Unique Normal Form and the Associated Coefficients for a Class of Three-Dimensional Nilpotent Vector Fields

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Jing; Kou, Liying; Wang, Duo; Zhang, Wei

2017-12-01

In this paper, we mainly focus on the unique normal form for a class of three-dimensional vector fields via the method of transformation with parameters. A general explicit recursive formula is derived to compute the higher order normal form and the associated coefficients, which can be achieved easily by symbolic calculations. To illustrate the efficiency of the approach, a comparison of our result with others is also presented.

Method for construction of normalized cDNA libraries

DOEpatents

Soares, Marcelo B.; Efstratiadis, Argiris

1996-01-01

This invention provides a method to normalize a directional cDNA library constructed in a vector that allows propagation in single-stranded circle form comprising: (a) propagating the directional cDNA library in single-stranded circles; (b) generating fragments complementary to the 3' noncoding sequence of the single-stranded circles in the library to produce partial duplexes; (c) purifying the partial duplexes; (d) melting and reassociating the purified partial duplexes to moderate Cot; and (e) purifying the unassociated single-stranded circles, thereby generating a normalized cDNA library.

Trojan dynamics well approximated by a new Hamiltonian normal form

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Páez, Rocío Isabel; Locatelli, Ugo

2015-10-01

We revisit a classical perturbative approach to the Hamiltonian related to the motions of Trojan bodies, in the framework of the planar circular restricted three-body problem, by introducing a number of key new ideas in the formulation. In some sense, we adapt the approach of Garfinkel to the context of the normal form theory and its modern techniques. First, we make use of Delaunay variables for a physically accurate representation of the system. Therefore, we introduce a novel manipulation of the variables so as to respect the natural behaviour of the model. We develop a normalization procedure over the fast angle which exploits the fact that singularities in this model are essentially related to the slow angle. Thus, we produce a new normal form, i.e. an integrable approximation to the Hamiltonian. We emphasize some practical examples of the applicability of our normalizing scheme, e.g. the estimation of the stable libration region. Finally, we compare the level curves produced by our normal form with surfaces of section provided by the integration of the non-normalized Hamiltonian, with very good agreement. Further precision tests are also provided. In addition, we give a step-by-step description of the algorithm, allowing for extensions to more complicated models.

Method for hot press forming articles

DOEpatents

Baker, Robert R.; Hartsock, Dale L.

1982-01-01

This disclosure relates to an improved method for achieving the best bond strength and for minimizing distortion and cracking of hot pressed articles. In particular, in a method for hot press forming both an outer facing circumferential surface of and an inner portion of a hub, and of bonding that so-formed outer facing circumferential surface to an inner facing circumferential surface of a pre-formed ring thereby to form an article, the following improvement is made. Normally, in this method, the outside ring is restrained by a restraining sleeve of ring-shaped cross-section having an inside diameter. A die member, used to hot press form the hub, is so-formed as to have an outside diameter sized to engage the inside diameter of the restraining sleeve in a manner permitting relative movement therebetween. The improved method is one in which several pairs of matched restraining sleeve and die member are formed with each matched pair having a predetermined diameter. The predetermined diameter of each matched pair is different from another matched pair by stepped increments. The largest inside diameter of a restraining sleeve is equal to the diameter of the outer facing circumferential surface of the hub. Each pair of the matched restraining sleeve and die member is used to form an article in which an inside hub is bonded to an outside ring. The several samples so-formed are evaluated to determine which sample has the best bond formed between the hub and the ring with the least or no cracking or distortion in the ring portion of the article. Thereafter, the matched restraining sleeve and die member which form the article having the best bonding characteristics and least distortion cracking is then used for repeated formations of articles.

Closed-form confidence intervals for functions of the normal mean and standard deviation.

PubMed

Donner, Allan; Zou, G Y

2012-08-01

Confidence interval methods for a normal mean and standard deviation are well known and simple to apply. However, the same cannot be said for important functions of these parameters. These functions include the normal distribution percentiles, the Bland-Altman limits of agreement, the coefficient of variation and Cohen's effect size. We present a simple approach to this problem by using variance estimates recovered from confidence limits computed for the mean and standard deviation separately. All resulting confidence intervals have closed forms. Simulation results demonstrate that this approach performs very well for limits of agreement, coefficients of variation and their differences.

Shocks and metallicity gradients in normal star-forming galaxies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ho, I.-Ting

Gas flow is one of the most fundamental processes driving galaxy evolution. This thesis explores gas flows in local galaxies by studying metallicity gradients and galactic-scale outflows in normal star-forming galaxies. This is made possible by new integral field spectroscopy data that provide simultaneously spatial and spectral information of galaxies. First, I measure metallicity gradients in isolated disk galaxies and show that their metallicity gradients are remarkably simple and universal. When the metallicity gradients are normalized to galaxy sizes, all the 49 galaxies studied have virtually the same metallicity gradient. I model the common metallicity gradient using a simple chemical evolution model to understand its origin. The common metallicity gradient is a direct result of the coevolution of gas and stellar disk while galactic disks build up their masses from inside-out. Tight constraints on the mass outflow rates and inflow rates can be placed by the chemical evolution model. Second, I investigate galactic winds in normal star-forming galaxies using data from an integral field spectroscopy survey. I demonstrate how to search for galactic winds by probing emission line ratios, shocks, and gas kinematics. Galactic winds are found to be common even in normal star-forming galaxies that were not expected to host winds. By comparing galaxies with and without hosting winds, I show that galaxies with high star formation rate surface densities and bursty star formation histories are more likely to drive large-scale galactic winds. Finally, lzifu, a toolkit for fitting multiple emission lines simultaneously in integral field spectroscopy data, is developed in this thesis. I describe in detail the structure of the toolkit and demonstrate the capabilities of lzifu.

Drug Use Normalization: A Systematic and Critical Mixed-Methods Review.

PubMed

Sznitman, Sharon R; Taubman, Danielle S

2016-09-01

Drug use normalization, which is a process whereby drug use becomes less stigmatized and more accepted as normative behavior, provides a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary drug issues and changes in drug use trends. Through a mixed-methods systematic review of the normalization literature, this article seeks to (a) critically examine how the normalization framework has been applied in empirical research and (b) make recommendations for future research in this area. Twenty quantitative, 26 qualitative, and 4 mixed-methods studies were identified through five electronic databases and reference lists of published studies. Studies were assessed for relevance, study characteristics, quality, and aspects of normalization examined. None of the studies applied the most rigorous research design (experiments) or examined all of the originally proposed normalization dimensions. The most commonly assessed dimension of drug use normalization was "experimentation." In addition to the original dimensions, the review identified the following new normalization dimensions in the literature: (a) breakdown of demographic boundaries and other risk factors in relation to drug use; (b) de-normalization; (c) drug use as a means to achieve normal goals; and (d) two broad forms of micro-politics associated with managing the stigma of illicit drug use: assimilative and transformational normalization. Further development in normalization theory and methodology promises to provide researchers with a novel framework for improving our understanding of drug use in contemporary society. Specifically, quasi-experimental designs that are currently being made feasible by swift changes in cannabis policy provide researchers with new and improved opportunities to examine normalization processes.

Reconstruction of normal forms by learning informed observation geometries from data.

PubMed

Yair, Or; Talmon, Ronen; Coifman, Ronald R; Kevrekidis, Ioannis G

2017-09-19

The discovery of physical laws consistent with empirical observations is at the heart of (applied) science and engineering. These laws typically take the form of nonlinear differential equations depending on parameters; dynamical systems theory provides, through the appropriate normal forms, an "intrinsic" prototypical characterization of the types of dynamical regimes accessible to a given model. Using an implementation of data-informed geometry learning, we directly reconstruct the relevant "normal forms": a quantitative mapping from empirical observations to prototypical realizations of the underlying dynamics. Interestingly, the state variables and the parameters of these realizations are inferred from the empirical observations; without prior knowledge or understanding, they parametrize the dynamics intrinsically without explicit reference to fundamental physical quantities.

Methods of forming semiconductor devices and devices formed using such methods

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V; Rodriguez, Rene G; Pak, Joshua

2013-05-21

Single source precursors are subjected to carbon dioxide to form particles of material. The carbon dioxide may be in a supercritical state. Single source precursors also may be subjected to supercritical fluids other than supercritical carbon dioxide to form particles of material. The methods may be used to form nanoparticles. In some embodiments, the methods are used to form chalcopyrite materials. Devices such as, for example, semiconductor devices may be fabricated that include such particles. Methods of forming semiconductor devices include subjecting single source precursors to carbon dioxide to form particles of semiconductor material, and establishing electrical contact between the particles and an electrode.

New spatial upscaling methods for multi-point measurements: From normal to p-normal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Feng; Li, Xin

2017-12-01

Careful attention must be given to determining whether the geophysical variables of interest are normally distributed, since the assumption of a normal distribution may not accurately reflect the probability distribution of some variables. As a generalization of the normal distribution, the p-normal distribution and its corresponding maximum likelihood estimation (the least power estimation, LPE) were introduced in upscaling methods for multi-point measurements. Six methods, including three normal-based methods, i.e., arithmetic average, least square estimation, block kriging, and three p-normal-based methods, i.e., LPE, geostatistics LPE and inverse distance weighted LPE are compared in two types of experiments: a synthetic experiment to evaluate the performance of the upscaling methods in terms of accuracy, stability and robustness, and a real-world experiment to produce real-world upscaling estimates using soil moisture data obtained from multi-scale observations. The results show that the p-normal-based methods produced lower mean absolute errors and outperformed the other techniques due to their universality and robustness. We conclude that introducing appropriate statistical parameters into an upscaling strategy can substantially improve the estimation, especially if the raw measurements are disorganized; however, further investigation is required to determine which parameter is the most effective among variance, spatial correlation information and parameter p.

Densified waste form and method for forming

DOEpatents

Garino, Terry J.; Nenoff, Tina M.; Sava Gallis, Dorina Florentina

2015-08-25

Materials and methods of making densified waste forms for temperature sensitive waste material, such as nuclear waste, formed with low temperature processing using metallic powder that forms the matrix that encapsulates the temperature sensitive waste material. The densified waste form includes a temperature sensitive waste material in a physically densified matrix, the matrix is a compacted metallic powder. The method for forming the densified waste form includes mixing a metallic powder and a temperature sensitive waste material to form a waste form precursor. The waste form precursor is compacted with sufficient pressure to densify the waste precursor and encapsulate the temperature sensitive waste material in a physically densified matrix.

Normal form from biological motion despite impaired ventral stream function.

PubMed

Gilaie-Dotan, S; Bentin, S; Harel, M; Rees, G; Saygin, A P

2011-04-01

We explored the extent to which biological motion perception depends on ventral stream integration by studying LG, an unusual case of developmental visual agnosia. LG has significant ventral stream processing deficits but no discernable structural cortical abnormality. LG's intermediate visual areas and object-sensitive regions exhibit abnormal activation during visual object perception, in contrast to area V5/MT+ which responds normally to visual motion (Gilaie-Dotan, Perry, Bonneh, Malach, & Bentin, 2009). Here, in three studies we used point light displays, which require visual integration, in adaptive threshold experiments to examine LG's ability to detect form from biological and non-biological motion cues. LG's ability to detect and discriminate form from biological motion was similar to healthy controls. In contrast, he was significantly deficient in processing form from non-biological motion. Thus, LG can rely on biological motion cues to perceive human forms, but is considerably impaired in extracting form from non-biological motion. Finally, we found that while LG viewed biological motion, activity in a network of brain regions associated with processing biological motion was functionally correlated with his V5/MT+ activity, indicating that normal inputs from V5/MT+ might suffice to activate his action perception system. These results indicate that processing of biologically moving form can dissociate from other form processing in the ventral pathway. Furthermore, the present results indicate that integrative ventral stream processing is necessary for uncompromised processing of non-biological form from motion. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Densified waste form and method for forming

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Garino, Terry J.; Nenoff, Tina M.; Sava Gallis, Dorina Florentina

Materials and methods of making densified waste forms for temperature sensitive waste material, such as nuclear waste, formed with low temperature processing using metallic powder that forms the matrix that encapsulates the temperature sensitive waste material. The densified waste form includes a temperature sensitive waste material in a physically densified matrix, the matrix is a compacted metallic powder. The method for forming the densified waste form includes mixing a metallic powder and a temperature sensitive waste material to form a waste form precursor. The waste form precursor is compacted with sufficient pressure to densify the waste precursor and encapsulate themore » temperature sensitive waste material in a physically densified matrix.« less

Ising model versus normal form game

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Galam, Serge; Walliser, Bernard

2010-02-01

The 2-spin Ising model in statistical mechanics and the 2×2 normal form game in game theory are compared. All configurations allowed by the second are recovered by the first when the only concern is about Nash equilibria. But it holds no longer when Pareto optimum considerations are introduced as in the prisoner’s dilemma. This gap can nevertheless be filled by adding a new coupling term to the Ising model, even if that term has up to now no physical meaning. An individual complete bilinear objective function is thus found to be sufficient to reproduce all possible configurations of a 2×2 game. Using this one-to-one mapping new perspectives for future research in both fields can be envisioned.

Method of forming aluminum oxynitride material and bodies formed by such methods

DOEpatents

Bakas, Michael P [Ammon, ID; Lillo, Thomas M [Idaho Falls, ID; Chu, Henry S [Idaho Falls, ID

2010-11-16

Methods of forming aluminum oxynitride (AlON) materials include sintering green bodies comprising aluminum orthophosphate or another sacrificial material therein. Such green bodies may comprise aluminum, oxygen, and nitrogen in addition to the aluminum orthophosphate. For example, the green bodies may include a mixture of aluminum oxide, aluminum nitride, and aluminum orthophosphate or another sacrificial material. Additional methods of forming aluminum oxynitride (AlON) materials include sintering a green body including a sacrificial material therein, using the sacrificial material to form pores in the green body during sintering, and infiltrating the pores formed in the green body with a liquid infiltrant during sintering. Bodies are formed using such methods.

Evaluation of normalization methods in mammalian microRNA-Seq data

PubMed Central

Garmire, Lana Xia; Subramaniam, Shankar

2012-01-01

Simple total tag count normalization is inadequate for microRNA sequencing data generated from the next generation sequencing technology. However, so far systematic evaluation of normalization methods on microRNA sequencing data is lacking. We comprehensively evaluate seven commonly used normalization methods including global normalization, Lowess normalization, Trimmed Mean Method (TMM), quantile normalization, scaling normalization, variance stabilization, and invariant method. We assess these methods on two individual experimental data sets with the empirical statistical metrics of mean square error (MSE) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) statistic. Additionally, we evaluate the methods with results from quantitative PCR validation. Our results consistently show that Lowess normalization and quantile normalization perform the best, whereas TMM, a method applied to the RNA-Sequencing normalization, performs the worst. The poor performance of TMM normalization is further evidenced by abnormal results from the test of differential expression (DE) of microRNA-Seq data. Comparing with the models used for DE, the choice of normalization method is the primary factor that affects the results of DE. In summary, Lowess normalization and quantile normalization are recommended for normalizing microRNA-Seq data, whereas the TMM method should be used with caution. PMID:22532701

Methods of forming steel

DOEpatents

Branagan, Daniel J.; Burch, Joseph V.

2001-01-01

In one aspect, the invention encompasses a method of forming a steel. A metallic glass is formed and at least a portion of the glass is converted to a crystalline steel material having a nanocrystalline scale grain size. In another aspect, the invention encompasses another method of forming a steel. A molten alloy is formed and cooled the alloy at a rate which forms a metallic glass. The metallic glass is devitrified to convert the glass to a crystalline steel material having a nanocrystalline scale grain size. In yet another aspect, the invention encompasses another method of forming a steel. A first metallic glass steel substrate is provided, and a molten alloy is formed over the first metallic glass steel substrate to heat and devitrify at least some of the underlying metallic glass of the substrate.

Perturbative Normal Form Theory for the 2D Random-Field Ising Model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hayden, Lorien; Raju, Archishman; Sethna, James

Bifurcation theory is important to explain scaling in many systems. For the equilibrium random-field Ising model (RFIM) in 2D, the exponentially diverging correlation length can be derived directly from the RG flows which form a pitchfork bifurcation: dw/dl = -ɛ/2 w +w3 (Bray and Moore 1985). Our perturbative normal form theory (PNFT) predicts a term w5 to be critical in describing the behavior - it cannot be removed through an analytic change of coordinates. The new form of the correlation length produced has been observed to occur in leading order without explanation (Meinke and Middleton 2005). Performing simulations of the non-equilibrium RFIM on a Voronoi lattice uncovers a transcritical bifurcation of the form dw/dl = -ɛ/2 w +w2 + Bw3 . The RG flows determined by PNFT in this case lead directly to a form for the appropriate invariant scaling combination: s exp (- 1 / σνw) (1/w + B) C + B / σν . Using this scaling combination yields a collapse which was not possible to achieve using standard methods such as Widom scaling arguments. Further, the scaling extends over a decade in the magnitude of the disorder and explains behavior down to avalanche sizes of three, the edge of complexity. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No . DGE-1144153 and a Cornell Fellowship.

Center manifolds, normal forms and bifurcations of vector fields with application to coupling between periodic and steady motions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Holmes, Philip J.

1981-06-01

We study the instabilities known to aeronautical engineers as flutter and divergence. Mathematically, these states correspond to bifurcations to limit cycles and multiple equilibrium points in a differential equation. Making use of the center manifold and normal form theorems, we concentrate on the situation in which flutter and divergence become coupled, and show that there are essentially two ways in which this is likely to occur. In the first case the system can be reduced to an essential model which takes the form of a single degree of freedom nonlinear oscillator. This system, which may be analyzed by conventional phase-plane techniques, captures all the qualitative features of the full system. We discuss the reduction and show how the nonlinear terms may be simplified and put into normal form. Invariant manifold theory and the normal form theorem play a major role in this work and this paper serves as an introduction to their application in mechanics. Repeating the approach in the second case, we show that the essential model is now three dimensional and that far more complex behavior is possible, including nonperiodic and ‘chaotic’ motions. Throughout, we take a two degree of freedom system as an example, but the general methods are applicable to multi- and even infinite degree of freedom problems.

Method of forming nanodielectrics

DOEpatents

Tuncer, Enis [Knoxville, TN; Polyzos, Georgios [Oak Ridge, TN

2014-01-07

A method of making a nanoparticle filled dielectric material. The method includes mixing nanoparticle precursors with a polymer material and reacting the nanoparticle mixed with the polymer material to form nanoparticles dispersed within the polymer material to form a dielectric composite.

Symbolic computation of the Birkhoff normal form in the problem of stability of the triangular libration points

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shevchenko, I. I.

2008-05-01

The problem of stability of the triangular libration points in the planar circular restricted three-body problem is considered. A software package, intended for normalization of autonomous Hamiltonian systems by means of computer algebra, is designed so that normalization problems of high analytical complexity could be solved. It is used to obtain the Birkhoff normal form of the Hamiltonian in the given problem. The normalization is carried out up to the 6th order of expansion of the Hamiltonian in the coordinates and momenta. Analytical expressions for the coefficients of the normal form of the 6th order are derived. Though intermediary expressions occupy gigabytes of the computer memory, the obtained coefficients of the normal form are compact enough for presentation in typographic format. The analogue of the Deprit formula for the stability criterion is derived in the 6th order of normalization. The obtained floating-point numerical values for the normal form coefficients and the stability criterion confirm the results by Markeev (1969) and Coppola and Rand (1989), while the obtained analytical and exact numeric expressions confirm the results by Meyer and Schmidt (1986) and Schmidt (1989). The given computational problem is solved without constructing a specialized algebraic processor, i.e., the designed computer algebra package has a broad field of applicability.

Methods of forming single source precursors, methods of forming polymeric single source precursors, and single source precursors formed by such methods

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V.; Rodriguez, Rene G.; Pak, Joshua J.; Sun, Chivin; Margulieux, Kelsey R.; Holland, Andrew W.

2016-04-19

Methods of forming single source precursors (SSPs) include forming intermediate products having the empirical formula 1/2{L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'X.sub.2}.sub.2, and reacting MER with the intermediate products to form SSPs of the formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2, wherein L is a Lewis base, M is a Group IA atom, N is a Group IB atom, M' is a Group IIIB atom, each E is a Group VIB atom, each X is a Group VIIA atom or a nitrate group, and each R group is an alkyl, aryl, vinyl, (per)fluoro alkyl, (per)fluoro aryl, silane, or carbamato group. Methods of forming polymeric or copolymeric SSPs include reacting at least one of HE.sup.1R.sup.1E.sup.1H and MER with one or more substances having the empirical formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2 or L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'(X).sub.2 to form a polymeric or copolymeric SSP. New SSPs and intermediate products are formed by such methods.

Methods of forming single source precursors, methods of forming polymeric single source precursors, and single source precursors formed by such methods

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V.; Rodriguez, Rene G.; Pak, Joshua J.; Sun, Chivin; Margulieux, Kelsey R.; Holland, Andrew W.

2014-09-09

Methods of forming single source precursors (SSPs) include forming intermediate products having the empirical formula 1/2{L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'X.sub.2}.sub.2, and reacting MER with the intermediate products to form SSPs of the formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2, wherein L is a Lewis base, M is a Group IA atom, N is a Group IB atom, M' is a Group IIIB atom, each E is a Group VIB atom, each X is a Group VIIA atom or a nitrate group, and each R group is an alkyl, aryl, vinyl, (per)fluoro alkyl, (per)fluoro aryl, silane, or carbamato group. Methods of forming polymeric or copolymeric SSPs include reacting at least one of HE.sup.1R.sup.1E.sup.1H and MER with one or more substances having the empirical formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2 or L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'(X).sub.2 to form a polymeric or copolymeric SSP. New SSPs and intermediate products are formed by such methods.

Pre-form ceramic matrix composite cavity and method of forming and method of forming a ceramic matrix composite component

DOEpatents

Monaghan, Philip Harold; Delvaux, John McConnell; Taxacher, Glenn Curtis

2015-06-09

A pre-form CMC cavity and method of forming pre-form CMC cavity for a ceramic matrix component includes providing a mandrel, applying a base ply to the mandrel, laying-up at least one CMC ply on the base ply, removing the mandrel, and densifying the base ply and the at least one CMC ply. The remaining densified base ply and at least one CMC ply form a ceramic matrix component having a desired geometry and a cavity formed therein. Also provided is a method of forming a CMC component.

A python module to normalize microarray data by the quantile adjustment method.

PubMed

Baber, Ibrahima; Tamby, Jean Philippe; Manoukis, Nicholas C; Sangaré, Djibril; Doumbia, Seydou; Traoré, Sekou F; Maiga, Mohamed S; Dembélé, Doulaye

2011-06-01

Microarray technology is widely used for gene expression research targeting the development of new drug treatments. In the case of a two-color microarray, the process starts with labeling DNA samples with fluorescent markers (cyanine 635 or Cy5 and cyanine 532 or Cy3), then mixing and hybridizing them on a chemically treated glass printed with probes, or fragments of genes. The level of hybridization between a strand of labeled DNA and a probe present on the array is measured by scanning the fluorescence of spots in order to quantify the expression based on the quality and number of pixels for each spot. The intensity data generated from these scans are subject to errors due to differences in fluorescence efficiency between Cy5 and Cy3, as well as variation in human handling and quality of the sample. Consequently, data have to be normalized to correct for variations which are not related to the biological phenomena under investigation. Among many existing normalization procedures, we have implemented the quantile adjustment method using the python computer language, and produced a module which can be run via an HTML dynamic form. This module is composed of different functions for data files reading, intensity and ratio computations and visualization. The current version of the HTML form allows the user to visualize the data before and after normalization. It also gives the option to subtract background noise before normalizing the data. The output results of this module are in agreement with the results of other normalization tools. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Normalized Legal Drafting and the Query Method.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Allen, Layman E.; Engholm, C. Rudy

1978-01-01

Normalized legal drafting, a mode of expressing ideas in legal documents so that the syntax that relates the constituent propositions is simplified and standardized, and the query method, a question-asking activity that teaches normalized drafting and provides practice, are examined. Some examples are presented. (JMD)

A restricted signature normal form for Hermitian matrices, quasi-spectral decompositions, and applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Freund, Roland W.; Huckle, Thomas

1989-01-01

In recent years, a number of results on the relationships between the inertias of Hermitian matrices and the inertias of their principal submatrices appeared in the literature. We study restricted congruence transformation of Hermitian matrices M which, at the same time, induce a congruence transformation of a given principal submatrix A of M. Such transformations lead to concept of the restricted signature normal form of M. In particular, by means of this normal form, we obtain short proofs of most of the known inertia theorems and also derive some new results of this type. For some applications, a special class of almost unitary restricted congruence transformations turns out to be useful. We show that, with such transformations, M can be reduced to a quasi-diagonal form which, in particular, displays the eigenvalues of A. Finally, applications of this quasi-spectral decomposition to generalize inverses and Hermitian matrix pencils are discussed.

A systematic evaluation of normalization methods in quantitative label-free proteomics.

PubMed

Välikangas, Tommi; Suomi, Tomi; Elo, Laura L

2018-01-01

To date, mass spectrometry (MS) data remain inherently biased as a result of reasons ranging from sample handling to differences caused by the instrumentation. Normalization is the process that aims to account for the bias and make samples more comparable. The selection of a proper normalization method is a pivotal task for the reliability of the downstream analysis and results. Many normalization methods commonly used in proteomics have been adapted from the DNA microarray techniques. Previous studies comparing normalization methods in proteomics have focused mainly on intragroup variation. In this study, several popular and widely used normalization methods representing different strategies in normalization are evaluated using three spike-in and one experimental mouse label-free proteomic data sets. The normalization methods are evaluated in terms of their ability to reduce variation between technical replicates, their effect on differential expression analysis and their effect on the estimation of logarithmic fold changes. Additionally, we examined whether normalizing the whole data globally or in segments for the differential expression analysis has an effect on the performance of the normalization methods. We found that variance stabilization normalization (Vsn) reduced variation the most between technical replicates in all examined data sets. Vsn also performed consistently well in the differential expression analysis. Linear regression normalization and local regression normalization performed also systematically well. Finally, we discuss the choice of a normalization method and some qualities of a suitable normalization method in the light of the results of our evaluation. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press.

Empirical evaluation of data normalization methods for molecular classification

PubMed Central

Huang, Huei-Chung

2018-01-01

Background Data artifacts due to variations in experimental handling are ubiquitous in microarray studies, and they can lead to biased and irreproducible findings. A popular approach to correct for such artifacts is through post hoc data adjustment such as data normalization. Statistical methods for data normalization have been developed and evaluated primarily for the discovery of individual molecular biomarkers. Their performance has rarely been studied for the development of multi-marker molecular classifiers—an increasingly important application of microarrays in the era of personalized medicine. Methods In this study, we set out to evaluate the performance of three commonly used methods for data normalization in the context of molecular classification, using extensive simulations based on re-sampling from a unique pair of microRNA microarray datasets for the same set of samples. The data and code for our simulations are freely available as R packages at GitHub. Results In the presence of confounding handling effects, all three normalization methods tended to improve the accuracy of the classifier when evaluated in an independent test data. The level of improvement and the relative performance among the normalization methods depended on the relative level of molecular signal, the distributional pattern of handling effects (e.g., location shift vs scale change), and the statistical method used for building the classifier. In addition, cross-validation was associated with biased estimation of classification accuracy in the over-optimistic direction for all three normalization methods. Conclusion Normalization may improve the accuracy of molecular classification for data with confounding handling effects; however, it cannot circumvent the over-optimistic findings associated with cross-validation for assessing classification accuracy. PMID:29666754

Method for forming ammonia

DOEpatents

Kong, Peter C.; Pink, Robert J.; Zuck, Larry D.

2008-08-19

A method for forming ammonia is disclosed and which includes the steps of forming a plasma; providing a source of metal particles, and supplying the metal particles to the plasma to form metal nitride particles; and providing a substance, and reacting the metal nitride particles with the substance to produce ammonia, and an oxide byproduct.

Empirical evaluation of data normalization methods for molecular classification.

PubMed

Huang, Huei-Chung; Qin, Li-Xuan

2018-01-01

Data artifacts due to variations in experimental handling are ubiquitous in microarray studies, and they can lead to biased and irreproducible findings. A popular approach to correct for such artifacts is through post hoc data adjustment such as data normalization. Statistical methods for data normalization have been developed and evaluated primarily for the discovery of individual molecular biomarkers. Their performance has rarely been studied for the development of multi-marker molecular classifiers-an increasingly important application of microarrays in the era of personalized medicine. In this study, we set out to evaluate the performance of three commonly used methods for data normalization in the context of molecular classification, using extensive simulations based on re-sampling from a unique pair of microRNA microarray datasets for the same set of samples. The data and code for our simulations are freely available as R packages at GitHub. In the presence of confounding handling effects, all three normalization methods tended to improve the accuracy of the classifier when evaluated in an independent test data. The level of improvement and the relative performance among the normalization methods depended on the relative level of molecular signal, the distributional pattern of handling effects (e.g., location shift vs scale change), and the statistical method used for building the classifier. In addition, cross-validation was associated with biased estimation of classification accuracy in the over-optimistic direction for all three normalization methods. Normalization may improve the accuracy of molecular classification for data with confounding handling effects; however, it cannot circumvent the over-optimistic findings associated with cross-validation for assessing classification accuracy.

Renormalization group, normal form theory and the Ising model

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Raju, Archishman; Hayden, Lorien; Clement, Colin; Liarte, Danilo; Sethna, James

The results of the renormalization group are commonly advertised as the existence of power law singularities at critical points. Logarithmic and exponential corrections are seen as special cases and dealt with on a case-by-case basis. We propose to systematize computing the singularities in the renormalization group using perturbative normal form theory. This gives us a way to classify all such singularities in a unified framework and to generate a systematic machinery to do scaling collapses. We show that this procedure leads to some new results even in classic cases like the Ising model and has general applicability.

Sample normalization methods in quantitative metabolomics.

PubMed

Wu, Yiman; Li, Liang

2016-01-22

To reveal metabolomic changes caused by a biological event in quantitative metabolomics, it is critical to use an analytical tool that can perform accurate and precise quantification to examine the true concentration differences of individual metabolites found in different samples. A number of steps are involved in metabolomic analysis including pre-analytical work (e.g., sample collection and storage), analytical work (e.g., sample analysis) and data analysis (e.g., feature extraction and quantification). Each one of them can influence the quantitative results significantly and thus should be performed with great care. Among them, the total sample amount or concentration of metabolites can be significantly different from one sample to another. Thus, it is critical to reduce or eliminate the effect of total sample amount variation on quantification of individual metabolites. In this review, we describe the importance of sample normalization in the analytical workflow with a focus on mass spectrometry (MS)-based platforms, discuss a number of methods recently reported in the literature and comment on their applicability in real world metabolomics applications. Sample normalization has been sometimes ignored in metabolomics, partially due to the lack of a convenient means of performing sample normalization. We show that several methods are now available and sample normalization should be performed in quantitative metabolomics where the analyzed samples have significant variations in total sample amounts. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Laser-induced differential normalized fluorescence method for cancer diagnosis

DOEpatents

Vo-Dinh, Tuan; Panjehpour, Masoud; Overholt, Bergein F.

1996-01-01

An apparatus and method for cancer diagnosis are disclosed. The diagnostic method includes the steps of irradiating a tissue sample with monochromatic excitation light, producing a laser-induced fluorescence spectrum from emission radiation generated by interaction of the excitation light with the tissue sample, and dividing the intensity at each wavelength of the laser-induced fluorescence spectrum by the integrated area under the laser-induced fluorescence spectrum to produce a normalized spectrum. A mathematical difference between the normalized spectrum and an average value of a reference set of normalized spectra which correspond to normal tissues is calculated, which provides for amplifying small changes in weak signals from malignant tissues for improved analysis. The calculated differential normalized spectrum is correlated to a specific condition of a tissue sample.

Methods of forming single source precursors, methods of forming polymeric single source precursors, and single source precursors and intermediate products formed by such methods

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V.; Rodriguez, Rene G.; Pak, Joshua J.; Sun, Chivin; Margulieux, Kelsey R.; Holland, Andrew W.

2012-12-04

Methods of forming single source precursors (SSPs) include forming intermediate products having the empirical formula 1/2{L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'X.sub.2}.sub.2, and reacting MER with the intermediate products to form SSPs of the formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2, wherein L is a Lewis base, M is a Group IA atom, N is a Group IB atom, M' is a Group IIIB atom, each E is a Group VIB atom, each X is a Group VIIA atom or a nitrate group, and each R group is an alkyl, aryl, vinyl, (per)fluoro alkyl, (per)fluoro aryl, silane, or carbamato group. Methods of forming polymeric or copolymeric SSPs include reacting at least one of HE.sup.1R.sup.1E.sup.1H and MER with one or more substances having the empirical formula L.sub.2N(.mu.-ER).sub.2M'(ER).sub.2 or L.sub.2N(.mu.-X).sub.2M'(X).sub.2 to form a polymeric or copolymeric SSP. New SSPs and intermediate products are formed by such methods.

Laser-induced differential normalized fluorescence method for cancer diagnosis

DOEpatents

Vo-Dinh, T.; Panjehpour, M.; Overholt, B.F.

1996-12-03

An apparatus and method for cancer diagnosis are disclosed. The diagnostic method includes the steps of irradiating a tissue sample with monochromatic excitation light, producing a laser-induced fluorescence spectrum from emission radiation generated by interaction of the excitation light with the tissue sample, and dividing the intensity at each wavelength of the laser-induced fluorescence spectrum by the integrated area under the laser-induced fluorescence spectrum to produce a normalized spectrum. A mathematical difference between the normalized spectrum and an average value of a reference set of normalized spectra which correspond to normal tissues is calculated, which provides for amplifying small changes in weak signals from malignant tissues for improved analysis. The calculated differential normalized spectrum is correlated to a specific condition of a tissue sample. 5 figs.

Methods of forming CIGS films

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mansfield, Lorelle; Ramanathan, Kannan

2017-09-19

Methods for forming CIGS films are provided. According to an aspect of the invention, a method of forming a CIGS film includes a precursor step, which includes simultaneously evaporating Cu, In, Ga, Se, and Sb onto a substrate. The Se is incident on the substrate at a rate of at least 20 .ANG./s. The method also includes a selenization step, which includes evaporating Se over the substrate after the precursor step.

Methods for forming particles

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V.; Zhang, Fengyan; Rodriguez, Rene G.; Pak, Joshua J.; Sun, Chivin

2016-06-21

Single source precursors or pre-copolymers of single source precursors are subjected to microwave radiation to form particles of a I-III-VI.sub.2 material. Such particles may be formed in a wurtzite phase and may be converted to a chalcopyrite phase by, for example, exposure to heat. The particles in the wurtzite phase may have a substantially hexagonal shape that enables stacking into ordered layers. The particles in the wurtzite phase may be mixed with particles in the chalcopyrite phase (i.e., chalcopyrite nanoparticles) that may fill voids within the ordered layers of the particles in the wurtzite phase thus produce films with good coverage. In some embodiments, the methods are used to form layers of semiconductor materials comprising a I-III-VI.sub.2 material. Devices such as, for example, thin-film solar cells may be fabricated using such methods.

Method for forming materials

DOEpatents

Tolle, Charles R [Idaho Falls, ID; Clark, Denis E [Idaho Falls, ID; Smartt, Herschel B [Idaho Falls, ID; Miller, Karen S [Idaho Falls, ID

2009-10-06

A material-forming tool and a method for forming a material are described including a shank portion; a shoulder portion that releasably engages the shank portion; a pin that releasably engages the shoulder portion, wherein the pin defines a passageway; and a source of a material coupled in material flowing relation relative to the pin and wherein the material-forming tool is utilized in methodology that includes providing a first material; providing a second material, and placing the second material into contact with the first material; and locally plastically deforming the first material with the material-forming tool so as mix the first material and second material together to form a resulting material having characteristics different from the respective first and second materials.

The use of morphological knowledge in spelling derived forms by learning-disabled and normal students.

PubMed

Carlisle, J F

1987-01-01

Currently popular systems for classification of spelling words or errors emphasize the learning of phoneme-grapheme correspondences and memorization of irregular words, but do not take into account the morphophonemic nature of the English language. This study is based on the premise that knowledge of the morphological rules of derivational morphology is acquired developmentally and is related to the spelling abilities of both normal and learning-disabled (LD) students. It addresses three issues: 1) how the learning of derivational morphology and the spelling of derived words by LD students compares to that of normal students; 2) whether LD students learn derived forms rulefully; and 3) the extent to which LD and normal students use knowledge of relationships between base and derived forms to spell derived words (e.g. "magic" and "magician"). The results showed that LD ninth graders' knowledge of derivational morphology was equivalent to that of normal sixth graders, following similar patterns of mastery of orthographic and phonological rules, but that their spelling of derived forms was equivalent to that of the fourth graders. Thus, they know more about derivational morphology than they use in spelling. In addition, they were significantly more apt to spell derived words as whole words, without regard for morphemic structure, than even the fourth graders. Nonetheless, most of the LD spelling errors were phonetically acceptable, suggesting that their misspellings cannot be attributed primarily to poor knowledge of phoneme-grapheme correspondences.

Second-generation corneal deformation signal waveform analysis in normal, forme fruste keratoconic, and manifest keratoconic corneas after statistical correction for potentially confounding factors.

PubMed

Zhang, Lijun; Danesh, Jennifer; Tannan, Anjali; Phan, Vivian; Yu, Fei; Hamilton, D Rex

2015-10-01

To evaluate the difference in corneal biomechanical waveform parameters between manifest keratoconus, forme fruste keratoconus, and healthy eyes with a second-generation biomechanical waveform analyzer (Ocular Response Analyzer 2). Jules Stein Eye Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA. Retrospective chart review. The biomechanical waveform analyzer was used to obtain corneal hysteresis (CH), corneal resistance factor (CRF), and 37 biomechanical waveform parameters in manifest keratoconus eyes, forme fruste keratoconus eyes, and healthy eyes. Useful distinguishing parameters were found using t tests and a multivariable logistic regression model with stepwise variable selection. Potential confounders were controlled for. The study included 68 manifest keratoconus eyes, 64 forme fruste keratoconus eyes, and 249 healthy eyes. There was a statistical difference in the mean CRF between the normal group (10.2 mm Hg ± 1.7 [SD]) and keratoconus group (6.3 ± 1.9 mm Hg) (P = .003), and between the normal group and the forme fruste keratoconus group (7.8 ± 1.4 mm Hg) (P < .0001). There was no statistical difference in the mean CH between the normal group and the keratoconus group or the forme fruste keratoconus group. The CRF, height of peak 1 (P1) (P = .001), downslope of P1 (dslope1) (P = .027), upslope of peak 2 (P2) (P = .004), and downslope of P2 (P = .006) distinguished the normal group from the keratoconus groups. The CRF, downslope of P2 derived from upper 50% of applanation peak (P = .035), dslope1 (P = .014), and upslope of P1 (P = .008) distinguished the normal group from the forme fruste keratoconus group. Differences in multiple biomechanical waveform parameters can differentiate between healthy and diseased conditions and might improve early diagnosis of keratoconus and forme fruste keratoconus. No author has a financial or proprietary interest in any material or method mentioned. Copyright © 2015 ASCRS and ESCRS. Published by

Child in a Form: The Definition of Normality and Production of Expertise in Teacher Statement Forms--The Case of Northern Finland, 1951-1990

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Koskela, Anne; Vehkalahti, Kaisa

2017-01-01

This article shows the importance of paying attention to the role of professional devices, such as standardised forms, as producers of normality and deviance in the history of education. Our case study focused on the standardised forms used by teachers during child guidance clinic referrals and transfers to special education in northern Finland,…

Methods of forming boron nitride

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Trowbridge, Tammy L; Wertsching, Alan K; Pinhero, Patrick J

A method of forming a boron nitride. The method comprises contacting a metal article with a monomeric boron-nitrogen compound and converting the monomeric boron-nitrogen compound to a boron nitride. The boron nitride is formed on the same or a different metal article. The monomeric boron-nitrogen compound is borazine, cycloborazane, trimethylcycloborazane, polyborazylene, B-vinylborazine, poly(B-vinylborazine), or combinations thereof. The monomeric boron-nitrogen compound is polymerized to form the boron nitride by exposure to a temperature greater than approximately 100.degree. C. The boron nitride is amorphous boron nitride, hexagonal boron nitride, rhombohedral boron nitride, turbostratic boron nitride, wurzite boron nitride, combinations thereof, or boronmore » nitride and carbon. A method of conditioning a ballistic weapon and a metal article coated with the monomeric boron-nitrogen compound are also disclosed.« less

Article and method of forming an article

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lacy, Benjamin Paul; Kottilingam, Srikanth Chandrudu; Dutta, Sandip

Provided are an article and a method of forming an article. The method includes providing a metallic powder, heating the metallic powder to a temperature sufficient to joint at least a portion of the metallic powder to form an initial layer, sequentially forming additional layers in a build direction by providing a distributed layer of the metallic powder over the initial layer and heating the distributed layer of the metallic powder, repeating the steps of sequentially forming the additional layers in the build direction to form a portion of the article having a hollow space formed in the build direction,more » and forming an overhang feature extending into the hollow space. The article includes an article formed by the method described herein.« less

Application of Power Geometry and Normal Form Methods to the Study of Nonlinear ODEs

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Edneral, Victor

2018-02-01

This paper describes power transformations of degenerate autonomous polynomial systems of ordinary differential equations which reduce such systems to a non-degenerative form. Example of creating exact first integrals of motion of some planar degenerate system in a closed form is given.

A Mathematical Framework for Critical Transitions: Normal Forms, Variance and Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kuehn, Christian

2013-06-01

Critical transitions occur in a wide variety of applications including mathematical biology, climate change, human physiology and economics. Therefore it is highly desirable to find early-warning signs. We show that it is possible to classify critical transitions by using bifurcation theory and normal forms in the singular limit. Based on this elementary classification, we analyze stochastic fluctuations and calculate scaling laws of the variance of stochastic sample paths near critical transitions for fast-subsystem bifurcations up to codimension two. The theory is applied to several models: the Stommel-Cessi box model for the thermohaline circulation from geoscience, an epidemic-spreading model on an adaptive network, an activator-inhibitor switch from systems biology, a predator-prey system from ecology and to the Euler buckling problem from classical mechanics. For the Stommel-Cessi model we compare different detrending techniques to calculate early-warning signs. In the epidemics model we show that link densities could be better variables for prediction than population densities. The activator-inhibitor switch demonstrates effects in three time-scale systems and points out that excitable cells and molecular units have information for subthreshold prediction. In the predator-prey model explosive population growth near a codimension-two bifurcation is investigated and we show that early-warnings from normal forms can be misleading in this context. In the biomechanical model we demonstrate that early-warning signs for buckling depend crucially on the control strategy near the instability which illustrates the effect of multiplicative noise.

