are reduced in intensity, up to the point of complete cancellation. For both three-pulse ESEEM and HYSCORE, the amplitude of a peak of a given nucleus depends not only on its modulation depth parameter k and the tau-dependent blind-spot term b, but also on k and b of all other nuclei. Peaks of nuclei with shallow modulations can be strongly suppressed by nuclei with deep modulations. This cross-suppression effect explains the observation that HYSCORE (1)H peaks are often very weak or even undetectable in the presence of strong (14)N peaks. Due to this distortion of intensities, ESEEM spectra have to be analysed very carefully. We present a theoretical analysis of this effect based on the product rules, numerical computations, and illustrative experimental data on Cu(gly)(2). In experiments, the impact of this cross suppression can be alleviated by a proper choice of tau values, remote echo detection, and matched pulses.     

Ab initio prediction of pressure-induced structural phase transition of superconducting FeSe

External pressure driven phase transitions of FeSe are predicted using ab initio calculations. The calculations reveal that α-FeSe makes transitions to NiAs-type, MnP-type, and CsCl-type FeSe. Transitions from NiAs-type to MnP-type and CsCl-type FeSe are also predicted. MnP-type FeSe is also found to be able to transform to CsCl-type FeSe, which is easier from α-FeSe than the transition to MnP-type FeSe, but comparable to the transition from NiAs-type FeSe. The calculated electronic structures show that all phases of FeSe are metallic, but the ionic interaction between Fe-Se bonds becomes stronger and the covalent interaction becomes weaker when the structural phase transition occurs from α-FeSe to the other phases of FeSe. The experimentally observed decrease in T(c) of superconducting α-FeSe at high pressure may be due to a structural/magnetic instability, which exists at high pressure. The results suggest an increase of the T(c) of α-FeSe if such phase transitions are frustrated by suitable methods.     

Tailoring terahertz near-field enhancement via two-dimensional plasmons

We suggest a novel possibility for electrically tunable terahertz near-field enhancement in flatland electronic materials supporting two-dimensional plasmons, including recently discovered graphene. We employ electric-field effect modulation of electron density in such materials and induce a periodic plasmonic lattice with a defect cavity. We demonstrate that the plasmons resonantly excited in such a periodic plasmonic lattice by an incident terahertz radiation can strongly pump the cavity plasmon modes leading to a deep subwavelength concentration of terahertz energy, beyond λ/1000, with giant electric-field enhancement factors up to 10(4), which is 2 orders of magnitude higher than achieved previously in metal-based terahertz field concentrators.     

X-ray diffuse scattering measurements of nucleation dynamics at femtosecond resolution

Femtosecond time-resolved small and wide angle x-ray diffuse scattering techniques are applied to investigate the ultrafast nucleation processes that occur during the ablation process in semiconducting materials. Following intense optical excitation, a transient liquid state of high compressibility characterized by large-amplitude density fluctuations is observed and the buildup of these fluctuations is measured in real time. Small-angle scattering measurements reveal snapshots of the spontaneous nucleation of nanoscale voids within a metastable liquid and support theoretical predictions of the ablation process.     

Coherent Raman and Infrared Studies of Sulfur Trioxide

High-resolution (0.001 cm⁻¹) coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) was used to observe the Q-branch structure of the IR-inactive ν₁ symmetric stretching mode of ³²S¹⁶O₃ and its various ¹⁸O isotopomers. The ν₁ spectrum of ³²S¹⁶O₃ reveals two intense Q-branches in the region 1065–1067 cm⁻¹, with surprisingly complex vibrational–rotational structure not resolved in earlier studies. Efforts to simulate this with a simple Fermi-resonance model involving ν₁ and 2ν₄ states do not reproduce the spectral detail, nor do they yield reasonable spectroscopic parameters. A more subtle combination of Fermi resonance and indirect Coriolis interactions with nearby states, 2ν₄(1=0, ±2), ν₂+ν₄(1=±1), 2ν₂(1=0), is suspected and a determination of the location of these coupled states by high-resolution infrared measurements is under way. At medium resolution (0.125 cm⁻¹), the infrared spectra reveal Q-branch features from which approximate band origins are estimated for the ν₂, ν₃, and ν₄ fundamental modes of ³²S¹⁸O₃, ³²S¹⁸O₂¹⁶O, and ³²S¹⁸O¹⁶O₂. These and literature data for ³²S¹⁶O₃ are used to calculate force constants for SO₃ and a comparison is made with similar values for SO₂ and SO. The frequencies and force constants are in excellent agreement with those obtained by Martin in a recent ab initio calculation.     

Magnetic field effects on the localization of electromagnetic waves in random 1D systems which are almost periodic

The effects of an externally applied magnetic field on the Anderson localization of electromagnetic waves in an alternating layered system of vacuum and semiconducting slabs are studied. Specifically, a waveguide formed from perfectly conducting parallel plates which contain between them an array of vacuum and n-type semiconductor slabs is examined in the presence of an external static magnetic field applied parallel to both the plates and the slab surfaces. The widths of the slabs in the array are random but with a randomness such that the array of slabs is almost periodic, and we study only electromagnetic modes which propagate perpendicular to the slab surfaces. The localization length is obtained by studying the reflection and transmission properties of a finite array of slabs in the limit that it becomes semi-infinite. Two types of system are treated: (i) a reciprocal system which exhibits a localization length that does not depend on the sign of the applied magnetic field, and (ii) a non-reciprocal system which exhibits a localization length that depends on the sign of the applied magnetic field.     

Symmetry breaking in plasmonic waveguides with metal nonlinearities

We studied nonlinear effects in plasmonic metal film waveguides and couplers stimulated by third-order optical response due to ponderomotive metal nonlinearities. We analyzed the structure and dispersion of nonlinear plasmonic guided modes and predicted the bifurcations and symmetry breaking of nonlinear modes for the critical powers, depending on the structure dimensions.     

Subspace algorithms for noise reduction in cochlear implants

A single-channel algorithm is proposed for noise reduction in cochlear implants. The proposed algorithm is based on subspace principles and projects the noisy speech vector onto "signal" and "noise" subspaces. An estimate of the clean signal is made by retaining only the components in the signal subspace. The performance of the subspace reduction algorithm is evaluated using 14 subjects wearing the Clarion device. Results indicated that the subspace algorithm produced significant improvements in sentence recognition scores compared to the subjects' daily strategy, at least in stationary noise. Further work is needed to extend the subspace algorithm to nonstationary noise environments.     

Existence,uniqueness, and nondegeneracy of positive solutions of semilinear elliptic equations

We study positive solutions of the Dirichlet problem: u(x)+f(u(x))=0,xD ⁿ ,u(x)=0,xD ⁿ , whereD ⁿ is ann-ball. We find necessary and sufficient conditions for solutions to be nondegenerate. We also give some new existence and uniqueness theorems.Research supported in part by NSF Contract Number MCS 80-02337