Smooth quantile normalization.

PubMed

Hicks, Stephanie C; Okrah, Kwame; Paulson, Joseph N; Quackenbush, John; Irizarry, Rafael A; Bravo, Héctor Corrada

2018-04-01

Between-sample normalization is a critical step in genomic data analysis to remove systematic bias and unwanted technical variation in high-throughput data. Global normalization methods are based on the assumption that observed variability in global properties is due to technical reasons and are unrelated to the biology of interest. For example, some methods correct for differences in sequencing read counts by scaling features to have similar median values across samples, but these fail to reduce other forms of unwanted technical variation. Methods such as quantile normalization transform the statistical distributions across samples to be the same and assume global differences in the distribution are induced by only technical variation. However, it remains unclear how to proceed with normalization if these assumptions are violated, for example, if there are global differences in the statistical distributions between biological conditions or groups, and external information, such as negative or control features, is not available. Here, we introduce a generalization of quantile normalization, referred to as smooth quantile normalization (qsmooth), which is based on the assumption that the statistical distribution of each sample should be the same (or have the same distributional shape) within biological groups or conditions, but allowing that they may differ between groups. We illustrate the advantages of our method on several high-throughput datasets with global differences in distributions corresponding to different biological conditions. We also perform a Monte Carlo simulation study to illustrate the bias-variance tradeoff and root mean squared error of qsmooth compared to other global normalization methods. A software implementation is available from https://github.com/stephaniehicks/qsmooth.

Atomization methods for forming magnet powders

DOEpatents

Sellers, Charles H.; Branagan, Daniel J.; Hyde, Timothy A.

2000-01-01

The invention encompasses methods of utilizing atomization, methods for forming magnet powders, methods for forming magnets, and methods for forming bonded magnets. The invention further encompasses methods for simulating atomization conditions. In one aspect, the invention includes an atomization method for forming a magnet powder comprising: a) forming a melt comprising R.sub.2.1 Q.sub.13.9 B.sub.1, Z and X, wherein R is a rare earth element; X is an element selected from the group consisting of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and mixtures thereof; Q is an element selected from the group consisting of Fe, Co and mixtures thereof; and Z is an element selected from the group consisting of Ti, Zr, Hf and mixtures thereof; b) atomizing the melt to form generally spherical alloy powder granules having an internal structure comprising at least one of a substantially amorphous phase or a substantially nanocrystalline phase; and c) heat treating the alloy powder to increase an energy product of the alloy powder; after the heat treatment, the alloy powder comprising an energy product of at least 10 MGOe. In another aspect, the invention includes a magnet comprising R, Q, B, Z and X, wherein R is a rare earth element; X is an element selected from the group consisting of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and mixtures thereof; Q is an element selected from the group consisting of Fe, Co and mixtures thereof; and Z is an element selected from the group consisting of Ti, Zr, Hf and mixtures thereof; the magnet comprising an internal structure comprising R.sub.2.1 Q.sub.13.9 B.sub.1.

Method of forming and starting a sodium sulfur battery

DOEpatents

Paquette, David G.

1981-01-01

A method of forming a sodium sulfur battery and of starting the reactive capability of that battery when heated to a temperature suitable for battery operation is disclosed. An anodic reaction zone is constructed in a manner that sodium is hermetically sealed therein, part of the hermetic seal including fusible material which closes up openings through the container of the anodic reaction zone. The hermetically sealed anodic reaction zone is assembled under normal atmospheric conditions with a suitable cathodic reaction zone and a cation-permeable barrier. When the entire battery is heated to an operational temperature, the fusible material of the hermetically sealed anodic reaction zone is fused, thereby allowing molten sodium to flow from the anodic reaction zone into reactive engagement with the cation-permeable barrier.

[Dental arch form reverting by four-point method].

PubMed

Pan, Xiao-Gang; Qian, Yu-Fen; Weng, Si-En; Feng, Qi-Ping; Yu, Quan

2008-04-01

To explore a simple method of reverting individual dental arch form template for wire bending. Individual dental arch form was reverted by four-point method. By defining central point of bracket on bilateral lower second premolar and first molar, certain individual dental arch form could be generated. The arch form generating procedure was then be developed to computer software for printing arch form. Four-point method arch form was evaluated by comparing with direct model measurement on linear and angular parameters. The accuracy and reproducibility were assessed by paired t test and concordance correlation coefficient with Medcalc 9.3 software package. The arch form by four-point method was of good accuracy and reproducibility (linear concordance correlation coefficient was 0.9909 and angular concordance correlation coefficient was 0.8419). The dental arch form reverted by four-point method could reproduce the individual dental arch form.

Method of forming ceramic bricks

DOEpatents

Poeppel, R.B.; Claar, T.D.; Silkowski, P.

1987-04-22

A method for forming free standing ceramic bricks for use as tritium breeder material is disclosed. Aqueous solutions of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate are mixed with an organic hydrocolloid dispersion and powdered lithium carbonate, spray dried, and ceramic bricks formed by molding in a die and firing.

Method of forming ceramic bricks

DOEpatents

Poeppel, Roger B.; Claar, Terry D.; Silkowski, Peter

1988-09-06

A method for forming free standing ceramic bricks for use as tritium breeder material is disclosed. Aqueous solutions of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate are mixed with an organic hydrocolloid dispersion and powdered lithium carbonate, spray dried, and ceramic bricks formed by molding in a die and firing.

Method of forming ceramic bricks

DOEpatents

Poeppel, Roger B.; Claar, Terry D.; Silkowski, Peter

1988-01-01

A method for forming free standing ceramic bricks for use as tritium breeder material is disclosed. Aqueous solutions of sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate are mixed with an organic hydrocolloid dispersion and powdered lithium carbonate, spray dried, and ceramic bricks formed by molding in a die and firing.

A Method to Measure and Estimate Normalized Contrast in Infrared Flash Thermography

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Koshti, Ajay M.

2016-01-01

The paper presents further development in normalized contrast processing used in flash infrared thermography method. Method of computing normalized image or pixel intensity contrast, and normalized temperature contrast are provided. Methods of converting image contrast to temperature contrast and vice versa are provided. Normalized contrast processing in flash thermography is useful in quantitative analysis of flash thermography data including flaw characterization and comparison of experimental results with simulation. Computation of normalized temperature contrast involves use of flash thermography data acquisition set-up with high reflectivity foil and high emissivity tape such that the foil, tape and test object are imaged simultaneously. Methods of assessing other quantitative parameters such as emissivity of object, afterglow heat flux, reflection temperature change and surface temperature during flash thermography are also provided. Temperature imaging and normalized temperature contrast processing provide certain advantages over normalized image contrast processing by reducing effect of reflected energy in images and measurements, therefore providing better quantitative data. Examples of incorporating afterglow heat-flux and reflection temperature evolution in flash thermography simulation are also discussed.

The Impact of Normalization Methods on RNA-Seq Data Analysis

PubMed Central

Zyprych-Walczak, J.; Szabelska, A.; Handschuh, L.; Górczak, K.; Klamecka, K.; Figlerowicz, M.; Siatkowski, I.

2015-01-01

High-throughput sequencing technologies, such as the Illumina Hi-seq, are powerful new tools for investigating a wide range of biological and medical problems. Massive and complex data sets produced by the sequencers create a need for development of statistical and computational methods that can tackle the analysis and management of data. The data normalization is one of the most crucial steps of data processing and this process must be carefully considered as it has a profound effect on the results of the analysis. In this work, we focus on a comprehensive comparison of five normalization methods related to sequencing depth, widely used for transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) data, and their impact on the results of gene expression analysis. Based on this study, we suggest a universal workflow that can be applied for the selection of the optimal normalization procedure for any particular data set. The described workflow includes calculation of the bias and variance values for the control genes, sensitivity and specificity of the methods, and classification errors as well as generation of the diagnostic plots. Combining the above information facilitates the selection of the most appropriate normalization method for the studied data sets and determines which methods can be used interchangeably. PMID:26176014

Correlation- and covariance-supported normalization method for estimating orthodontic trainer treatment for clenching activity.

PubMed

Akdenur, B; Okkesum, S; Kara, S; Günes, S

2009-11-01

In this study, electromyography signals sampled from children undergoing orthodontic treatment were used to estimate the effect of an orthodontic trainer on the anterior temporal muscle. A novel data normalization method, called the correlation- and covariance-supported normalization method (CCSNM), based on correlation and covariance between features in a data set, is proposed to provide predictive guidance to the orthodontic technique. The method was tested in two stages: first, data normalization using the CCSNM; second, prediction of normalized values of anterior temporal muscles using an artificial neural network (ANN) with a Levenberg-Marquardt learning algorithm. The data set consists of electromyography signals from right anterior temporal muscles, recorded from 20 children aged 8-13 years with class II malocclusion. The signals were recorded at the start and end of a 6-month treatment. In order to train and test the ANN, two-fold cross-validation was used. The CCSNM was compared with four normalization methods: minimum-maximum normalization, z score, decimal scaling, and line base normalization. In order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, prevalent performance-measuring methods, and the mean square error and mean absolute error as mathematical methods, the statistical relation factor R2 and the average deviation have been examined. The results show that the CCSNM was the best normalization method among other normalization methods for estimating the effect of the trainer.

Method of forming an HTS article

DOEpatents

Bhattacharya, Raghu N.; Zhang, Xun; Selvamanickam, Venkat

2014-08-19

A method of forming a superconducting article includes providing a substrate tape, forming a superconducting layer overlying the substrate tape, and depositing a capping layer overlying the superconducting layer. The capping layer includes a noble metal and has a thickness not greater than about 1.0 micron. The method further includes electrodepositing a stabilizer layer overlying the capping layer using a solution that is non-reactive to the superconducting layer. The superconducting layer has an as-formed critical current I.sub.C(AF) and a post-stabilized critical current I.sub.C(PS). The I.sub.C(PS) is at least about 95% of the I.sub.C(AF).

Methods for forming particles from single source precursors

DOEpatents

Fox, Robert V [Idaho Falls, ID; Rodriguez, Rene G [Pocatello, ID; Pak, Joshua [Pocatello, ID

2011-08-23

Single source precursors are subjected to carbon dioxide to form particles of material. The carbon dioxide may be in a supercritical state. Single source precursors also may be subjected to supercritical fluids other than supercritical carbon dioxide to form particles of material. The methods may be used to form nanoparticles. In some embodiments, the methods are used to form chalcopyrite materials. Devices such as, for example, semiconductor devices may be fabricated that include such particles. Methods of forming semiconductor devices include subjecting single source precursors to carbon dioxide to form particles of semiconductor material, and establishing electrical contact between the particles and an electrode.

A Comparison of a Maximum Exertion Method and a Model-Based, Sub-Maximum Exertion Method for Normalizing Trunk EMG

PubMed Central

Cholewicki, Jacek; van Dieën, Jaap; Lee, Angela S.; Reeves, N. Peter

2011-01-01

The problem with normalizing EMG data from patients with painful symptoms (e.g. low back pain) is that such patients may be unwilling or unable to perform maximum exertions. Furthermore, the normalization to a reference signal, obtained from a maximal or sub-maximal task, tends to mask differences that might exist as a result of pathology. Therefore, we presented a novel method (GAIN method) for normalizing trunk EMG data that overcomes both problems. The GAIN method does not require maximal exertions (MVC) and tends to preserve distinct features in the muscle recruitment patterns for various tasks. Ten healthy subjects performed various isometric trunk exertions, while EMG data from 10 muscles were recorded and later normalized using the GAIN and MVC methods. The MVC method resulted in smaller variation between subjects when tasks were executed at the three relative force levels (10%, 20%, and 30% MVC), while the GAIN method resulted in smaller variation between subjects when the tasks were executed at the three absolute force levels (50 N, 100 N, and 145 N). This outcome implies that the MVC method provides a relative measure of muscle effort, while the GAIN-normalized EMG data gives an estimate of the absolute muscle force. Therefore, the GAIN-normalized EMG data tends to preserve the EMG differences between subjects in the way they recruit their muscles to execute various tasks, while the MVC-normalized data will tend to suppress such differences. The appropriate choice of the EMG normalization method will depend on the specific question that an experimenter is attempting to answer. PMID:21665489

Method for forming metal contacts

DOEpatents

Reddington, Erik; Sutter, Thomas C; Bu, Lujia; Cannon, Alexandra; Habas, Susan E; Curtis, Calvin J; Miedaner, Alexander; Ginley, David S; Van Hest, Marinus Franciscus Antonius Maria

2013-09-17

Methods of forming metal contacts with metal inks in the manufacture of photovoltaic devices are disclosed. The metal inks are selectively deposited on semiconductor coatings by inkjet and aerosol apparatus. The composite is heated to selective temperatures where the metal inks burn through the coating to form an electrical contact with the semiconductor. Metal layers are then deposited on the electrical contacts by light induced or light assisted plating.

Selecting between-sample RNA-Seq normalization methods from the perspective of their assumptions.

PubMed

Evans, Ciaran; Hardin, Johanna; Stoebel, Daniel M

2017-02-27

RNA-Seq is a widely used method for studying the behavior of genes under different biological conditions. An essential step in an RNA-Seq study is normalization, in which raw data are adjusted to account for factors that prevent direct comparison of expression measures. Errors in normalization can have a significant impact on downstream analysis, such as inflated false positives in differential expression analysis. An underemphasized feature of normalization is the assumptions on which the methods rely and how the validity of these assumptions can have a substantial impact on the performance of the methods. In this article, we explain how assumptions provide the link between raw RNA-Seq read counts and meaningful measures of gene expression. We examine normalization methods from the perspective of their assumptions, as an understanding of methodological assumptions is necessary for choosing methods appropriate for the data at hand. Furthermore, we discuss why normalization methods perform poorly when their assumptions are violated and how this causes problems in subsequent analysis. To analyze a biological experiment, researchers must select a normalization method with assumptions that are met and that produces a meaningful measure of expression for the given experiment. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Comparison of normalization methods for the analysis of metagenomic gene abundance data.

PubMed

Pereira, Mariana Buongermino; Wallroth, Mikael; Jonsson, Viktor; Kristiansson, Erik

2018-04-20

In shotgun metagenomics, microbial communities are studied through direct sequencing of DNA without any prior cultivation. By comparing gene abundances estimated from the generated sequencing reads, functional differences between the communities can be identified. However, gene abundance data is affected by high levels of systematic variability, which can greatly reduce the statistical power and introduce false positives. Normalization, which is the process where systematic variability is identified and removed, is therefore a vital part of the data analysis. A wide range of normalization methods for high-dimensional count data has been proposed but their performance on the analysis of shotgun metagenomic data has not been evaluated. Here, we present a systematic evaluation of nine normalization methods for gene abundance data. The methods were evaluated through resampling of three comprehensive datasets, creating a realistic setting that preserved the unique characteristics of metagenomic data. Performance was measured in terms of the methods ability to identify differentially abundant genes (DAGs), correctly calculate unbiased p-values and control the false discovery rate (FDR). Our results showed that the choice of normalization method has a large impact on the end results. When the DAGs were asymmetrically present between the experimental conditions, many normalization methods had a reduced true positive rate (TPR) and a high false positive rate (FPR). The methods trimmed mean of M-values (TMM) and relative log expression (RLE) had the overall highest performance and are therefore recommended for the analysis of gene abundance data. For larger sample sizes, CSS also showed satisfactory performance. This study emphasizes the importance of selecting a suitable normalization methods in the analysis of data from shotgun metagenomics. Our results also demonstrate that improper methods may result in unacceptably high levels of false positives, which in turn may lead

Kinematic Methods of Designing Free Form Shells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Korotkiy, V. A.; Khmarova, L. I.

2017-11-01

The geometrical shell model is formed in light of the set requirements expressed through surface parameters. The shell is modelled using the kinematic method according to which the shell is formed as a continuous one-parameter set of curves. The authors offer a kinematic method based on the use of second-order curves with a variable eccentricity as a form-making element. Additional guiding ruled surfaces are used to control the designed surface form. The authors made a software application enabling to plot a second-order curve specified by a random set of five coplanar points and tangents.

Sixth Form Examining Methods.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schools Council, London (England).

The methods of examining in the sixth form of secondary education in England and Wales is the basis for discussion by subject committees of the Schools Council. Special reference is made to internal examinations, oral assessments, teacher's assessments, the relaxing of the time limits for examination, and the use of aids during examinations. The…

Theory and praxis pf map analsys in CHEF part 1: Linear normal form

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Michelotti, Leo; /Fermilab

2008-10-01

This memo begins a series which, put together, could comprise the 'CHEF Documentation Project' if there were such a thing. The first--and perhaps only--three will telegraphically describe theory, algorithms, implementation and usage of the normal form map analysis procedures encoded in CHEF's collection of libraries. [1] This one will begin the sequence by explaining the linear manipulations that connect the Jacobian matrix of a symplectic mapping to its normal form. It is a 'Reader's Digest' version of material I wrote in Intermediate Classical Dynamics (ICD) [2] and randomly scattered across technical memos, seminar viewgraphs, and lecture notes for the pastmore » quarter century. Much of its content is old, well known, and in some places borders on the trivial.1 Nevertheless, completeness requires their inclusion. The primary objective is the 'fundamental theorem' on normalization written on page 8. I plan to describe the nonlinear procedures in a subsequent memo and devote a third to laying out algorithms and lines of code, connecting them with equations written in the first two. Originally this was to be done in one short paper, but I jettisoned that approach after its first section exceeded a dozen pages. The organization of this document is as follows. A brief description of notation is followed by a section containing a general treatment of the linear problem. After the 'fundamental theorem' is proved, two further subsections discuss the generation of equilibrium distributions and issue of 'phase'. The final major section reviews parameterizations--that is, lattice functions--in two and four dimensions with a passing glance at the six-dimensional version. Appearances to the contrary, for the most part I have tried to restrict consideration to matters needed to understand the code in CHEF's libraries.« less

Normalization methods in time series of platelet function assays

PubMed Central

Van Poucke, Sven; Zhang, Zhongheng; Roest, Mark; Vukicevic, Milan; Beran, Maud; Lauwereins, Bart; Zheng, Ming-Hua; Henskens, Yvonne; Lancé, Marcus; Marcus, Abraham

2016-01-01

Abstract Platelet function can be quantitatively assessed by specific assays such as light-transmission aggregometry, multiple-electrode aggregometry measuring the response to adenosine diphosphate (ADP), arachidonic acid, collagen, and thrombin-receptor activating peptide and viscoelastic tests such as rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM). The task of extracting meaningful statistical and clinical information from high-dimensional data spaces in temporal multivariate clinical data represented in multivariate time series is complex. Building insightful visualizations for multivariate time series demands adequate usage of normalization techniques. In this article, various methods for data normalization (z-transformation, range transformation, proportion transformation, and interquartile range) are presented and visualized discussing the most suited approach for platelet function data series. Normalization was calculated per assay (test) for all time points and per time point for all tests. Interquartile range, range transformation, and z-transformation demonstrated the correlation as calculated by the Spearman correlation test, when normalized per assay (test) for all time points. When normalizing per time point for all tests, no correlation could be abstracted from the charts as was the case when using all data as 1 dataset for normalization. PMID:27428217

Methods of forming hardened surfaces

DOEpatents

Branagan, Daniel J [Iona, ID

2004-07-27

The invention encompasses a method of forming a metallic coating. A metallic glass coating is formed over a metallic substrate. After formation of the coating, at least a portion of the metallic glass can be converted into a crystalline material having a nanocrystalline grain size. The invention also encompasses metallic coatings comprising metallic glass. Additionally, the invention encompasses metallic coatings comprising crystalline metallic material, with at least some of the crystalline metallic material having a nanocrystalline grain size.

A Method for Approximating the Bivariate Normal Correlation Coefficient.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kirk, David B.

Improvements of the Gaussian quadrature in conjunction with the Newton-Raphson iteration technique (TM 000 789) are discussed as effective methods of calculating the bivariate normal correlation coefficient. (CK)

Identification of nonlinear modes using phase-locked-loop experimental continuation and normal form

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Denis, V.; Jossic, M.; Giraud-Audine, C.; Chomette, B.; Renault, A.; Thomas, O.

2018-06-01

In this article, we address the model identification of nonlinear vibratory systems, with a specific focus on systems modeled with distributed nonlinearities, such as geometrically nonlinear mechanical structures. The proposed strategy theoretically relies on the concept of nonlinear modes of the underlying conservative unforced system and the use of normal forms. Within this framework, it is shown that without internal resonance, a valid reduced order model for a nonlinear mode is a single Duffing oscillator. We then propose an efficient experimental strategy to measure the backbone curve of a particular nonlinear mode and we use it to identify the free parameters of the reduced order model. The experimental part relies on a Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) and enables a robust and automatic measurement of backbone curves as well as forced responses. It is theoretically and experimentally shown that the PLL is able to stabilize the unstable part of Duffing-like frequency responses, thus enabling its robust experimental measurement. Finally, the whole procedure is tested on three experimental systems: a circular plate, a chinese gong and a piezoelectric cantilever beam. It enable to validate the procedure by comparison to available theoretical models as well as to other experimental identification methods.

A new method to real-normalize measured complex modes

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wei, Max L.; Allemang, Randall J.; Zhang, Qiang; Brown, David L.

1987-01-01

A time domain subspace iteration technique is presented to compute a set of normal modes from the measured complex modes. By using the proposed method, a large number of physical coordinates are reduced to a smaller number of model or principal coordinates. Subspace free decay time responses are computed using properly scaled complex modal vectors. Companion matrix for the general case of nonproportional damping is then derived in the selected vector subspace. Subspace normal modes are obtained through eigenvalue solution of the (M sub N) sup -1 (K sub N) matrix and transformed back to the physical coordinates to get a set of normal modes. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the outlined theory.

Theory and praxis of map analsys in CHEF part 2: Nonlinear normal form

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Michelotti, Leo; /FERMILAB

2009-04-01

This is the second of three memos describing how normal form map analysis is implemented in CHEF. The first [1] explained the manipulations required to assure that initial, linear transformations preserved Poincare invariants, thereby confirming correct normalization of action-angle coordinates. In this one, the transformation will be extended to nonlinear terms. The third, describing how the algorithms were implemented within the software of CHEF's libraries, most likely will never be written. The first section, Section 2, quickly lays out preliminary concepts and relationships. In Section 3, we shall review the perturbation theory - an iterative sequence of transformations that convertsmore » a nonlinear mapping into its normal form - and examine the equation which moves calculations from one step to the next. Following that is a section titled 'Interpretation', which identifies connections between the normalized mappings and idealized, integrable, fictitious Hamiltonian models. A final section contains closing comments, some of which may - but probably will not - preview work to be done later. My reasons for writing this memo and its predecessor have already been expressed. [1] To them can be added this: 'black box code' encourages users to proceed with little or no understanding of what it does or how it operates. So far, CHEF has avoided this trap admirably by failing to attract potential users. However, we reached a watershed last year: even I now have difficulty following the software through its maze of operations. Extensions to CHEF's physics functionalities, software upgrades, and even simple maintenance are becoming more difficult than they should. I hope these memos will mark parts of the maze for easier navigation in the future. Despite appearances to the contrary, I tried to include no (or very little) more than the minimum needed to understand what CHEF's nonlinear analysis modules do.1 As with the first memo, material has been lifted - and

Method of forming pointed structures

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Pugel, Diane E. (Inventor)

2011-01-01

A method of forming an array of pointed structures comprises depositing a ferrofluid on a substrate, applying a magnetic field to the ferrofluid to generate an array of surface protrusions, and solidifying the surface protrusions to form the array of pointed structures. The pointed structures may have a tip radius ranging from approximately 10 nm to approximately 25 micron. Solidifying the surface protrusions may be carried out at a temperature ranging from approximately 10 degrees C. to approximately 30 degrees C.

Method for distinguishing normal and transformed cells using G1 kinase inhibitors

DOEpatents

Crissman, Harry A.; Gadbois, Donna M.; Tobey, Robert A.; Bradbury, E. Morton

1993-01-01

A G.sub.1 phase kinase inhibitor is applied in a low concentration to a population of normal and transformed mammalian cells. The concentration of G.sub.1 phase kinase inhibitor is selected to reversibly arrest normal mammalian cells in the G.sub.1 cell cycle without arresting growth of transformed cells. The transformed cells may then be selectively identified and/or cloned for research or diagnostic purposes. The transformed cells may also be selectively killed by therapeutic agents that do not affect normal cells in the G.sub.1 phase, suggesting that such G.sub.1 phase kinase inhibitors may form an effective adjuvant for use with chemotherapeutic agents in cancer therapy for optimizing the killing dose of chemotherapeutic agents while minimizing undesirable side effects on normal cells.

Method for distinguishing normal and transformed cells using G1 kinase inhibitors

DOEpatents

Crissman, H.A.; Gadbois, D.M.; Tobey, R.A.; Bradbury, E.M.

1993-02-09

A G[sub 1] phase kinase inhibitor is applied in a low concentration to a population of normal and transformed mammalian cells. The concentration of G[sub 1] phase kinase inhibitor is selected to reversibly arrest normal mammalian cells in the G[sub 1] cell cycle without arresting growth of transformed cells. The transformed cells may then be selectively identified and/or cloned for research or diagnostic purposes. The transformed cells may also be selectively killed by therapeutic agents that do not affect normal cells in the G[sub 1] phase, suggesting that such G[sub 1] phase kinase inhibitors may form an effective adjuvant for use with chemotherapeutic agents in cancer therapy for optimizing the killing dose of chemotherapeutic agents while minimizing undesirable side effects on normal cells.

Slab edge insulating form system and methods

DOEpatents

Lee, Brain E [Corral de Tierra, CA; Barsun, Stephan K [Davis, CA; Bourne, Richard C [Davis, CA; Hoeschele, Marc A [Davis, CA; Springer, David A [Winters, CA

2009-10-06

A method of forming an insulated concrete foundation is provided comprising constructing a foundation frame, the frame comprising an insulating form having an opening, inserting a pocket former into the opening; placing concrete inside the foundation frame; and removing the pocket former after the placed concrete has set, wherein the concrete forms a pocket in the placed concrete that is accessible through the opening. The method may further comprise sealing the opening by placing a sealing plug or sealing material in the opening. A system for forming an insulated concrete foundation is provided comprising a plurality of interconnected insulating forms, the insulating forms having a rigid outer member protecting and encasing an insulating material, and at least one gripping lip extending outwardly from the outer member to provide a pest barrier. At least one insulating form has an opening into which a removable pocket former is inserted. The system may also provide a tension anchor positioned in the pocket former and a tendon connected to the tension anchor.

Effects of Foveal Ablation on the Pattern of Peripheral Refractive Errors in Normal and Form-deprived Infant Rhesus Monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

PubMed Central

Huang, Juan; Hung, Li-Fang

2011-01-01

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to determine whether visual signals from the fovea contribute to the changes in the pattern of peripheral refractions associated with form deprivation myopia in monkeys. Methods. Monocular form-deprivation was produced in 18 rhesus monkeys by securing diffusers in front of their treated eyes between 22 ± 2 and 155 ± 17 days of age. In eight of these form-deprived monkeys, the fovea and most of the perifovea of the treated eye were ablated by laser photocoagulation at the start of the diffuser-rearing period. Each eye's refractive status was measured by retinoscopy along the pupillary axis and at 15° intervals along the horizontal meridian to eccentricities of 45°. Control data were obtained from 12 normal monkeys and five monkeys that had monocular foveal ablations and were subsequently reared with unrestricted vision. Results. Foveal ablation, by itself, did not produce systematic alterations in either the central or peripheral refractive errors of the treated eyes. In addition, foveal ablation did not alter the patterns of peripheral refractions in monkeys with form-deprivation myopia. The patterns of peripheral refractive errors in the two groups of form-deprived monkeys, either with or without foveal ablation, were qualitatively similar (treated eyes: F = 0.31, P = 0.74; anisometropia: F = 0.61, P = 0.59), but significantly different from those found in the normal monkeys (F = 8.46 and 9.38 respectively, P < 0.05). Conclusions. Central retinal signals do not contribute in an essential way to the alterations in eye shape that occur during the development of vision-induced axial myopia. PMID:21693598

Preoperative normal level of parathyroid hormone signifies an early and mild form of primary hyperparathyroidism.

PubMed

Bergenfelz, Anders; Lindblom, Pia; Lindergård, Birger; Valdemarsson, Stig; Westerdahl, Johan

2003-04-01

Contemporary patients are often diagnosed with mild or intermittent hypercalcemia. In addition, most studies demonstrate patients with parathyroid (PTH) levels in the upper normal range. The aim of the present investigation was to define subgroups of patients with mild primary hyperparathyroidism (pHPT), which could be of importance in the decision for or against surgical treatment. Two-hundred and eleven patients, operated for pHPT were investigated with biochemical variables known to reflect PTH activity, renal function, and bone mineral content. The preoperative diagnosis of pHPT was based on the presence of hypercalcemia combined with an inappropriate serum concentration of PTH. The mean age of the patients was 64 +/- 14 years and the mean serum level of calcium was 2.78 +/- 0.19 mmol/L. One hundred and sixty-two patients (77%) had raised levels of calcium and PTH the day before surgery (overt pHPT), 25 patients (12%) had a normal level of calcium and a raised PTH level (normal calcium group), and 20 patients (9%) had a raised level of calcium and a normal level of PTH (normal PTH group). In four patients the level of calcium and PTH was normal. Between-group analysis demonstrated no major difference in symptom and signs of pHPT. Except for lower adenoma weight, patients in the normal calcium group did not essentially differ from the patients in the overt pHPT group. However, patients in the normal PTH group were a decade younger, and had better renal function, lower bone turnover, and a preserved bone density compared with patients in the overt pHPT group. In conclusion, the data from the present investigation show that pHPT patients with a preoperative normal PTH level have an early and mild form of the disease. Furthermore, the serum calcium concentration does not reflect disease severity in pHPT.

Nanofiber electrode and method of forming same

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Pintauro, Peter N.; Zhang, Wenjing

In one aspect, a method of forming an electrode for an electrochemical device is disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of mixing at least a first amount of a catalyst and a second amount of an ionomer or uncharged polymer to form a solution and delivering the solution into a metallic needle having a needle tip. The method further includes the steps of applying a voltage between the needle tip and a collector substrate positioned at a distance from the needle tip, and extruding the solution from the needle tip at a flow rate such as tomore » generate electrospun fibers and deposit the generated fibers on the collector substrate to form a mat with a porous network of fibers. Each fiber in the porous network of the mat has distributed particles of the catalyst. The method also includes the step of pressing the mat onto a membrane.« less

Normalized cDNA libraries

DOEpatents

Soares, Marcelo B.; Efstratiadis, Argiris

1997-01-01

This invention provides a method to normalize a directional cDNA library constructed in a vector that allows propagation in single-stranded circle form comprising: (a) propagating the directional cDNA library in single-stranded circles; (b) generating fragments complementary to the 3' noncoding sequence of the single-stranded circles in the library to produce partial duplexes; (c) purifying the partial duplexes; (d) melting and reassociating the purified partial duplexes to moderate Cot; and (e) purifying the unassociated single-stranded circles, thereby generating a normalized cDNA library.

Normalized cDNA libraries

DOEpatents

Soares, M.B.; Efstratiadis, A.

1997-06-10

This invention provides a method to normalize a directional cDNA library constructed in a vector that allows propagation in single-stranded circle form comprising: (a) propagating the directional cDNA library in single-stranded circles; (b) generating fragments complementary to the 3{prime} noncoding sequence of the single-stranded circles in the library to produce partial duplexes; (c) purifying the partial duplexes; (d) melting and reassociating the purified partial duplexes to moderate Cot; and (e) purifying the unassociated single-stranded circles, thereby generating a normalized cDNA library. 4 figs.

Method for forming suspended micromechanical structures

DOEpatents

Fleming, James G.

2000-01-01

A micromachining method is disclosed for forming a suspended micromechanical structure from {111} crystalline silicon. The micromachining method is based on the use of anisotropic dry etching to define lateral features of the structure which are etched down into a {111}-silicon substrate to a first etch depth, thereby forming sidewalls of the structure. The sidewalls are then coated with a protection layer, and the substrate is dry etched to a second etch depth to define a spacing of the structure from the substrate. A selective anisotropic wet etchant (e.g. KOH, EDP, TMAH, NaOH or CsOH) is used to laterally undercut the structure between the first and second etch depths, thereby forming a substantially planar lower surface of the structure along a {111} crystal plane that is parallel to an upper surface of the structure. The lateral extent of undercutting by the wet etchant is controlled and effectively terminated by either timing the etching, by the location of angled {111}-silicon planes or by the locations of preformed etch-stops. This present method allows the formation of suspended micromechanical structures having large vertical dimensions and large masses while allowing for detailed lateral features which can be provided by dry etch definition. Additionally, the method of the present invention is compatible with the formation of electronic circuitry on the substrate.

EMG normalization method based on grade 3 of manual muscle testing: Within- and between-day reliability of normalization tasks and application to gait analysis.

PubMed

Tabard-Fougère, Anne; Rose-Dulcina, Kevin; Pittet, Vincent; Dayer, Romain; Vuillerme, Nicolas; Armand, Stéphane

2018-02-01

Electromyography (EMG) is an important parameter in Clinical Gait Analysis (CGA), and is generally interpreted with timing of activation. EMG amplitude comparisons between individuals, muscles or days need normalization. There is no consensus on existing methods. The gold standard, maximum voluntary isometric contraction (MVIC), is not adapted to pathological populations because patients are often unable to perform an MVIC. The normalization method inspired by the isometric grade 3 of manual muscle testing (isoMMT3), which is the ability of a muscle to maintain a position against gravity, could be an interesting alternative. The aim of this study was to evaluate the within- and between-day reliability of the isoMMT3 EMG normalizing method during gait compared with the conventional MVIC method. Lower limb muscles EMG (gluteus medius, rectus femoris, tibialis anterior, semitendinosus) were recorded bilaterally in nine healthy participants (five males, aged 29.7±6.2years, BMI 22.7±3.3kgm -2 ) giving a total of 18 independent legs. Three repeated measurements of the isoMMT3 and MVIC exercises were performed with an EMG recording. EMG amplitude of the muscles during gait was normalized by these two methods. This protocol was repeated one week later. Within- and between-day reliability of normalization tasks were similar for isoMMT3 and MVIC methods. Within- and between-day reliability of gait EMG normalized by isoMMT3 was higher than with MVIC normalization. These results indicate that EMG normalization using isoMMT3 is a reliable method with no special equipment needed and will support CGA interpretation. The next step will be to evaluate this method in pathological populations. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Accessing the Elastic Form-Factors of the $Delta(1232)$ Using the Beam-Normal Asymmetry

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dalton, Mark M.

2016-08-01

The beam-normal single-spin asymmetry,more » $$B_n$$, exists in the scattering of high energy electrons, polarized transverse to their direction of motion, from nuclear targets. To first order, this asymmetry is caused by the interference of the one-photon exchange amplitude with the imaginary part of the two-photon exchange amplitude. Measurements of $$B_n$$, for the production of a $$\\Delta(1232)$$ resonance from a proton target, will soon become available from the Qweak experiment at Jefferson Lab and the A4 experiment at Mainz. The imaginary part of two-photon exchange allows only intermediate states that are on-shell, including the $$\\Delta$$ itself. Therefore such data is sensitive to $$\\gamma\\Delta\\Delta$$, the elastic form-factors of the $$\\Delta$$. This article will introduce the form-factors of the $$\\Delta$$, discuss what might be learned about the elastic form-factors from these new data, describe ongoing efforts in calculation and measurement, and outline the possibility of future measurements.« less

Design of optimally normal minimum gain controllers by continuation method

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lim, K. B.; Juang, J.-N.; Kim, Z. C.

1989-01-01

A measure of the departure from normality is investigated for system robustness. An attractive feature of the normality index is its simplicity for pole placement designs. To allow a tradeoff between system robustness and control effort, a cost function consisting of the sum of a norm of weighted gain matrix and a normality index is minimized. First- and second-order necessary conditions for the constrained optimization problem are derived and solved by a Newton-Raphson algorithm imbedded into a one-parameter family of neighboring zero problems. The method presented allows the direct computation of optimal gains in terms of robustness and control effort for pole placement problems.

A review on color normalization and color deconvolution methods in histopathology.

PubMed

Onder, Devrim; Zengin, Selen; Sarioglu, Sulen

2014-01-01

The histopathologists get the benefits of wide range of colored dyes to have much useful information about the lesions and the tissue compositions. Despite its advantages, the staining process comes up with quite complex variations in staining concentrations and correlations, tissue fixation types, and fixation time periods. Together with the improvements in computing power and with the development of novel image analysis methods, these imperfections have led to the emerging of several color normalization algorithms. This article is a review of the currently available digital color normalization methods for the bright field histopathology. We describe the proposed color normalization methodologies in detail together with the lesion and tissue types used in the corresponding experiments. We also present the quantitative validation approaches for each of the proposed methodology where available.

Method for forming porous platinum films

DOEpatents

Maya, Leon

2000-01-01

A method for forming a platinum film includes providing a substrate, sputtering a crystalline platinum oxide layer over at least a portion of the substrate, and reducing the crystalline platinum oxide layer to form the platinum film. A device includes a non-conductive substrate and a platinum layer having a density of between about 2 and 5 g/cm.sup.3 formed over at least a portion of the non-conductive substrate. The platinum films produced in accordance with the present invention provide porous films suitable for use as electrodes, yet require few processing steps. Thus, such films are less costly. Such films may be formed on both conductive and non-conductive substrates. While the invention has been illustrated with platinum, other metals, such as noble metals, that form a low density oxide when reactively sputtered may also be used.

Photovoltaic cell module and method of forming

DOEpatents

Howell, Malinda; Juen, Donnie; Ketola, Barry; Tomalia, Mary Kay

2017-12-12

A photovoltaic cell module, a photovoltaic array including at least two modules, and a method of forming the module are provided. The module includes a first outermost layer and a photovoltaic cell disposed on the first outermost layer. The module also includes a second outermost layer disposed on the photovoltaic cell and sandwiching the photovoltaic cell between the second outermost layer and the first outermost layer. The method of forming the module includes the steps of disposing the photovoltaic cell on the first outermost layer, disposing a silicone composition on the photovoltaic cell, and compressing the first outermost layer, the photovoltaic cell, and the second layer to form the photovoltaic cell module.

Method of forming a variable width channel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andrews, James T. (Inventor)

1989-01-01

A method of forming a channel of varying width in a body comprises the steps of forming a plurality of masking elements having an opening therethrough intersecting a plurality of the elements on a surface of the body, partially flowing the elements into the opening to form a masking pattern having a variable width opening therethrough, and removing portions of the exposed body to form the channel with a sidewall having a surface contour corresponding to an edge of the masking pattern.

Method of forming a hardened surface on a substrate

DOEpatents

Branagan, Daniel J.

2010-08-31

The invention includes a method of producing a hard metallic material by forming a mixture containing at least 55% iron and at least one of B, C, Si and P. The mixture is formed into an alloy and cooled to form a metallic material having a hardness of greater than about 9.2 GPa. The invention includes a method of forming a wire by combining a metal strip and a powder. The metal strip and the powder are rolled to form a wire containing at least 55% iron and from two to seven additional elements including at least one of C, Si and B. The invention also includes a method of forming a hardened surface on a substrate by processing a solid mass to form a powder, applying the powder to a surface to form a layer containing metallic glass, and converting the glass to a crystalline material having a nanocrystalline grain size.

Comparison of normalization methods for differential gene expression analysis in RNA-Seq experiments

PubMed Central

Maza, Elie; Frasse, Pierre; Senin, Pavel; Bouzayen, Mondher; Zouine, Mohamed

2013-01-01

In recent years, RNA-Seq technologies became a powerful tool for transcriptome studies. However, computational methods dedicated to the analysis of high-throughput sequencing data are yet to be standardized. In particular, it is known that the choice of a normalization procedure leads to a great variability in results of differential gene expression analysis. The present study compares the most widespread normalization procedures and proposes a novel one aiming at removing an inherent bias of studied transcriptomes related to their relative size. Comparisons of the normalization procedures are performed on real and simulated data sets. Real RNA-Seq data sets analyses, performed with all the different normalization methods, show that only 50% of significantly differentially expressed genes are common. This result highlights the influence of the normalization step on the differential expression analysis. Real and simulated data sets analyses give similar results showing 3 different groups of procedures having the same behavior. The group including the novel method named “Median Ratio Normalization” (MRN) gives the lower number of false discoveries. Within this group the MRN method is less sensitive to the modification of parameters related to the relative size of transcriptomes such as the number of down- and upregulated genes and the gene expression levels. The newly proposed MRN method efficiently deals with intrinsic bias resulting from relative size of studied transcriptomes. Validation with real and simulated data sets confirmed that MRN is more consistent and robust than existing methods. PMID:26442135

Comparing the normalization methods for the differential analysis of Illumina high-throughput RNA-Seq data.

PubMed

Li, Peipei; Piao, Yongjun; Shon, Ho Sun; Ryu, Keun Ho

2015-10-28

Recently, rapid improvements in technology and decrease in sequencing costs have made RNA-Seq a widely used technique to quantify gene expression levels. Various normalization approaches have been proposed, owing to the importance of normalization in the analysis of RNA-Seq data. A comparison of recently proposed normalization methods is required to generate suitable guidelines for the selection of the most appropriate approach for future experiments. In this paper, we compared eight non-abundance (RC, UQ, Med, TMM, DESeq, Q, RPKM, and ERPKM) and two abundance estimation normalization methods (RSEM and Sailfish). The experiments were based on real Illumina high-throughput RNA-Seq of 35- and 76-nucleotide sequences produced in the MAQC project and simulation reads. Reads were mapped with human genome obtained from UCSC Genome Browser Database. For precise evaluation, we investigated Spearman correlation between the normalization results from RNA-Seq and MAQC qRT-PCR values for 996 genes. Based on this work, we showed that out of the eight non-abundance estimation normalization methods, RC, UQ, Med, TMM, DESeq, and Q gave similar normalization results for all data sets. For RNA-Seq of a 35-nucleotide sequence, RPKM showed the highest correlation results, but for RNA-Seq of a 76-nucleotide sequence, least correlation was observed than the other methods. ERPKM did not improve results than RPKM. Between two abundance estimation normalization methods, for RNA-Seq of a 35-nucleotide sequence, higher correlation was obtained with Sailfish than that with RSEM, which was better than without using abundance estimation methods. However, for RNA-Seq of a 76-nucleotide sequence, the results achieved by RSEM were similar to without applying abundance estimation methods, and were much better than with Sailfish. Furthermore, we found that adding a poly-A tail increased alignment numbers, but did not improve normalization results. Spearman correlation analysis revealed that RC, UQ

Mathematical beta function formulation for maxillary arch form prediction in normal occlusion population.

PubMed

Mina, Morteza; Borzabadi-Farahani, Ali; Tehranchi, Azita; Nouri, Mahtab; Younessian, Farnaz

2017-04-01

The aim of this study was to assess the dental arch curvature in subjects with normal occlusion in an Iranian population and propose a beta function formula to predict maxillary arch form using the mandibular intermolar widths (IMW) and intermolar depths (IMD). The materials used were study casts of 54 adolescents with normal occlusion and mean age of 14.1 years (25 males, 29 females, age range 12-16 years). Curve-fitting analyses were carried out and the curves passing through the facial-axis point of the canines, premolars, first molars, and the incisal edges of the anterior teeth were studied using a 3D laser scanner. Using the measured IMW and IMD of the dental arches at the maxillary and mandibular first molar region, a beta function formula proposed for predicting maxillary arch form. The accuracy of the proposed formula was assessed on 10 randomly selected dental casts. The mean (SD) of the maxillary and mandibular IMW and IMD were 57.92 (4.75), 54.19 (5.31), and 31.59 (2.90) and 28.10 (2.59) mm, respectively. There was no gender dimorphism (P > 0.05) for both variables (IMW, IMD). There was a strong positive association (n = 10, Pearson r = 0.98, P < 0.05) between the measured (actual) maxillary arch length and proposed arch length derived from generated formula. The goodness of fit (whole arch) for the proposed beta function formula, using adjusted r square measure and root mean square in 10 patients averaged 0.97 and 1.49 mm, respectively. The corresponding figures for the maxillary anterior arch (canine to canine) were 0.90 and 0.92 mm, respectively. The proposed beta function formula used for predicting maxillary arch form based on two mandibular measures (IMW, IMD) was found to have a high accuracy for maxillary arch prediction in the Iranian population and may be used as a guide to fabricate customized arch wires or as an aid in maxillary reconstructive surgery.

Method of forming structural heliostat

DOEpatents

Anderson, Alfred J.

1984-06-26

In forming a heliostat having a main support structure and pivoting and tilting motors and gears and a mirror module for reflecting solar energy onto a collector, the improvement characterized by a method of forming the mirror module in which the mirror is laid upon a solid rigid supporting bed in one or more sections, with or without focusing; a mirror backing sheet is applied by first applying respective thin layers of silicone grease and, thereafter, progressively rolling application to eliminate air bubbles; followed by affixing of a substrate assembly to the mirror backing sheet to form a mirror module that does not curve because of thermally induced stresses and differential thermal expansion or contraction effects. The silicone grease also serves to dampen fluttering of the mirror and protect the mirror backside against adverse effects of the weather. Also disclosed are specific details of preferred embodiments.

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game.

PubMed

Karbowski, Adam; Ramsza, Michał

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants' attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents.

Imagine-Self Perspective-Taking and Rational Self-Interested Behavior in a Simple Experimental Normal-Form Game

PubMed Central

Karbowski, Adam; Ramsza, Michał

2017-01-01

The purpose of this study is to explore the link between imagine-self perspective-taking and rational self-interested behavior in experimental normal-form games. Drawing on the concept of sympathy developed by Adam Smith and further literature on perspective-taking in games, we hypothesize that introduction of imagine-self perspective-taking by decision-makers promotes rational self-interested behavior in a simple experimental normal-form game. In our study, we examined behavior of 404 undergraduate students in the two-person game, in which the participant can suffer a monetary loss only if she plays her Nash equilibrium strategy and the opponent plays her dominated strategy. Results suggest that the threat of suffering monetary losses effectively discourages the participants from choosing Nash equilibrium strategy. In general, players may take into account that opponents choose dominated strategies due to specific not self-interested motivations or errors. However, adopting imagine-self perspective by the participants leads to more Nash equilibrium choices, perhaps by alleviating participants’ attributions of susceptibility to errors or non-self-interested motivation to the opponents. PMID:28955276

Iterative normalization method for improved prostate cancer localization with multispectral magnetic resonance imaging

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Xin; Samil Yetik, Imam

2012-04-01

Use of multispectral magnetic resonance imaging has received a great interest for prostate cancer localization in research and clinical studies. Manual extraction of prostate tumors from multispectral magnetic resonance imaging is inefficient and subjective, while automated segmentation is objective and reproducible. For supervised, automated segmentation approaches, learning is essential to obtain the information from training dataset. However, in this procedure, all patients are assumed to have similar properties for the tumor and normal tissues, and the segmentation performance suffers since the variations across patients are ignored. To conquer this difficulty, we propose a new iterative normalization method based on relative intensity values of tumor and normal tissues to normalize multispectral magnetic resonance images and improve segmentation performance. The idea of relative intensity mimics the manual segmentation performed by human readers, who compare the contrast between regions without knowing the actual intensity values. We compare the segmentation performance of the proposed method with that of z-score normalization followed by support vector machine, local active contours, and fuzzy Markov random field. Our experimental results demonstrate that our method outperforms the three other state-of-the-art algorithms, and was found to have specificity of 0.73, sensitivity of 0.69, and accuracy of 0.79, significantly better than alternative methods.

Methods of forming aluminum oxynitride-comprising bodies, including methods of forming a sheet of transparent armor

DOEpatents

Chu, Henry Shiu-Hung [Idaho Falls, ID; Lillo, Thomas Martin [Idaho Falls, ID

2008-12-02

The invention includes methods of forming an aluminum oxynitride-comprising body. For example, a mixture is formed which comprises A:B:C in a respective molar ratio in the range of 9:3.6-6.2:0.1-1.1, where "A" is Al.sub.2O.sub.3, "B" is AlN, and "C" is a total of one or more of B.sub.2O.sub.3, SiO.sub.2, Si--Al--O--N, and TiO.sub.2. The mixture is sintered at a temperature of at least 1,600.degree. C. at a pressure of no greater than 500 psia effective to form an aluminum oxynitride-comprising body which is at least internally transparent and has at least 99% maximum theoretical density.

Clarifying Normalization

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carpenter, Donald A.

2008-01-01

Confusion exists among database textbooks as to the goal of normalization as well as to which normal form a designer should aspire. This article discusses such discrepancies with the intention of simplifying normalization for both teacher and student. This author's industry and classroom experiences indicate such simplification yields quicker…

Evaluation of normalization methods for cDNA microarray data by k-NN classification

PubMed Central

Wu, Wei; Xing, Eric P; Myers, Connie; Mian, I Saira; Bissell, Mina J

2005-01-01

Background Non-biological factors give rise to unwanted variations in cDNA microarray data. There are many normalization methods designed to remove such variations. However, to date there have been few published systematic evaluations of these techniques for removing variations arising from dye biases in the context of downstream, higher-order analytical tasks such as classification. Results Ten location normalization methods that adjust spatial- and/or intensity-dependent dye biases, and three scale methods that adjust scale differences were applied, individually and in combination, to five distinct, published, cancer biology-related cDNA microarray data sets. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) classification error was employed as the quantitative end-point for assessing the effectiveness of a normalization method. In particular, a known classifier, k-nearest neighbor (k-NN), was estimated from data normalized using a given technique, and the LOOCV error rate of the ensuing model was computed. We found that k-NN classifiers are sensitive to dye biases in the data. Using NONRM and GMEDIAN as baseline methods, our results show that single-bias-removal techniques which remove either spatial-dependent dye bias (referred later as spatial effect) or intensity-dependent dye bias (referred later as intensity effect) moderately reduce LOOCV classification errors; whereas double-bias-removal techniques which remove both spatial- and intensity effect reduce LOOCV classification errors even further. Of the 41 different strategies examined, three two-step processes, IGLOESS-SLFILTERW7, ISTSPLINE-SLLOESS and IGLOESS-SLLOESS, all of which removed intensity effect globally and spatial effect locally, appear to reduce LOOCV classification errors most consistently and effectively across all data sets. We also found that the investigated scale normalization methods do not reduce LOOCV classification error. Conclusion Using LOOCV error of k-NNs as the evaluation criterion, three

Evaluation of normalization methods for cDNA microarray data by k-NN classification.

PubMed

Wu, Wei; Xing, Eric P; Myers, Connie; Mian, I Saira; Bissell, Mina J

2005-07-26

Non-biological factors give rise to unwanted variations in cDNA microarray data. There are many normalization methods designed to remove such variations. However, to date there have been few published systematic evaluations of these techniques for removing variations arising from dye biases in the context of downstream, higher-order analytical tasks such as classification. Ten location normalization methods that adjust spatial- and/or intensity-dependent dye biases, and three scale methods that adjust scale differences were applied, individually and in combination, to five distinct, published, cancer biology-related cDNA microarray data sets. Leave-one-out cross-validation (LOOCV) classification error was employed as the quantitative end-point for assessing the effectiveness of a normalization method. In particular, a known classifier, k-nearest neighbor (k-NN), was estimated from data normalized using a given technique, and the LOOCV error rate of the ensuing model was computed. We found that k-NN classifiers are sensitive to dye biases in the data. Using NONRM and GMEDIAN as baseline methods, our results show that single-bias-removal techniques which remove either spatial-dependent dye bias (referred later as spatial effect) or intensity-dependent dye bias (referred later as intensity effect) moderately reduce LOOCV classification errors; whereas double-bias-removal techniques which remove both spatial- and intensity effect reduce LOOCV classification errors even further. Of the 41 different strategies examined, three two-step processes, IGLOESS-SLFILTERW7, ISTSPLINE-SLLOESS and IGLOESS-SLLOESS, all of which removed intensity effect globally and spatial effect locally, appear to reduce LOOCV classification errors most consistently and effectively across all data sets. We also found that the investigated scale normalization methods do not reduce LOOCV classification error. Using LOOCV error of k-NNs as the evaluation criterion, three double

Method of forming calthrate ice

DOEpatents

Hino, T.; Gorski, A.J.

1985-09-30

A method of forming clathrate ice in a supercooled water-based liquid contained in a vessel is disclosed. Initially, an oscillator device is located in the liquid in the vessel. The oscillator device is then oscillated ultransonically so that small crystals are formed in the liquid. Thes small crystals serve as seed crystals for ice formation in the liquid and thereby prevent supercooling of the liquid. Preferably, the oscillating device is controlled by a thermostat which initiates operation of the oscillator device when the temperature of the liquid is lowered to the freezing point. Thereafter, the operation of the oscillator device is terminated when ice is sensed in the liquid by an ice sensor.

Method of forming clathrate ice

DOEpatents

Hino, Toshiyuki; Gorski, Anthony J.

1987-01-01

A method of forming clathrate ice in a supercooled water-based liquid contained in a vessel is disclosed. Initially, an oscillator device is located in the liquid in the vessel. The oscillator device is then oscillated ultrasonically so that small crystals are formed in the liquid. These small crystals serve as seed crystals for ice formation in the liquid and thereby prevent supercooling of the liquid. Preferably, the oscillating device is controlled by a thermostat which initiates operation of the oscillator device when the temperature of the liquid is lowered to the freezing point. Thereafter, the operation of the oscillator device is terminated when ice is sensed in the liquid by an ice sensor.

New Data Pre-processing on Assessing of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: Line Based Normalization Method (LBNM)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Akdemir, Bayram; Güneş, Salih; Yosunkaya, Şebnem

Sleep disorders are a very common unawareness illness among public. Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS) is characterized with decreased oxygen saturation level and repetitive upper respiratory tract obstruction episodes during full night sleep. In the present study, we have proposed a novel data normalization method called Line Based Normalization Method (LBNM) to evaluate OSAS using real data set obtained from Polysomnography device as a diagnostic tool in patients and clinically suspected of suffering OSAS. Here, we have combined the LBNM and classification methods comprising C4.5 decision tree classifier and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to diagnose the OSAS. Firstly, each clinical feature in OSAS dataset is scaled by LBNM method in the range of [0,1]. Secondly, normalized OSAS dataset is classified using different classifier algorithms including C4.5 decision tree classifier and ANN, respectively. The proposed normalization method was compared with min-max normalization, z-score normalization, and decimal scaling methods existing in literature on the diagnosis of OSAS. LBNM has produced very promising results on the assessing of OSAS. Also, this method could be applied to other biomedical datasets.

Evaluation of Normalization Methods to Pave the Way Towards Large-Scale LC-MS-Based Metabolomics Profiling Experiments

PubMed Central

Valkenborg, Dirk; Baggerman, Geert; Vanaerschot, Manu; Witters, Erwin; Dujardin, Jean-Claude; Burzykowski, Tomasz; Berg, Maya

2013-01-01

Abstract Combining liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS)-based metabolomics experiments that were collected over a long period of time remains problematic due to systematic variability between LC-MS measurements. Until now, most normalization methods for LC-MS data are model-driven, based on internal standards or intermediate quality control runs, where an external model is extrapolated to the dataset of interest. In the first part of this article, we evaluate several existing data-driven normalization approaches on LC-MS metabolomics experiments, which do not require the use of internal standards. According to variability measures, each normalization method performs relatively well, showing that the use of any normalization method will greatly improve data-analysis originating from multiple experimental runs. In the second part, we apply cyclic-Loess normalization to a Leishmania sample. This normalization method allows the removal of systematic variability between two measurement blocks over time and maintains the differential metabolites. In conclusion, normalization allows for pooling datasets from different measurement blocks over time and increases the statistical power of the analysis, hence paving the way to increase the scale of LC-MS metabolomics experiments. From our investigation, we recommend data-driven normalization methods over model-driven normalization methods, if only a few internal standards were used. Moreover, data-driven normalization methods are the best option to normalize datasets from untargeted LC-MS experiments. PMID:23808607

Method of forming a chemical composition

DOEpatents

Bingham, Dennis N.; Wilding, Bruce M.; Klingler, Kerry M.; Zollinger, William T.; Wendt, Kraig M.

2007-10-09

A method of forming a chemical composition such as a chemical hydride is described and which includes the steps of selecting a composition having chemical bonds and which is capable of forming a chemical hydride; providing a source of hydrogen; and exposing the selected composition to an amount of ionizing radiation to encourage the changing of the chemical bonds of the selected composition, and chemically reacting the selected composition with the source of hydrogen to facilitate the formation of a chemical hydride.

Introduction of a Novel Loss Data Normalization Method for Improved Estimation of Extreme Losses from Natural Catastrophes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eichner, J. F.; Steuer, M.; Loew, P.

2016-12-01

Past natural catastrophes offer valuable information for present-day risk assessment. To make use of historic loss data one has to find a setting that enables comparison (over place and time) of historic events happening under today's conditions. By means of loss data normalization the influence of socio-economic development, as the fundamental driver in this context, can be eliminated and the data gives way to the deduction of risk-relevant information and allows the study of other driving factors such as influences from climate variability and climate change or changes of vulnerability. Munich Re's NatCatSERVICE database includes for each historic loss event the geographic coordinates of all locations and regions that were affected in a relevant way. These locations form the basis for what is known as the loss footprint of an event. Here we introduce a state of the art and robust method for global loss data normalization. The presented peril-specific loss footprint normalization method adjusts direct economic loss data to the influence of economic growth within each loss footprint (by using gross cell product data as proxy for local economic growth) and makes loss data comparable over time. To achieve a comparative setting for supra-regional economic differences, we categorize the normalized loss values (together with information on fatalities) based on the World Bank income groups into five catastrophe classes, from minor to catastrophic. The data treated in such way allows (a) for studying the influence of improved reporting of small scale loss events over time and (b) for application of standard (stationary) extreme value statistics (here: peaks over threshold method) to compile estimates for extreme and extrapolated loss magnitudes such as a "100 year event" on global scale. Examples of such results will be shown.

The morphological classification of normal and abnormal red blood cell using Self Organizing Map

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rahmat, R. F.; Wulandari, F. S.; Faza, S.; Muchtar, M. A.; Siregar, I.

2018-02-01

Blood is an essential component of living creatures in the vascular space. For possible disease identification, it can be tested through a blood test, one of which can be seen from the form of red blood cells. The normal and abnormal morphology of the red blood cells of a patient is very helpful to doctors in detecting a disease. With the advancement of digital image processing technology can be used to identify normal and abnormal blood cells of a patient. This research used self-organizing map method to classify the normal and abnormal form of red blood cells in the digital image. The use of self-organizing map neural network method can be implemented to classify the normal and abnormal form of red blood cells in the input image with 93,78% accuracy testing.

Close-form expression of one-tap normalized LMS carrier phase recovery in optical communication systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Tianhua; Jacobsen, Gunnar; Popov, Sergei; Li, Jie; Liu, Tiegen; Zhang, Yimo

2016-10-01

The performance of long-haul high speed coherent optical fiber communication systems is significantly degraded by the laser phase noise and the equalization enhanced phase noise (EEPN). In this paper, the analysis of the one-tap normalized least-mean-square (LMS) carrier phase recovery (CPR) is carried out and the close-form expression is investigated for quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) coherent optical fiber communication systems, in compensating both laser phase noise and equalization enhanced phase noise. Numerical simulations have also been implemented to verify the theoretical analysis. It is found that the one-tap normalized least-mean-square algorithm gives the same analytical expression for predicting CPR bit-error-rate (BER) floors as the traditional differential carrier phase recovery, when both the laser phase noise and the equalization enhanced phase noise are taken into account.

High molecular gas fractions in normal massive star-forming galaxies in the young Universe.

PubMed

Tacconi, L J; Genzel, R; Neri, R; Cox, P; Cooper, M C; Shapiro, K; Bolatto, A; Bouché, N; Bournaud, F; Burkert, A; Combes, F; Comerford, J; Davis, M; Schreiber, N M Förster; Garcia-Burillo, S; Gracia-Carpio, J; Lutz, D; Naab, T; Omont, A; Shapley, A; Sternberg, A; Weiner, B

2010-02-11

Stars form from cold molecular interstellar gas. As this is relatively rare in the local Universe, galaxies like the Milky Way form only a few new stars per year. Typical massive galaxies in the distant Universe formed stars an order of magnitude more rapidly. Unless star formation was significantly more efficient, this difference suggests that young galaxies were much more molecular-gas rich. Molecular gas observations in the distant Universe have so far largely been restricted to very luminous, rare objects, including mergers and quasars, and accordingly we do not yet have a clear idea about the gas content of more normal (albeit massive) galaxies. Here we report the results of a survey of molecular gas in samples of typical massive-star-forming galaxies at mean redshifts of about 1.2 and 2.3, when the Universe was respectively 40% and 24% of its current age. Our measurements reveal that distant star forming galaxies were indeed gas rich, and that the star formation efficiency is not strongly dependent on cosmic epoch. The average fraction of cold gas relative to total galaxy baryonic mass at z = 2.3 and z = 1.2 is respectively about 44% and 34%, three to ten times higher than in today's massive spiral galaxies. The slow decrease between z approximately 2 and z approximately 1 probably requires a mechanism of semi-continuous replenishment of fresh gas to the young galaxies.

Normal and abnormal tissue identification system and method for medical images such as digital mammograms

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heine, John J. (Inventor); Clarke, Laurence P. (Inventor); Deans, Stanley R. (Inventor); Stauduhar, Richard Paul (Inventor); Cullers, David Kent (Inventor)

2001-01-01

A system and method for analyzing a medical image to determine whether an abnormality is present, for example, in digital mammograms, includes the application of a wavelet expansion to a raw image to obtain subspace images of varying resolution. At least one subspace image is selected that has a resolution commensurate with a desired predetermined detection resolution range. A functional form of a probability distribution function is determined for each selected subspace image, and an optimal statistical normal image region test is determined for each selected subspace image. A threshold level for the probability distribution function is established from the optimal statistical normal image region test for each selected subspace image. A region size comprising at least one sector is defined, and an output image is created that includes a combination of all regions for each selected subspace image. Each region has a first value when the region intensity level is above the threshold and a second value when the region intensity level is below the threshold. This permits the localization of a potential abnormality within the image.

Method for Fabricating Composite Structures Using Continuous Press Forming

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Farley, Gary L. (Inventor)

1997-01-01

A method for fabricating composite structures at a low-cost. moderate-to-high production rate. A first embodiment of the method includes employing a continuous press forming fabrication process. A second embodiment of the method includes employing a pultrusion process for obtaining composite structures. The methods include coating yarns with matrix material, weaving the yarn into fabric to produce a continuous fabric supply and feeding multiple layers of net-shaped fabrics having optimally oriented fibers into a debulking tool to form an undebulked preform. The continuous press forming fabrication process includes partially debulking the preform, cutting the partially debulked preform and debulking the partially debulked preform to form a net-shape. An electron-beam or similar technique then cures the structure. The pultrusion fabric process includes feeding the undebulked preform into a heated die and gradually debulking the undebulked preform. The undebulked preform in the heated die changes dimension until a desired cross-sectional dimension is achieved. This process further includes obtaining a net-shaped infiltrated uncured preform, cutting the uncured preform to a desired length and electron-beam curing (or similar technique) the uncured preform. These fabrication methods produce superior structures formed at higher production rates. resulting in lower cost and high structural performance.

The impact of sample non-normality on ANOVA and alternative methods.

PubMed

Lantz, Björn

2013-05-01

In this journal, Zimmerman (2004, 2011) has discussed preliminary tests that researchers often use to choose an appropriate method for comparing locations when the assumption of normality is doubtful. The conceptual problem with this approach is that such a two-stage process makes both the power and the significance of the entire procedure uncertain, as type I and type II errors are possible at both stages. A type I error at the first stage, for example, will obviously increase the probability of a type II error at the second stage. Based on the idea of Schmider et al. (2010), which proposes that simulated sets of sample data be ranked with respect to their degree of normality, this paper investigates the relationship between population non-normality and sample non-normality with respect to the performance of the ANOVA, Brown-Forsythe test, Welch test, and Kruskal-Wallis test when used with different distributions, sample sizes, and effect sizes. The overall conclusion is that the Kruskal-Wallis test is considerably less sensitive to the degree of sample normality when populations are distinctly non-normal and should therefore be the primary tool used to compare locations when it is known that populations are not at least approximately normal. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Rapid Screening for Deleted Form of β-thalassemia by Real-Time Quantitative PCR.

PubMed

Ke, Liang-Yin; Chang, Jan-Gowth; Chang, Chao-Sung; Hsieh, Li-Ling; Liu, Ta-Chih

2017-01-01

Thalassemia is the most common single gene disease in human beings. The prevalence rate of β-thalassemia in Taiwan is approximately 1-3%. Previously methods to reveal and diagnose severe deleted form of α- or β-thalassemia were insufficient and inappropriate for prenatal diagnosis. A real-time quantitative PCR method was set up for rapid screening of the deleted form of β-thalassemia. Our results show that ΔΔCt between deleted form of β-thalassemia and normal individuals were 1.0674 ± 0.0713. On the contrary, mutation form β-thalassemia showed no difference with normal healthy control. The HBB/CCR5 ratio for deleted form of β-thalassemia patients was 0.48, whether normal individuals and mutation form of β-thalassemia was 1.0. This RQ-PCR technique is an alternative rapid screening assay for deleted form of β-thalassemia. In addition, it could also identify undefined type. Our technique by using RQ-PCR to quantify gene copies is a reliable and time-saving method that can screen deleted form of β-thalassemia. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Method for forming glass-to-metal seals

DOEpatents

Kramer, D.P.; Massey, R.T.

1985-08-26

Disclosed is a method for forming a glass-to-metal seal in which the glass has a higher melting point than the metal. The molten glass is vacuum injection molded onto the metal, thus melting a very thin layer of the surface of the metal long enough to form a seal, but not long enough to cause a distortion in the shape of the metal component.

Method for forming cooperative binary ionic solids

DOEpatents

Shelnutt, John A.; Martin, Kathleen E.; Wang, Zhongchun; Medforth, Craig J.

2013-03-05

A nanostructured molecular unit and method for forming is described where a cationic porphyrin having an ethanolic substituent species and a metal in the porphyrin cavity is combined with an anionic porphyrin having a sulfonate substituent species and a metal in the porphyrin cavity to form by self-assembly a nanostructured molecular unit with a morphology comprising four dendritic elements connected at a central node.

Method for forming cooperative binary ionic solids

DOEpatents

Shelnutt, John A.; Martin, Kathleen E.; Wang, Zhongchun; Medforth, Craig J.

2014-09-09

A nanostructured molecular unit and method for forming is described where a cationic porphyrin having an ethanolic substituent species and a metal in the porphyrin cavity is combined with an anionic porphyrin having a sulfonate substituent species and a metal in the porphyrin cavity to form by self-assembly a nanostructured molecular unit with a morphology comprising four dendritic elements connected at a central node.

Method for forming glass-to-metal seals

DOEpatents

Kramer, Daniel P.; Massey, Richard T.

1986-01-01

A method for forming a glass-to-metal seal in which the glass has a higher melting point than the metal. The molten glass is vacuum injection molded onto the metal, thus melting a very thin layer of the surface of the metal long enough to form a seal, but not long enough to cause a distortion in the shape of the metal component.

GMPR: A robust normalization method for zero-inflated count data with application to microbiome sequencing data.

PubMed

Chen, Li; Reeve, James; Zhang, Lujun; Huang, Shengbing; Wang, Xuefeng; Chen, Jun

2018-01-01

Normalization is the first critical step in microbiome sequencing data analysis used to account for variable library sizes. Current RNA-Seq based normalization methods that have been adapted for microbiome data fail to consider the unique characteristics of microbiome data, which contain a vast number of zeros due to the physical absence or under-sampling of the microbes. Normalization methods that specifically address the zero-inflation remain largely undeveloped. Here we propose geometric mean of pairwise ratios-a simple but effective normalization method-for zero-inflated sequencing data such as microbiome data. Simulation studies and real datasets analyses demonstrate that the proposed method is more robust than competing methods, leading to more powerful detection of differentially abundant taxa and higher reproducibility of the relative abundances of taxa.

A new EEG synchronization strength analysis method: S-estimator based normalized weighted-permutation mutual information.

PubMed

Cui, Dong; Pu, Weiting; Liu, Jing; Bian, Zhijie; Li, Qiuli; Wang, Lei; Gu, Guanghua

2016-10-01

Synchronization is an important mechanism for understanding information processing in normal or abnormal brains. In this paper, we propose a new method called normalized weighted-permutation mutual information (NWPMI) for double variable signal synchronization analysis and combine NWPMI with S-estimator measure to generate a new method named S-estimator based normalized weighted-permutation mutual information (SNWPMI) for analyzing multi-channel electroencephalographic (EEG) synchronization strength. The performances including the effects of time delay, embedding dimension, coupling coefficients, signal to noise ratios (SNRs) and data length of the NWPMI are evaluated by using Coupled Henon mapping model. The results show that the NWPMI is superior in describing the synchronization compared with the normalized permutation mutual information (NPMI). Furthermore, the proposed SNWPMI method is applied to analyze scalp EEG data from 26 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) subjects and 20 age-matched controls with normal cognitive function, who both suffer from type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The proposed methods NWPMI and SNWPMI are suggested to be an effective index to estimate the synchronization strength. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Method of forming a dianhydrosugar alcohol

DOEpatents

Holladay, Johnathan E [Kennewick, WA; Hu, Jianli [Kennewick, WA; Wang, Yong [Richland, WA; Werpy, Todd A [West Richland, WA; Zhang, Xinjie [Burlington, MA

2010-01-19

The invention includes methods of producing dianhydrosugars. A polyol is reacted in the presence of a first catalyst to form a monocyclic sugar. The monocyclic sugar is transferred to a second reactor where it is converted to a dianhydrosugar alcohol in the presence of a second catalyst. The invention includes a process of forming isosorbide. An initial reaction is conducted at a first temperature in the presence of a solid acid catalyst. The initial reaction involves reacting sorbitol to produce 1,4-sorbitan, 3,6-sorbitan, 2,5-mannitan and 2,5-iditan. Utilizing a second temperature, the 1,4-sorbitan and 3,6-sorbitan are converted to isosorbide. The invention includes a method of purifying isosorbide from a mixture containing isosorbide and at least one additional component. A first distillation removes a first portion of the isosorbide from the mixture. A second distillation is then conducted at a higher temperature to remove a second portion of isosorbide from the mixture.

A method for normalizing pathology images to improve feature extraction for quantitative pathology

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Tam, Allison; Barker, Jocelyn; Rubin, Daniel

Purpose: With the advent of digital slide scanning technologies and the potential proliferation of large repositories of digital pathology images, many research studies can leverage these data for biomedical discovery and to develop clinical applications. However, quantitative analysis of digital pathology images is impeded by batch effects generated by varied staining protocols and staining conditions of pathological slides. Methods: To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel, fully automated stain normalization method to reduce batch effects and thus aid research in digital pathology applications. Their method, intensity centering and histogram equalization (ICHE), normalizes a diverse set of pathology imagesmore » by first scaling the centroids of the intensity histograms to a common point and then applying a modified version of contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization. Normalization was performed on two datasets of digitized hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) slides of different tissue slices from the same lung tumor, and one immunohistochemistry dataset of digitized slides created by restaining one of the H&E datasets. Results: The ICHE method was evaluated based on image intensity values, quantitative features, and the effect on downstream applications, such as a computer aided diagnosis. For comparison, three methods from the literature were reimplemented and evaluated using the same criteria. The authors found that ICHE not only improved performance compared with un-normalized images, but in most cases showed improvement compared with previous methods for correcting batch effects in the literature. Conclusions: ICHE may be a useful preprocessing step a digital pathology image processing pipeline.« less

A method for normalizing pathology images to improve feature extraction for quantitative pathology.

PubMed

Tam, Allison; Barker, Jocelyn; Rubin, Daniel

2016-01-01

With the advent of digital slide scanning technologies and the potential proliferation of large repositories of digital pathology images, many research studies can leverage these data for biomedical discovery and to develop clinical applications. However, quantitative analysis of digital pathology images is impeded by batch effects generated by varied staining protocols and staining conditions of pathological slides. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel, fully automated stain normalization method to reduce batch effects and thus aid research in digital pathology applications. Their method, intensity centering and histogram equalization (ICHE), normalizes a diverse set of pathology images by first scaling the centroids of the intensity histograms to a common point and then applying a modified version of contrast-limited adaptive histogram equalization. Normalization was performed on two datasets of digitized hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) slides of different tissue slices from the same lung tumor, and one immunohistochemistry dataset of digitized slides created by restaining one of the H&E datasets. The ICHE method was evaluated based on image intensity values, quantitative features, and the effect on downstream applications, such as a computer aided diagnosis. For comparison, three methods from the literature were reimplemented and evaluated using the same criteria. The authors found that ICHE not only improved performance compared with un-normalized images, but in most cases showed improvement compared with previous methods for correcting batch effects in the literature. ICHE may be a useful preprocessing step a digital pathology image processing pipeline.

Method for heating and forming a glass sheet

DOEpatents

Boaz, Premakaran Tucker

1997-01-01

A method for heating and forming a glass sheet includes the steps of heating a glass sheet to at least a first predetermined temperature, applying microwave energy to the glass sheet to heat the glass sheet to at least a second predetermined temperature, cooling an outer surface of the glass sheet to at least a third predetermined temperature and forming the glass sheet using forming rollers to a predetermined configuration.

Method of forming emitters for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Li, Bo; Cousins, Peter J.; Smith, David D.

2015-09-29

Methods of forming emitters for back-contact solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a first solid-state dopant source above a substrate. The first solid-state dopant source includes a plurality of regions separated by gaps. Regions of a second solid-state dopant source are formed above the substrate by printing.

Method of forming emitters for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Li, Bo; Cousins, Peter J; Smith, David D

2014-12-16

Methods of forming emitters for back-contact solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a first solid-state dopant source above a substrate. The first solid-state dopant source includes a plurality of regions separated by gaps. Regions of a second solid-state dopant source are formed above the substrate by printing.

Method or forming emitters for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Li, Bo; Cousins, Peter J.; Smith, David D.

2014-08-12

Methods of forming emitters for back-contact solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a first solid-state dopant source above a substrate. The first solid-state dopant source includes a plurality of regions separated by gaps. Regions of a second solid-state dopant source are formed above the substrate by printing.

Interactive learning in 2×2 normal form games by neural network agents

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spiliopoulos, Leonidas

2012-11-01

This paper models the learning process of populations of randomly rematched tabula rasa neural network (NN) agents playing randomly generated 2×2 normal form games of all strategic classes. This approach has greater external validity than the existing models in the literature, each of which is usually applicable to narrow subsets of classes of games (often a single game) and/or to fixed matching protocols. The learning prowess of NNs with hidden layers was impressive as they learned to play unique pure strategy equilibria with near certainty, adhered to principles of dominance and iterated dominance, and exhibited a preference for risk-dominant equilibria. In contrast, perceptron NNs were found to perform significantly worse than hidden layer NN agents and human subjects in experimental studies.

Feasibility of Computed Tomography-Guided Methods for Spatial Normalization of Dopamine Transporter Positron Emission Tomography Image

PubMed Central

Kim, Jin Su; Cho, Hanna; Choi, Jae Yong; Lee, Seung Ha; Ryu, Young Hoon; Lyoo, Chul Hyoung; Lee, Myung Sik

2015-01-01

Background Spatial normalization is a prerequisite step for analyzing positron emission tomography (PET) images both by using volume-of-interest (VOI) template and voxel-based analysis. Magnetic resonance (MR) or ligand-specific PET templates are currently used for spatial normalization of PET images. We used computed tomography (CT) images acquired with PET/CT scanner for the spatial normalization for [18F]-N-3-fluoropropyl-2-betacarboxymethoxy-3-beta-(4-iodophenyl) nortropane (FP-CIT) PET images and compared target-to-cerebellar standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) values with those obtained from MR- or PET-guided spatial normalization method in healthy controls and patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Methods We included 71 healthy controls and 56 patients with PD who underwent [18F]-FP-CIT PET scans with a PET/CT scanner and T1-weighted MR scans. Spatial normalization of MR images was done with a conventional spatial normalization tool (cvMR) and with DARTEL toolbox (dtMR) in statistical parametric mapping software. The CT images were modified in two ways, skull-stripping (ssCT) and intensity transformation (itCT). We normalized PET images with cvMR-, dtMR-, ssCT-, itCT-, and PET-guided methods by using specific templates for each modality and measured striatal SUVR with a VOI template. The SUVR values measured with FreeSurfer-generated VOIs (FSVOI) overlaid on original PET images were also used as a gold standard for comparison. Results The SUVR values derived from all four structure-guided spatial normalization methods were highly correlated with those measured with FSVOI (P < 0.0001). Putaminal SUVR values were highly effective for discriminating PD patients from controls. However, the PET-guided method excessively overestimated striatal SUVR values in the PD patients by more than 30% in caudate and putamen, and thereby spoiled the linearity between the striatal SUVR values in all subjects and showed lower disease discrimination ability. Two CT

A Method for Quantifying, Visualising, and Analysing Gastropod Shell Form

PubMed Central

Liew, Thor-Seng; Schilthuizen, Menno

2016-01-01

Quantitative analysis of organismal form is an important component for almost every branch of biology. Although generally considered an easily-measurable structure, the quantification of gastropod shell form is still a challenge because many shells lack homologous structures and have a spiral form that is difficult to capture with linear measurements. In view of this, we adopt the idea of theoretical modelling of shell form, in which the shell form is the product of aperture ontogeny profiles in terms of aperture growth trajectory that is quantified as curvature and torsion, and of aperture form that is represented by size and shape. We develop a workflow for the analysis of shell forms based on the aperture ontogeny profile, starting from the procedure of data preparation (retopologising the shell model), via data acquisition (calculation of aperture growth trajectory, aperture form and ontogeny axis), and data presentation (qualitative comparison between shell forms) and ending with data analysis (quantitative comparison between shell forms). We evaluate our methods on representative shells of the genera Opisthostoma and Plectostoma, which exhibit great variability in shell form. The outcome suggests that our method is a robust, reproducible, and versatile approach for the analysis of shell form. Finally, we propose several potential applications of our methods in functional morphology, theoretical modelling, taxonomy, and evolutionary biology. PMID:27280463

A method for estimating direct normal solar irradiation from satellite data for a tropical environment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Janjai, Serm

In order to investigate a potential use of concentrating solar power technologies and select an optimum site for these technologies, it is necessary to obtain information on the geographical distribution of direct normal solar irradiation over an area of interest. In this work, we have developed a method for estimating direct normal irradiation from satellite data for a tropical environment. The method starts with the estimation of global irradiation on a horizontal surface from MTSAT-1R satellite data and other ground-based ancillary data. Then a satellite-based diffuse fraction model was developed and used to estimate the diffuse component of the satellite-derivedmore » global irradiation. Based on this estimated global and diffuse irradiation and the solar radiation incident angle, the direct normal irradiation was finally calculated. To evaluate its performance, the method was used to estimate the monthly average hourly direct normal irradiation at seven pyrheliometer stations in Thailand. It was found that values of monthly average hourly direct normal irradiation from the measurements and those estimated from the proposed method are in reasonable agreement, with a root mean square difference of 16% and a mean bias of -1.6%, with respect to mean measured values. After the validation, this method was used to estimate the monthly average hourly direct normal irradiation over Thailand by using MTSAT-1R satellite data for the period from June 2005 to December 2008. Results from the calculation were displayed as hourly and yearly irradiation maps. These maps reveal that the direct normal irradiation in Thailand was strongly affected by the tropical monsoons and local topography of the country. (author)« less

Method of forming a joint

DOEpatents

Butt, Darryl Paul; Cutler, Raymond Ashton; Rynders, Steven Walton; Carolan, Michael Francis

2006-08-22

A method of joining at least two sintered bodies to form a composite structure, including providing a first multicomponent metallic oxide having a perovskitic or fluorite crystal structure; providing a second sintered body including a second multicomponent metallic oxide having a crystal structure of the same type as the first; and providing at an interface a joint material containing at least one metal oxide containing at least one metal identically contained in at least one of the first and second multicomponent metallic oxides. The joint material is free of cations of Si, Ge, Sn, Pb, P and Te and has a melting point below the sintering temperatures of both sintered bodies. The joint material is heated to a temperature above the melting point of the metal oxide(s) and below the sintering temperatures of the sintered bodies to form the joint. Structures containing such joints are also disclosed.

Normal contour error measurement on-machine and compensation method for polishing complex surface by MRF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Hua; Chen, Jihong; Wang, Baorui; Zheng, Yongcheng

2016-10-01

The Magnetorheological finishing (MRF) process, based on the dwell time method with the constant normal spacing for flexible polishing, would bring out the normal contour error in the fine polishing complex surface such as aspheric surface. The normal contour error would change the ribbon's shape and removal characteristics of consistency for MRF. Based on continuously scanning the normal spacing between the workpiece and the finder by the laser range finder, the novel method was put forward to measure the normal contour errors while polishing complex surface on the machining track. The normal contour errors was measured dynamically, by which the workpiece's clamping precision, multi-axis machining NC program and the dynamic performance of the MRF machine were achieved for the verification and security check of the MRF process. The unit for measuring the normal contour errors of complex surface on-machine was designed. Based on the measurement unit's results as feedback to adjust the parameters of the feed forward control and the multi-axis machining, the optimized servo control method was presented to compensate the normal contour errors. The experiment for polishing 180mm × 180mm aspherical workpiece of fused silica by MRF was set up to validate the method. The results show that the normal contour error was controlled in less than 10um. And the PV value of the polished surface accuracy was improved from 0.95λ to 0.09λ under the conditions of the same process parameters. The technology in the paper has been being applied in the PKC600-Q1 MRF machine developed by the China Academe of Engineering Physics for engineering application since 2014. It is being used in the national huge optical engineering for processing the ultra-precision optical parts.

Method for forming hermetic coatings for optical fibers

DOEpatents

Michalske, Terry A.; Rye, Robert R.; Smith, William L.

1993-01-01

A method for forming hermetic coatings on optical fibers by hot filament assisted chemical vapor deposition advantageously produces a desirable coating while maintaining the pristine strength of the pristine fiber. The hermetic coatings may be formed from a variety of substances, such as, for example, boron nitride and carbon.

Method for heating and forming a glass sheet

DOEpatents

Boaz, P.T.

1997-08-12

A method for heating and forming a glass sheet includes the steps of heating a glass sheet to at least a first predetermined temperature, applying microwave energy to the glass sheet to heat the glass sheet to at least a second predetermined temperature, cooling an outer surface of the glass sheet to at least a third predetermined temperature and forming the glass sheet using forming rollers to a predetermined configuration. 5 figs.

Comparison of Arterial Spin-labeling Perfusion Images at Different Spatial Normalization Methods Based on Voxel-based Statistical Analysis.

PubMed

Tani, Kazuki; Mio, Motohira; Toyofuku, Tatsuo; Kato, Shinichi; Masumoto, Tomoya; Ijichi, Tetsuya; Matsushima, Masatoshi; Morimoto, Shoichi; Hirata, Takumi

2017-01-01

Spatial normalization is a significant image pre-processing operation in statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis. The purpose of this study was to clarify the optimal method of spatial normalization for improving diagnostic accuracy in SPM analysis of arterial spin-labeling (ASL) perfusion images. We evaluated the SPM results of five spatial normalization methods obtained by comparing patients with Alzheimer's disease or normal pressure hydrocephalus complicated with dementia and cognitively healthy subjects. We used the following methods: 3DT1-conventional based on spatial normalization using anatomical images; 3DT1-DARTEL based on spatial normalization with DARTEL using anatomical images; 3DT1-conventional template and 3DT1-DARTEL template, created by averaging cognitively healthy subjects spatially normalized using the above methods; and ASL-DARTEL template created by averaging cognitively healthy subjects spatially normalized with DARTEL using ASL images only. Our results showed that ASL-DARTEL template was small compared with the other two templates. Our SPM results obtained with ASL-DARTEL template method were inaccurate. Also, there were no significant differences between 3DT1-conventional and 3DT1-DARTEL template methods. In contrast, the 3DT1-DARTEL method showed higher detection sensitivity, and precise anatomical location. Our SPM results suggest that we should perform spatial normalization with DARTEL using anatomical images.

Method of forming contacts for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Manning, Jane

2013-07-23

Methods of forming contacts for back-contact solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a thin dielectric layer on a substrate, forming a polysilicon layer on the thin dielectric layer, forming and patterning a solid-state p-type dopant source on the polysilicon layer, forming an n-type dopant source layer over exposed regions of the polysilicon layer and over a plurality of regions of the solid-state p-type dopant source, and heating the substrate to provide a plurality of n-type doped polysilicon regions among a plurality of p-type doped polysilicon regions.

Conjugate and method for forming aminomethyl phosphorus conjugates

DOEpatents

Katti, Kattesh V.; Berning, Douglas E.; Volkert, Wynn A.; Ketring, Alan R.; Churchill, Robert

1999-01-01

A method of forming phosphine-amine conjugates includes reacting a hydroxymethyl phosphine group of an amine-free first molecule with at least one free amine group of a second molecule to covalently bond the first molecule with the second molecule through an aminomethyl phosphorus linkage and the conjugates formed thereby.

Feasibility of Computed Tomography-Guided Methods for Spatial Normalization of Dopamine Transporter Positron Emission Tomography Image.

PubMed

Kim, Jin Su; Cho, Hanna; Choi, Jae Yong; Lee, Seung Ha; Ryu, Young Hoon; Lyoo, Chul Hyoung; Lee, Myung Sik

2015-01-01

Spatial normalization is a prerequisite step for analyzing positron emission tomography (PET) images both by using volume-of-interest (VOI) template and voxel-based analysis. Magnetic resonance (MR) or ligand-specific PET templates are currently used for spatial normalization of PET images. We used computed tomography (CT) images acquired with PET/CT scanner for the spatial normalization for [18F]-N-3-fluoropropyl-2-betacarboxymethoxy-3-beta-(4-iodophenyl) nortropane (FP-CIT) PET images and compared target-to-cerebellar standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) values with those obtained from MR- or PET-guided spatial normalization method in healthy controls and patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). We included 71 healthy controls and 56 patients with PD who underwent [18F]-FP-CIT PET scans with a PET/CT scanner and T1-weighted MR scans. Spatial normalization of MR images was done with a conventional spatial normalization tool (cvMR) and with DARTEL toolbox (dtMR) in statistical parametric mapping software. The CT images were modified in two ways, skull-stripping (ssCT) and intensity transformation (itCT). We normalized PET images with cvMR-, dtMR-, ssCT-, itCT-, and PET-guided methods by using specific templates for each modality and measured striatal SUVR with a VOI template. The SUVR values measured with FreeSurfer-generated VOIs (FSVOI) overlaid on original PET images were also used as a gold standard for comparison. The SUVR values derived from all four structure-guided spatial normalization methods were highly correlated with those measured with FSVOI (P < 0.0001). Putaminal SUVR values were highly effective for discriminating PD patients from controls. However, the PET-guided method excessively overestimated striatal SUVR values in the PD patients by more than 30% in caudate and putamen, and thereby spoiled the linearity between the striatal SUVR values in all subjects and showed lower disease discrimination ability. Two CT-guided methods showed comparable

Method of forming contacts for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Manning, Jane

2015-10-20

Methods of forming contacts for solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a silicon layer above a substrate, forming and patterning a solid-state p-type dopant source on the silicon layer, forming an n-type dopant source layer over exposed regions of the silicon layer and over a plurality of regions of the solid-state p-type dopant source, and heating the substrate to provide a plurality of n-type doped silicon regions among a plurality of p-type doped silicon regions.

Method of forming contacts for a back-contact solar cell

DOEpatents

Manning, Jane

2014-07-15

Methods of forming contacts for solar cells are described. In one embodiment, a method includes forming a silicon layer above a substrate, forming and patterning a solid-state p-type dopant source on the silicon layer, forming an n-type dopant source layer over exposed regions of the silicon layer and over a plurality of regions of the solid-state p-type dopant source, and heating the substrate to provide a plurality of n-type doped silicon regions among a plurality of p-type doped silicon regions.

Die singulation method and package formed thereby

DOEpatents

Anderson, Robert C [Tucson, AZ; Shul, Randy J [Albuquerque, NM; Clews, Peggy J [Tijeras, NM; Baker, Michael S [Albuquerque, NM; De Boer, Maarten P [Albuquerque, NM

2012-08-07

A method is disclosed for singulating die from a substrate having a sacrificial layer and one or more device layers, with a retainer being formed in the device layer(s) and anchored to the substrate. Deep Reactive Ion Etching (DRIE) etching of a trench through the substrate from the bottom side defines a shape for each die. A handle wafer is then attached to the bottom side of the substrate, and the sacrificial layer is etched to singulate the die and to form a frame from the retainer and the substrate. The frame and handle wafer, which retain the singulated die in place, can be attached together with a clamp or a clip and to form a package for the singulated die. One or more stops can be formed from the device layer(s) to limit a sliding motion of the singulated die.

Performance Evaluation and Online Realization of Data-driven Normalization Methods Used in LC/MS based Untargeted Metabolomics Analysis.

PubMed

Li, Bo; Tang, Jing; Yang, Qingxia; Cui, Xuejiao; Li, Shuang; Chen, Sijie; Cao, Quanxing; Xue, Weiwei; Chen, Na; Zhu, Feng

2016-12-13

In untargeted metabolomics analysis, several factors (e.g., unwanted experimental &biological variations and technical errors) may hamper the identification of differential metabolic features, which requires the data-driven normalization approaches before feature selection. So far, ≥16 normalization methods have been widely applied for processing the LC/MS based metabolomics data. However, the performance and the sample size dependence of those methods have not yet been exhaustively compared and no online tool for comparatively and comprehensively evaluating the performance of all 16 normalization methods has been provided. In this study, a comprehensive comparison on these methods was conducted. As a result, 16 methods were categorized into three groups based on their normalization performances across various sample sizes. The VSN, the Log Transformation and the PQN were identified as methods of the best normalization performance, while the Contrast consistently underperformed across all sub-datasets of different benchmark data. Moreover, an interactive web tool comprehensively evaluating the performance of 16 methods specifically for normalizing LC/MS based metabolomics data was constructed and hosted at http://server.idrb.cqu.edu.cn/MetaPre/. In summary, this study could serve as a useful guidance to the selection of suitable normalization methods in analyzing the LC/MS based metabolomics data.

Performance Evaluation and Online Realization of Data-driven Normalization Methods Used in LC/MS based Untargeted Metabolomics Analysis

PubMed Central

Li, Bo; Tang, Jing; Yang, Qingxia; Cui, Xuejiao; Li, Shuang; Chen, Sijie; Cao, Quanxing; Xue, Weiwei; Chen, Na; Zhu, Feng

2016-01-01

In untargeted metabolomics analysis, several factors (e.g., unwanted experimental & biological variations and technical errors) may hamper the identification of differential metabolic features, which requires the data-driven normalization approaches before feature selection. So far, ≥16 normalization methods have been widely applied for processing the LC/MS based metabolomics data. However, the performance and the sample size dependence of those methods have not yet been exhaustively compared and no online tool for comparatively and comprehensively evaluating the performance of all 16 normalization methods has been provided. In this study, a comprehensive comparison on these methods was conducted. As a result, 16 methods were categorized into three groups based on their normalization performances across various sample sizes. The VSN, the Log Transformation and the PQN were identified as methods of the best normalization performance, while the Contrast consistently underperformed across all sub-datasets of different benchmark data. Moreover, an interactive web tool comprehensively evaluating the performance of 16 methods specifically for normalizing LC/MS based metabolomics data was constructed and hosted at http://server.idrb.cqu.edu.cn/MetaPre/. In summary, this study could serve as a useful guidance to the selection of suitable normalization methods in analyzing the LC/MS based metabolomics data. PMID:27958387

Methodological study of affine transformations of gene expression data with proposed robust non-parametric multi-dimensional normalization method.

PubMed

Bengtsson, Henrik; Hössjer, Ola

2006-03-01

Low-level processing and normalization of microarray data are most important steps in microarray analysis, which have profound impact on downstream analysis. Multiple methods have been suggested to date, but it is not clear which is the best. It is therefore important to further study the different normalization methods in detail and the nature of microarray data in general. A methodological study of affine models for gene expression data is carried out. Focus is on two-channel comparative studies, but the findings generalize also to single- and multi-channel data. The discussion applies to spotted as well as in-situ synthesized microarray data. Existing normalization methods such as curve-fit ("lowess") normalization, parallel and perpendicular translation normalization, and quantile normalization, but also dye-swap normalization are revisited in the light of the affine model and their strengths and weaknesses are investigated in this context. As a direct result from this study, we propose a robust non-parametric multi-dimensional affine normalization method, which can be applied to any number of microarrays with any number of channels either individually or all at once. A high-quality cDNA microarray data set with spike-in controls is used to demonstrate the power of the affine model and the proposed normalization method. We find that an affine model can explain non-linear intensity-dependent systematic effects in observed log-ratios. Affine normalization removes such artifacts for non-differentially expressed genes and assures that symmetry between negative and positive log-ratios is obtained, which is fundamental when identifying differentially expressed genes. In addition, affine normalization makes the empirical distributions in different channels more equal, which is the purpose of quantile normalization, and may also explain why dye-swap normalization works or fails. All methods are made available in the aroma package, which is a platform

Evaluation of directional normalization methods for Landsat TM/ETM+ over primary Amazonian lowland forests

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Van doninck, Jasper; Tuomisto, Hanna

2017-06-01

Biodiversity mapping in extensive tropical forest areas poses a major challenge for the interpretation of Landsat images, because floristically clearly distinct forest types may show little difference in reflectance. In such cases, the effects of the bidirectional reflection distribution function (BRDF) can be sufficiently strong to cause erroneous image interpretation and classification. Since the opening of the Landsat archive in 2008, several BRDF normalization methods for Landsat have been developed. The simplest of these consist of an empirical view angle normalization, whereas more complex approaches apply the semi-empirical Ross-Li BRDF model and the MODIS MCD43-series of products to normalize directional Landsat reflectance to standard view and solar angles. Here we quantify the effect of surface anisotropy on Landsat TM/ETM+ images over old-growth Amazonian forests, and evaluate five angular normalization approaches. Even for the narrow swath of the Landsat sensors, we observed directional effects in all spectral bands. Those normalization methods that are based on removing the surface reflectance gradient as observed in each image were adequate to normalize TM/ETM+ imagery to nadir viewing, but were less suitable for multitemporal analysis when the solar vector varied strongly among images. Approaches based on the MODIS BRDF model parameters successfully reduced directional effects in the visible bands, but removed only half of the systematic errors in the infrared bands. The best results were obtained when the semi-empirical BRDF model was calibrated using pairs of Landsat observation. This method produces a single set of BRDF parameters, which can then be used to operationally normalize Landsat TM/ETM+ imagery over Amazonian forests to nadir viewing and a standard solar configuration.

Normalization Of Thermal-Radiation Form-Factor Matrix

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Tsuyuki, Glenn T.

1994-01-01

Report describes algorithm that adjusts form-factor matrix in TRASYS computer program, which calculates intraspacecraft radiative interchange among various surfaces and environmental heat loading from sources such as sun.

Experimental Method for Characterizing Electrical Steel Sheets in the Normal Direction

PubMed Central

Hihat, Nabil; Lecointe, Jean Philippe; Duchesne, Stephane; Napieralska, Ewa; Belgrand, Thierry

2010-01-01

This paper proposes an experimental method to characterise magnetic laminations in the direction normal to the sheet plane. The principle, which is based on a static excitation to avoid planar eddy currents, is explained and specific test benches are proposed. Measurements of the flux density are made with a sensor moving in and out of an air-gap. A simple analytical model is derived in order to determine the permeability in the normal direction. The experimental results for grain oriented steel sheets are presented and a comparison is provided with values obtained from literature. PMID:22163394

Influences of Normalization Method on Biomarker Discovery in Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry-Based Untargeted Metabolomics: What Should Be Considered?

PubMed

Chen, Jiaqing; Zhang, Pei; Lv, Mengying; Guo, Huimin; Huang, Yin; Zhang, Zunjian; Xu, Fengguo

2017-05-16

Data reduction techniques in gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics has made the following workflow of data analysis more lucid. However, the normalization process still perplexes researchers, and its effects are always ignored. In order to reveal the influences of normalization method, five representative normalization methods (mass spectrometry total useful signal, median, probabilistic quotient normalization, remove unwanted variation-random, and systematic ratio normalization) were compared in three real data sets with different types. First, data reduction techniques were used to refine the original data. Then, quality control samples and relative log abundance plots were utilized to evaluate the unwanted variations and the efficiencies of normalization process. Furthermore, the potential biomarkers which were screened out by the Mann-Whitney U test, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, random forest, and feature selection algorithm Boruta in different normalized data sets were compared. The results indicated the determination of the normalization method was difficult because the commonly accepted rules were easy to fulfill but different normalization methods had unforeseen influences on both the kind and number of potential biomarkers. Lastly, an integrated strategy for normalization method selection was recommended.

Form-Finding Using Nonlinear Analysis Method in Tensioned Fabric Structure in The Form of Handkerchief Surface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, MH Wan; Hadi, MN Abdul; Hooi Min, Yee

2018-04-01

Tensioned fabric structure with different surface form could be realized. Their variations as possible choice form of minimal surface for tensioned fabric structure have been studied. The form of used in TFS is Handkerchief Surface. Handkerchief Surface used in TFS because Handkerchief Surface is the form of minimal surface and Handkerchief Surface has not been studied by other researcher. Besides, no other work on Handkerchief Surface as idea in tensioned fabric structure has been found. The aim of the study is to propose converged shape of Handkerchief Surface with variable u=v=0.4 and u=v=1.0. The method used for Form-Finding is nonlinear analysis method. From the result, the surface of Handkerchief TFS model, u=v=0.4 and u=v=1.0 show the total warp and fill stress deviation is less than 0.01. The initial equilibrium shape of Handkerchief tensioned fabric structure model, u=v=0.4 and u=v=1.0 is corresponding to equal tension surface. Tensioned fabric structure in the form of Handikerchief Surface is a structurally viable surface form to be considered by engineer.

Evaluation of algorithm methods for fluorescence spectra of cancerous and normal human tissues

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pu, Yang; Wang, Wubao; Alfano, Robert R.

2016-03-01

The paper focus on the various algorithms on to unravel the fluorescence spectra by unmixing methods to identify cancerous and normal human tissues from the measured fluorescence spectroscopy. The biochemical or morphologic changes that cause fluorescence spectra variations would appear earlier than the histological approach; therefore, fluorescence spectroscopy holds a great promise as clinical tool for diagnosing early stage of carcinomas and other deceases for in vivo use. The method can further identify tissue biomarkers by decomposing the spectral contributions of different fluorescent molecules of interest. In this work, we investigate the performance of blind source un-mixing methods (backward model) and spectral fitting approaches (forward model) in decomposing the contributions of key fluorescent molecules from the tissue mixture background when certain selected excitation wavelength is applied. Pairs of adenocarcinoma as well as normal tissues confirmed by pathologist were excited by selective wavelength of 340 nm. The emission spectra of resected fresh tissue were used to evaluate the relative changes of collagen, reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), and Flavin by various spectral un-mixing methods. Two categories of algorithms: forward methods and Blind Source Separation [such as Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Independent Component Analysis (ICA), and Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF)] will be introduced and evaluated. The purpose of the spectral analysis is to discard the redundant information which conceals the difference between these two types of tissues, but keep their diagnostically significance. The facts predicted by different methods were compared to the gold standard of histopathology. The results indicate that these key fluorophores within tissue, e.g. tryptophan, collagen, and NADH, and flavin, show differences of relative contents of fluorophores among different types of human cancer and normal tissues. The

A multistage gene normalization system integrating multiple effective methods.

PubMed

Li, Lishuang; Liu, Shanshan; Li, Lihua; Fan, Wenting; Huang, Degen; Zhou, Huiwei

2013-01-01

Gene/protein recognition and normalization is an important preliminary step for many biological text mining tasks. In this paper, we present a multistage gene normalization system which consists of four major subtasks: pre-processing, dictionary matching, ambiguity resolution and filtering. For the first subtask, we apply the gene mention tagger developed in our earlier work, which achieves an F-score of 88.42% on the BioCreative II GM testing set. In the stage of dictionary matching, the exact matching and approximate matching between gene names and the EntrezGene lexicon have been combined. For the ambiguity resolution subtask, we propose a semantic similarity disambiguation method based on Munkres' Assignment Algorithm. At the last step, a filter based on Wikipedia has been built to remove the false positives. Experimental results show that the presented system can achieve an F-score of 90.1%, outperforming most of the state-of-the-art systems.

Development of normalized spectra manipulating spectrophotometric methods for simultaneous determination of Dimenhydrinate and Cinnarizine binary mixture.

PubMed

Lamie, Nesrine T; Yehia, Ali M

2015-01-01

Simultaneous determination of Dimenhydrinate (DIM) and Cinnarizine (CIN) binary mixture with simple procedures were applied. Three ratio manipulating spectrophotometric methods were proposed. Normalized spectrum was utilized as a divisor for simultaneous determination of both drugs with minimum manipulation steps. The proposed methods were simultaneous constant center (SCC), simultaneous derivative ratio spectrophotometry (S(1)DD) and ratio H-point standard addition method (RHPSAM). Peak amplitudes at isoabsorptive point in ratio spectra were measured for determination of total concentrations of DIM and CIN. For subsequent determination of DIM concentration, difference between peak amplitudes at 250 nm and 267 nm were used in SCC. While the peak amplitude at 275 nm of the first derivative ratio spectra were used in S(1)DD; then subtraction of DIM concentration from the total one provided the CIN concentration. The last RHPSAM was a dual wavelength method in which two calibrations were plotted at 220 nm and 230 nm. The coordinates of intersection point between the two calibration lines were corresponding to DIM and CIN concentrations. The proposed methods were successfully applied for combined dosage form analysis, Moreover statistical comparison between the proposed and reported spectrophotometric methods was applied. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Method for forming a nano-textured substrate

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Jeong, Sangmoo; Hu, Liangbing; Cui, Yi

A method for forming a nano-textured surface on a substrate is disclosed. An illustrative embodiment of the present invention comprises dispensing of a nanoparticle ink of nanoparticles and solvent onto the surface of a substrate, distributing the ink to form substantially uniform, liquid nascent layer of the ink, and enabling the solvent to evaporate from the nanoparticle ink thereby inducing the nanoparticles to assemble into an texture layer. Methods in accordance with the present invention enable rapid formation of large-area substrates having a nano-textured surface. Embodiments of the present invention are well suited for texturing substrates using high-speed, large scale,more » roll-to-roll coating equipment, such as that used in office product, film coating, and flexible packaging applications. Further, embodiments of the present invention are well suited for use with rigid or flexible substrates.« less

METHOD OF FORMING TANTALUM SILICIDE ON TANTALUM SURFACES

DOEpatents

Bowman, M.G.; Krikorian, N.H.

1961-10-01

A method is described for forming a non-corrosive silicide coating on tantalum. The coating is made through the heating of trirhenium silicides in contact with the tantalum object to approximately 1400 deg C at which temperature trirhenium silicide decomposes into rhenium and gaseous silicons. The silicon vapor reacts with the tantalum surface to form a tantalum silicide layer approximately 10 microns thick. (AEC)

Multi-satellites normalization of the FengYun-2s visible detectors by the MVP method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Yuan; Rong, Zhi-guo; Zhang, Li-jun; Sun, Ling; Xu, Na

2013-08-01

After January 13, 2012, FY-2F had successfully launched, the total number of the in orbit operating FengYun-2 geostationary meteorological satellites reached three. For accurate and efficient application of multi-satellite observation data, the study of the multi-satellites normalization of the visible detector was urgent. The method required to be non-rely on the in orbit calibration. So as to validate the calibration results before and after the launch; calculate day updating surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF); at the same time track the long-term decay phenomenon of the detector's linearity and responsivity. By research of the typical BRDF model, the normalization method was designed. Which could effectively solute the interference of surface directional reflectance characteristics, non-rely on visible detector in orbit calibration. That was the Median Vertical Plane (MVP) method. The MVP method was based on the symmetry of principal plane, which were the directional reflective properties of the general surface targets. Two geostationary satellites were taken as the endpoint of a segment, targets on the intersecting line of the segment's MVP and the earth surface could be used as a normalization reference target (NRT). Observation on the NRT by two satellites at the moment the sun passing through the MVP brought the same observation zenith, solar zenith, and opposite relative direction angle. At that time, the linear regression coefficients of the satellite output data were the required normalization coefficients. The normalization coefficients between FY-2D, FY-2E and FY-2F were calculated, and the self-test method of the normalized results was designed and realized. The results showed the differences of the responsivity between satellites could up to 10.1%(FY-2E to FY-2F); the differences of the output reflectance calculated by the broadcast calibration look-up table could up to 21.1%(FY-2D to FY-2F); the differences of the output

Datum Feature Extraction and Deformation Analysis Method Based on Normal Vector of Point Cloud

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, W.; Wang, J.; Jin, F.; Liang, Z.; Yang, Y.

2018-04-01

In order to solve the problem lacking applicable analysis method in the application of three-dimensional laser scanning technology to the field of deformation monitoring, an efficient method extracting datum feature and analysing deformation based on normal vector of point cloud was proposed. Firstly, the kd-tree is used to establish the topological relation. Datum points are detected by tracking the normal vector of point cloud determined by the normal vector of local planar. Then, the cubic B-spline curve fitting is performed on the datum points. Finally, datum elevation and the inclination angle of the radial point are calculated according to the fitted curve and then the deformation information was analyzed. The proposed approach was verified on real large-scale tank data set captured with terrestrial laser scanner in a chemical plant. The results show that the method could obtain the entire information of the monitor object quickly and comprehensively, and reflect accurately the datum feature deformation.

Hollow fiber membranes and methods for forming same

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Bhandari, Dhaval Ajit; McCloskey, Patrick Joseph; Howson, Paul Edward

2016-03-22

The invention provides improved hollow fiber membranes having at least two layers, and methods for forming the same. The methods include co-extruding a first composition, a second composition, and a third composition to form a dual layer hollow fiber membrane. The first composition includes a glassy polymer; the second composition includes a polysiloxane; and the third composition includes a bore fluid. The dual layer hollow fiber membranes include a first layer and a second layer, the first layer being a porous layer which includes the glassy polymer of the first composition, and the second layer being a polysiloxane layer whichmore » includes the polysiloxane of the second composition.« less

A feasibility study in adapting Shamos Bickel and Hodges Lehman estimator into T-Method for normalization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Harudin, N.; Jamaludin, K. R.; Muhtazaruddin, M. Nabil; Ramlie, F.; Muhamad, Wan Zuki Azman Wan

2018-03-01

T-Method is one of the techniques governed under Mahalanobis Taguchi System that developed specifically for multivariate data predictions. Prediction using T-Method is always possible even with very limited sample size. The user of T-Method required to clearly understanding the population data trend since this method is not considering the effect of outliers within it. Outliers may cause apparent non-normality and the entire classical methods breakdown. There exist robust parameter estimate that provide satisfactory results when the data contain outliers, as well as when the data are free of them. The robust parameter estimates of location and scale measure called Shamos Bickel (SB) and Hodges Lehman (HL) which are used as a comparable method to calculate the mean and standard deviation of classical statistic is part of it. Embedding these into T-Method normalize stage feasibly help in enhancing the accuracy of the T-Method as well as analysing the robustness of T-method itself. However, the result of higher sample size case study shows that T-method is having lowest average error percentages (3.09%) on data with extreme outliers. HL and SB is having lowest error percentages (4.67%) for data without extreme outliers with minimum error differences compared to T-Method. The error percentages prediction trend is vice versa for lower sample size case study. The result shows that with minimum sample size, which outliers always be at low risk, T-Method is much better on that, while higher sample size with extreme outliers, T-Method as well show better prediction compared to others. For the case studies conducted in this research, it shows that normalization of T-Method is showing satisfactory results and it is not feasible to adapt HL and SB or normal mean and standard deviation into it since it’s only provide minimum effect of percentages errors. Normalization using T-method is still considered having lower risk towards outlier’s effect.

High temperature methods for forming oxidizer fuel

DOEpatents

Bravo, Jose Luis [Houston, TX

2011-01-11

A method of treating a formation fluid includes providing formation fluid from a subsurface in situ heat treatment process. The formation fluid is separated to produce a liquid stream and a first gas stream. The first gas stream includes carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, hydrocarbons, hydrogen or mixtures thereof. Molecular oxygen is separated from air to form a molecular oxygen stream comprising molecular oxygen. The first gas stream is combined with the molecular oxygen stream to form a combined stream comprising molecular oxygen and the first gas stream. The combined stream is provided to one or more downhole burners.

Metalorganic deposition method for forming epitaxial thallium-based copper oxide superconducting films

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Olsen, W.L.; Eddy, M.M.; Hammond, R.B.

1991-12-10

This patent describes a method for producing a superconducting article comprising an oriented metal oxide superconducting layer containing thallium, optionally calcium, barium and copper, the layer being at least 30 {Angstrom} and having a c-axis oriented normal to a crystalline substrate surface. It comprises coating the crystalline substrate surface with a solution of thallium, optionally calcium, barium and copper carboxylate soaps dispersed in a medium of hydrocarbons of halohydrocarbons with a stoichiometric metal ratio to form the oxide superconducting layer, prepyrolyzing the soaps coated on the substrate at a temperature of 350{degrees} C. or less in an oxygen containing atmosphere,more » and pyrolyzing the soaps at a temperature in the range of 800{degrees} - 900{degrees} C. in the presence of oxygen and an overpressure of thallium for a sufficient time to produce the superconducting layer on the substrate, wherein usable portions of the superconducting layer are epitaxial to the substrate.« less

Experimental Validation of Normalized Uniform Load Surface Curvature Method for Damage Localization

PubMed Central

Jung, Ho-Yeon; Sung, Seung-Hoon; Jung, Hyung-Jo

2015-01-01

In this study, we experimentally validated the normalized uniform load surface (NULS) curvature method, which has been developed recently to assess damage localization in beam-type structures. The normalization technique allows for the accurate assessment of damage localization with greater sensitivity irrespective of the damage location. In this study, damage to a simply supported beam was numerically and experimentally investigated on the basis of the changes in the NULS curvatures, which were estimated from the modal flexibility matrices obtained from the acceleration responses under an ambient excitation. Two damage scenarios were considered for the single damage case as well as the multiple damages case by reducing the bending stiffness (EI) of the affected element(s). Numerical simulations were performed using MATLAB as a preliminary step. During the validation experiments, a series of tests were performed. It was found that the damage locations could be identified successfully without any false-positive or false-negative detections using the proposed method. For comparison, the damage detection performances were compared with those of two other well-known methods based on the modal flexibility matrix, namely, the uniform load surface (ULS) method and the ULS curvature method. It was confirmed that the proposed method is more effective for investigating the damage locations of simply supported beams than the two conventional methods in terms of sensitivity to damage under measurement noise. PMID:26501286

Reconstruction of instantaneous surface normal velocity of a vibrating structure using interpolated time-domain equivalent source method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Geng, Lin; Bi, Chuan-Xing; Xie, Feng; Zhang, Xiao-Zheng

2018-07-01

Interpolated time-domain equivalent source method is extended to reconstruct the instantaneous surface normal velocity of a vibrating structure by using the time-evolving particle velocity as the input, which provides a non-contact way to overall understand the instantaneous vibration behavior of the structure. In this method, the time-evolving particle velocity in the near field is first modeled by a set of equivalent sources positioned inside the vibrating structure, and then the integrals of equivalent source strengths are solved by an iterative solving process and are further used to calculate the instantaneous surface normal velocity. An experiment of a semi-cylindrical steel plate impacted by a steel ball is investigated to examine the ability of the extended method, where the time-evolving normal particle velocity and pressure on the hologram surface measured by a Microflown pressure-velocity probe are used as the inputs of the extended method and the method based on pressure measurements, respectively, and the instantaneous surface normal velocity of the plate measured by a laser Doppler vibrometry is used as the reference for comparison. The experimental results demonstrate that the extended method is a powerful tool to visualize the instantaneous surface normal velocity of a vibrating structure in both time and space domains and can obtain more accurate results than that of the method based on pressure measurements.

Method of forming a ceramic matrix composite and a ceramic matrix component

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

de Diego, Peter; Zhang, James

A method of forming a ceramic matrix composite component includes providing a formed ceramic member having a cavity, filling at least a portion of the cavity with a ceramic foam. The ceramic foam is deposited on a barrier layer covering at least one internal passage of the cavity. The method includes processing the formed ceramic member and ceramic foam to obtain a ceramic matrix composite component. Also provided is a method of forming a ceramic matrix composite blade and a ceramic matrix composite component.

Free-form surface design method for a collimator TIR lens.

PubMed

Tsai, Chung-Yu

2016-04-01

A free-form (FF) surface design method is proposed for a general axial-symmetrical collimator system consisting of a light source and a total internal reflection lens with two coupled FF boundary surfaces. The profiles of the boundary surfaces are designed using a FF surface construction method such that each incident ray is directed (refracted and reflected) in such a way as to form a specified image pattern on the target plane. The light ray paths within the system are analyzed using an exact analytical model and a skew-ray tracing approach. In addition, the validity of the proposed FF design method is demonstrated by means of ZEMAX simulations. It is shown that the illumination distribution formed on the target plane is in good agreement with that specified by the user. The proposed surface construction method is mathematically straightforward and easily implemented in computer code. As such, it provides a useful tool for the design and analysis of general axial-symmetrical optical systems.

Shear Stress-Normal Stress (Pressure) Ratio Decides Forming Callus in Patients with Diabetic Neuropathy

PubMed Central

Noguchi, Hiroshi; Takehara, Kimie; Ohashi, Yumiko; Suzuki, Ryo; Yamauchi, Toshimasa; Kadowaki, Takashi; Sanada, Hiromi

2016-01-01

Aim. Callus is a risk factor, leading to severe diabetic foot ulcer; thus, prevention of callus formation is important. However, normal stress (pressure) and shear stress associated with callus have not been clarified. Additionally, as new valuables, a shear stress-normal stress (pressure) ratio (SPR) was examined. The purpose was to clarify the external force associated with callus formation in patients with diabetic neuropathy. Methods. The external force of the 1st, 2nd, and 5th metatarsal head (MTH) as callus predilection regions was measured. The SPR was calculated by dividing shear stress by normal stress (pressure), concretely, peak values (SPR-p) and time integral values (SPR-i). The optimal cut-off point was determined. Results. Callus formation region of the 1st and 2nd MTH had high SPR-i rather than noncallus formation region. The cut-off value of the 1st MTH was 0.60 and the 2nd MTH was 0.50. For the 5th MTH, variables pertaining to the external forces could not be determined to be indicators of callus formation because of low accuracy. Conclusions. The callus formation cut-off values of the 1st and 2nd MTH were clarified. In the future, it will be necessary to confirm the effect of using appropriate footwear and gait training on lowering SPR-i. PMID:28050567

SLOCC classification of n qubits invoking the proportional relationships for spectrums and standard Jordan normal forms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Dafa

2018-01-01

We investigate the proportional relationships for spectrums and standard Jordan normal forms (SJNFs) of the 4 by 4 matrices constructed from coefficient matrices of two SLOCC (stochastic local operations and classical communication) equivalent states of n qubits. The proportional relationships permit a reduction of SLOCC classification of n (≥ 4) qubits to a classification of 4 by 4 complex matrices. Invoking the proportional relationships for spectrums and SJNFs, pure states of n (≥ 4) qubits are partitioned into 12 groups or less and 34 families or less under SLOCC, respectively. Specially, it is true for four qubits.

Method for forming H2-permselective oxide membranes

DOEpatents

Gavalas, George R.; Nam, Suk Woo; Tsapatsis, Michael; Kim, Soojin

1995-01-01

Methods of forming permselective oxide membranes that are highly selective to permeation of hydrogen by chemical deposition of reactants in the pore of porous tubes, such as Vycor.TM. glass or Al.sub.2 O.sub.3 tubes. The porous tubes have pores extending through the tube wall. The process involves forming a stream containing a first reactant of the formula RX.sub.n, wherein R is silicon, titanium, boron or aluminum, X is chlorine, bromine or iodine, and n is a number which is equal to the valence of R; and forming another stream containing water vapor as the second reactant. Both of the reactant streams are passed along either the outside or the inside surface of a porous tube and the streams react in the pores of the porous tube to form a nonporous layer of R-oxide in the pores. The membranes are formed by the hydrolysis of the respective halides. In another embodiment, the first reactant stream contains a first reactant having the formula SiH.sub.n Cl.sub.4-n where n is 1, 2 or 3; and the second reactant stream contains water vapor and oxygen. In still another embodiment the first reactant stream containing a first reactant selected from the group consisting of Cl.sub.3 SiOSiCl.sub.3, Cl.sub.3 SiOSiCl.sub.2 OSiCl.sub.3, and mixtures thereof and the second reactant stream contains water vapor. In still another embodiment, membrane formation is carried out by an alternating flow deposition method. This involves a sequence of cycles, each cycle comprising introduction of the halide-containing stream and allowance of a specific time for reaction followed by purge and flow of the water vapor containing stream for a specific length of time. In all embodiments the nonporous layers formed are selectively permeable to hydrogen.

Method for forming energetic nanopowders

DOEpatents

Lee, Kien-Yin; Asay, Blaine W.; Kennedy, James E.

2013-10-15

A method for the preparation of neat energetic powders, having nanometer dimensions, is described herein. For these neat powder, a solution of a chosen energetic material is prepared in an aprotic solvent and later combined with liquid hexane that is miscible with such solvent. The energetic material chosen is less soluble in the liquid hexane than in the aprotic solvent and the liquid hexane is cooled to a temperature that is below that of the solvent solution. In order to form a precipitate of said neat powders, the solvent solution is rapidly combined with the liquid hexane. When the resulting precipitate is collected, it may be dried and filtered to yield an energetic nanopowder material.

Methods for forming wellbores in heated formations

DOEpatents

Guimerans, Rosalvina Ramona; Mansure, Arthur James

2012-09-25

A method for forming a wellbore in a heated formation includes flowing liquid cooling fluid to a bottom hole assembly in a wellbore in a heated formation. At least a portion of the liquid cooling fluid is vaporized at or near a region to be cooled. Vaporizing the liquid cooling fluid absorbs heat from the region to be cooled.

Method of forming oriented block copolymer line patterns, block copolymer line patterns formed thereby, and their use to form patterned articles

DOEpatents

Russell, Thomas P.; Hong, Sung Woo; Lee, Doug Hyun; Park, Soojin; Xu, Ting

2015-10-13

A block copolymer film having a line pattern with a high degree of long-range order is formed by a method that includes forming a block copolymer film on a substrate surface with parallel facets, and annealing the block copolymer film to form an annealed block copolymer film having linear microdomains parallel to the substrate surface and orthogonal to the parallel facets of the substrate. The line-patterned block copolymer films are useful for the fabrication of magnetic storage media, polarizing devices, and arrays of nanowires.

Method of forming oriented block copolymer line patterns, block copolymer line patterns formed thereby, and their use to form patterned articles

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Russell, Thomas P.; Hong, Sung Woo; Lee, Dong Hyun

A block copolymer film having a line pattern with a high degree of long-range order is formed by a method that includes forming a block copolymer film on a substrate surface with parallel facets, and annealing the block copolymer film to form an annealed block copolymer film having linear microdomains parallel to the substrate surface and orthogonal to the parallel facets of the substrate. The line-patterned block copolymer films are useful for the fabrication of magnetic storage media, polarizing devices, and arrays of nanowires.

A Bootstrap Based Measure Robust to the Choice of Normalization Methods for Detecting Rhythmic Features in High Dimensional Data.

PubMed

Larriba, Yolanda; Rueda, Cristina; Fernández, Miguel A; Peddada, Shyamal D

2018-01-01

Motivation: Gene-expression data obtained from high throughput technologies are subject to various sources of noise and accordingly the raw data are pre-processed before formally analyzed. Normalization of the data is a key pre-processing step, since it removes systematic variations across arrays. There are numerous normalization methods available in the literature. Based on our experience, in the context of oscillatory systems, such as cell-cycle, circadian clock, etc., the choice of the normalization method may substantially impact the determination of a gene to be rhythmic. Thus rhythmicity of a gene can purely be an artifact of how the data were normalized. Since the determination of rhythmic genes is an important component of modern toxicological and pharmacological studies, it is important to determine truly rhythmic genes that are robust to the choice of a normalization method. Results: In this paper we introduce a rhythmicity measure and a bootstrap methodology to detect rhythmic genes in an oscillatory system. Although the proposed methodology can be used for any high-throughput gene expression data, in this paper we illustrate the proposed methodology using several publicly available circadian clock microarray gene-expression datasets. We demonstrate that the choice of normalization method has very little effect on the proposed methodology. Specifically, for any pair of normalization methods considered in this paper, the resulting values of the rhythmicity measure are highly correlated. Thus it suggests that the proposed measure is robust to the choice of a normalization method. Consequently, the rhythmicity of a gene is potentially not a mere artifact of the normalization method used. Lastly, as demonstrated in the paper, the proposed bootstrap methodology can also be used for simulating data for genes participating in an oscillatory system using a reference dataset. Availability: A user friendly code implemented in R language can be downloaded from http://www.eio.uva.es/~miguel/robustdetectionprocedure.html.

A Bootstrap Based Measure Robust to the Choice of Normalization Methods for Detecting Rhythmic Features in High Dimensional Data

PubMed Central

Larriba, Yolanda; Rueda, Cristina; Fernández, Miguel A.; Peddada, Shyamal D.

2018-01-01

Motivation: Gene-expression data obtained from high throughput technologies are subject to various sources of noise and accordingly the raw data are pre-processed before formally analyzed. Normalization of the data is a key pre-processing step, since it removes systematic variations across arrays. There are numerous normalization methods available in the literature. Based on our experience, in the context of oscillatory systems, such as cell-cycle, circadian clock, etc., the choice of the normalization method may substantially impact the determination of a gene to be rhythmic. Thus rhythmicity of a gene can purely be an artifact of how the data were normalized. Since the determination of rhythmic genes is an important component of modern toxicological and pharmacological studies, it is important to determine truly rhythmic genes that are robust to the choice of a normalization method. Results: In this paper we introduce a rhythmicity measure and a bootstrap methodology to detect rhythmic genes in an oscillatory system. Although the proposed methodology can be used for any high-throughput gene expression data, in this paper we illustrate the proposed methodology using several publicly available circadian clock microarray gene-expression datasets. We demonstrate that the choice of normalization method has very little effect on the proposed methodology. Specifically, for any pair of normalization methods considered in this paper, the resulting values of the rhythmicity measure are highly correlated. Thus it suggests that the proposed measure is robust to the choice of a normalization method. Consequently, the rhythmicity of a gene is potentially not a mere artifact of the normalization method used. Lastly, as demonstrated in the paper, the proposed bootstrap methodology can also be used for simulating data for genes participating in an oscillatory system using a reference dataset. Availability: A user friendly code implemented in R language can be downloaded from http

Explicit solutions of normal form of driven oscillatory systems in entrainment bands

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsarouhas, George E.; Ross, John

1988-11-01

As in a prior article (Ref. 1), we consider an oscillatory dissipative system driven by external sinusoidal perturbations of given amplitude Q and frequency ω. The kinetic equations are transformed to normal form and solved for small Q near a Hopf bifurcation to oscillations in the autonomous system. Whereas before we chose irrational ratios of the frequency of the autonomous system ωn to ω, with quasiperiodic response of the system to the perturbation, we now choose rational coprime ratios, with periodic response (entrainment). The dissipative system has either two variables or is adequately described by two variables near the bifurcation. We obtain explicit solutions and develop these in detail for ωn/ω=1; 1:2; 2:1; 1:3; 3:1. We choose a specific dissipative model (Brusselator) and test the theory by comparison with full numerical solutions. The analytic solutions of the theory give an excellent approximation for the autonomous system near the bifurcation. The theoretically predicted and calculated entrainment bands agree very well for small Q in the vicinity of the bifurcation (small μ); deviations increase with increasing Q and μ. The theory is applicable to one or two external periodic perturbations.

Normal modes of a small gamelan gong.

PubMed

Perrin, Robert; Elford, Daniel P; Chalmers, Luke; Swallowe, Gerry M; Moore, Thomas R; Hamdan, Sinin; Halkon, Benjamin J

2014-10-01

Studies have been made of the normal modes of a 20.7 cm diameter steel gamelan gong. A finite-element model has been constructed and its predictions for normal modes compared with experimental results obtained using electronic speckle pattern interferometry. Agreement was reasonable in view of the lack of precision in the manufacture of the instrument. The results agree with expectations for an axially symmetric system subject to small symmetry breaking. The extent to which the results obey Chladni's law is discussed. Comparison with vibrational and acoustical spectra enabled the identification of the small number of modes responsible for the sound output when played normally. Evidence of non-linear behavior was found, mainly in the form of subharmonics of true modes. Experiments using scanning laser Doppler vibrometry gave satisfactory agreement with the other methods.

Accelerated in-vitro release testing methods for extended-release parenteral dosage forms.

PubMed

Shen, Jie; Burgess, Diane J

2012-07-01

This review highlights current methods and strategies for accelerated in-vitro drug release testing of extended-release parenteral dosage forms such as polymeric microparticulate systems, lipid microparticulate systems, in-situ depot-forming systems and implants. Extended-release parenteral dosage forms are typically designed to maintain the effective drug concentration over periods of weeks, months or even years. Consequently, 'real-time' in-vitro release tests for these dosage forms are often run over a long time period. Accelerated in-vitro release methods can provide rapid evaluation and therefore are desirable for quality control purposes. To this end, different accelerated in-vitro release methods using United States Pharmacopeia (USP) apparatus have been developed. Different mechanisms of accelerating drug release from extended-release parenteral dosage forms, along with the accelerated in-vitro release testing methods currently employed are discussed. Accelerated in-vitro release testing methods with good discriminatory ability are critical for quality control of extended-release parenteral products. Methods that can be used in the development of in-vitro-in-vivo correlation (IVIVC) are desirable; however, for complex parenteral products this may not always be achievable. © 2012 The Authors. JPP © 2012 Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Accelerated in vitro release testing methods for extended release parenteral dosage forms

PubMed Central

Shen, Jie; Burgess, Diane J.

2012-01-01

Objectives This review highlights current methods and strategies for accelerated in vitro drug release testing of extended release parenteral dosage forms such as polymeric microparticulate systems, lipid microparticulate systems, in situ depot-forming systems, and implants. Key findings Extended release parenteral dosage forms are typically designed to maintain the effective drug concentration over periods of weeks, months or even years. Consequently, “real-time” in vitro release tests for these dosage forms are often run over a long time period. Accelerated in vitro release methods can provide rapid evaluation and therefore are desirable for quality control purposes. To this end, different accelerated in vitro release methods using United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) apparatus have been developed. Different mechanisms of accelerating drug release from extended release parenteral dosage forms, along with the accelerated in vitro release testing methods currently employed are discussed. Conclusions Accelerated in vitro release testing methods with good discriminatory ability are critical for quality control of extended release parenteral products. Methods that can be used in the development of in vitro-in vivo correlation (IVIVC) are desirable, however for complex parenteral products this may not always be achievable. PMID:22686344

Measurement of aspheric mirror by nanoprofiler using normal vector tracing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kitayama, Takao; Shiraji, Hiroki; Yamamura, Kazuya; Endo, Katsuyoshi

2016-09-01

Aspheric or free-form optics with high accuracy are necessary in many fields such as third-generation synchrotron radiation and extreme-ultraviolet lithography. Therefore the demand of measurement method for aspherical or free-form surface with nanometer accuracy increases. Purpose of our study is to develop a non-contact measurement technology for aspheric or free-form surfaces directly with high repeatability. To achieve this purpose we have developed threedimensional Nanoprofiler which detects normal vectors of sample surface. The measurement principle is based on the straightness of laser light and the accurate motion of rotational goniometers. This machine consists of four rotational stages, one translational stage and optical head which has the quadrant photodiode (QPD) and laser source. In this measurement method, we conform the incident light beam to reflect the beam by controlling five stages and determine the normal vectors and the coordinates of the surface from signal of goniometers, translational stage and QPD. We can obtain three-dimensional figure from the normal vectors and their coordinates by surface reconstruction algorithm. To evaluate performance of this machine we measure a concave aspheric mirror with diameter of 150 mm. As a result we achieve to measure large area of 150mm diameter. And we observe influence of systematic errors which the machine has. Then we simulated the influence and subtracted it from measurement result.

A Comparison of Normal and Elliptical Estimation Methods in Structural Equation Models.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schumacker, Randall E.; Cheevatanarak, Suchittra

Monte Carlo simulation compared chi-square statistics, parameter estimates, and root mean square error of approximation values using normal and elliptical estimation methods. Three research conditions were imposed on the simulated data: sample size, population contamination percent, and kurtosis. A Bentler-Weeks structural model established the…

Article, component, and method of forming an article

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lacy, Benjamin Paul; Itzel, Gary Michael; Kottilingam, Srikanth Chandrudu

An article and method of forming an article are provided. The article includes a body portion separating an inner region and an outer region, an aperture in the body portion, the aperture fluidly connecting the inner region to the outer region, and a conduit extending from an outer surface of the body portion at the aperture and being arranged and disposed to controllably direct fluid from the inner region to the outer region. The method includes providing a body portion separating an inner region and an outer region, providing an aperture in the body portion, and forming a conduit overmore » the aperture, the conduit extending from an outer surface of the body portion and being arranged and disposed to controllably direct fluid from the inner region to the outer region. The article is arranged and disposed for insertion within a hot gas path component.« less

Method for forming H2-permselective oxide membranes

DOEpatents

Gavalas, G.R.; Nam, S.W.; Tsapatsis, M.; Kim, S.

1995-09-26

Methods are disclosed for forming permselective oxide membranes that are highly selective to permeation of hydrogen by chemical deposition of reactants in the pore of porous tubes, such as Vycor{trademark} glass or Al{sub 2}O{sub 3} tubes. The porous tubes have pores extending through the tube wall. The process involves forming a stream containing a first reactant of the formula RX{sub n}, wherein R is silicon, titanium, boron or aluminum, X is chlorine, bromine or iodine, and n is a number which is equal to the valence of R; and forming another stream containing water vapor as the second reactant. Both of the reactant streams are passed along either the outside or the inside surface of a porous tube and the streams react in the pores of the porous tube to form a nonporous layer of R-oxide in the pores. The membranes are formed by the hydrolysis of the respective halides. In another embodiment, the first reactant stream contains a first reactant having the formula SiH{sub n}Cl{sub 4{minus}n} where n is 1, 2 or 3; and the second reactant stream contains water vapor and oxygen. In still another embodiment the first reactant stream containing a first reactant selected from the group consisting of Cl{sub 3}SiOSiCl{sub 3}, Cl{sub 3}SiOSiCl{sub 2}OSiCl{sub 3}, and mixtures thereof and the second reactant stream contains water vapor. In still another embodiment, membrane formation is carried out by an alternating flow deposition method. This involves a sequence of cycles, each cycle comprising introduction of the halide-containing stream and allowance of a specific time for reaction followed by purge and flow of the water vapor containing stream for a specific length of time. In all embodiments the nonporous layers formed are selectively permeable to hydrogen. 11 figs.

A Rapid Method to Achieve Aero-Engine Blade Form Detection

PubMed Central

Sun, Bin; Li, Bing

2015-01-01

This paper proposes a rapid method to detect aero-engine blade form, according to the characteristics of an aero-engine blade surface. This method first deduces an inclination error model in free-form surface measurements based on the non-contact laser triangulation principle. Then a four-coordinate measuring system was independently developed, a special fixture was designed according to the blade shape features, and a fast measurement of the blade features path was planned. Finally, by using the inclination error model for correction of acquired data, the measurement error that was caused by tilt form is compensated. As a result the measurement accuracy of the Laser Displacement Sensor was less than 10 μm. After the experimental verification, this method makes full use of optical non-contact measurement fast speed, high precision and wide measuring range of features. Using a standard gauge block as a measurement reference, the coordinate system conversion data is simple and practical. It not only improves the measurement accuracy of the blade surface, but also its measurement efficiency. Therefore, this method increases the value of the measurement of complex surfaces. PMID:26039420

A rapid method to achieve aero-engine blade form detection.

PubMed

Sun, Bin; Li, Bing

2015-06-01

This paper proposes a rapid method to detect aero-engine blade form, according to the characteristics of an aero-engine blade surface. This method first deduces an inclination error model in free-form surface measurements based on the non-contact laser triangulation principle. Then a four-coordinate measuring system was independently developed, a special fixture was designed according to the blade shape features, and a fast measurement of the blade features path was planned. Finally, by using the inclination error model for correction of acquired data, the measurement error that was caused by tilt form is compensated. As a result the measurement accuracy of the Laser Displacement Sensor was less than 10 μm. After the experimental verification, this method makes full use of optical non-contact measurement fast speed, high precision and wide measuring range of features. Using a standard gauge block as a measurement reference, the coordinate system conversion data is simple and practical. It not only improves the measurement accuracy of the blade surface, but also its measurement efficiency. Therefore, this method increases the value of the measurement of complex surfaces.

Statistical methods for estimating normal blood chemistry ranges and variance in rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri), Shasta Strain

USGS Publications Warehouse

Wedemeyer, Gary A.; Nelson, Nancy C.

1975-01-01

Gaussian and nonparametric (percentile estimate and tolerance interval) statistical methods were used to estimate normal ranges for blood chemistry (bicarbonate, bilirubin, calcium, hematocrit, hemoglobin, magnesium, mean cell hemoglobin concentration, osmolality, inorganic phosphorus, and pH for juvenile rainbow (Salmo gairdneri, Shasta strain) trout held under defined environmental conditions. The percentile estimate and Gaussian methods gave similar normal ranges, whereas the tolerance interval method gave consistently wider ranges for all blood variables except hemoglobin. If the underlying frequency distribution is unknown, the percentile estimate procedure would be the method of choice.

How are normal sleeping controls selected? A systematic review of cross-sectional insomnia studies and a standardized method to select healthy controls for sleep research.

PubMed

Beattie, Louise; Espie, Colin A; Kyle, Simon D; Biello, Stephany M

2015-06-01

There appears to be some inconsistency in how normal sleepers (controls) are selected and screened for participation in research studies for comparison with insomnia patients. The purpose of the current study is to assess and compare methods of identifying normal sleepers in insomnia studies, with reference to published standards. We systematically reviewed the literature on insomnia patients, which included control subjects. The resulting 37 articles were systematically reviewed with reference to the five criteria for normal sleep specified by Edinger et al. In summary, these criteria are as follows: evidence of sleep disruption, sleep scheduling, general health, substance/medication use, and other sleep disorders. We found sleep diaries, polysomnography (PSG), and clinical screening examinations to be widely used with both control subjects and insomnia participants. However, there are differences between research groups in the precise definitions applied to the components of normal sleep. We found that none of the reviewed studies applied all of the Edinger et al. criteria, and 16% met four criteria. In general, screening is applied most rigorously at the level of a clinical disorder, whether physical, psychiatric, or sleep. While the Edinger et al. criteria seem to be applied in some form by most researchers, there is scope to improve standards and definitions in this area. Ideally, different methods such as sleep diaries and questionnaires would be used concurrently with objective measures to ensure normal sleepers are identified, and descriptive information for control subjects would be reported. Here, we have devised working criteria and methods to be used for the assessment of normal sleepers. This would help clarify the nature of the control group, in contrast to insomnia subjects and other patient groups. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A comparison of radiometric normalization methods when filling cloud gaps in Lansat imagery.

Treesearch

E. H. Helmer

2007-01-01

Mapping persistently cloudy tropical landscapes with optical satellite imagenery usually requires assembling the clear imagery from several dates. this study compares methods for normalizing image data when filling cloud gaps in Landsat imagery with imagery from other dates.

Density- and wavefunction-normalized Cartesian spherical harmonics for l ≤ 20

DOE PAGES

Michael, J. Robert; Volkov, Anatoliy

2015-03-01

The widely used pseudoatom formalism in experimental X-ray charge-density studies makes use of real spherical harmonics when describing the angular component of aspherical deformations of the atomic electron density in molecules and crystals. The analytical form of the density-normalized Cartesian spherical harmonic functions for up to l ≤ 7 and the corresponding normalization coefficients were reported previously by Paturle & Coppens. It was shown that the analytical form for normalization coefficients is available primarily forl ≤ 4. Only in very special cases it is possible to derive an analytical representation of the normalization coefficients for 4 < l ≤ 7.more » In most cases for l > 4 the density normalization coefficients were calculated numerically to within seven significant figures. In this study we review the literature on the density-normalized spherical harmonics, clarify the existing notations, use the Paturle–Coppens method in the Wolfram Mathematicasoftware to derive the Cartesian spherical harmonics for l ≤ 20 and determine the density normalization coefficients to 35 significant figures, and computer-generate a Fortran90 code. The article primarily targets researchers who work in the field of experimental X-ray electron density, but may be of some use to all who are interested in Cartesian spherical harmonics.« less

Method for heating, forming and tempering a glass sheet

DOEpatents

Boaz, Premakaran Tucker; Sitzman, Gary W.

1998-01-01

A method for heating, forming and tempering a glass sheet including the steps of heating at least one glass sheet to at least a first predetermined temperature, applying microwave energy to the glass sheet to heat the glass sheet to at least a second predetermined temperature, forming the glass sheet to a predetermined configuration, and cooling an outer surface of the glass sheet to at least a third predetermined temperature to temper the glass sheet.

Possibilities of Particle Finite Element Methods in Industrial Forming Processes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Oliver, J.; Cante, J. C.; Weyler, R.; Hernandez, J.

2007-04-01

The work investigates the possibilities offered by the particle finite element method (PFEM) in the simulation of forming problems involving large deformations, multiple contacts, and new boundaries generation. The description of the most distinguishing aspects of the PFEM, and its application to simulation of representative forming processes, illustrate the proposed methodology.

Interactions between Polygonal Normal Faults and Larger Normal Faults, Offshore Nova Scotia, Canada

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pham, T. Q. H.; Withjack, M. O.; Hanafi, B. R.

2017-12-01

Polygonal faults, small normal faults with polygonal arrangements that form in fine-grained sedimentary rocks, can influence ground-water flow and hydrocarbon migration. Using well and 3D seismic-reflection data, we have examined the interactions between polygonal faults and larger normal faults on the passive margin of offshore Nova Scotia, Canada. The larger normal faults strike approximately E-W to NE-SW. Growth strata indicate that the larger normal faults were active in the Late Cretaceous (i.e., during the deposition of the Wyandot Formation) and during the Cenozoic. The polygonal faults were also active during the Cenozoic because they affect the top of the Wyandot Formation, a fine-grained carbonate sedimentary rock, and the overlying Cenozoic strata. Thus, the larger normal faults and the polygonal faults were both active during the Cenozoic. The polygonal faults far from the larger normal faults have a wide range of orientations. Near the larger normal faults, however, most polygonal faults have preferred orientations, either striking parallel or perpendicular to the larger normal faults. Some polygonal faults nucleated at the tip of a larger normal fault, propagated outward, and linked with a second larger normal fault. The strike of these polygonal faults changed as they propagated outward, ranging from parallel to the strike of the original larger normal fault to orthogonal to the strike of the second larger normal fault. These polygonal faults hard-linked the larger normal faults at and above the level of the Wyandot Formation but not below it. We argue that the larger normal faults created stress-enhancement and stress-reorientation zones for the polygonal faults. Numerous small, polygonal faults formed in the stress-enhancement zones near the tips of larger normal faults. Stress-reorientation zones surrounded the larger normal faults far from their tips. Fewer polygonal faults are present in these zones, and, more importantly, most polygonal faults

New method to control form and texture on industrially-sized lenses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Walker, D. D.

2003-05-01

Summary This paper provides a progress-report on the development of the Precessions polishing process. This is a new small-tool polishing technique for producing aspheric forms and correcting spherical forms. Precessions polishing has been developed by Zeeko Ltd in collaboration with the Optical Science Laboratory at University College London and Loh Optikmaschinen. The Zeeko/Loh All machine (see figure below) has a capacity of 200mm diameter, and is targeted at industrial lenses and mirrors. The baseline of the PrecessionsTM process is a sub-diameter physical tool working the surface with a polishing slurry. Position and orientation of the tooling is controlled by a 7-axis CNC polishing machine that has been custom-designed for the purpose. The tool comprises an inflated, bulged, rubber-membrane (the 'bonnet'), covered with one of the usual proprietary flexible polishing surfaces familiar to opticians. The membrane moulds itself around the local asphere, keeping good contact everywhere. It is spun about its axis to give high removal-rates, and attacks the surface of the part working on the side of the bulged surface, rather than the classical pole-down configuration. The contact area and polishing pressure can be varied independently by changing the degree to which the bonnet is compressed, and the internal fluid pressure. The rotation axis is precessed around the local normal to the part, and this averages surface texture and achieves a near-Gaussian tool removal-profile (Influence function'). For axially-symmetric parts, the part is rotated and the tool moved radially, thereby creating a spiral tool-path. An off- line software application analyses i) the surface error-profile, and ii) experimental data on the tool influence functions for different spot-sizes. An iterative numerical optimisation method is then used to compute the dwell-time and spot- size for each zone of the spiral on the surface, to rectify the form error.

Focus-on-form instructional methods promote deaf college students' improvement in English grammar.

PubMed

Berent, Gerald P; Kelly, Ronald R; Aldersley, Stephen; Schmitz, Kathryn L; Khalsa, Baldev Kaur; Panara, John; Keenan, Susan

2007-01-01

Focus-on-form English teaching methods are designed to facilitate second-language learners' noticing of target language input, where "noticing" is an acquisitional prerequisite for the comprehension, processing, and eventual integration of new grammatical knowledge. While primarily designed for teaching hearing second-language learners, many focus-on-form methods lend themselves to visual presentation. This article reports the results of classroom research on the visually based implementation of focus-on-form methods with deaf college students learning English. Two of 3 groups of deaf students received focus-on-form instruction during a 10-week remedial grammar course; a third control group received grammatical instruction that did not involve focus-on-form methods. The 2 experimental groups exhibited significantly greater improvement in English grammatical knowledge relative to the control group. These results validate the efficacy of visually based focus-on-form English instruction for deaf students of English and set the stage for the continual search for innovative and effective English teaching methodologies.

Method for Fabricating Composite Structures Including Continuous Press Forming and Pultrusion Processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Farley, Gary L. (Inventor)

1995-01-01

A method for fabricating composite structures at a low-cost, moderate-to-high production rate is disclosed. A first embodiment of the method includes employing a continuous press forming fabrication process. A second embodiment of the method includes employing a pultrusion process for obtaining composite structures. The methods include coating yarns with matrix material, weaving the yarn into fabric to produce a continuous fabric supply, and feeding multiple layers of net-shaped fabrics having optimally oriented fibers into a debulking tool to form an undebulked preform. The continuous press forming fabrication process includes partially debulking the preform, cutting the partially debulked preform, and debulking the partially debulked preform to form a netshape. An electron-beam or similar technique then cures the structure. The pultrusion fabric process includes feeding the undebulked preform into a heated die and gradually debulking the undebulked preform. The undebulked preform in the heated die changes dimension until a desired cross-sectional dimension is achieved. This process further includes obtaining a net-shaped infiltrated uncured preform, cutting the uncured preform to a desired length, and electron-beam curing (or similar technique) the uncured preform. These fabrication methods produce superior structures formed at higher production rates, resulting in lower cost and high structural performance.

Applications of Computer Simulation Methods in Plastic Forming Technologies for Magnesium Alloys

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, S. H.; Zheng, W. T.; Shang, Y. L.; Wu, X.; Palumbo, G.; Tricarico, L.

2007-05-01

Applications of computer simulation methods in plastic forming of magnesium alloy parts are discussed. As magnesium alloys possess very poor plastic formability at room temperature, various methods have been tried to improve the formability, for example, suitable rolling process and annealing procedures should be found to produce qualified magnesium alloy sheets, which have the reduced anisotropy and improved formability. The blank can be heated to a warm temperature or a hot temperature; a suitable temperature field is designed, tools should be heated or the punch should be cooled; suitable deformation speed should be found to ensure suitable strain rate range. Damage theory considering non-isothermal forming is established. Various modeling methods have been tried to consider above situations. The following situations for modeling the forming process of magnesium alloy sheets and tubes are dealt with: (1) modeling for predicting wrinkling and anisotropy of sheet warm forming; (2) damage theory used for predicting ruptures in sheet warm forming; (3) modeling for optimizing of blank shape and dimensions for sheet warm forming; (4) modeling in non-steady-state creep in hot metal gas forming of AZ31 tubes.

Method of forming shrink-fit compression seal

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Podgorski, T. J. (Inventor)

1977-01-01

A method for making a glass-to-metal seal is described. A domed metal enclosure having a machined seal ring is fitted to a glass post machined to a slight taper and to a desired surface finish. The metal part is then heated by induction in a vacuum. As the metal part heats and expands relative to the glass post, the metal seal ring, possessing a higher coefficient of expansion than the glass post, slides down the tapered post. Upon cooling, the seal ring crushes against the glass post forming the seal. The method results in a glass-to-metal seal possessing extremely good leak resistance, while the parts are kept clean and free of the contaminants.

Method of forming and assembly of parts

DOEpatents

Ripley, Edward B.

2010-12-28

A method of assembling two or more parts together that may be metal, ceramic, metal and ceramic parts, or parts that have different CTE. Individual parts are formed and sintered from particles that leave a network of interconnecting porosity in each sintered part. The separate parts are assembled together and then a fill material is infiltrated into the assembled, sintered parts using a method such as capillary action, gravity, and/or pressure. The assembly is then cured to yield a bonded and fully or near-fully dense part that has the desired physical and mechanical properties for the part's intended purpose. Structural strength may be added to the parts by the inclusion of fibrous materials.

Magnetic filtration process, magnetic filtering material, and methods of forming magnetic filtering material

DOEpatents

Taboada-Serrano, Patricia; Tsouris, Constantino; Contescu, Cristian I; McFarlane, Joanna

2013-10-08

The present invention provides magnetically responsive activated carbon, and a method of forming magnetically responsive activated carbon. The method of forming magnetically responsive activated carbon typically includes providing activated carbon in a solution containing ions of ferrite forming elements, wherein at least one of the ferrite forming elements has an oxidation state of +3 and at least a second of the ferrite forming elements has an oxidation state of +2, and increasing pH of the solution to precipitate particles of ferrite that bond to the activated carbon, wherein the activated carbon having the ferrite particles bonded thereto have a positive magnetic susceptibility. The present invention also provides a method of filtering waste water using magnetic activated carbon.

An imbalance fault detection method based on data normalization and EMD for marine current turbines.

PubMed

Zhang, Milu; Wang, Tianzhen; Tang, Tianhao; Benbouzid, Mohamed; Diallo, Demba

2017-05-01

This paper proposes an imbalance fault detection method based on data normalization and Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) for variable speed direct-drive Marine Current Turbine (MCT) system. The method is based on the MCT stator current under the condition of wave and turbulence. The goal of this method is to extract blade imbalance fault feature, which is concealed by the supply frequency and the environment noise. First, a Generalized Likelihood Ratio Test (GLRT) detector is developed and the monitoring variable is selected by analyzing the relationship between the variables. Then, the selected monitoring variable is converted into a time series through data normalization, which makes the imbalance fault characteristic frequency into a constant. At the end, the monitoring variable is filtered out by EMD method to eliminate the effect of turbulence. The experiments show that the proposed method is robust against turbulence through comparing the different fault severities and the different turbulence intensities. Comparison with other methods, the experimental results indicate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed method. Copyright © 2017 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Method of making nanostructured glass-ceramic waste forms

DOEpatents

Gao, Huizhen; Wang, Yifeng; Rodriguez, Mark A.; Bencoe, Denise N.

2014-07-08

A waste form for and a method of rendering hazardous materials less dangerous is disclosed that includes fixing the hazardous material in nanopores of a nanoporous material, reacting the trapped hazardous material to render it less volatile/soluble, and vitrifying the nanoporous material containing the less volatile/soluble hazardous material.

Method for forming electrically charged laser targets

DOEpatents

Goodman, Ronald K.; Hunt, Angus L.

1979-01-01

Electrically chargeable laser targets and method for forming such charged targets in order to improve their guidance along a predetermined desired trajectory. This is accomplished by the incorporation of a small amount of an additive to the target material which will increase the electrical conductivity thereof, and thereby enhance the charge placed upon the target material for guidance thereof by electrostatic or magnetic steering mechanisms, without adversely affecting the target when illuminated by laser energy.

[Application of the life table method to the estimation of late complications of normal tissues after radiotherapy].

PubMed

Morita, K; Uchiyama, Y; Tominaga, S

1987-06-01

In order to evaluate the treatment results of radiotherapy it is important to estimate the degree of complications of the surrounding normal tissues as well as the frequency of tumor control. In this report, the cumulative incidence rate of the late radiation injuries of the normal tissues was calculated using the modified actuarial method (Cutler-Ederer's method) or Kaplan-Meier's method, which is usually applied to the calculation of the survival rate. By the use of this method of calculation, an accurate cumulative incidence rate over time can be easily obtained and applied to the statistical evaluation of the late radiation injuries.

Method for heating, forming and tempering a glass sheet

DOEpatents

Boaz, P.T.; Sitzman, G.W.

1998-10-27

A method for heating, forming and tempering a glass sheet is disclosed including the steps of heating at least one glass sheet to at least a first predetermined temperature, applying microwave energy to the glass sheet to heat the glass sheet to at least a second predetermined temperature, forming the glass sheet to a predetermined configuration, and cooling an outer surface of the glass sheet to at least a third predetermined temperature to temper the glass sheet. 2 figs.

Method for forming a hardened surface on a substrate

DOEpatents

Branagan, Daniel J [Iona, ID

2008-01-29

The invention encompasses a method of forming a metallic coating. A metallic glass coating is formed over a metallic substrate. After formation of the coating, at least a portion of the metallic glass can be converted into a crystalline material having a nanocrystalline grain size. The invention also encompasses metallic coatings comprising metallic glass. Additionally, the invention encompasses metallic coatings comprising crystalline metallic material, with at least some of the crystalline metallic material having a nanocrystalline grain size.

A Semantic Parsing Method for Mapping Clinical Questions to Logical Forms

PubMed Central

Roberts, Kirk; Patra, Braja Gopal

2017-01-01

This paper presents a method for converting natural language questions about structured data in the electronic health record (EHR) into logical forms. The logical forms can then subsequently be converted to EHR-dependent structured queries. The natural language processing task, known as semantic parsing, has the potential to convert questions to logical forms with extremely high precision, resulting in a system that is usable and trusted by clinicians for real-time use in clinical settings. We propose a hybrid semantic parsing method, combining rule-based methods with a machine learning-based classifier. The overall semantic parsing precision on a set of 212 questions is 95.6%. The parser’s rules furthermore allow it to “know what it does not know”, enabling the system to indicate when unknown terms prevent it from understanding the question’s full logical structure. When combined with a module for converting a logical form into an EHR-dependent query, this high-precision approach allows for a question answering system to provide a user with a single, verifiably correct answer. PMID:29854217

THE REASONING METHODS AND REASONING ABILITY IN NORMAL AND MENTALLY RETARDED GIRLS AND THE REASONING ABILITY OF NORMAL AND MENTALLY RETARDED BOYS AND GIRLS.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

CAPOBIANCO, RUDOLPH J.; AND OTHERS

A STUDY WAS MADE TO ESTABLISH AND ANALYZE THE METHODS OF SOLVING INDUCTIVE REASONING PROBLEMS BY MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN. THE MAJOR OBJECTIVES WERE--(1) TO EXPLORE AND DESCRIBE REASONING IN MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN, (2) TO COMPARE THEIR METHODS WITH THOSE UTILIZED BY NORMAL CHILDREN OF APPROXIMATELY THE SAME MENTAL AGE, (3) TO EXPLORE THE…

Quantitative analysis of collagen change between normal and cancerous thyroid tissues based on SHG method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Xiwen; Huang, Zufang; Xi, Gangqin; Chen, Yongjian; Lin, Duo; Wang, Jing; Li, Zuanfang; Sun, Liqing; Chen, Jianxin; Chen, Rong

2012-03-01

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is proved to be a high spatial resolution, large penetration depth and non-photobleaching method. In our study, SHG method was used to investigate the normal and cancerous thyroid tissue. For SHG imaging performance, system parameters were adjusted for high-contrast images acquisition. Each x-y image was recorded in pseudo-color, which matches the wavelength range in the visible spectrum. The acquisition time for a 512×512-pixels image was 1.57 sec; each acquired image was averaged four frames to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Our results indicated that collagen presence as determined by counting the ratio of the SHG pixels over the whole pixels for normal and cancerous thyroid tissues were 0.48+/-0.05, 0.33+/-0.06 respectively. In addition, to quantitatively assess collagen-related changes, we employed GLCM texture analysis to the SHG images. Corresponding results showed that the correlation both fell off with distance in normal and cancerous group. Calculated value of Corr50 (the distance where the correlation crossed 50% of the initial correlation) indicated significant difference. This study demonstrates that SHG method can be used as a complementary tool in thyroid histopathology.

Devices, systems, and methods for harvesting energy and methods for forming such devices

DOEpatents

Kotter, Dale K.; Novack, Steven D.

2012-12-25

Energy harvesting devices include a substrate coupled with a photovoltaic material and a plurality of resonance elements associated with the substrate. The resonance elements are configured to collect energy in at least visible and infrared light spectra. Each resonance element is capacitively coupled with the photovoltaic material, and may be configured to resonate at a bandgap energy of the photovoltaic material. Systems include a photovoltaic material coupled with a feedpoint of a resonance element. Methods for harvesting energy include exposing a resonance element having a resonant electromagnetic radiation having a frequency between approximately 20 THz and approximately 1,000 THz, absorbing at least a portion of the electromagnetic radiation with the resonance element, and resonating the resonance element at a bandgap energy of an underlying photovoltaic material. Methods for forming an energy harvesting device include forming resonance elements on a substrate and capacitively coupling the resonance elements with a photovoltaic material.

Method of forming supported doped palladium containing oxidation catalysts

DOEpatents

Mohajeri, Nahid

2014-04-22

A method of forming a supported oxidation catalyst includes providing a support comprising a metal oxide or a metal salt, and depositing first palladium compound particles and second precious metal group (PMG) metal particles on the support while in a liquid phase including at least one solvent to form mixed metal comprising particles on the support. The PMG metal is not palladium. The mixed metal particles on the support are separated from the liquid phase to provide the supported oxidation catalyst.

Normalization of metabolomics data with applications to correlation maps.

PubMed

Jauhiainen, Alexandra; Madhu, Basetti; Narita, Masako; Narita, Masashi; Griffiths, John; Tavaré, Simon

2014-08-01

In metabolomics, the goal is to identify and measure the concentrations of different metabolites (small molecules) in a cell or a biological system. The metabolites form an important layer in the complex metabolic network, and the interactions between different metabolites are often of interest. It is crucial to perform proper normalization of metabolomics data, but current methods may not be applicable when estimating interactions in the form of correlations between metabolites. We propose a normalization approach based on a mixed model, with simultaneous estimation of a correlation matrix. We also investigate how the common use of a calibration standard in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments affects the estimation of correlations. We show with both real and simulated data that our proposed normalization method is robust and has good performance when discovering true correlations between metabolites. The standardization of NMR data is shown in simulation studies to affect our ability to discover true correlations to a small extent. However, comparing standardized and non-standardized real data does not result in any large differences in correlation estimates. Source code is freely available at https://sourceforge.net/projects/metabnorm/ alexandra.jauhiainen@ki.se Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Normalized modes at selected points without normalization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kausel, Eduardo

2018-04-01

As every textbook on linear algebra demonstrates, the eigenvectors for the general eigenvalue problem | K - λM | = 0 involving two real, symmetric, positive definite matrices K , M satisfy some well-defined orthogonality conditions. Equally well-known is the fact that those eigenvectors can be normalized so that their modal mass μ =ϕT Mϕ is unity: it suffices to divide each unscaled mode by the square root of the modal mass. Thus, the normalization is the result of an explicit calculation applied to the modes after they were obtained by some means. However, we show herein that the normalized modes are not merely convenient forms of scaling, but that they are actually intrinsic properties of the pair of matrices K , M, that is, the matrices already "know" about normalization even before the modes have been obtained. This means that we can obtain individual components of the normalized modes directly from the eigenvalue problem, and without needing to obtain either all of the modes or for that matter, any one complete mode. These results are achieved by means of the residue theorem of operational calculus, a finding that is rather remarkable inasmuch as the residues themselves do not make use of any orthogonality conditions or normalization in the first place. It appears that this obscure property connecting the general eigenvalue problem of modal analysis with the residue theorem of operational calculus may have been overlooked up until now, but which has in turn interesting theoretical implications.Á

Genomic Changes in Normal Breast Tissue in Women at Normal Risk or at High Risk for Breast Cancer

PubMed Central

Danforth, David N.

2016-01-01

Sporadic breast cancer develops through the accumulation of molecular abnormalities in normal breast tissue, resulting from exposure to estrogens and other carcinogens beginning at adolescence and continuing throughout life. These molecular changes may take a variety of forms, including numerical and structural chromosomal abnormalities, epigenetic changes, and gene expression alterations. To characterize these abnormalities, a review of the literature has been conducted to define the molecular changes in each of the above major genomic categories in normal breast tissue considered to be either at normal risk or at high risk for sporadic breast cancer. This review indicates that normal risk breast tissues (such as reduction mammoplasty) contain evidence of early breast carcinogenesis including loss of heterozygosity, DNA methylation of tumor suppressor and other genes, and telomere shortening. In normal tissues at high risk for breast cancer (such as normal breast tissue adjacent to breast cancer or the contralateral breast), these changes persist, and are increased and accompanied by aneuploidy, increased genomic instability, a wide range of gene expression differences, development of large cancerized fields, and increased proliferation. These changes are consistent with early and long-standing exposure to carcinogens, especially estrogens. A model for the breast carcinogenic pathway in normal risk and high-risk breast tissues is proposed. These findings should clarify our understanding of breast carcinogenesis in normal breast tissue and promote development of improved methods for risk assessment and breast cancer prevention in women. PMID:27559297

Electrodynamics, Differential Forms and the Method of Images

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Low, Robert J.

2011-01-01

This paper gives a brief description of how Maxwell's equations are expressed in the language of differential forms and use this to provide an elegant demonstration of how the method of images (well known in electrostatics) also works for electrodynamics in the presence of an infinite plane conducting boundary. The paper should be accessible to an…

A Major Binding Protein for Leukemia Inhibitory Factor in Normal Mouse Serum: Identification as a Soluble Form of the Cellular Receptor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Layton, Meredith J.; Cross, Bronwyn A.; Metcalf, Donald; Ward, Larry D.; Simpson, Richard J.; Nicola, Nicos A.

1992-09-01

A protein that specifically binds leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) has been isolated from normal mouse serum by using four successive fractionation steps: chromatography on a LIF affinity matrix, anion-exchange chromatography, size-exclusion chromatography, and preparative native gel electrophoresis. The purified LIF-binding protein (LBP) is a glycoprotein with an apparent molecular mass of 90 kDa that specifically binds 125I-labeled murine LIF with an affinity comparable to that of the low-affinity cellular LIF receptor (K_d = 600 pM). N-terminal sequencing has identified this protein as a soluble truncated form of the α chain of the cellular LIF receptor. LBP is present in normal mouse serum at high levels (1 μg/ml) and these levels are elevated in pregnant mice and reduced in neonatal mice. Since normal serum concentrations of LBP can block the biological actions of LIF in culture, LBP may serve as an inhibitor of the systemic effects of locally produced LIF.

A normalization method for combination of laboratory test results from different electronic healthcare databases in a distributed research network.

PubMed

Yoon, Dukyong; Schuemie, Martijn J; Kim, Ju Han; Kim, Dong Ki; Park, Man Young; Ahn, Eun Kyoung; Jung, Eun-Young; Park, Dong Kyun; Cho, Soo Yeon; Shin, Dahye; Hwang, Yeonsoo; Park, Rae Woong

2016-03-01

Distributed research networks (DRNs) afford statistical power by integrating observational data from multiple partners for retrospective studies. However, laboratory test results across care sites are derived using different assays from varying patient populations, making it difficult to simply combine data for analysis. Additionally, existing normalization methods are not suitable for retrospective studies. We normalized laboratory results from different data sources by adjusting for heterogeneous clinico-epidemiologic characteristics of the data and called this the subgroup-adjusted normalization (SAN) method. Subgroup-adjusted normalization renders the means and standard deviations of distributions identical under population structure-adjusted conditions. To evaluate its performance, we compared SAN with existing methods for simulated and real datasets consisting of blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine, hematocrit, hemoglobin, serum potassium, and total bilirubin. Various clinico-epidemiologic characteristics can be applied together in SAN. For simplicity of comparison, age and gender were used to adjust population heterogeneity in this study. In simulations, SAN had the lowest standardized difference in means (SDM) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov values for all tests (p < 0.05). In a real dataset, SAN had the lowest SDM and Kolmogorov-Smirnov values for blood urea nitrogen, hematocrit, hemoglobin, and serum potassium, and the lowest SDM for serum creatinine (p < 0.05). Subgroup-adjusted normalization performed better than normalization using other methods. The SAN method is applicable in a DRN environment and should facilitate analysis of data integrated across DRN partners for retrospective observational studies. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[Using neural networks based template matching method to obtain redshifts of normal galaxies].

PubMed

Xu, Xin; Luo, A-li; Wu, Fu-chao; Zhao, Yong-heng

2005-06-01

Galaxies can be divided into two classes: normal galaxy (NG) and active galaxy (AG). In order to determine NG redshifts, an automatic effective method is proposed in this paper, which consists of the following three main steps: (1) From the template of normal galaxy, the two sets of samples are simulated, one with the redshift of 0.0-0.3, the other of 0.3-0.5, then the PCA is used to extract the main components, and train samples are projected to the main component subspace to obtain characteristic spectra. (2) The characteristic spectra are used to train a Probabilistic Neural Network to obtain a Bayes classifier. (3) An unknown real NG spectrum is first inputted to this Bayes classifier to determine the possible range of redshift, then the template matching is invoked to locate the redshift value within the estimated range. Compared with the traditional template matching technique with an unconstrained range, our proposed method not only halves the computational load, but also increases the estimation accuracy. As a result, the proposed method is particularly useful for automatic spectrum processing produced from a large-scale sky survey project.

Methods of forming a fluidized bed of circulating particles

DOEpatents

Marshall, Douglas W [Blackfoot, ID

2011-05-24

There is disclosed an apparatus for forming a fluidized bed of circulating particles. In an embodiment, the apparatus includes a bottom portion having a sidewall, the sidewall defining a curvilinear profile, and the bottom portion configured to contain a bed of particles; and a gas inlet configured to produce a column of gas to carry entrained particles therein. There is disclosed a method of forming a fluidized bed of circulating particles. In an embodiment, the method includes positioning particles within a bottom portion having a sidewall, the sidewall defining a curvilinear profile; producing a column of gas directed upwardly through a gas inlet; carrying entrained particles in the column of gas to produce a fountain of particles over the fluidized bed of circulating particles and subside in the particle bed until being directed inwardly into the column of gas within the curvilinear profile.

Uncertainty analysis of the radiological characteristics of radioactive waste using a method based on log-normal distributions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gigase, Yves

2007-07-01

Available in abstract form only. Full text of publication follows: The uncertainty on characteristics of radioactive LILW waste packages is difficult to determine and often very large. This results from a lack of knowledge of the constitution of the waste package and of the composition of the radioactive sources inside. To calculate a quantitative estimate of the uncertainty on a characteristic of a waste package one has to combine these various uncertainties. This paper discusses an approach to this problem, based on the use of the log-normal distribution, which is both elegant and easy to use. It can provide asmore » example quantitative estimates of uncertainty intervals that 'make sense'. The purpose is to develop a pragmatic approach that can be integrated into existing characterization methods. In this paper we show how our method can be applied to the scaling factor method. We also explain how it can be used when estimating other more complex characteristics such as the total uncertainty of a collection of waste packages. This method could have applications in radioactive waste management, more in particular in those decision processes where the uncertainty on the amount of activity is considered to be important such as in probability risk assessment or the definition of criteria for acceptance or categorization. (author)« less

Ion exchange materials, method of forming ion exchange materials, and methods of treating liquids

DOEpatents

Wertsching, Alan K.; Peterson, Eric S.; Wey, John E.

2007-12-25

The invention includes an ion affinity material having an organic component which is sulfonated and which is chemically bonded to an inorganic substrate component. The invention includes a method of forming a metal binding material. A solid support material comprising surface oxide groups is provided and an organic component having at least one alkyl halide is covalently linked to at least some of the surface oxide groups to form a modified support material. The at least one alkyl halide is subsequently converted into an alkyl sulfonate. The invention further includes a method and system for extracting ions from a liquid. An ion exchange material having a sulfonated alkyl silane component covalently bonded to a metal oxide support material is provided and a liquid is exposed to the ion exchange material.

Impact of the Choice of Normalization Method on Molecular Cancer Class Discovery Using Nonnegative Matrix Factorization.

PubMed

Yang, Haixuan; Seoighe, Cathal

2016-01-01

Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) has proved to be an effective method for unsupervised clustering analysis of gene expression data. By the nonnegativity constraint, NMF provides a decomposition of the data matrix into two matrices that have been used for clustering analysis. However, the decomposition is not unique. This allows different clustering results to be obtained, resulting in different interpretations of the decomposition. To alleviate this problem, some existing methods directly enforce uniqueness to some extent by adding regularization terms in the NMF objective function. Alternatively, various normalization methods have been applied to the factor matrices; however, the effects of the choice of normalization have not been carefully investigated. Here we investigate the performance of NMF for the task of cancer class discovery, under a wide range of normalization choices. After extensive evaluations, we observe that the maximum norm showed the best performance, although the maximum norm has not previously been used for NMF. Matlab codes are freely available from: http://maths.nuigalway.ie/~haixuanyang/pNMF/pNMF.htm.

Group vector space method for estimating enthalpy of vaporization of organic compounds at the normal boiling point.

PubMed

Wenying, Wei; Jinyu, Han; Wen, Xu

2004-01-01

The specific position of a group in the molecule has been considered, and a group vector space method for estimating enthalpy of vaporization at the normal boiling point of organic compounds has been developed. Expression for enthalpy of vaporization Delta(vap)H(T(b)) has been established and numerical values of relative group parameters obtained. The average percent deviation of estimation of Delta(vap)H(T(b)) is 1.16, which show that the present method demonstrates significant improvement in applicability to predict the enthalpy of vaporization at the normal boiling point, compared the conventional group methods.

Delivery Device and Method for Forming the Same

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Liu, Xiaohua (Inventor); Ma, Peter X. (Inventor); McCauley, Laurie (Inventor)

2014-01-01

A delivery device includes a hollow container, and a plurality of biodegradable and/or erodible polymeric layers established in the container. A layer including a predetermined substance is established between each of the plurality of polymeric layers, whereby degradation of the polymeric layer and release of the predetermined substance occur intermittently. Methods for forming the device are also disclosed herein.

Method of forming impermeable carbide coats on graphite

DOEpatents

Wohlberg, C.

1973-12-11

A method of forming an impermeable refractory metal carbide coating on graphite is described in which a metal containing oxidant and a carbide former are applied to the surface of the graphite, heated to a temperature of between 1200 and 1500 deg C in an inert gas, under a vacuum and continuing to heat to about 2300 deg C. (Official Gazette)

Method of forming a thin unbacked metal foil

DOEpatents

Duchane, David V.; Barthell, Barry L.

1984-01-01

In a method of forming a thin (<2 .mu.m) unbacked metal foil having a desired curviplanar shape, a soluble polymeric film, preferably comprising polyvinyl alcohol, is formed on a supporting structure having a shape that defines the desired shape of the foil product. A layer of metal foil is deposited onto one side of the soluble film, preferably by vacuum vapor deposition. The metallized film is then immersed in a suitable solvent to dissolve the film and thereby leave the metal foil as an unbacked metal foil element mounted on the supporting structure. Aluminum foils less than 0.2 .mu.m (2,000 .ANG.) thick and having an areal density of less than 54 .mu.g/cm.sup.2 have been obtained.

An accurate and efficient method for piezoelectric coated functional devices based on the two-dimensional Green’s function for a normal line force and line charge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hou, Peng-Fei; Zhang, Yang

2017-09-01

Because most piezoelectric functional devices, including sensors, actuators and energy harvesters, are in the form of a piezoelectric coated structure, it is valuable to present an accurate and efficient method for obtaining the electro-mechanical coupling fields of this coated structure under mechanical and electrical loads. With this aim, the two-dimensional Green’s function for a normal line force and line charge on the surface of coated structure, which is a combination of an orthotropic piezoelectric coating and orthotropic elastic substrate, is presented in the form of elementary functions based on the general solution method. The corresponding electro-mechanical coupling fields of this coated structure under arbitrary mechanical and electrical loads can then be obtained by the superposition principle and Gauss integration. Numerical results show that the presented method has high computational precision, efficiency and stability. It can be used to design the best coating thickness in functional devices, improve the sensitivity of sensors, and improve the efficiency of actuators and energy harvesters. This method could be an efficient tool for engineers in engineering applications.

A projection operator method for the analysis of magnetic neutron form factors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaprzyk, S.; Van Laar, B.; Maniawski, F.

1981-03-01

A set of projection operators in matrix form has been derived on the basis of decomposition of the spin density into a series of fully symmetrized cubic harmonics. This set of projection operators allows a formulation of the Fourier analysis of magnetic form factors in a convenient way. The presented method is capable of checking the validity of various theoretical models used for spin density analysis up to now. The general formalism is worked out in explicit form for the fcc and bcc structures and deals with that part of spin density which is contained within the sphere inscribed in the Wigner-Seitz cell. This projection operator method has been tested on the magnetic form factors of nickel and iron.

A comparison of per sample global scaling and per gene normalization methods for differential expression analysis of RNA-seq data.

PubMed

Li, Xiaohong; Brock, Guy N; Rouchka, Eric C; Cooper, Nigel G F; Wu, Dongfeng; O'Toole, Timothy E; Gill, Ryan S; Eteleeb, Abdallah M; O'Brien, Liz; Rai, Shesh N

2017-01-01

Normalization is an essential step with considerable impact on high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data analysis. Although there are numerous methods for read count normalization, it remains a challenge to choose an optimal method due to multiple factors contributing to read count variability that affects the overall sensitivity and specificity. In order to properly determine the most appropriate normalization methods, it is critical to compare the performance and shortcomings of a representative set of normalization routines based on different dataset characteristics. Therefore, we set out to evaluate the performance of the commonly used methods (DESeq, TMM-edgeR, FPKM-CuffDiff, TC, Med UQ and FQ) and two new methods we propose: Med-pgQ2 and UQ-pgQ2 (per-gene normalization after per-sample median or upper-quartile global scaling). Our per-gene normalization approach allows for comparisons between conditions based on similar count levels. Using the benchmark Microarray Quality Control Project (MAQC) and simulated datasets, we performed differential gene expression analysis to evaluate these methods. When evaluating MAQC2 with two replicates, we observed that Med-pgQ2 and UQ-pgQ2 achieved a slightly higher area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC), a specificity rate > 85%, the detection power > 92% and an actual false discovery rate (FDR) under 0.06 given the nominal FDR (≤0.05). Although the top commonly used methods (DESeq and TMM-edgeR) yield a higher power (>93%) for MAQC2 data, they trade off with a reduced specificity (<70%) and a slightly higher actual FDR than our proposed methods. In addition, the results from an analysis based on the qualitative characteristics of sample distribution for MAQC2 and human breast cancer datasets show that only our gene-wise normalization methods corrected data skewed towards lower read counts. However, when we evaluated MAQC3 with less variation in five replicates, all methods performed similarly

A comparison of per sample global scaling and per gene normalization methods for differential expression analysis of RNA-seq data

PubMed Central

Li, Xiaohong; Brock, Guy N.; Rouchka, Eric C.; Cooper, Nigel G. F.; Wu, Dongfeng; O’Toole, Timothy E.; Gill, Ryan S.; Eteleeb, Abdallah M.; O’Brien, Liz

2017-01-01

Normalization is an essential step with considerable impact on high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data analysis. Although there are numerous methods for read count normalization, it remains a challenge to choose an optimal method due to multiple factors contributing to read count variability that affects the overall sensitivity and specificity. In order to properly determine the most appropriate normalization methods, it is critical to compare the performance and shortcomings of a representative set of normalization routines based on different dataset characteristics. Therefore, we set out to evaluate the performance of the commonly used methods (DESeq, TMM-edgeR, FPKM-CuffDiff, TC, Med UQ and FQ) and two new methods we propose: Med-pgQ2 and UQ-pgQ2 (per-gene normalization after per-sample median or upper-quartile global scaling). Our per-gene normalization approach allows for comparisons between conditions based on similar count levels. Using the benchmark Microarray Quality Control Project (MAQC) and simulated datasets, we performed differential gene expression analysis to evaluate these methods. When evaluating MAQC2 with two replicates, we observed that Med-pgQ2 and UQ-pgQ2 achieved a slightly higher area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (AUC), a specificity rate > 85%, the detection power > 92% and an actual false discovery rate (FDR) under 0.06 given the nominal FDR (≤0.05). Although the top commonly used methods (DESeq and TMM-edgeR) yield a higher power (>93%) for MAQC2 data, they trade off with a reduced specificity (<70%) and a slightly higher actual FDR than our proposed methods. In addition, the results from an analysis based on the qualitative characteristics of sample distribution for MAQC2 and human breast cancer datasets show that only our gene-wise normalization methods corrected data skewed towards lower read counts. However, when we evaluated MAQC3 with less variation in five replicates, all methods performed similarly

Some Remarks about Semiclassical Trace Invariants and Quantum Normal Forms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guillemin, Victor; Paul, Thierry

2010-02-01

In this paper we explore the connection between semi-classical and quantum Birkhoff canonical forms (BCF) for Schrödinger operators. In particular we give a “non-symbolic” operator theoretic derivation of the quantum Birkhoff canonical form and provide an explicit recipe for expressing the quantum BCF in terms of the semi-classical BCF.

Method of forming particulate materials for thin-film solar cells

DOEpatents

Eberspacher, Chris; Pauls, Karen Lea

2004-11-23

A method for preparing particulate materials useful in fabricating thin-film solar cells is disclosed. Particulate materials is prepared by the method include for example materials comprising copper and indium and/or gallium in the form of single-phase, mixed-metal oxide particulates; multi-phase, mixed-metal particulates comprising a metal oxide; and multinary metal particulates.

Charge-free method of forming nanostructures on a substrate

DOEpatents

Hoffbauer; Mark , Akhadov; Elshan

2010-07-20

A charge-free method of forming a nanostructure at low temperatures on a substrate. A substrate that is reactive with one of atomic oxygen and nitrogen is provided. A flux of neutral atoms of least one of oxygen and nitrogen is generated within a laser-sustained-discharge plasma source and a collimated beam of energetic neutral atoms and molecules is directed from the plasma source onto a surface of the substrate to form the nanostructure. The energetic neutral atoms and molecules in the beam have an average kinetic energy in a range from about 1 eV to about 5 eV.

Carbon nanotubes and methods of forming same at low temperature

DOEpatents

Biris, Alexandru S.; Dervishi, Enkeleda

2017-05-02

In one aspect of the invention, a method for growth of carbon nanotubes includes providing a graphitic composite, decorating the graphitic composite with metal nanostructures to form graphene-contained powders, and heating the graphene-contained powders at a target temperature to form the carbon nanotubes in an argon/hydrogen environment that is devoid of a hydrocarbon source. In one embodiment, the target temperature can be as low as about 150.degree. C. (.+-.5.degree. C.).

Form gene clustering method about pan-ethnic-group products based on emotional semantic

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Dengkai; Ding, Jingjing; Gao, Minzhuo; Ma, Danping; Liu, Donghui

2016-09-01

The use of pan-ethnic-group products form knowledge primarily depends on a designer's subjective experience without user participation. The majority of studies primarily focus on the detection of the perceptual demands of consumers from the target product category. A pan-ethnic-group products form gene clustering method based on emotional semantic is constructed. Consumers' perceptual images of the pan-ethnic-group products are obtained by means of product form gene extraction and coding and computer aided product form clustering technology. A case of form gene clustering about the typical pan-ethnic-group products is investigated which indicates that the method is feasible. This paper opens up a new direction for the future development of product form design which improves the agility of product design process in the era of Industry 4.0.

Method of forming and assembly of metal and ceramic parts

DOEpatents

Ripley, Edward B

2014-04-22

A method of forming and assembling at least two parts together that may be metal, ceramic, or a combination of metal and ceramic parts. Such parts may have different CTE. Individual parts that are formed and sintered from particles leave a network of interconnecting porosity in each sintered part. The separate parts are assembled together and then a fill material is infiltrated into the assembled parts using a method such as capillary action, gravity, and/or pressure. The assembly is then cured to yield a bonded and fully or near-fully dense part that has the desired physical and mechanical properties for the part's intended purpose. Structural strength may be added to the parts by the inclusion of fibrous materials.

Method for forming silicon on a glass substrate

DOEpatents

McCarthy, Anthony M.

1995-01-01

A method by which single-crystal silicon microelectronics may be fabricated on glass substrates at unconventionally low temperatures. This is achieved by fabricating a thin film of silicon on glass and subsequently forming the doped components by a short wavelength (excimer) laser doping procedure and conventional patterning techniques. This method may include introducing a heavily boron doped etch stop layer on a silicon wafer using an excimer laser, which permits good control of the etch stop layer removal process. This method additionally includes dramatically reducing the remaining surface roughness of the silicon thin films after etching in the fabrication of silicon on insulator wafers by scanning an excimer laser across the surface of the silicon thin film causing surface melting, whereby the surface tension of the melt causes smoothing of the surface during recrystallization. Applications for this method include those requiring a transparent or insulating substrate, such as display manufacturing. Other applications include sensors, actuators, optoelectronics, radiation hard and high temperature electronics.

Method for forming silicon on a glass substrate

DOEpatents

McCarthy, A.M.

1995-03-07

A method by which single-crystal silicon microelectronics may be fabricated on glass substrates at unconventionally low temperatures. This is achieved by fabricating a thin film of silicon on glass and subsequently forming the doped components by a short wavelength (excimer) laser doping procedure and conventional patterning techniques. This method may include introducing a heavily boron doped etch stop layer on a silicon wafer using an excimer laser, which permits good control of the etch stop layer removal process. This method additionally includes dramatically reducing the remaining surface roughness of the silicon thin films after etching in the fabrication of silicon on insulator wafers by scanning an excimer laser across the surface of the silicon thin film causing surface melting, whereby the surface tension of the melt causes smoothing of the surface during recrystallization. Applications for this method include those requiring a transparent or insulating substrate, such as display manufacturing. Other applications include sensors, actuators, optoelectronics, radiation hard and high temperature electronics. 15 figs.

Surface immunoglobulins on blood lymphocytes of normal and immunodeficient persons studied by the mixed antiglobulin method

PubMed Central

Litwin, S. D.; Ochs, H.; Pollara, B.

1973-01-01

Surface immunoglobulins on human peripheral blood lymphocytes were investigated by the mixed antiglobulin technique—using the single layer mixed antiglobulin method as originally described (SLMA), and a modification employing a double layer of antibody (DLMA). Lymphocytes isolated from the blood of normal individuals had a mean of 7.8 and 18.4 per cent Ig + cells by the SLMA and DLMA techniques respectively. The DLMA data are similar to results obtained by other methods of detecting membrane Igs indicating that the mixed antiglobulin method is comparable in sensitivity. When the total numbers of Ig + cells, obtained by separate κ and λ testing, were compared with results obtained using single anti-light chain antisera, there was no significant difference, suggesting that most positive lymphocytes carry a single variety of light chain. Lymphocytes from the blood of seventeen patients with primary immunodeficiency were analysed. Four patients with variable immunodeficiency and four others with absent serum IgA all had normal surface Igs including α chains. All members of a family having an X-linked immunodeficiency had normal surface Igs including the affected members and a presumed carrier. Four cases of immunodeficiency associated with thymoma proved to have disparate findings. One patient exhibited a selective absence of μ antigens on the membranes of blood lymphocytes of over 2800 tested cells. Two other cases had normal surface Igs while a fourth patient, previously reported, lacked all surface Igs. PMID:4796276

Adjustment technique without explicit formation of normal equations /conjugate gradient method/

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Saxena, N. K.

1974-01-01

For a simultaneous adjustment of a large geodetic triangulation system, a semiiterative technique is modified and used successfully. In this semiiterative technique, known as the conjugate gradient (CG) method, original observation equations are used, and thus the explicit formation of normal equations is avoided, 'huge' computer storage space being saved in the case of triangulation systems. This method is suitable even for very poorly conditioned systems where solution is obtained only after more iterations. A detailed study of the CG method for its application to large geodetic triangulation systems was done that also considered constraint equations with observation equations. It was programmed and tested on systems as small as two unknowns and three equations up to those as large as 804 unknowns and 1397 equations. When real data (573 unknowns, 965 equations) from a 1858-km-long triangulation system were used, a solution vector accurate to four decimal places was obtained in 2.96 min after 1171 iterations (i.e., 2.0 times the number of unknowns).

Brief Daily Periods of Unrestricted Vision Can Prevent Form-Deprivation Amblyopia

PubMed Central

Wensveen, Janice M.; Harwerth, Ronald S.; Hung, Li-Fang; Ramamirtham, Ramkumar; Kee, Chea-su; Smith, Earl L.

2006-01-01

PURPOSE To characterize how the mechanisms that produce unilateral form-deprivation amblyopia integrate the effects of normal and abnormal vision over time, the effects of brief daily periods of unrestricted vision on the spatial vision losses produced by monocular form deprivation were investigated in infant monkeys. METHODS Beginning at 3 weeks of age, unilateral form deprivation was initiated in 18 infant monkeys by securing a diffuser spectacle lens in front of one eye and a clear plano lens in front of the fellow eye. During the treatment period (18 weeks), three infants wore the diffusers continuously. For the other experimental infants, the diffusers were removed daily and replaced with clear, zero-powered lenses for 1 (n = 5), 2 (n = 6), or 4 (n = 4) hours. Four infants reared with binocular zero-powered lenses and four normally reared monkeys provided control data. RESULTS The degree of amblyopia varied significantly with the daily duration of unrestricted vision. Continuous form deprivation caused severe amblyopia. However, 1 hour of unrestricted vision reduced the degree of amblyopia by 65%, 2 hours reduced the deficits by 90%, and 4 hours preserved near-normal spatial contrast sensitivity. CONCLUSIONS The severely amblyogenic effects of form deprivation in infant primates are substantially reduced by relatively short daily periods of unrestricted vision. The manner in which the mechanisms responsible for amblyopia integrate the effects of normal and abnormal vision over time promotes normal visual development and has important implications for the management of human infants with conditions that potentially cause amblyopia. PMID:16723458

Method of forming components for a high-temperature secondary electrochemical cell

DOEpatents

Mrazek, Franklin C.; Battles, James E.

1983-01-01

A method of forming a component for a high-temperature secondary electrochemical cell having a positive electrode including a sulfide selected from the group consisting of iron sulfides, nickel sulfides, copper sulfides and cobalt sulfides, a negative electrode including an alloy of aluminum and an electrically insulating porous separator between said electrodes. The improvement comprises forming a slurry of solid particles dispersed in a liquid electrolyte such as the lithium chloride-potassium chloride eutetic, casting the slurry into a form having the shape of one of the components and smoothing the exposed surface of the slurry, cooling the cast slurry to form the solid component, and removing same. Electrodes and separators can be thus formed.

Method of forming components for a high-temperature secondary electrochemical cell

DOEpatents

Mrazek, F.C.; Battles, J.E.

1981-05-22

A method of forming a component for a high-temperature secondary electrochemical cell having a positive electrode including a sulfide selected from the group consisting of iron sulfides, nickel sulfides, copper sulfides and cobalt sulfides, a negative electrode including an alloy of aluminum and an electrically insulating porous separator between said electrodes is described. The improvement comprises forming a slurry of solid particles dispersed in a liquid electrolyte such as the lithium chloride-potassium chloride eutectic, casting the slurry into a form having the shape of one of the components and smoothing the exposed surface of the slurry, cooling the cast slurry to form the solid component, and removing same. Electrodes and separators can be thus formed.

Principal Component Analysis for Normal-Distribution-Valued Symbolic Data.

PubMed

Wang, Huiwen; Chen, Meiling; Shi, Xiaojun; Li, Nan

2016-02-01

This paper puts forward a new approach to principal component analysis (PCA) for normal-distribution-valued symbolic data, which has a vast potential of applications in the economic and management field. We derive a full set of numerical characteristics and variance-covariance structure for such data, which forms the foundation for our analytical PCA approach. Our approach is able to use all of the variance information in the original data than the prevailing representative-type approach in the literature which only uses centers, vertices, etc. The paper also provides an accurate approach to constructing the observations in a PC space based on the linear additivity property of normal distribution. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by simulated numerical experiments. At last, our method is applied to explain the puzzle of risk-return tradeoff in China's stock market.

A pseudospectra-based approach to non-normal stability of embedded boundary methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rapaka, Narsimha; Samtaney, Ravi

2017-11-01

We present non-normal linear stability of embedded boundary (EB) methods employing pseudospectra and resolvent norms. Stability of the discrete linear wave equation is characterized in terms of the normalized distance of the EB to the nearest ghost node (α) in one and two dimensions. An important objective is that the CFL condition based on the Cartesian grid spacing remains unaffected by the EB. We consider various discretization methods including both central and upwind-biased schemes. Stability is guaranteed when α <=αmax ranges between 0.5 and 0.77 depending on the discretization scheme. Also, the stability characteristics remain the same in both one and two dimensions. Sharper limits on the sufficient conditions for stability are obtained based on the pseudospectral radius (the Kreiss constant) than the restrictive limits based on the usual singular value decomposition analysis. We present a simple and robust reclassification scheme for the ghost cells (``hybrid ghost cells'') to ensure Lax stability of the discrete systems. This has been tested successfully for both low and high order discretization schemes with transient growth of at most O (1). Moreover, we present a stable, fourth order EB reconstruction scheme. Supported by the KAUST Office of Competitive Research Funds under Award No. URF/1/1394-01.

Analytic integrable systems: Analytic normalization and embedding flows

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Xiang

In this paper we mainly study the existence of analytic normalization and the normal form of finite dimensional complete analytic integrable dynamical systems. More details, we will prove that any complete analytic integrable diffeomorphism F(x)=Bx+f(x) in (Cn,0) with B having eigenvalues not modulus 1 and f(x)=O(|) is locally analytically conjugate to its normal form. Meanwhile, we also prove that any complete analytic integrable differential system x˙=Ax+f(x) in (Cn,0) with A having nonzero eigenvalues and f(x)=O(|) is locally analytically conjugate to its normal form. Furthermore we will prove that any complete analytic integrable diffeomorphism defined on an analytic manifold can be embedded in a complete analytic integrable flow. We note that parts of our results are the improvement of Moser's one in J. Moser, The analytic invariants of an area-preserving mapping near a hyperbolic fixed point, Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 9 (1956) 673-692 and of Poincaré's one in H. Poincaré, Sur l'intégration des équations différentielles du premier order et du premier degré, II, Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo 11 (1897) 193-239. These results also improve the ones in Xiang Zhang, Analytic normalization of analytic integrable systems and the embedding flows, J. Differential Equations 244 (2008) 1080-1092 in the sense that the linear part of the systems can be nonhyperbolic, and the one in N.T. Zung, Convergence versus integrability in Poincaré-Dulac normal form, Math. Res. Lett. 9 (2002) 217-228 in the way that our paper presents the concrete expression of the normal form in a restricted case.

Simultaneous sound velocity and thickness measurement by the ultrasonic pitch-catch method for corrosion-layer-forming polymeric materials.

PubMed

Kusano, Masahiro; Takizawa, Shota; Sakai, Tetsuya; Arao, Yoshihiko; Kubouchi, Masatoshi

2018-01-01

Since thermosetting resins have excellent resistance to chemicals, fiber reinforced plastics composed of such resins and reinforcement fibers are widely used as construction materials for equipment in chemical plants. Such equipment is usually used for several decades under severe corrosive conditions so that failure due to degradation may result. One of the degradation behaviors in thermosetting resins under chemical solutions is "corrosion-layer-forming" degradation. In this type of degradation, surface resins in contact with a solution corrode, and some of them remain asa corrosion layer on the pristine part. It is difficult to precisely measure the thickness of the pristine part of such degradation type materials by conventional pulse-echo ultrasonic testing, because the sound velocity depends on the degree of corrosion of the polymeric material. In addition, the ultrasonic reflection interface between the pristine part and the corrosion layer is obscure. Thus, we propose a pitch-catch method using a pair of normal and angle probes to measure four parameters: the thicknesses of the pristine part and the corrosion layer, and their respective sound velocities. The validity of the proposed method was confirmed by measuring a two-layer sample and a sample including corroded parts. The results demonstrate that the pitch-catch method can successfully measure the four parameters and evaluate the residual thickness of the pristine part in the corrosion-layer-forming sample. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Normal Values of Tissue-Muscle Perfusion Indexes of Lower Limbs Obtained with a Scintigraphic Method.

PubMed

Manevska, Nevena; Stojanoski, Sinisa; Pop Gjorceva, Daniela; Todorovska, Lidija; Miladinova, Daniela; Zafirova, Beti

2017-09-01

Introduction Muscle perfusion is a physiologic process that can undergo quantitative assessment and thus define the range of normal values of perfusion indexes and perfusion reserve. The investigation of the microcirculation has a crucial role in determining the muscle perfusion. Materials and method The study included 30 examinees, 24-74 years of age, without a history of confirmed peripheral artery disease and all had normal findings on Doppler ultrasonography and pedo-brachial index of lower extremity (PBI). 99mTc-MIBI tissue muscle perfusion scintigraphy of lower limbs evaluates tissue perfusion in resting condition "rest study" and after workload "stress study", through quantitative parameters: Inter-extremity index (for both studies), left thigh/right thigh (LT/RT) left calf/right calf (LC/RC) and perfusion reserve (PR) for both thighs and calves. Results In our investigated group we assessed the normal values of quantitative parameters of perfusion indexes. Indexes ranged for LT/RT in rest study 0.91-1.05, in stress study 0.92-1.04. LC/RC in rest 0.93-1.07 and in stress study 0.93-1.09. The examinees older than 50 years had insignificantly lower perfusion reserve of these parameters compared with those younger than 50, LC (p=0.98), and RC (p=0.6). Conclusion This non-invasive scintigraphic method allows in individuals without peripheral artery disease to determine the range of normal values of muscle perfusion at rest and stress condition and to clinically implement them in evaluation of patients with peripheral artery disease for differentiating patients with normal from those with impaired lower limbs circulation.

Method for forming an abrasive surface on a tool

DOEpatents

Seals, Roland D.; White, Rickey L.; Swindeman, Catherine J.; Kahl, W. Keith

1999-01-01

A method for fabricating a tool used in cutting, grinding and machining operations, is provided. The method is used to deposit a mixture comprising an abrasive material and a bonding material on a tool surface. The materials are propelled toward the receiving surface of the tool substrate using a thermal spray process. The thermal spray process melts the bonding material portion of the mixture, but not the abrasive material. Upon impacting the tool surface, the mixture or composition solidifies to form a hard abrasive tool coating.

Method for forming gold-containing catalyst with porous structure

DOEpatents

Biener, Juergen; Hamza, Alex V; Baeumer, Marcus; Schulz, Christian; Jurgens, Birte; Biener, Monika M.

2014-07-22

A method for forming a gold-containing catalyst with porous structure according to one embodiment of the present invention includes producing a starting alloy by melting together of gold and at least one less noble metal that is selected from the group consisting of silver, copper, rhodium, palladium, and platinum; and a dealloying step comprising at least partial removal of the less noble metal by dissolving the at least one less noble metal out of the starting alloy. Additional methods and products thereof are also presented.

Method for chemically inactivating energetic materials and forming a nondetonable product therefrom

DOEpatents

Tadros, Maher E.

2002-01-01

A method for rendering nondetonble energetic materials, such as are contained in or removed from decommissioned ordnance. The energetic materials are either combined with epoxy hardener or are combined with other compounds, preferably amine compounds, to form a substance that functions as an epoxy hardener. According to the invention, energetic materials (including TNT, RDX and Composition B) that are treated according to the invention method yield a reaction product that is non-explosive, that serves to harden or cure conventional epoxy resin to form a stable, nonexplosive waste product. Epoxy hardener made using the method of the invention is also described.

Comparison of validation methods for forming simulations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schug, Alexander; Kapphan, Gabriel; Bardl, Georg; Hinterhölzl, Roland; Drechsler, Klaus

2018-05-01

The forming simulation of fibre reinforced thermoplastics could reduce the development time and improve the forming results. But to take advantage of the full potential of the simulations it has to be ensured that the predictions for material behaviour are correct. For that reason, a thorough validation of the material model has to be conducted after characterising the material. Relevant aspects for the validation of the simulation are for example the outer contour, the occurrence of defects and the fibre paths. To measure these features various methods are available. Most relevant and also most difficult to measure are the emerging fibre orientations. For that reason, the focus of this study was on measuring this feature. The aim was to give an overview of the properties of different measuring systems and select the most promising systems for a comparison survey. Selected were an optical, an eddy current and a computer-assisted tomography system with the focus on measuring the fibre orientations. Different formed 3D parts made of unidirectional glass fibre and carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastics were measured. Advantages and disadvantages of the tested systems were revealed. Optical measurement systems are easy to use, but are limited to the surface plies. With an eddy current system also lower plies can be measured, but it is only suitable for carbon fibres. Using a computer-assisted tomography system all plies can be measured, but the system is limited to small parts and challenging to evaluate.

Method for forming a solar array strip

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mueller, R. I.; Yasui, R. K. (Inventor)

1979-01-01

A flexible solar array strip is formed by a method which lends itself to automatic production techniques. Solder pads are deposited on printed circuitry deposited on a flexible structure. The resultant substrate is stored on a drum from which it is withdrawn and incrementally advanced along a linear path. Solderless solar cells are serially transported into engagement with the pads which are then heated in order to attach the cells to the circuitry. Excess flux is cleaned from the cells which are encapsulated in a protective coating. The resultant array is then spirally wound on a drum.

Method for forming a chemical microreactor

DOEpatents

Morse, Jeffrey D [Martinez, CA; Jankowski, Alan [Livermore, CA

2009-05-19

Disclosed is a chemical microreactor that provides a means to generate hydrogen fuel from liquid sources such as ammonia, methanol, and butane through steam reforming processes when mixed with an appropriate amount of water. The microreactor contains capillary microchannels with integrated resistive heaters to facilitate the occurrence of catalytic steam reforming reactions. Two distinct embodiment styles are discussed. One embodiment style employs a packed catalyst capillary microchannel and at least one porous membrane. Another embodiment style employs a porous membrane with a large surface area or a porous membrane support structure containing a plurality of porous membranes having a large surface area in the aggregate, i.e., greater than about 1 m.sup.2/cm.sup.3. Various methods to form packed catalyst capillary microchannels, porous membranes and porous membrane support structures are also disclosed.

Systems and methods for forming defects on graphitic materials and curing radiation-damaged graphitic materials

DOEpatents

Ryu, Sunmin; Brus, Louis E.; Steigerwald, Michael L.; Liu, Haitao

2012-09-25

Systems and methods are disclosed herein for forming defects on graphitic materials. The methods for forming defects include applying a radiation reactive material on a graphitic material, irradiating the applied radiation reactive material to produce a reactive species, and permitting the reactive species to react with the graphitic material to form defects. Additionally, disclosed are methods for removing defects on graphitic materials.

Efficient and simpler method to construct normalized cDNA libraries with improved representations of full-length cDNAs

DOEpatents

Soares, Marcelo Bento; Bonaldo, Maria de Fatima

1998-01-01

This invention provides a method to normalize a cDNA library comprising: (a) constructing a directionally cloned library containing cDNA inserts wherein the insert is capable of being amplified by polymerase chain reaction; (b) converting a double-stranded cDNA library into single-stranded DNA circles; (c) generating single-stranded nucleic acid molecules complementary to the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) by polymerase chain reaction with appropriate primers; (d) hybridizing the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) with the complementary single-stranded nucleic acid molecules generated in step (c) to produce partial duplexes to an appropriate Cot; and (e) separating the unhybridized single-stranded DNA circles from the hybridized DNA circles, thereby generating a normalized cDNA library. This invention also provides a method to normalize a cDNA library wherein the generating of single-stranded nucleic acid molecules complementary to the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) is by excising cDNA inserts from the double-stranded cDNA library; purifying the cDNA inserts from cloning vectors; and digesting the cDNA inserts with an exonuclease. This invention further provides a method to construct a subtractive cDNA library following the steps described above. This invention further provides normalized and/or subtractive cDNA libraries generated by the above methods.

Efficient and simpler method to construct normalized cDNA libraries with improved representations of full-length cDNAs

DOEpatents

Soares, M.B.; Fatima Bonaldo, M. de

1998-12-08

This invention provides a method to normalize a cDNA library comprising: (a) constructing a directionally cloned library containing cDNA inserts wherein the insert is capable of being amplified by polymerase chain reaction; (b) converting a double-stranded cDNA library into single-stranded DNA circles; (c) generating single-stranded nucleic acid molecules complementary to the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) by polymerase chain reaction with appropriate primers; (d) hybridizing the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) with the complementary single-stranded nucleic acid molecules generated in step (c) to produce partial duplexes to an appropriate Cot; and (e) separating the unhybridized single-stranded DNA circles from the hybridized DNA circles, thereby generating a normalized cDNA library. This invention also provides a method to normalize a cDNA library wherein the generating of single-stranded nucleic acid molecules complementary to the single-stranded DNA circles converted in step (b) is by excising cDNA inserts from the double-stranded cDNA library; purifying the cDNA inserts from cloning vectors; and digesting the cDNA inserts with an exonuclease. This invention further provides a method to construct a subtractive cDNA library following the steps described above. This invention further provides normalized and/or subtractive cDNA libraries generated by the above methods. 25 figs.

Quaternion normalization in spacecraft attitude determination

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Deutschmann, Julie; Bar-Itzhack, Itzhack; Galal, Ken

1992-01-01

Methods are presented to normalize the attitude quaternion in two extended Kalman filters (EKF), namely, the multiplicative EKF (MEKF) and the additive EKF (AEKF). It is concluded that all the normalization methods work well and yield comparable results. In the AEKF, normalization is not essential, since the data chosen for the test do not have a rapidly varying attitude. In the MEKF, normalization is necessary to avoid divergence of the attitude estimate. All of the methods of the methods behave similarly when the spacecraft experiences low angular rates.

Alloy substantially free of dendrites and method of forming the same

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

de Figueredo, Anacleto M.; Apelian, Diran; Findon, Matt M.

2009-04-07

Described herein are alloys substantially free of dendrites. A method includes forming an alloy substantially free of dendrites. A superheated alloy is cooled to form a nucleated alloy. The temperature of the nucleated alloy is controlled to prevent the nuclei from melting. The nucleated alloy is mixed to distribute the nuclei throughout the alloy. The nucleated alloy is cooled with nuclei distributed throughout.

Optimization Design of Minimum Total Resistance Hull Form Based on CFD Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Bao-ji; Zhang, Sheng-long; Zhang, Hui

2018-06-01

In order to reduce the resistance and improve the hydrodynamic performance of a ship, two hull form design methods are proposed based on the potential flow theory and viscous flow theory. The flow fields are meshed using body-fitted mesh and structured grids. The parameters of the hull modification function are the design variables. A three-dimensional modeling method is used to alter the geometry. The Non-Linear Programming (NLP) method is utilized to optimize a David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB) model 5415 ship under the constraints, including the displacement constraint. The optimization results show an effective reduction of the resistance. The two hull form design methods developed in this study can provide technical support and theoretical basis for designing green ships.

Low level drug product API form analysis - Avalide tablet NIR quantitative method development and robustness challenges.

PubMed

Pan, Duohai; Crull, George; Yin, Shawn; Grosso, John

2014-02-01

Avalide(@), a medication used for the treatment of hypertension, is a combination of Irbesartan, and Hydrochlorothiazide. Irbesartan, one of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) in Avalide products, exists in two neat crystalline forms: Form A and Form B. Irbesartan Form A is the API form used in a wet granulation for the preparation of Avalide tablets. The presence of the less soluble Irbesartan Form B in Avalide tablets may result in the slower dissolution. In this paper, we have presented our work on the method development, verification and challenges of quantitatively detecting, via NIR and ssNMR, very small amounts of Irbesartan Form B in Avalide tablets. As part of the NIR method development and qualification, limit of detection, linearity and accuracy were examined. In addition, a limited study of the robustness of the method was conducted and a bias in the level of Form B was correlated to the ambient humidity. ssNMR, a primary method for the determination of polymorphic composition, was successfully used as an orthogonal technique to verify the accuracy of the NIR method and added to the confidence in the NIR method. The speed and efficiency of the NIR method make it a suitable and convenient tool for routine analysis of Avalide tablets for Form B in a QC environment. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

METHOD OF FORMING A PROTECTIVE COATING ON FERROUS METAL SURFACES

DOEpatents

Schweitzer, D.G.; Weeks, J.R.; Kammerer, O.F.; Gurinsky, D.H.

1960-02-23

A method is described of protecting ferrous metal surfaces from corrosive attack by liquid metals, such as liquid bismuth or lead-bismuth alloys. The nitrogen content of the ferrous metal surface is first reduced by reacting the metal surface with a metal which forms a stable nitride. Thereafter, the surface is contacted with liquid metal containing at least 2 ppm zirconium at a temperature in the range of 550 to 1100 deg C to form an adherent zirconium carbide layer on the ferrous surface.

Method of forming a ceramic to ceramic joint

DOEpatents

Cutler, Raymond Ashton; Hutchings, Kent Neal; Kleinlein, Brian Paul; Carolan, Michael Francis

2010-04-13

A method of joining at least two sintered bodies to form a composite structure, includes: providing a joint material between joining surfaces of first and second sintered bodies; applying pressure from 1 kP to less than 5 MPa to provide an assembly; heating the assembly to a conforming temperature sufficient to allow the joint material to conform to the joining surfaces; and further heating the assembly to a joining temperature below a minimum sintering temperature of the first and second sintered bodies. The joint material includes organic component(s) and ceramic particles. The ceramic particles constitute 40-75 vol. % of the joint material, and include at least one element of the first and/or second sintered bodies. Composite structures produced by the method are also disclosed.

Numerical form-finding method for large mesh reflectors with elastic rim trusses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Dongwu; Zhang, Yiqun; Li, Peng; Du, Jingli

2018-06-01

Traditional methods for designing a mesh reflector usually treat the rim truss as rigid. Due to large aperture, light weight and high accuracy requirements on spaceborne reflectors, the rim truss deformation is indeed not negligible. In order to design a cable net with asymmetric boundaries for the front and rear nets, a cable-net form-finding method is firstly introduced. Then, the form-finding method is embedded into an iterative approach for designing a mesh reflector considering the elasticity of the supporting rim truss. By iterations on form-findings of the cable-net based on the updated boundary conditions due to the rim truss deformation, a mesh reflector with a fairly uniform tension distribution in its equilibrium state could be finally designed. Applications on offset mesh reflectors with both circular and elliptical rim trusses are illustrated. The numerical results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach and that a circular rim truss is more stable than an elliptical rim truss.

Selected retinoids: determination by isocratic normal-phase HPLC.

PubMed

Klvanova, J; Brtko, J

2002-09-01

Retinol (ROL), retinal (RAL) and retinoic acid (RA) are physiologically active forms of vitamin A. All-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) can be formed by oxidation from all-trans retinal (ATRAL). Isomerization of RA is considered to be an important metabolic pathway of retinoids. RA isomers transactivate various response pathways via their cognate nuclear receptors that act as ligand inducible transcription factors. The aim of this study was to establish a rapid and simple method for determination of ATRA, 13-cis retinoic acid (13CRA) and ATRAL by HPLC. In our laboratory, we slightly modified the method of Miyagi et al. (2001) and separated ATRA, 13CRA and ATRAL by simple isocratic normal phase HPLC. Both retinoic acid isomers and ATRAL were eluted within 13 min and all components were well resolved. The coefficients of variation (C.V.) for RAs and RAL were from 3.0 to 5.4 %.

Method for forming permanent magnets with different polarities for use in microelectromechanical devices

DOEpatents

Roesler, Alexander W [Tijeras, NM; Christenson, Todd R [Albuquerque, NM

2007-04-24

Methods are provided for forming a plurality of permanent magnets with two different north-south magnetic pole alignments for use in microelectromechanical (MEM) devices. These methods are based on initially magnetizing the permanent magnets all in the same direction, and then utilizing a combination of heating and a magnetic field to switch the polarity of a portion of the permanent magnets while not switching the remaining permanent magnets. The permanent magnets, in some instances, can all have the same rare-earth composition (e.g. NdFeB) or can be formed of two different rare-earth materials (e.g. NdFeB and SmCo). The methods can be used to form a plurality of permanent magnets side-by-side on or within a substrate with an alternating polarity, or to form a two-dimensional array of permanent magnets in which the polarity of every other row of the array is alternated.

Method of forming a foamed thermoplastic polymer

DOEpatents

Duchane, David V.; Cash, David L.

1986-01-01

A method of forming a foamed thermoplastic polymer. A solid thermoplastic lymer is immersed in an immersant solution comprising a compatible carrier solvent and an infusant solution containing an incompatible liquid blowing agent for a time sufficient for the immersant solution to infuse into the polymer. The carrier solvent is then selectively extracted, preferably by a solvent exchange process in which the immersant solution is gradually diluted with and replaced by the infusant solution, so as to selectively leave behind the infusant solution permanently entrapped in the polymer. The polymer is then heated to volatilize the blowing agent and expand the polymer into a foamed state.

A method for named entity normalization in biomedical articles: application to diseases and plants.

PubMed

Cho, Hyejin; Choi, Wonjun; Lee, Hyunju

2017-10-13

In biomedical articles, a named entity recognition (NER) technique that identifies entity names from texts is an important element for extracting biological knowledge from articles. After NER is applied to articles, the next step is to normalize the identified names into standard concepts (i.e., disease names are mapped to the National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings disease terms). In biomedical articles, many entity normalization methods rely on domain-specific dictionaries for resolving synonyms and abbreviations. However, the dictionaries are not comprehensive except for some entities such as genes. In recent years, biomedical articles have accumulated rapidly, and neural network-based algorithms that incorporate a large amount of unlabeled data have shown considerable success in several natural language processing problems. In this study, we propose an approach for normalizing biological entities, such as disease names and plant names, by using word embeddings to represent semantic spaces. For diseases, training data from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) disease corpus and unlabeled data from PubMed abstracts were used to construct word representations. For plants, a training corpus that we manually constructed and unlabeled PubMed abstracts were used to represent word vectors. We showed that the proposed approach performed better than the use of only the training corpus or only the unlabeled data and showed that the normalization accuracy was improved by using our model even when the dictionaries were not comprehensive. We obtained F-scores of 0.808 and 0.690 for normalizing the NCBI disease corpus and manually constructed plant corpus, respectively. We further evaluated our approach using a data set in the disease normalization task of the BioCreative V challenge. When only the disease corpus was used as a dictionary, our approach significantly outperformed the best system of the task. The proposed approach shows robust

Worthwhile optical method for free-form mirrors qualification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sironi, G.; Canestrari, R.; Toso, G.; Pareschi, G.

2013-09-01

We present an optical method for free-form mirrors qualification developed by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in the context of the ASTRI (Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana) Project which includes, among its items, the design, development and installation of a dual-mirror telescope prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) observatory. The primary mirror panels of the telescope prototype are free-form concave mirrors with few microns accuracy required on the shape error. The developed technique is based on the synergy between a Ronchi-like optical test performed on the reflecting surface and the image, obtained by means of the TraceIT ray-tracing proprietary code, a perfect optics should generate in the same configuration. This deflectometry test allows the reconstruction of the slope error map that the TraceIT code can process to evaluate the measured mirror optical performance at the telescope focus. The advantages of the proposed method is that it substitutes the use of 3D coordinates measuring machine reducing production time and costs and offering the possibility to evaluate on-site the mirror image quality at the focus. In this paper we report the measuring concept and compare the obtained results to the similar ones obtained processing the shape error acquired by means of a 3D coordinates measuring machine.

Method of fabricating composite superconducting wire

DOEpatents

Strauss, Bruce P.; Reardon, Paul J.; Remsbottom, Robert H.

1977-01-01

An improvement in the method for preparing composite rods of superconducting alloy and normal metal from which multifilament composite superconducting wire is fabricated by bending longitudinally a strip of normal metal around a rod of superconductor alloy and welding the edges to form the composite rod. After the rods have preferably been provided with a hexagonal cross-sectional shape, a plurality of the rods are stacked into a normal metal extrusion can, sealed and worked to reduce the cross-sectional size and form multifilament wire. Diffusion barriers and high-electrical resistance barriers can easily be introduced into the wire by plating or otherwise coating the faces of the normal metal strip with appropriate materials.

Visual attention and flexible normalization pools

PubMed Central

Schwartz, Odelia; Coen-Cagli, Ruben

2013-01-01

Attention to a spatial location or feature in a visual scene can modulate the responses of cortical neurons and affect perceptual biases in illusions. We add attention to a cortical model of spatial context based on a well-founded account of natural scene statistics. The cortical model amounts to a generalized form of divisive normalization, in which the surround is in the normalization pool of the center target only if they are considered statistically dependent. Here we propose that attention influences this computation by accentuating the neural unit activations at the attended location, and that the amount of attentional influence of the surround on the center thus depends on whether center and surround are deemed in the same normalization pool. The resulting form of model extends a recent divisive normalization model of attention (Reynolds & Heeger, 2009). We simulate cortical surround orientation experiments with attention and show that the flexible model is suitable for capturing additional data and makes nontrivial testable predictions. PMID:23345413

Composite materials and bodies including silicon carbide and titanium diboride and methods of forming same

DOEpatents

Lillo, Thomas M.; Chu, Henry S.; Harrison, William M.; Bailey, Derek

2013-01-22

Methods of forming composite materials include coating particles of titanium dioxide with a substance including boron (e.g., boron carbide) and a substance including carbon, and reacting the titanium dioxide with the substance including boron and the substance including carbon to form titanium diboride. The methods may be used to form ceramic composite bodies and materials, such as, for example, a ceramic composite body or material including silicon carbide and titanium diboride. Such bodies and materials may be used as armor bodies and armor materials. Such methods may include forming a green body and sintering the green body to a desirable final density. Green bodies formed in accordance with such methods may include particles comprising titanium dioxide and a coating at least partially covering exterior surfaces thereof, the coating comprising a substance including boron (e.g., boron carbide) and a substance including carbon.

Normalization in Lie algebras via mould calculus and applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paul, Thierry; Sauzin, David

2017-11-01

We establish Écalle's mould calculus in an abstract Lie-theoretic setting and use it to solve a normalization problem, which covers several formal normal form problems in the theory of dynamical systems. The mould formalism allows us to reduce the Lie-theoretic problem to a mould equation, the solutions of which are remarkably explicit and can be fully described by means of a gauge transformation group. The dynamical applications include the construction of Poincaré-Dulac formal normal forms for a vector field around an equilibrium point, a formal infinite-order multiphase averaging procedure for vector fields with fast angular variables (Hamiltonian or not), or the construction of Birkhoff normal forms both in classical and quantum situations. As a by-product we obtain, in the case of harmonic oscillators, the convergence of the quantum Birkhoff form to the classical one, without any Diophantine hypothesis on the frequencies of the unperturbed Hamiltonians.

Method of forming superconducting Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O films

DOEpatents

Wessels, Bruce W.; Marks, Tobin J.; Richeson, Darrin S.; Tonge, Lauren M.; Zhang, Jiming

1993-01-01

A method of forming a superconducting Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O film is disclosed, which comprises depositing a Ba-Ca-Cu-O film on a substrate by MOCVD, annealing the deposited film and heat-treating the annealed film in a closed circular vessel with TlBa.sub.2 Ca.sub.2 Cu.sub.3 O.sub.x and cooling to form said superconducting film of TlO.sub.m Ba.sub.2 Ca.sub.n-1 Cu.sub.n O.sub.2n+2, wherein m=1,2 and n=1,2,3.

Method for forming a liquid cooled airfoil for a gas turbine

DOEpatents

Grondahl, Clayton M.; Willmott, Leo C.; Muth, Myron C.

1981-01-01

A method for forming a liquid cooled airfoil for a gas turbine is disclosed. A plurality of holes are formed at spaced locations in an oversized airfoil blank. A pre-formed composite liquid coolant tube is bonded into each of the holes. The composite tube includes an inner member formed of an anti-corrosive material and an outer member formed of a material exhibiting a high degree of thermal conductivity. After the coolant tubes have been bonded to the airfoil blank, the airfoil blank is machined to a desired shape, such that a portion of the outer member of each of the composite tubes is contiguous with the outer surface of the machined airfoil blank. Finally, an external skin is bonded to the exposed outer surface of both the machined airfoil blank and the composite tubes.

Methods of nanoassembly of a fractal polymer and materials formed thereby

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Newkome, George R; Moorefield, Charles N

2012-07-24

The invention relates to the formation of synthesized fractal constructs and the methods of chemical self-assembly for the preparation of a non-dendritic, nano-scale, fractal constructs or molecules. More particularly, the invention relates to fractal constructs formed by molecular self-assembly, to create synthetic, nanometer-scale fractal shapes. In an embodiment, a nanoscale Sierpinski hexagonal gasket is formed. This non-dendritic, perfectly self-similar fractal macromolecule is comprised of bisterpyridine building blocks that are bound together by coordination to 36 Ru and 6 Fe ions to form a nearly planar array of increasingly larger hexagons around a hollow center.

Methods of nanoassembly of a fractal polymer and materials formed thereby

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Newkome, George R; Moorefield, Charles N

2014-09-23

The invention relates to the formation of synthesized fractal constructs and the methods of chemical self-assembly for the preparation of a non-dendritic, nano-scale, fractal constructs or molecules. More particularly, the invention relates to fractal constructs formed by molecular self-assembly, to create synthetic, nanometer-scale fractal shapes. In an embodiment, a nanoscale Sierpinski hexagonal gasket is formed. This non-dendritic, perfectly self-similar fractal macromolecule is comprised of bisterpyridine building blocks that are bound together by coordination to (36) Ru and (6) Fe ions to form a nearly planar array of increasingly larger hexagons around a hollow center.

A partial least squares based spectrum normalization method for uncertainty reduction for laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy measurements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Xiongwei; Wang, Zhe; Lui, Siu-Lung; Fu, Yangting; Li, Zheng; Liu, Jianming; Ni, Weidou

2013-10-01

A bottleneck of the wide commercial application of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) technology is its relatively high measurement uncertainty. A partial least squares (PLS) based normalization method was proposed to improve pulse-to-pulse measurement precision for LIBS based on our previous spectrum standardization method. The proposed model utilized multi-line spectral information of the measured element and characterized the signal fluctuations due to the variation of plasma characteristic parameters (plasma temperature, electron number density, and total number density) for signal uncertainty reduction. The model was validated by the application of copper concentration prediction in 29 brass alloy samples. The results demonstrated an improvement on both measurement precision and accuracy over the generally applied normalization as well as our previously proposed simplified spectrum standardization method. The average relative standard deviation (RSD), average of the standard error (error bar), the coefficient of determination (R2), the root-mean-square error of prediction (RMSEP), and average value of the maximum relative error (MRE) were 1.80%, 0.23%, 0.992, 1.30%, and 5.23%, respectively, while those for the generally applied spectral area normalization were 3.72%, 0.71%, 0.973, 1.98%, and 14.92%, respectively.

Method of forming composite fiber blends

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McMahon, Paul E. (Inventor); Chung, Tai-Shung (Inventor); Ying, Lincoln (Inventor)

1989-01-01

The instant invention involves a process used in preparing fibrous tows which may be formed into polymeric plastic composites. The process involves the steps of (a) forming a tow of strong filamentary materials; (b) forming a thermoplastic polymeric fiber; (c) intermixing the two tows; and (d) withdrawing the intermixed tow for further use.

Method for forming thermally stable nanoparticles on supports

DOEpatents

Roldan Cuenya, Beatriz; Naitabdi, Ahmed R.; Behafarid, Farzad

2013-08-20

An inverse micelle-based method for forming nanoparticles on supports includes dissolving a polymeric material in a solvent to provide a micelle solution. A nanoparticle source is dissolved in the micelle solution. A plurality of micelles having a nanoparticle in their core and an outer polymeric coating layer are formed in the micelle solution. The micelles are applied to a support. The polymeric coating layer is then removed from the micelles to expose the nanoparticles. A supported catalyst includes a nanocrystalline powder, thin film, or single crystal support. Metal nanoparticles having a median size from 0.5 nm to 25 nm, a size distribution having a standard deviation .ltoreq.0.1 of their median size are on or embedded in the support. The plurality of metal nanoparticles are dispersed and in a periodic arrangement. The metal nanoparticles maintain their periodic arrangement and size distribution following heat treatments of at least 1,000.degree. C.

Determination of low-frequency normal modes and structure coefficients using optimal sequence stacking method and autoregressive method in frequency domain

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Majstorovic, J.; Rosat, S.; Lambotte, S.; Rogister, Y. J. G.

2017-12-01

Although there are numerous studies about 3D density Earth model, building an accurate one is still an engaging challenge. One procedure to refine global 3D Earth density models is based on unambiguous measurements of Earth's normal mode eigenfrequencies. To have unbiased eigenfrequency measurements one needs to deal with a variety of time records quality and especially different noise sources, while standard approaches usually include signal processing methods such as Fourier transform. Here we present estimate of complex eigenfrequencies and structure coefficients for several modes below 1 mHz (0S2, 2S1, etc.). Our analysis is performed in three steps. The first step includes the use of stacking methods to enhance specific modes of interest above the observed noise level. Out of three trials the optimal sequence estimation turned out to be the foremost compared to the spherical harmonic stacking method and receiver strip method. In the second step we apply an autoregressive method in the frequency domain to estimate complex eigenfrequencies of target modes. In the third step we apply the phasor walkout method to test and confirm our eigenfrequencies. Before conducting an analysis of time records, we evaluate how the station distribution and noise levels impact the estimate of eigenfrequencies and structure coefficients by using synthetic seismograms calculated for a 3D realistic Earth model, which includes Earth's ellipticity and lateral heterogeneity. Synthetic seismograms are computed by means of normal mode summation using self-coupling and cross-coupling of modes up to 1 mHz. Eventually, the methods tested on synthetic data are applied to long-period seismometer and superconducting gravimeter data recorded after six mega-earthquakes of magnitude greater than 8.3. Hence, we propose new estimates of structure coefficients dependent on the density variations.

Electrochemical systems and methods using metal halide to form products

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Albrecht, Thomas A.; Solas, Dennis; Leclerc, Margarete K.

There are provided electrochemical methods and systems to form one or more organic compounds or enantiomers thereof selected from the group consisting of substituted or unsubstituted dioxane, substituted or unsubstituted dioxolane, dichloroethylether, dichloromethyl methyl ether, dichloroethyl methyl ether, chloroform, carbon tetrachloride, phosgene, and combinations thereof.

New Sensitive Kinetic Spectrophotometric Methods for Determination of Omeprazole in Dosage Forms

PubMed Central

Mahmoud, Ashraf M.

2009-01-01

New rapid, sensitive, and accurate kinetic spectrophotometric methods were developed, for the first time, to determine omeprazole (OMZ) in its dosage forms. The methods were based on the formation of charge-transfer complexes with both iodine and 2,3-dichloro-5,6-dicyano-1,4-benzoquinone (DDQ). The variables that affected the reactions were carefully studied and optimized. The formed complexes and the site of interaction were examined by UV/VIS, IR, and 1H-NMR techniques, and computational molecular modeling. Under optimum conditions, the stoichiometry of the reactions between OMZ and the acceptors was found to be 1 : 1. The order of the reactions and the specific rate constants were determined. The thermodynamics of the complexes were computed and the mechanism of the reactions was postulated. The initial rate and fixed time methods were utilized for the determination of OMZ concentrations. The linear ranges for the proposed methods were 0.10–3.00 and 0.50–25.00 μg mL−1 with the lowest LOD of 0.03 and 0.14 μg mL−1 for iodine and DDQ, respectively. Analytical performance of the methods was statistically validated; RSD was <1.25% for the precision and <1.95% for the accuracy. The proposed methods were successfully applied to the analysis of OMZ in its dosage forms; the recovery was 98.91–100.32% ± 0.94–1.84, and was found to be comparable with that of reference method. PMID:20140076

Virtual interface substructure synthesis method for normal mode analysis of super-large molecular complexes at atomic resolution.

PubMed

Chen, Xuehui; Sun, Yunxiang; An, Xiongbo; Ming, Dengming

2011-10-14

Normal mode analysis of large biomolecular complexes at atomic resolution remains challenging in computational structure biology due to the requirement of large amount of memory space and central processing unit time. In this paper, we present a method called virtual interface substructure synthesis method or VISSM to calculate approximate normal modes of large biomolecular complexes at atomic resolution. VISSM introduces the subunit interfaces as independent substructures that join contacting molecules so as to keep the integrity of the system. Compared with other approximate methods, VISSM delivers atomic modes with no need of a coarse-graining-then-projection procedure. The method was examined for 54 protein-complexes with the conventional all-atom normal mode analysis using CHARMM simulation program and the overlap of the first 100 low-frequency modes is greater than 0.7 for 49 complexes, indicating its accuracy and reliability. We then applied VISSM to the satellite panicum mosaic virus (SPMV, 78,300 atoms) and to F-actin filament structures of up to 39-mer, 228,813 atoms and found that VISSM calculations capture functionally important conformational changes accessible to these structures at atomic resolution. Our results support the idea that the dynamics of a large biomolecular complex might be understood based on the motions of its component subunits and the way in which subunits bind one another. © 2011 American Institute of Physics

12 CFR 216.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

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17 CFR 160.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

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2013-04-01

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2013-01-01

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12 CFR 216.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

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12 CFR 332.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

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12 CFR 216.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

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12 CFR 332.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

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12 CFR 332.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

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Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

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Method of forming and assembly of metal parts and ceramic parts

DOEpatents

Ripley, Edward B [Knoxville, TN

2011-11-22

A method of forming and assembling at least two parts together that may be metal, ceramic, or a combination of metal and ceramic parts. Such parts may have different CTE. Individual parts that are formed and sintered from particles leave a network of interconnecting porosity in each sintered part. The separate parts are assembled together and then a fill material is infiltrated into the assembled parts using a method such as capillary action, gravity, and/or pressure. The assembly is then cured to yield a bonded and fully or near-fully dense part that has the desired physical and mechanical properties for the part's intended purpose. Structural strength may be added to the parts by the inclusion of fibrous materials.

Method for producing melt-infiltrated ceramic composites using formed supports

DOEpatents

Corman, Gregory Scot; Brun, Milivoj Konstantin; McGuigan, Henry Charles

2003-01-01

A method for producing shaped articles of ceramic composites provides a high degree of dimensional tolerance to these articles. A fiber preform is disposed on a surface of a stable formed support, a surface of which is formed with a plurality of indentations, such as grooves, slots, or channels. Precursors of ceramic matrix materials are provided to the fiber preform to infiltrate from both sides of the fiber preform. The infiltration is conducted under vacuum at a temperature not much greater than a melting point of the precursors. The melt-infiltrated composite article substantially retains its dimension and shape throughout the fabrication process.

Method for forming porous sintered bodies with controlled pore structure

DOEpatents

Whinnery, LeRoy Louis; Nichols, Monte Carl

2000-01-01

The present invention is based, in part, on a method for combining a mixture of hydroxide and hydride functional siloxanes to form a polysiloxane polymer foam, that leaves no residue (zero char yield) upon thermal decomposition, with ceramic and/or metal powders and appropriate catalysts to produce porous foam structures having compositions, densities, porosities and structures not previously attainable. The siloxanes are mixed with the ceramic and/or metal powder, wherein the powder has a particle size of about 400 .mu.m or less, a catalyst is added causing the siloxanes to foam and crosslink, thereby forming a polysiloxane polymer foam having the metal or ceramic powder dispersed therein. The polymer foam is heated to thermally decompose the polymer foam and sinter the powder particles together. Because the system is completely nonaqueous, this method further provides for incorporating reactive metals such as magnesium and aluminum, which can be further processed, into the foam structure.

Density- and wavefunction-normalized Cartesian spherical harmonics for l ≤ 20.

PubMed

Michael, J Robert; Volkov, Anatoliy

2015-03-01

The widely used pseudoatom formalism [Stewart (1976). Acta Cryst. A32, 565-574; Hansen & Coppens (1978). Acta Cryst. A34, 909-921] in experimental X-ray charge-density studies makes use of real spherical harmonics when describing the angular component of aspherical deformations of the atomic electron density in molecules and crystals. The analytical form of the density-normalized Cartesian spherical harmonic functions for up to l ≤ 7 and the corresponding normalization coefficients were reported previously by Paturle & Coppens [Acta Cryst. (1988), A44, 6-7]. It was shown that the analytical form for normalization coefficients is available primarily for l ≤ 4 [Hansen & Coppens, 1978; Paturle & Coppens, 1988; Coppens (1992). International Tables for Crystallography, Vol. B, Reciprocal space, 1st ed., edited by U. Shmueli, ch. 1.2. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers; Coppens (1997). X-ray Charge Densities and Chemical Bonding. New York: Oxford University Press]. Only in very special cases it is possible to derive an analytical representation of the normalization coefficients for 4 < l ≤ 7 (Paturle & Coppens, 1988). In most cases for l > 4 the density normalization coefficients were calculated numerically to within seven significant figures. In this study we review the literature on the density-normalized spherical harmonics, clarify the existing notations, use the Paturle-Coppens (Paturle & Coppens, 1988) method in the Wolfram Mathematica software to derive the Cartesian spherical harmonics for l ≤ 20 and determine the density normalization coefficients to 35 significant figures, and computer-generate a Fortran90 code. The article primarily targets researchers who work in the field of experimental X-ray electron density, but may be of some use to all who are interested in Cartesian spherical harmonics.

Method for forming a glove attachment

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dawn, Frederic S. (Inventor); Guy, Walter W. (Inventor); Kosmo, Joseph (Inventor); Drennan, Arthur P. (Inventor); Tschirch, Richard P. (Inventor)

1995-01-01

An attachment principally for the palm of an astronaut glove to enhance the gripping area of the palm without detracting from the flexibility and utility of the glove is presented. The attachment is a composite construction formed from a layer of silicone rubber having an outer surface with a friction configuration and another layer of silicone rubber in which a Nomex Aramid mesh fabric is embedded prior to curing. The method of construction involves the use of a mold with a friction configuration surface. A first layer of silicone rubber or sealant is disposed in the mold and allowed to set for an hour. A second layer of silicone rubber or sealant is layered over the first layer and leveled. A Nomex Aramid mesh fabric is embedded into the second layer and the composite is permitted to cure. When cured, a configured area of the composite construction is glued or stitched to the palm area of the glove.

A simple finite element method for non-divergence form elliptic equation

DOE PAGES

Mu, Lin; Ye, Xiu

2017-03-01

Here, we develop a simple finite element method for solving second order elliptic equations in non-divergence form by combining least squares concept with discontinuous approximations. This simple method has a symmetric and positive definite system and can be easily analyzed and implemented. We could have also used general meshes with polytopal element and hanging node in the method. We prove that our finite element solution approaches to the true solution when the mesh size approaches to zero. Numerical examples are tested that demonstrate the robustness and flexibility of the method.

A simple finite element method for non-divergence form elliptic equation

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Mu, Lin; Ye, Xiu

Here, we develop a simple finite element method for solving second order elliptic equations in non-divergence form by combining least squares concept with discontinuous approximations. This simple method has a symmetric and positive definite system and can be easily analyzed and implemented. We could have also used general meshes with polytopal element and hanging node in the method. We prove that our finite element solution approaches to the true solution when the mesh size approaches to zero. Numerical examples are tested that demonstrate the robustness and flexibility of the method.

Robust Approach to Verifying the Weak Form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Střelec, Luboš

2011-09-01

The weak form of the efficient markets hypothesis states that prices incorporate only past information about the asset. An implication of this form of the efficient markets hypothesis is that one cannot detect mispriced assets and consistently outperform the market through technical analysis of past prices. One of possible formulations of the efficient market hypothesis used for weak form tests is that share prices follow a random walk. It means that returns are realizations of IID sequence of random variables. Consequently, for verifying the weak form of the efficient market hypothesis, we can use distribution tests, among others, i.e. some tests of normality and/or some graphical methods. Many procedures for testing the normality of univariate samples have been proposed in the literature [7]. Today the most popular omnibus test of normality for a general use is the Shapiro-Wilk test. The Jarque-Bera test is the most widely adopted omnibus test of normality in econometrics and related fields. In particular, the Jarque-Bera test (i.e. test based on the classical measures of skewness and kurtosis) is frequently used when one is more concerned about heavy-tailed alternatives. As these measures are based on moments of the data, this test has a zero breakdown value [2]. In other words, a single outlier can make the test worthless. The reason so many classical procedures are nonrobust to outliers is that the parameters of the model are expressed in terms of moments, and their classical estimators are expressed in terms of sample moments, which are very sensitive to outliers. Another approach to robustness is to concentrate on the parameters of interest suggested by the problem under this study. Consequently, novel robust testing procedures of testing normality are presented in this paper to overcome shortcomings of classical normality tests in the field of financial data, which are typical with occurrence of remote data points and additional types of deviations from

Method for preparing hydrous titanium oxide spherules and other gel forms thereof

DOEpatents

Collins, J.L.

1998-10-13

The present invention are methods for preparing hydrous titanium oxide spherules, hydrous titanium oxide gels such as gel slabs, films, capillary and electrophoresis gels, titanium monohydrogen phosphate spherules, hydrous titanium oxide spherules having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite sorbent, titanium monohydrogen phosphate spherules having suspendible particles of at least one different sorbent homogeneously embedded within to form a composite sorbent having a desired crystallinity, titanium oxide spherules in the form of anatase, brookite or rutile, titanium oxide spherules having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite, hydrous titanium oxide fiber materials, titanium oxide fiber materials, hydrous titanium oxide fiber materials having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite, titanium oxide fiber materials having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite and spherules of barium titanate. These variations of hydrous titanium oxide spherules and gel forms prepared by the gel-sphere, internal gelation process offer more useful forms of inorganic ion exchangers, catalysts, getters and ceramics. 6 figs.

Method for preparing hydrous titanium oxide spherules and other gel forms thereof

DOEpatents

Collins, Jack L.

1998-01-01

The present invention are methods for preparing hydrous titanium oxide spherules, hydrous titanium oxide gels such as gel slabs, films, capillary and electrophoresis gels, titanium monohydrogen phosphate spherules, hydrous titanium oxide spherules having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite sorbent, titanium monohydrogen phosphate spherules having suspendible particles of at least one different sorbent homogeneously embedded within to form a composite sorbent having a desired crystallinity, titanium oxide spherules in the form of anatase, brookite or rutile, titanium oxide spherules having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite, hydrous titanium oxide fiber materials, titanium oxide fiber materials, hydrous titanium oxide fiber materials having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite, titanium oxide fiber materials having suspendible particles homogeneously embedded within to form a composite and spherules of barium titanate. These variations of hydrous titanium oxide spherules and gel forms prepared by the gel-sphere, internal gelation process offer more useful forms of inorganic ion exchangers, catalysts, getters and ceramics.

Lunar paleointensities via the IRMs normalization method and the early magnetic history of the moon. [saturation remanence

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cisowski, S. M.; Fuller, M.

1986-01-01

A method for determining a planetary body's magnetic field environment over time is proposed. This relative paleointensity method is based on the normalization of natural remanence to saturation remanence magnetization as measured after each sample is exposed to a strong magnetic field. It is shown that this method is well suited to delineating order-of-magnitude changes in magnetizing fields.

Assessment of a novel multi-array normalization method based on spike-in control probes suitable for microRNA datasets with global decreases in expression.

PubMed

Sewer, Alain; Gubian, Sylvain; Kogel, Ulrike; Veljkovic, Emilija; Han, Wanjiang; Hengstermann, Arnd; Peitsch, Manuel C; Hoeng, Julia

2014-05-17

High-quality expression data are required to investigate the biological effects of microRNAs (miRNAs). The goal of this study was, first, to assess the quality of miRNA expression data based on microarray technologies and, second, to consolidate it by applying a novel normalization method. Indeed, because of significant differences in platform designs, miRNA raw data cannot be normalized blindly with standard methods developed for gene expression. This fundamental observation motivated the development of a novel multi-array normalization method based on controllable assumptions, which uses the spike-in control probes to adjust the measured intensities across arrays. Raw expression data were obtained with the Exiqon dual-channel miRCURY LNA™ platform in the "common reference design" and processed as "pseudo-single-channel". They were used to apply several quality metrics based on the coefficient of variation and to test the novel spike-in controls based normalization method. Most of the considerations presented here could be applied to raw data obtained with other platforms. To assess the normalization method, it was compared with 13 other available approaches from both data quality and biological outcome perspectives. The results showed that the novel multi-array normalization method reduced the data variability in the most consistent way. Further, the reliability of the obtained differential expression values was confirmed based on a quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction experiment performed for a subset of miRNAs. The results reported here support the applicability of the novel normalization method, in particular to datasets that display global decreases in miRNA expression similarly to the cigarette smoke-exposed mouse lung dataset considered in this study. Quality metrics to assess between-array variability were used to confirm that the novel spike-in controls based normalization method provided high-quality miRNA expression data

Assessment of a novel multi-array normalization method based on spike-in control probes suitable for microRNA datasets with global decreases in expression

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Background High-quality expression data are required to investigate the biological effects of microRNAs (miRNAs). The goal of this study was, first, to assess the quality of miRNA expression data based on microarray technologies and, second, to consolidate it by applying a novel normalization method. Indeed, because of significant differences in platform designs, miRNA raw data cannot be normalized blindly with standard methods developed for gene expression. This fundamental observation motivated the development of a novel multi-array normalization method based on controllable assumptions, which uses the spike-in control probes to adjust the measured intensities across arrays. Results Raw expression data were obtained with the Exiqon dual-channel miRCURY LNA™ platform in the “common reference design” and processed as “pseudo-single-channel”. They were used to apply several quality metrics based on the coefficient of variation and to test the novel spike-in controls based normalization method. Most of the considerations presented here could be applied to raw data obtained with other platforms. To assess the normalization method, it was compared with 13 other available approaches from both data quality and biological outcome perspectives. The results showed that the novel multi-array normalization method reduced the data variability in the most consistent way. Further, the reliability of the obtained differential expression values was confirmed based on a quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction experiment performed for a subset of miRNAs. The results reported here support the applicability of the novel normalization method, in particular to datasets that display global decreases in miRNA expression similarly to the cigarette smoke-exposed mouse lung dataset considered in this study. Conclusions Quality metrics to assess between-array variability were used to confirm that the novel spike-in controls based normalization method provided

Capacitor assembly and related method of forming

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Zhang, Lili; Tan, Daniel Qi; Sullivan, Jeffrey S.

A capacitor assembly is disclosed. The capacitor assembly includes a housing. The capacitor assembly further includes a plurality of capacitors disposed within the housing. Furthermore, the capacitor assembly includes a thermally conductive article disposed about at least a portion of a capacitor body of the capacitors, and in thermal contact with the capacitor body. Moreover, the capacitor assembly also includes a heat sink disposed within the housing and in thermal contact with at least a portion of the housing and the thermally conductive article such that the heat sink is configured to remove heat from the capacitor in a radialmore » direction of the capacitor assembly. Further, a method of forming the capacitor assembly is also presented.« less

Cultured normal mammalian tissue and process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Goodwin, Thomas J. (Inventor); Prewett, Tacey L. (Inventor); Wolf, David A. (Inventor); Spaulding, Glenn F. (Inventor)

1993-01-01

Normal mammalian tissue and the culturing process has been developed for the three groups of organ, structural and blood tissue. The cells are grown in vitro under microgravity culture conditions and form three dimensional cell aggregates with normal cell function. The microgravity culture conditions may be microgravity or simulated microgravity created in a horizontal rotating wall culture vessel.

Neutron absorbers and methods of forming at least a portion of a neutron absorber

DOEpatents

Guillen, Donna P; Porter, Douglas L; Swank, W David; Erickson, Arnold W

2014-12-02

Methods of forming at least a portion of a neutron absorber include combining a first material and a second material to form a compound, reducing the compound into a plurality of particles, mixing the plurality of particles with a third material, and pressing the mixture of the plurality of particles and the third material. One or more components of neutron absorbers may be formed by such methods. Neutron absorbers may include a composite material including an intermetallic compound comprising hafnium aluminide and a matrix material comprising pure aluminum.

Fluorine-containing composition for forming anti-reflection film on resist surface and pattern formation method

DOEpatents

Nishi, Mineo; Makishima, Hideo

1996-01-01

A composition for forming anti-reflection film on resist surface which comprises an aqueous solution of a water soluble fluorine compound, and a pattern formation method which comprises the steps of coating a photoresist composition on a substrate; coating the above-mentioned composition for forming anti-reflection film; exposing the coated film to form a specific pattern; and developing the photoresist, are provided. Since the composition for forming anti-reflection film can be coated on the photoresist in the form of an aqueous solution, not only the anti-reflection film can be formed easily, but also, the film can be removed easily by rinsing with water or alkali development. Therefore, by the pattern formation method according to the present invention, it is possible to form a pattern easily with a high dimensional accuracy.

Rapid computation of photoacoustic fields from normal and pathological red blood cells using a Green's function method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saha, Ratan K.; Fadhel, Muhannad N.; Lawrence, Aamna; Karmakar, Subhajit; Adhikari, Arunabha; Kolios, Michael C.

2017-03-01

Photoacoustic (PA) field calculations using a Green's function approach is presented. The method has been applied to predict PA spectra generated by normal (discocyte) and pathological (stomatocyte) red blood cells (RBCs). The contours of normal and pathological RBCs were generated by employing a popular parametric model and accordingly, fitted with the Legendre polynomial expansions for surface parametrization. The first frequency minimum of theoretical PA spectrum approximately appears at 607 MHz for a discocyte and 410 MHz for a stomatocyte when computed from the direction of symmetry axis. The same feature occurs nearly at 247 and 331 MHz, respectively, for those particles when measured along the perpendicular direction. The average experimental spectrum for normal RBCs is found to be flat over a bandwidth of 150-500 MHz when measured along the direction of symmetry axis. For spherical RBCs, both the theoretical and experimental spectra demonstrate negative slope over a bandwidth of 250-500 MHz. Using the Green's function method discussed, it may be possible to rapidly characterize cellular morphology from single-particle PA spectra.

Characteristic analysis on UAV-MIMO channel based on normalized correlation matrix.

PubMed

Gao, Xi jun; Chen, Zi li; Hu, Yong Jiang

2014-01-01

Based on the three-dimensional GBSBCM (geometrically based double bounce cylinder model) channel model of MIMO for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the simple form of UAV space-time-frequency channel correlation function which includes the LOS, SPE, and DIF components is presented. By the methods of channel matrix decomposition and coefficient normalization, the analytic formula of UAV-MIMO normalized correlation matrix is deduced. This formula can be used directly to analyze the condition number of UAV-MIMO channel matrix, the channel capacity, and other characteristic parameters. The simulation results show that this channel correlation matrix can be applied to describe the changes of UAV-MIMO channel characteristics under different parameter settings comprehensively. This analysis method provides a theoretical basis for improving the transmission performance of UAV-MIMO channel. The development of MIMO technology shows practical application value in the field of UAV communication.

Group normalization for genomic data.

PubMed

Ghandi, Mahmoud; Beer, Michael A

2012-01-01

Data normalization is a crucial preliminary step in analyzing genomic datasets. The goal of normalization is to remove global variation to make readings across different experiments comparable. In addition, most genomic loci have non-uniform sensitivity to any given assay because of variation in local sequence properties. In microarray experiments, this non-uniform sensitivity is due to different DNA hybridization and cross-hybridization efficiencies, known as the probe effect. In this paper we introduce a new scheme, called Group Normalization (GN), to remove both global and local biases in one integrated step, whereby we determine the normalized probe signal by finding a set of reference probes with similar responses. Compared to conventional normalization methods such as Quantile normalization and physically motivated probe effect models, our proposed method is general in the sense that it does not require the assumption that the underlying signal distribution be identical for the treatment and control, and is flexible enough to correct for nonlinear and higher order probe effects. The Group Normalization algorithm is computationally efficient and easy to implement. We also describe a variant of the Group Normalization algorithm, called Cross Normalization, which efficiently amplifies biologically relevant differences between any two genomic datasets.

17 CFR 160.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 2 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Form of opt out notice to... Privacy and Opt Out Notices § 160.7 Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods. (a)(1) Form of...-off boxes in a prominent position on the relevant forms with the opt out notice; (B) Include a reply...

Discovery of small molecules binding to the normal conformation of prion by combining virtual screening and multiple biological activity evaluation methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Li, Lanlan; Wei, Wei; Jia, Wen-Juan; Zhu, Yongchang; Zhang, Yan; Chen, Jiang-Huai; Tian, Jiaqi; Liu, Huanxiang; He, Yong-Xing; Yao, Xiaojun

2017-12-01

Conformational conversion of the normal cellular prion protein, PrPC, into the misfolded isoform, PrPSc, is considered to be a central event in the development of fatal neurodegenerative diseases. Stabilization of prion protein at the normal cellular form (PrPC) with small molecules is a rational and efficient strategy for treatment of prion related diseases. However, few compounds have been identified as potent prion inhibitors by binding to the normal conformation of prion. In this work, to rational screening of inhibitors capable of stabilizing cellular form of prion protein, multiple approaches combining docking-based virtual screening, steady-state fluorescence quenching, surface plasmon resonance and thioflavin T fluorescence assay were used to discover new compounds interrupting PrPC to PrPSc conversion. Compound 3253-0207 that can bind to PrPC with micromolar affinity and inhibit prion fibrillation was identified from small molecule databases. Molecular dynamics simulation indicated that compound 3253-0207 can bind to the hotspot residues in the binding pocket composed by β1, β2 and α2, which are significant structure moieties in conversion from PrPC to PrPSc.

SU-E-J-178: A Normalization Method Can Remove Discrepancy in Ventilation Function Due to Different Breathing Patterns

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Qu, H; Yu, N; Stephans, K

2014-06-01

Purpose: To develop a normalization method to remove discrepancy in ventilation function due to different breathing patterns. Methods: Twenty five early stage non-small cell lung cancer patients were included in this study. For each patient, a ten phase 4D-CT and the voluntarily maximum inhale and exhale CTs were acquired clinically and retrospectively used for this study. For each patient, two ventilation maps were calculated from voxel-to-voxel CT density variations from two phases of the quiet breathing and two phases of the extreme breathing. For the quiet breathing, 0% (inhale) and 50% (exhale) phases from 4D-CT were used. An in-house toolmore » was developed to calculate and display the ventilation maps. To enable normalization, the whole lung of each patient was evenly divided into three parts in the longitude direction at a coronal image with a maximum lung cross section. The ratio of cumulated ventilation from the top one-third region to the middle one-third region of the lung was calculated for each breathing pattern. Pearson's correlation coefficient was calculated on the ratios of the two breathing patterns for the group. Results: For each patient, the ventilation map from the quiet breathing was different from that of the extreme breathing. When the cumulative ventilation was normalized to the middle one-third of the lung region for each patient, the normalized ventilation functions from the two breathing patterns were consistent. For this group of patients, the correlation coefficient of the normalized ventilations for the two breathing patterns was 0.76 (p < 0.01), indicating a strong correlation in the ventilation function measured from the two breathing patterns. Conclusion: For each patient, the ventilation map is dependent of the breathing pattern. Using a regional normalization method, the discrepancy in ventilation function induced by the different breathing patterns thus different tidal volumes can be removed.« less

Decorin and biglycan of normal and pathologic human corneas

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Funderburgh, J. L.; Hevelone, N. D.; Roth, M. R.; Funderburgh, M. L.; Rodrigues, M. R.; Nirankari, V. S.; Conrad, G. W.

1998-01-01

PURPOSE: Corneas with scars and certain chronic pathologic conditions contain highly sulfated dermatan sulfate, but little is known of the core proteins that carry these atypical glycosaminoglycans. In this study the proteoglycan proteins attached to dermatan sulfate in normal and pathologic human corneas were examined to identify primary genes involved in the pathobiology of corneal scarring. METHODS: Proteoglycans from human corneas with chronic edema, bullous keratopathy, and keratoconus and from normal corneas were analyzed using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), quantitative immunoblotting, and immunohistology with peptide antibodies to decorin and biglycan. RESULTS: Proteoglycans from pathologic corneas exhibit increased size heterogeneity and binding of the cationic dye alcian blue compared with those in normal corneas. Decorin and biglycan extracted from normal and diseased corneas exhibited similar molecular size distribution patterns. In approximately half of the pathologic corneas, the level of biglycan was elevated an average of seven times above normal, and decorin was elevated approximately three times above normal. The increases were associated with highly charged molecular forms of decorin and biglycan, indicating modification of the proteins with dermatan sulfate chains of increased sulfation. Immunostaining of corneal sections showed an abnormal stromal localization of biglycan in pathologic corneas. CONCLUSIONS: The increased dermatan sulfate associated with chronic corneal pathologic conditions results from stromal accumulation of decorin and particularly of biglycan in the affected corneas. These proteins bear dermatan sulfate chains with increased sulfation compared with normal stromal proteoglycans.

A simple spectrophotometric method for the determination of beta-blockers in dosage forms.

PubMed

Al-Ghannam, S M

2006-01-23

A simple, extraction-free spectrophotometric method is proposed for the analysis of some beta-blockers, namely atenolol, timolol and nadolol. The method is based on the interaction of the drugs in chloroform with 0.1% chloroformic solutions of acidic sulphophthalein dyes to form stable, yellow-coloured, ion-pair complexes peaking at 415 nm. The dyes used were bromophenol blue (BPB), bromothymol blue (BTB) and bromocresol purple (BCP). Under the optimum conditions, the three drugs could be assayed in the concentration range 1-10 microg ml(-1) with correlation coefficient (n = 5) more than 0.999 in all cases. The stoichiometry of the reaction was found to be 1:1 in all cases and the conditional stability constant (K(F)) of the complexes have been calculated. The free energy changes (DeltaG) were determined for all complexes formed. The interference likely to be introduced from co-formulated drugs was studied and their tolerance limits were determined. The proposed method was then applied to dosage-forms the percentage recoveries ranges from 99.12-100.95, and the results obtained were compared favorably with those given with the official methods.

Berberine alkaloid: Quantum chemical study of different forms by the DFT and MP2 methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Danilov, V. I.; Dailidonis, V. V.; Hovorun, D. M.; Kurita, N.; Murayama, Y.; Natsume, T.; Potopalsky, A. I.; Zaika, L. A.

2006-10-01

The stable structures and electronic properties for the berberine cation as well as possible ammonium, carbinol and amino-aldehyde forms of protoberberine salts in the presence of hydroxyl ions were investigated by the B3LYP/6-31G(d,p) and MP2/6-31++G(d,p) methods. The geometry optimizations by both methods lead to the nonplanar propeller-twisted and buckled structure for the all forms. The obtained bond lengths and bond angles agree with the experimental values. The comparison of total energies elucidates that the amino-aldehyde form is the most preferable tautomer in gas phase, while the carbinol form is less stable. The least stable tautomer is the ammonium form.

Methods for determining optical power, for power-normalizing laser measurements, and for stabilizing power of lasers via compliance voltage sensing

DOEpatents

Taubman, Matthew S; Phillips, Mark C

2015-04-07

A method is disclosed for power normalization of spectroscopic signatures obtained from laser based chemical sensors that employs the compliance voltage across a quantum cascade laser device within an external cavity laser. The method obviates the need for a dedicated optical detector used specifically for power normalization purposes. A method is also disclosed that employs the compliance voltage developed across the laser device within an external cavity semiconductor laser to power-stabilize the laser mode of the semiconductor laser by adjusting drive current to the laser such that the output optical power from the external cavity semiconductor laser remains constant.

A methodology for generating normal and pathological brain perfusion SPECT images for evaluation of MRI/SPECT fusion methods: application in epilepsy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grova, C.; Jannin, P.; Biraben, A.; Buvat, I.; Benali, H.; Bernard, A. M.; Scarabin, J. M.; Gibaud, B.

2003-12-01

Quantitative evaluation of brain MRI/SPECT fusion methods for normal and in particular pathological datasets is difficult, due to the frequent lack of relevant ground truth. We propose a methodology to generate MRI and SPECT datasets dedicated to the evaluation of MRI/SPECT fusion methods and illustrate the method when dealing with ictal SPECT. The method consists in generating normal or pathological SPECT data perfectly aligned with a high-resolution 3D T1-weighted MRI using realistic Monte Carlo simulations that closely reproduce the response of a SPECT imaging system. Anatomical input data for the SPECT simulations are obtained from this 3D T1-weighted MRI, while functional input data result from an inter-individual analysis of anatomically standardized SPECT data. The method makes it possible to control the 'brain perfusion' function by proposing a theoretical model of brain perfusion from measurements performed on real SPECT images. Our method provides an absolute gold standard for assessing MRI/SPECT registration method accuracy since, by construction, the SPECT data are perfectly registered with the MRI data. The proposed methodology has been applied to create a theoretical model of normal brain perfusion and ictal brain perfusion characteristic of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. To approach realistic and unbiased perfusion models, real SPECT data were corrected for uniform attenuation, scatter and partial volume effect. An anatomic standardization was used to account for anatomic variability between subjects. Realistic simulations of normal and ictal SPECT deduced from these perfusion models are presented. The comparison of real and simulated SPECT images showed relative differences in regional activity concentration of less than 20% in most anatomical structures, for both normal and ictal data, suggesting realistic models of perfusion distributions for evaluation purposes. Inter-hemispheric asymmetry coefficients measured on simulated data were found within

Influence of pH and method of crystallization on the solid physical form of indomethacin.

PubMed

Dubbini, Alessandra; Censi, Roberta; Martena, Valentina; Hoti, Ela; Ricciutelli, Massimo; Malaj, Ledjan; Di Martino, Piera

2014-10-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of pH and method of crystallization on the solid physical form of indomethacin (IDM). IDM, a non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug poorly soluble in water, underwent two different crystallization methods: crystallization by solvent evaporation under reduced pressure at 50.0°C (method A), and crystallization by cooling of solution from 50.0 to 5.0°C (method B). In both cases, several aqueous ethanolic solutions of IDM of different pHs were prepared. pHs were adjusted by adding acidic solutions (HCl 2M) or alkali (NaOH or NH4OH 2M) to an aqueous ethanolic solution of IDM. Thus, several batches were recovered after crystallization. The chemical stability of IDM was verified through (1)H NMR and mass spectroscopy (FIA-ESI-MS), that revealed that IDM degraded in strong alkali media (pH ≥ 12). Crystals obtained under different crystallization conditions at pHs of 1.0, 4.5, 7.0, 8.0, 10.0 and chemically stable were thus characterized for crystal habit by scanning electron microscopy, for thermal behaviour by differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetry, and for solid state by X-ray powder diffractometry. Under the Method A, IDM always crystallized into pure metastable alpha form when solutions were acidified or alkalized respectively with HCl and NH4OH. On the contrary, in presence of NaOH, IDM crystallized under a mixture of alpha and sodium trihydrate form, because the presence of the sodium counter ion orientates the crystallization towards the formation of the trihydrate salt. Under the method B, at pH of 1.0, IDM crystallized under the alpha form; at pH 4.5, IDM crystallized under the form alpha in presence of some nuclei of gamma form; at pH 7.0, 8.0, and 10.0 for NH4OH, IDM crystallized under the most stable polymorph gamma form, whereas in presence of NaOH, a mix of alpha, and salt forms was formed whatever the pH of the solution. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Application of the moving frame method to deformed Willmore surfaces in space forms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Paragoda, Thanuja

2018-06-01

The main goal of this paper is to use the theory of exterior differential forms in deriving variations of the deformed Willmore energy in space forms and study the minimizers of the deformed Willmore energy in space forms. We derive both first and second order variations of deformed Willmore energy in space forms explicitly using moving frame method. We prove that the second order variation of deformed Willmore energy depends on the intrinsic Laplace Beltrami operator, the sectional curvature and some special operators along with mean and Gauss curvatures of the surface embedded in space forms, while the first order variation depends on the extrinsic Laplace Beltrami operator.

Compton profiles of some composite materials normalized by a new method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sankarshan, B. M.; Umesh, T. K.

2018-03-01

Recently, we have shown that as a novel approach, in the case of samples which can be treated as pure incoherent scatterers, the effective atomic number Zeff itself could be conveniently used to normalize their un-normalized Compton profiles. In the present investigation, we have attempted to examine the efficacy of this approach. For this purpose, we have first determined the single differential Compton scattering cross sections (SDCS) of the elements C and Al as well as of some H, C, N and O based polymer samples such as bakelite, epoxy, nylon and teflon which are pure incoherent scatterers. The measurements were made at 120° in a goniometer assembly that employs a high resolution high purity germanium detector. The SDCS values were used to obtain the Zeff and the un-normalized Compton profiles. These Compton profiles were separately normalized with their Zeff values (for Compton scattering) as well as with the normalization constant obtained by integrating their Hartree-Fock Biggs et al Compton profiles based on the mixture rule. These two sets of values agreed well within the range of experimental errors, implying that Zeff can be conveniently used to normalize the experimental Compton profiles of pure incoherent scatterers.

48 CFR 215.404-70 - DD Form 1547, Record of Weighted Guidelines Method Application.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false DD Form 1547, Record of... TYPES CONTRACTING BY NEGOTIATION Contract Pricing 215.404-70 DD Form 1547, Record of Weighted Guidelines Method Application. Follow the procedures at PGI 215.404-70 for use of DD Form 1547 whenever a structured...

Radial arrays of nano-electrospray ionization emitters and methods of forming electrosprays

DOEpatents

Kelly, Ryan T [West Richland, WA; Tang, Keqi [Richland, WA; Smith, Richard D [Richland, WA

2010-10-19

Electrospray ionization emitter arrays, as well as methods for forming electrosprays, are described. The arrays are characterized by a radial configuration of three or more nano-electrospray ionization emitters without an extractor electrode. The methods are characterized by distributing fluid flow of the liquid sample among three or more nano-electrospray ionization emitters, forming an electrospray at outlets of the emitters without utilizing an extractor electrode, and directing the electrosprays into an entrance to a mass spectrometry device. Each of the nano-electrospray ionization emitters can have a discrete channel for fluid flow. The nano-electrospray ionization emitters are circularly arranged such that each is shielded substantially equally from an electrospray-inducing electric field.

Systems for column-based separations, methods of forming packed columns, and methods of purifying sample components

DOEpatents

Egorov, Oleg B.; O'Hara, Matthew J.; Grate, Jay W.; Chandler, Darrell P.; Brockman, Fred J.; Bruckner-Lea, Cynthia J.

2000-01-01

The invention encompasses systems for column-based separations, methods of packing and unpacking columns and methods of separating components of samples. In one aspect, the invention includes a method of packing and unpacking a column chamber, comprising: a) packing a matrix material within a column chamber to form a packed column; and b) after the packing, unpacking the matrix material from the column chamber without moving the column chamber. In another aspect, the invention includes a system for column-based separations, comprising: a) a fluid passageway, the fluid passageway comprising a column chamber and a flow path in fluid communication with the column chamber, the flow path being obstructed by a retaining material permeable to a carrier fluid and impermeable to a column matrix material suspended in the carrier fluid, the flow path extending through the column chamber and through the retaining material, the flow path being configured to form a packed column within the column chamber when a suspension of the fluid and the column matrix material is flowed along the flow path; and b) the fluid passageway extending through a valve intermediate the column chamber and the retaining material.

Systems For Column-Based Separations, Methods Of Forming Packed Columns, And Methods Of Purifying Sample Components

DOEpatents

Egorov, Oleg B.; O'Hara, Matthew J.; Grate, Jay W.; Chandler, Darrell P.; Brockman, Fred J.; Bruckner-Lea, Cynthia J.

2006-02-21

The invention encompasses systems for column-based separations, methods of packing and unpacking columns and methods of separating components of samples. In one aspect, the invention includes a method of packing and unpacking a column chamber, comprising: a) packing a matrix material within a column chamber to form a packed column; and b) after the packing, unpacking the matrix material from the column chamber without moving the column chamber. In another aspect, the invention includes a system for column-based separations, comprising: a) a fluid passageway, the fluid passageway comprising a column chamber and a flow path in fluid communication with the column chamber, the flow path being obstructed by a retaining material permeable to a carrier fluid and impermeable to a column matrix material suspended in the carrier fluid, the flow path extending through the column chamber and through the retaining material, the flow path being configured to form a packed column within the column chamber when a suspension of the fluid and the column matrix material is flowed along the flow path; and b) the fluid passageway extending through a valve intermediate the column chamber and the retaining material.

Systems For Column-Based Separations, Methods Of Forming Packed Columns, And Methods Of Purifying Sample Components.

DOEpatents

Egorov, Oleg B.; O'Hara, Matthew J.; Grate, Jay W.; Chandler, Darrell P.; Brockman, Fred J.; Bruckner-Lea, Cynthia J.

2004-08-24

The invention encompasses systems for column-based separations, methods of packing and unpacking columns and methods of separating components of samples. In one aspect, the invention includes a method of packing and unpacking a column chamber, comprising: a) packing a matrix material within a column chamber to form a packed column; and b) after the packing, unpacking the matrix material from the column chamber without moving the column chamber. In another aspect, the invention includes a system for column-based separations, comprising: a) a fluid passageway, the fluid passageway comprising a column chamber and a flow path in fluid communication with the column chamber, the flow path being obstructed by a retaining material permeable to a carrier fluid and impermeable to a column matrix material suspended in the carrier fluid, the flow path extending through the column chamber and through the retaining material, the flow path being configured to form a packed column within the column chamber when a suspension of the fluid and the column matrix material is flowed along the flow path; and b) the fluid passageway extending through a valve intermediate the column chamber and the retaining material.

Normal values of 3 methods to determine patellar height in children from 6 to 12 years.

PubMed

Vergara-Amador, E; Davalos Herrera, D; Guevara, O A

2018-03-26

The aim of the study was to compare three methods for high-score measurement in children, Caton-Deschamps, Blackburne-Peel and Koshino-Sugimoto, to determine the normal value of each method in a group of normal children. A cross-sectional study on knee x-rays of normal children. Three orthopaedic surgeons measured the Caton-Deschamps, Blackburne-Peel and Koshino-Sugimoto indices. Concordance was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient. For interobserver variability, the measurements of each observer for each index were compared and for intraobserver variability, the coefficient between the 2 measurements was calculated by the same observer at 2 different times. 140 knee X-rays divided into 4 age groups were obtained. For the Blackburne-Peel index, an average median of the 3 observers was obtained of 1.07 and with P5-P95 (0.76-1.60). For the Caton-Deschamps index, an average median of the three observers of 1.22 was obtained and with P5-P95 (0.91-1.70). For the Koshino-Sugimoto index, we obtained an average median of the 3 observers of 1.16 and with P5-P95 (0.99-1.36). This study shows that the Koshino-Sugimoto index had the highest reliability, reproducibility and similarity in the population studied, both intra-observer and inter-observer. The other methods evaluated also had variability indices to be taken into account, but were inferior to the Koshino-Sugimoto index. Copyright © 2018 SECOT. Publicado por Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.

Spectrophotometric methods for the determination of benazepril hydrochloride in its single and multi-component dosage forms.

PubMed

El-Yazbi, F A; Abdine, H H; Shaalan, R A

1999-06-01

Three sensitive and accurate methods are presented for the determination of benazepril in its dosage forms. The first method uses derivative spectrophotometry to resolve the interference due to formulation matrix. The second method depends on the color formed by the reaction of the drug with bromocresol green (BCG). The third one utilizes the reaction of benazepril, after alkaline hydrolysis, with 3-methylbenzothialozone (MBTH) hydrazone where the produced color is measured at 593 nm. The latter method was extended to develop a stability-indicating method for this drug. Moreover, the derivative method was applied for the determination of benazepril in its combination with hydrochlorothiazide. The proposed methods were applied for the analysis of benazepril in the pure form and in tablets. The coefficient of variation was less than 2%.

Group Normalization for Genomic Data

PubMed Central

Ghandi, Mahmoud; Beer, Michael A.

2012-01-01

Data normalization is a crucial preliminary step in analyzing genomic datasets. The goal of normalization is to remove global variation to make readings across different experiments comparable. In addition, most genomic loci have non-uniform sensitivity to any given assay because of variation in local sequence properties. In microarray experiments, this non-uniform sensitivity is due to different DNA hybridization and cross-hybridization efficiencies, known as the probe effect. In this paper we introduce a new scheme, called Group Normalization (GN), to remove both global and local biases in one integrated step, whereby we determine the normalized probe signal by finding a set of reference probes with similar responses. Compared to conventional normalization methods such as Quantile normalization and physically motivated probe effect models, our proposed method is general in the sense that it does not require the assumption that the underlying signal distribution be identical for the treatment and control, and is flexible enough to correct for nonlinear and higher order probe effects. The Group Normalization algorithm is computationally efficient and easy to implement. We also describe a variant of the Group Normalization algorithm, called Cross Normalization, which efficiently amplifies biologically relevant differences between any two genomic datasets. PMID:22912661

Supervised normalization of microarrays

PubMed Central

Mecham, Brigham H.; Nelson, Peter S.; Storey, John D.

2010-01-01

Motivation: A major challenge in utilizing microarray technologies to measure nucleic acid abundances is ‘normalization’, the goal of which is to separate biologically meaningful signal from other confounding sources of signal, often due to unavoidable technical factors. It is intuitively clear that true biological signal and confounding factors need to be simultaneously considered when performing normalization. However, the most popular normalization approaches do not utilize what is known about the study, both in terms of the biological variables of interest and the known technical factors in the study, such as batch or array processing date. Results: We show here that failing to include all study-specific biological and technical variables when performing normalization leads to biased downstream analyses. We propose a general normalization framework that fits a study-specific model employing every known variable that is relevant to the expression study. The proposed method is generally applicable to the full range of existing probe designs, as well as to both single-channel and dual-channel arrays. We show through real and simulated examples that the method has favorable operating characteristics in comparison to some of the most highly used normalization methods. Availability: An R package called snm implementing the methodology will be made available from Bioconductor (http://bioconductor.org). Contact: jstorey@princeton.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. PMID:20363728

Sphere forming method and apparatus

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Youngberg, C. L.; Miller, C. G.; Stephens, J. B.; Finnerty, A. A. (Inventor)

1983-01-01

A system is provided for forming small accurately spherical objects. Preformed largely spherical objects are supported at the opening of a conduit on the update of hot gas emitted from the opening, so the object is in a molten state. The conduit is suddenly jerked away at a downward incline, to allow the molten object to drop in free fall, so that surface tension forms a precise sphere. The conduit portion that has the opening, lies in a moderate vacuum chamber, and the falling sphere passes through the chamber and through a briefly opened valve into a tall drop tower that contains a lower pressure, to allow the sphere to cool without deformation caused by falling through air.

17 CFR 248.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

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17 CFR 160.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

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2011-04-01

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Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

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16 CFR 313.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

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Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

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16 CFR 313.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

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17 CFR 248.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... 17 Commodity and Securities Exchanges 3 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Form of opt out notice to... Safeguarding Personal Information Privacy and Opt Out Notices § 248.7 Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods. (a)(1) Form of opt out notice. If you are required to provide an opt out notice under...

16 CFR 313.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 16 Commercial Practices 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out... OF CONGRESS PRIVACY OF CONSUMER FINANCIAL INFORMATION Privacy and Opt Out Notices § 313.7 Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods. (a)(1) Form of opt out notice. If you are required to...

17 CFR 248.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

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[Primary culture of human normal epithelial cells].

PubMed

Tang, Yu; Xu, Wenji; Guo, Wanbei; Xie, Ming; Fang, Huilong; Chen, Chen; Zhou, Jun

2017-11-28

The traditional primary culture methods of human normal epithelial cells have disadvantages of low activity of cultured cells, the low cultivated rate and complicated operation. To solve these problems, researchers made many studies on culture process of human normal primary epithelial cell. In this paper, we mainly introduce some methods used in separation and purification of human normal epithelial cells, such as tissue separation method, enzyme digestion separation method, mechanical brushing method, red blood cell lysis method, percoll layered medium density gradient separation method. We also review some methods used in the culture and subculture, including serum-free medium combined with low mass fraction serum culture method, mouse tail collagen coating method, and glass culture bottle combined with plastic culture dish culture method. The biological characteristics of human normal epithelial cells, the methods of immunocytochemical staining, trypan blue exclusion are described. Moreover, the factors affecting the aseptic operation, the conditions of the extracellular environment, the conditions of the extracellular environment during culture, the number of differential adhesion, and the selection and dosage of additives are summarized.

Characteristic Analysis on UAV-MIMO Channel Based on Normalized Correlation Matrix

PubMed Central

Xi jun, Gao; Zi li, Chen; Yong Jiang, Hu

2014-01-01

Based on the three-dimensional GBSBCM (geometrically based double bounce cylinder model) channel model of MIMO for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the simple form of UAV space-time-frequency channel correlation function which includes the LOS, SPE, and DIF components is presented. By the methods of channel matrix decomposition and coefficient normalization, the analytic formula of UAV-MIMO normalized correlation matrix is deduced. This formula can be used directly to analyze the condition number of UAV-MIMO channel matrix, the channel capacity, and other characteristic parameters. The simulation results show that this channel correlation matrix can be applied to describe the changes of UAV-MIMO channel characteristics under different parameter settings comprehensively. This analysis method provides a theoretical basis for improving the transmission performance of UAV-MIMO channel. The development of MIMO technology shows practical application value in the field of UAV communication. PMID:24977185

Hydrodynamics based transfection in normal and fibrotic rats

PubMed Central

Yeikilis, Rita; Gal, Shunit; Kopeiko, Natalia; Paizi, Melia; Pines, Mark; Braet, Filip; Spira, Gadi

2006-01-01

AIM: Hydrodynamics based transfection (HBT), the injection of a large volume of naked plasmid DNA in a short time is a relatively simple, efficient and safe method for in vivo transfection of liver cells. Though used for quite some time, the mechanism of gene transfection has not yet been elucidated. METHODS: A luciferase encoding plasmid was injected using the hydrodynamics based procedure into normal and thioacetamide-induced fibrotic Sprague Dawley rats. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy images were taken. The consequence of a dual injection of Ringer solution and luciferase pDNA was followed. Halofuginone, an anti collagen type I inhibitor was used to reduce ECM load in fibrotic rats prior to the hydrodynamic injection. RESULTS: Large endothelial gaps formed as soon as 10’ following hydrodynamic injection; these gradually returned to normal 10 d post injection. Hydrodynamic administration of Ringer 10 or 30 m prior to moderate injection of plasmid did not result in efficient transfection suggesting that endothelial gaps by themselves are not sufficient for gene expression. Gene transfection following hydrodynamic injection in thioacetamide induced fibrotic rats was diminished coinciding with the level of fibrosis. Halofuginone, a specific collagen typeIinhibitor, alleviated this effect. CONCLUSION: The hydrodynamic pressure formed following HBT results in the formation of large endothelial gaps. These gaps, though important in the transfer of DNA molecules from the blood to the space of Disse are not enough to provide the appropriate conditions for hepatocyte transfection. Hydrodynamics based injection is applicable in fibrotic rats provided that ECM load is reduced. PMID:17036386

A Polarization-Dependent Normal Incident Quantum Cascade Detector Enhanced Via Metamaterial Resonators.

PubMed

Wang, Lei; Zhai, Shen-Qiang; Wang, Feng-Jiao; Liu, Jun-Qi; Liu, Shu-Man; Zhuo, Ning; Zhang, Chuan-Jin; Wang, Li-Jun; Liu, Feng-Qi; Wang, Zhan-Guo

2016-12-01

The design, fabrication, and characterization of a polarization-dependent normal incident quantum cascade detector coupled via complementary split-ring metamaterial resonators in the infrared regime are presented. The metamaterial structure is designed through three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain method and fabricated on the top metal contact, which forms a double-metal waveguide together with the metallic ground plane. With normal incidence, significant enhancements of photocurrent response are obtained at the metamaterial resonances compared with the 45° polished edge coupling device. The photocurrent response enhancements exhibit clearly polarization dependence, and the largest response enhancement factor of 165% is gained for the incident light polarized parallel to the split-ring gap.

Method for forming hermetic seals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Gallagher, Brian D.

1987-01-01

The firmly adherent film of bondable metal, such as silver, is applied to the surface of glass or other substrate by decomposing a layer of solution of a thermally decomposable metallo-organic deposition (MOD) compound such as silver neodecanoate in xylene. The MOD compound thermally decomposes into metal and gaseous by-products. Sealing is accomplished by depositing a layer of bonding metal, such as solder or a brazing alloy, on the metal film and then forming an assembly with another high melting point metal surface such as a layer of Kovar. When the assembly is heated above the temperature of the solder, the solder flows, wets the adjacent surfaces and forms a hermetic seal between the metal film and metal surface when the assembly cools.

Masturbation, sexuality, and adaptation: normalization in adolescence.

PubMed

Shapiro, Theodore

2008-03-01

During adolescence the central masturbation fantasy that is formulated during childhood takes its final form and paradoxically must now be directed outward for appropriate object finding and pair matching in the service of procreative aims. This is a step in adaptation that requires a further developmental landmark that I have called normalization. The path toward airing these private fantasies is facilitated by chumship relationships as a step toward further exposure to the social surround. Hartmann's structuring application of adaptation within psychoanalysis is used as a framework for understanding the process that simultaneously serves intrapsychic and social demands and permits goals that follow evolutionary principles. Variations in the normalization process from masturbatory isolation to a variety of forms of sexual socialization are examined in sociological data concerning current adolescent sexual behavior and in case examples that indicate some routes to normalized experience and practice.

Debris-less method and apparatus for forming apertures in hollow metallic articles

DOEpatents

Jordan, C.L.; Chodelka, E.J.

1980-06-24

This invention is a method for forming an aperture in a wall of a hollow metallic article without introducing metallic debris therein. In a typical operation, an annular groove is formed in an exterior portion of the wall. The groove defines an annular wall segment, and the bottom of the groove is shaped to slope downwardly away from the segment to form a tapered annular web which connects the segment to the wall. Any suitable coupling is attached to the outer face of the segment, as by welding. Pull then is applied to the coupling to effect circumferential breakage of the web, thus forming a removable single-piece wall fragment consisting of the web and segment. The fragment and the coupling member attached thereto then are removed from the wall.

12 CFR 573.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

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Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

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12 CFR 573.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

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12 CFR 40.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

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12 CFR 573.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

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12 CFR 40.7 - Form of opt out notice to consumers; opt out methods.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

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Method and apparatus for forming conformal SiN.sub.x films

DOEpatents

Wang, Qi

2007-11-27

A silicon nitride film formation method includes: Heating a substrate to be subjected to film formation to a substrate temperature; heating a wire to a wire temperature; supplying silane, ammonia, and hydrogen gases to the heating member; and forming a silicon nitride film on the substrate.

9 CFR 381.211 - Method of detention; form of detention tag.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

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Subterranean barriers, methods, and apparatuses for forming, inspecting, selectively heating, and repairing same

DOEpatents

Nickelson, Reva A.; Sloan, Paul A.; Richardson, John G.; Walsh, Stephanie; Kostelnik, Kevin M.

2009-04-07

A subterranean barrier and method for forming same are disclosed, the barrier including a plurality of casing strings wherein at least one casing string of the plurality of casing strings may be affixed to at least another adjacent casing string of the plurality of casing strings through at least one weld, at least one adhesive joint, or both. A method and system for nondestructively inspecting a subterranean barrier is disclosed. For instance, a radiographic signal may be emitted from within a casing string toward an adjacent casing string and the radiographic signal may be detected from within the adjacent casing string. A method of repairing a barrier including removing at least a portion of a casing string and welding a repair element within the casing string is disclosed. A method of selectively heating at least one casing string forming at least a portion of a subterranean barrier is disclosed.

Frequency dependent Qα and Qβ in the Umbria-Marche (Italy) region using a quadratic approximation of the coda-normalization method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Lorenzo, Salvatore; Bianco, Francesca; Del Pezzo, Edoardo

2013-06-01

The coda normalization method is one of the most used methods in the inference of attenuation parameters Qα and Qβ. Since, in this method, the geometrical spreading exponent γ is an unknown model parameter, the most part of studies assumes a fixed γ, generally equal to 1. However γ and Q could be also jointly inferred from the non-linear inversion of coda-normalized logarithms of amplitudes, but the trade-off between γ and Q could give rise to unreasonable values of these parameters. To minimize the trade-off between γ and Q, an inversion method based on a parabolic expression of the coda-normalization equation has been developed. The method has been applied to the waveforms recorded during the 1997 Umbria-Marche seismic crisis. The Akaike criterion has been used to compare results of the parabolic model with those of the linear model, corresponding to γ = 1. A small deviation from the spherical geometrical spreading has been inferred, but this is accompanied by a significant variation of Qα and Qβ values. For almost all the considered stations, Qα smaller than Qβ has been inferred, confirming that seismic attenuation, in the Umbria-Marche region, is controlled by crustal pore fluids.

Method of forming macro-structured high surface area transparent conductive oxide electrodes

DOEpatents

Forman, Arnold J.; Chen, Zhebo; Jaramillo, Thomas F.

2016-01-05

A method of forming a high surface area transparent conducting electrode is provided that includes depositing a transparent conducting thin film on a conductive substrate, where the transparent conducting thin film includes transparent conductive particles and a solution-based transparent conducting adhesive layer which serves to coat and bind together the transparent conducting particles, and heat treating the transparent conducting adhesion layer on the conductive substrate, where an increased surface area transparent conducting electrode is formed.

A Simple and Effective Image Normalization Method to Monitor Boreal Forest Change in a Siberian Burn Chronosequence across Sensors and across Time

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, X.; Vierling, L. A.; Deering, D. W.

2004-12-01

Satellite data offer unique perspectives for monitoring and quantifying land cover change, however, the radiometric consistency among co-located multi-temporal images is difficult to maintain due to variations in sensors and atmosphere. To detect accurate landscape change using multi-temporal images, we developed a new relative radiometric normalization scheme: the temporally invariant cluster (TIC) method. Image data were acquired on 9 June 1990 (Landsat 4), 20 June 2000, and 26 August 2001 (Landsat 7) for analyses over boreal forests near the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI), and Reduced Simple Ratio (RSR) were investigated in the normalization study. The temporally invariant cluster (TIC) centers were identified through a point density map of the base image and the target image and a normalization regression line was created through all TIC centers. The target image digital data were then converted using the regression function so that the two images could be compared using the resulting common radiometric scale. We found that EVI was very sensitive to vegetation structure and could thus be used to separate conifer forests from deciduous forests and grass/crop lands. NDVI was a very effective vegetation index to reduce the influence of shadow, while EVI was very sensitive to shadowing. After normalization, correlations of NDVI and EVI with field collected total Leaf Area Index (LAI) data in 2000 and 2001 were significantly improved; the r-square values in these regressions increased from 0.49 to 0.69 and from 0.46 to 0.61, respectively. An EVI ¡°cancellation effect¡± where EVI was positively related to understory greenness but negatively related to forest canopy coverage was evident across a post fire chronosequence. These findings indicate that the TIC method provides a simple, effective and repeatable method to create radiometrically comparable data sets for remote detection of

Indomethacin nanocrystals prepared by different laboratory scale methods: effect on crystalline form and dissolution behavior

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Martena, Valentina; Censi, Roberta; Hoti, Ela; Malaj, Ledjan; Di Martino, Piera

2012-12-01

The objective of this study is to select very simple and well-known laboratory scale methods able to reduce particle size of indomethacin until the nanometric scale. The effect on the crystalline form and the dissolution behavior of the different samples was deliberately evaluated in absence of any surfactants as stabilizers. Nanocrystals of indomethacin (native crystals are in the γ form) (IDM) were obtained by three laboratory scale methods: A (Batch A: crystallization by solvent evaporation in a nano-spray dryer), B (Batch B-15 and B-30: wet milling and lyophilization), and C (Batch C-20-N and C-40-N: Cryo-milling in the presence of liquid nitrogen). Nanocrystals obtained by the method A (Batch A) crystallized into a mixture of α and γ polymorphic forms. IDM obtained by the two other methods remained in the γ form and a different attitude to the crystallinity decrease were observed, with a more considerable decrease in crystalline degree for IDM milled for 40 min in the presence of liquid nitrogen. The intrinsic dissolution rate (IDR) revealed a higher dissolution rate for Batches A and C-40-N, due to the higher IDR of α form than γ form for the Batch A, and the lower crystallinity degree for both the Batches A and C-40-N. These factors, as well as the decrease in particle size, influenced the IDM dissolution rate from the particle samples. Modifications in the solid physical state that may occur using different particle size reduction treatments have to be taken into consideration during the scale up and industrial development of new solid dosage forms.

Creating IRT-Based Parallel Test Forms Using the Genetic Algorithm Method

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sun, Koun-Tem; Chen, Yu-Jen; Tsai, Shu-Yen; Cheng, Chien-Fen

2008-01-01

In educational measurement, the construction of parallel test forms is often a combinatorial optimization problem that involves the time-consuming selection of items to construct tests having approximately the same test information functions (TIFs) and constraints. This article proposes a novel method, genetic algorithm (GA), to construct parallel…

Research on design method of the full form ship with minimum thrust deduction factor

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Bao-ji; Miao, Ai-qin; Zhang, Zhu-xin

2015-04-01

In the preliminary design stage of the full form ships, in order to obtain a hull form with low resistance and maximum propulsion efficiency, an optimization design program for a full form ship with the minimum thrust deduction factor has been developed, which combined the potential flow theory and boundary layer theory with the optimization technique. In the optimization process, the Sequential Unconstrained Minimization Technique (SUMT) interior point method of Nonlinear Programming (NLP) was proposed with the minimum thrust deduction factor as the objective function. An appropriate displacement is a basic constraint condition, and the boundary layer separation is an additional one. The parameters of the hull form modification function are used as design variables. At last, the numerical optimization example for lines of after-body of 50000 DWT product oil tanker was provided, which indicated that the propulsion efficiency was improved distinctly by this optimal design method.

Normalization of satellite imagery

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kim, Hongsuk H.; Elman, Gregory C.

1990-01-01

Sets of Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery taken over the Washington, DC metropolitan area during the months of November, March and May were converted into a form of ground reflectance imagery. This conversion was accomplished by adjusting the incident sunlight and view angles and by applying a pixel-by-pixel correction for atmospheric effects. Seasonal color changes of the area can be better observed when such normalization is applied to space imagery taken in time series. In normalized imagery, the grey scale depicts variations in surface reflectance and tonal signature of multi-band color imagery can be directly interpreted for quantitative information of the target.

7 CFR 51.3060 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Well formed. 51.3060 Section 51.3060 Agriculture..., CERTIFICATION, AND STANDARDS) United States Standards for Florida Avocados Definitions § 51.3060 Well formed. Well formed means that the avocado has the normal shape characteristic of the variety. ...

7 CFR 51.3060 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Well formed. 51.3060 Section 51.3060 Agriculture..., CERTIFICATION, AND STANDARDS) United States Standards for Florida Avocados Definitions § 51.3060 Well formed. Well formed means that the avocado has the normal shape characteristic of the variety. ...

Method of nitriding niobium to form a superconducting surface

DOEpatents

Kelley, Michael J.; Klopf, John Michael; Singaravelu, Senthilaraja

2014-08-19

A method of forming a delta niobium nitride .delta.-NbN layer on the surface of a niobium object including cleaning the surface of the niobium object; providing a treatment chamber; placing the niobium object in the treatment chamber; evacuating the chamber; passing pure nitrogen into the treatment chamber; focusing a laser spot on the niobium object; delivering laser fluences at the laser spot until the surface of the niobium object reaches above its boiling temperature; and rastering the laser spot over the surface of the niobium object.

Method of coextruding plastics to form a composite sheet

DOEpatents

Tsien, Hsue C.

1985-06-04

This invention pertains to a method of producing a composite sheet of plastic materials by means of coextrusion. Two plastic materials are matched with respect to their melt indices. These matched plastic materials are then coextruded in a side-by-side orientation while hot and soft to form a composite sheet having a substantially uniform demarkation therebetween. The plastic materials are fed at a substantially equal extrusion velocity and generally have substantially equal viscosities. The coextruded plastics can be worked after coextrusion while they are still hot and soft.

A method for the quantitative site-specific study of the biochemistry within dental plaque biofilms formed in vivo.

PubMed

Robinson, C; Kirkham, J; Percival, R; Shore, R C; Bonass, W A; Brookes, S J; Kusa, L; Nakagaki, H; Kato, K; Nattress, B

1997-01-01

The study of plaque biofilms in the oral cavity is difficult as plaque removal inevitably disrupts biofilm integrity precluding kinetic studies involving the penetration of components and metabolism of substrates in situ. A method is described here in which plaque is formed in vivo under normal (or experimental) conditions using a collection device which can be removed from the mouth after a specified time without physical disturbance to the plaque biofilm, permitting site-specific analysis or exposure of the undisturbed plaque to experimental conditions in vitro. Microbiological analysis revealed plaque flora which was similar to that reported from many natural sources. Analytical data can be related to plaque volume rather than weight. Using this device, plaque fluoride concentrations have been shown to vary with plaque depth and in vitro short-term exposure to radiolabelled components may be carried out, permitting important conclusions to be drawn regarding the site-specific composition and dynamics of dental plaque.

Instantaneous Normal Modes and the Protein Glass Transition

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schulz, Roland; Krishnan, Marimuthu; Daidone, Isabella

2009-01-01

In the instantaneous normal mode method, normal mode analysis is performed at instantaneous configurations of a condensed-phase system, leading to modes with negative eigenvalues. These negative modes provide a means of characterizing local anharmonicities of the potential energy surface. Here, we apply instantaneous normal mode to analyze temperature-dependent diffusive dynamics in molecular dynamics simulations of a small protein (a scorpion toxin). Those characteristics of the negative modes are determined that correlate with the dynamical (or glass) transition behavior of the protein, as manifested as an increase in the gradient with T of the average atomic mean-square displacement at ~ 220more » K. The number of negative eigenvalues shows no transition with temperature. Further, although filtering the negative modes to retain only those with eigenvectors corresponding to double-well potentials does reveal a transition in the hydration water, again, no transition in the protein is seen. However, additional filtering of the protein double-well modes, so as to retain only those that, on energy minimization, escape to different regions of configurational space, finally leads to clear protein dynamical transition behavior. Partial minimization of instantaneous configurations is also found to remove nondiffusive imaginary modes. In summary, examination of the form of negative instantaneous normal modes is shown to furnish a physical picture of local diffusive dynamics accompanying the protein glass transition.« less

Instantaneous Normal Modes and the Protein Glass Transition

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schultz, Roland; Krishnan, Marimuthu; Daidone, Isabella

2009-01-01

In the instantaneous normal mode method, normal mode analysis is performed at instantaneous configurations of a condensed-phase system, leading to modes with negative eigenvalues. These negative modes provide a means of characterizing local anharmonicities of the potential energy surface. Here, we apply instantaneous normal mode to analyze temperature-dependent diffusive dynamics in molecular dynamics simulations of a small protein (a scorpion toxin). Those characteristics of the negative modes are determined that correlate with the dynamical (or glass) transition behavior of the protein, as manifested as an increase in the gradient with T of the average atomic mean-square displacement at 220 K.more » The number of negative eigenvalues shows no transition with temperature. Further, although filtering the negative modes to retain only those with eigenvectors corresponding to double-well potentials does reveal a transition in the hydration water, again, no transition in the protein is seen. However, additional filtering of the protein double-well modes, so as to retain only those that, on energy minimization, escape to different regions of configurational space, finally leads to clear protein dynamical transition behavior. Partial minimization of instantaneous configurations is also found to remove nondiffusive imaginary modes. In summary, examination of the form of negative instantaneous normal modes is shown to furnish a physical picture of local diffusive dynamics accompanying the protein glass transition.« less

Evaluation of estimation methods for organic carbon normalized sorption coefficients

USGS Publications Warehouse

Baker, James R.; Mihelcic, James R.; Luehrs, Dean C.; Hickey, James P.

1997-01-01

A critically evaluated set of 94 soil water partition coefficients normalized to soil organic carbon content (Koc) is presented for 11 classes of organic chemicals. This data set is used to develop and evaluate Koc estimation methods using three different descriptors. The three types of descriptors used in predicting Koc were octanol/water partition coefficient (Kow), molecular connectivity (mXt) and linear solvation energy relationships (LSERs). The best results were obtained estimating Koc from Kow, though a slight improvement in the correlation coefficient was obtained by using a two-parameter regression with Kow and the third order difference term from mXt. Molecular connectivity correlations seemed to be best suited for use with specific chemical classes. The LSER provided a better fit than mXt but not as good as the correlation with Koc. The correlation to predict Koc from Kow was developed for 72 chemicals; log Koc = 0.903* log Kow + 0.094. This correlation accounts for 91% of the variability in the data for chemicals with log Kow ranging from 1.7 to 7.0. The expression to determine the 95% confidence interval on the estimated Koc is provided along with an example for two chemicals of different hydrophobicity showing the confidence interval of the retardation factor determined from the estimated Koc. The data showed that Koc is not likely to be applicable for chemicals with log Kow < 1.7. Finally, the Koc correlation developed using Kow as a descriptor was compared with three nonclass-specific correlations and two 'commonly used' class-specific correlations to determine which method(s) are most suitable.

A high pressure liquid chromatography method for separation of prolactin forms.

PubMed

Bell, Damon A; Hoad, Kirsten; Leong, Lillian; Bakar, Juwaini Abu; Sheehan, Paul; Vasikaran, Samuel D

2012-05-01

Prolactin has multiple forms and macroprolactin, which is thought not to be bioavailable, can cause a raised serum prolactin concentration. Gel filtration chromatography (GFC) is currently the gold standard method for separating macroprolactin, but is labour-intensive. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation is suitable for routine use but may not always be accurate. We developed a high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) assay for macroprolactin measurement. Chromatography was carried out using an Agilent Zorbax GF-250 (9.4 × 250 mm, 4 μm) size exclusion column and 50 mmol/L Tris buffer with 0.15 mmol/L NaCl at pH 7.2 as mobile phase, with a flow rate of 1 mL/min. Serum or plasma was diluted 1:1 with mobile phase and filtered and 100 μL injected. Fractions of 155 μL were collected for prolactin measurement and elution profile plotted. The area under the curve of each prolactin peak was calculated to quantify each prolactin form, and compared with GFC. Clear separation of monomeric-, big- and macroprolactin forms was achieved. Quantification was comparable to GFC and precision was acceptable. Total time from injection to collection of the final fraction was 16 min. We have developed an HPLC method for quantification of macroprolactin, which is rapid and easy to perform and therefore can be used for routine measurement.

Valuation of Normal Range of Ankle Systolic Blood Pressure in Subjects with Normal Arm Systolic Blood Pressure.

PubMed

Gong, Yi; Cao, Kai-wu; Xu, Jin-song; Li, Ju-xiang; Hong, Kui; Cheng, Xiao-shu; Su, Hai

2015-01-01

This study aimed to establish a normal range for ankle systolic blood pressure (SBP). A total of 948 subjects who had normal brachial SBP (90-139 mmHg) at investigation were enrolled. Supine BP of four limbs was simultaneously measured using four automatic BP measurement devices. The ankle-arm difference (An-a) on SBP of both sides was calculated. Two methods were used for establishing normal range of ankle SBP: the 99% method was decided on the 99% reference range of actual ankle BP, and the An-a method was the sum of An-a and the low or up limits of normal arm SBP (90-139 mmHg). Whether in the right or left side, the ankle SBP was significantly higher than the arm SBP (right: 137.1 ± 16.9 vs 119.7 ± 11.4 mmHg, P<0.05). Based on the 99% method, the normal range of ankle SBP was 94~181 mmHg for the total population, 84~166 mmHg for the young (18-44 y), 107~176 mmHg for the middle-aged(45-59 y) and 113~179 mmHg for the elderly (≥ 60 y) group. As the An-a on SBP was 13 mmHg in the young group and 20 mmHg in both middle-aged and elderly groups, the normal range of ankle SBP on the An-a method was 103-153 mmHg for young and 110-160 mmHg for middle-elderly subjects. A primary reference for normal ankle SBP was suggested as 100-165 mmHg in the young and 110-170 mmHg in the middle-elderly subjects.

Quality assessment of Herba Leonuri based on the analysis of multiple components using normal- and reversed-phase chromatographic methods.

PubMed

Dong, Shuya; He, Jiao; Hou, Huiping; Shuai, Yaping; Wang, Qi; Yang, Wenling; Sun, Zheng; Li, Qing; Bi, Kaishun; Liu, Ran

2017-12-01

A novel, improved, and comprehensive method for quality evaluation and discrimination of Herba Leonuri has been developed and validated based on normal- and reversed-phase chromatographic methods. To identify Herba Leonuri, normal- and reversed-phase high-performance thin-layer chromatography fingerprints were obtained by comparing the colors and R f values of the bands, and reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography fingerprints were obtained by using an Agilent Poroshell 120 SB-C18 within 28 min. By similarity analysis and hierarchical clustering analysis, we show that there are similar chromatographic patterns in Herba Leonuri samples, but significant differences in counterfeits and variants. To quantify the bio-active components of Herba Leonuri, reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography was performed to analyze syringate, leonurine, quercetin-3-O-robiniaglycoside, hyperoside, rutin, isoquercitrin, wogonin, and genkwanin simultaneously by single standard to determine multi-components method with rutin as internal standard. Meanwhile, normal-phase high-performance liquid chromatography was performed by using an Agilent ZORBAX HILIC Plus within 6 min to determine trigonelline and stachydrine using trigonelline as internal standard. Innovatively, among these compounds, bio-active components of quercetin-3-O-robiniaglycoside and trigonelline were first determined in Herba Leonuri. In general, the method integrating multi-chromatographic analyses offered an efficient way for the standardization and identification of Herba Leonuri. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Transformation of arbitrary distributions to the normal distribution with application to EEG test-retest reliability.

PubMed

van Albada, S J; Robinson, P A

2007-04-15

Many variables in the social, physical, and biosciences, including neuroscience, are non-normally distributed. To improve the statistical properties of such data, or to allow parametric testing, logarithmic or logit transformations are often used. Box-Cox transformations or ad hoc methods are sometimes used for parameters for which no transformation is known to approximate normality. However, these methods do not always give good agreement with the Gaussian. A transformation is discussed that maps probability distributions as closely as possible to the normal distribution, with exact agreement for continuous distributions. To illustrate, the transformation is applied to a theoretical distribution, and to quantitative electroencephalographic (qEEG) measures from repeat recordings of 32 subjects which are highly non-normal. Agreement with the Gaussian was better than using logarithmic, logit, or Box-Cox transformations. Since normal data have previously been shown to have better test-retest reliability than non-normal data under fairly general circumstances, the implications of our transformation for the test-retest reliability of parameters were investigated. Reliability was shown to improve with the transformation, where the improvement was comparable to that using Box-Cox. An advantage of the general transformation is that it does not require laborious optimization over a range of parameters or a case-specific choice of form.

7 CFR 51.3747 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Well formed. 51.3747 Section 51.3747 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Definitions § 51.3747 Well formed. Well formed means that the melon has the normal shape characteristic of the...

7 CFR 51.488 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Well formed. 51.488 Section 51.488 Agriculture..., CERTIFICATION, AND STANDARDS) United States Standards for Grades of Cantaloups 1 Definitions § 51.488 Well formed. Well formed means that the cantaloup has the normal shape characteristic of the variety. ...

7 CFR 51.488 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Well formed. 51.488 Section 51.488 Agriculture..., CERTIFICATION, AND STANDARDS) United States Standards for Grades of Cantaloups 1 Definitions § 51.488 Well formed. Well formed means that the cantaloup has the normal shape characteristic of the variety. ...

7 CFR 51.3747 - Well formed.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Well formed. 51.3747 Section 51.3747 Agriculture Regulations of the Department of Agriculture AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE (Standards, Inspections, Marketing... Definitions § 51.3747 Well formed. Well formed means that the melon has the normal shape characteristic of the...

Normal Gravity Fields and Equipotential Ellipsoids of Small Objects in the Solar System: A Closed-form Solution in Ellipsoidal Harmonics up to the Second Degree

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hu, Xuanyu

2017-11-01

We propose a definition for the normal gravity fields and normal figures of small objects in the solar system, such as asteroids, cometary nuclei, and planetary moons. Their gravity fields are represented as series of ellipsoidal harmonics, ensuring more robust field evaluation in the proximity of an arbitrary, convex shape than using spherical harmonics. The normal gravity field, approximate to the actual field, can be described by a finite series of three terms, that is, degree zero, and the zonal and sectoral harmonics of degree two. The normal gravity is that of an equipotential ellipsoid, defined as the normal ellipsoid of the body. The normal ellipsoid may be distinct from the actual figure. We present a rationale for specifying and a numerical method for determining the parameters of the normal ellipsoid. The definition presented here generalizes the convention of the normal spheroid of a large, hydrostatically equilibrated planet, such as Earth. Modeling the normal gravity and the normal ellipsoid is relevant to studying the formation of the “rubble pile” objects, which may have been accreted, or reorganized after disruption, under self-gravitation. While the proposed methodology applies to convex, approximately ellipsoidal objects, those bi-lobed objects can be treated as contact binaries comprising individual convex subunits. We study an exemplary case of the nearly ellipsoidal Martian moon, Phobos, subject to strong tidal influence in its present orbit around Mars. The results allude to the formation of Phobos via gravitational accretion at some further distance from Mars.

Method of forming a multiple layer dielectric and a hot film sensor therewith

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hopson, Purnell, Jr. (Inventor); Tran, Sang Q. (Inventor)

1990-01-01

The invention is a method of forming a multiple layer dielectric for use in a hot-film laminar separation sensor. The multiple layer dielectric substrate is formed by depositing a first layer of a thermoelastic polymer such as on an electrically conductive substrate such as the metal surface of a model to be tested under cryogenic conditions and high Reynolds numbers. Next, a second dielectric layer of fused silica is formed on the first dielectric layer of thermoplastic polymer. A resistive metal film is deposited on selected areas of the multiple layer dielectric substrate to form one or more hot-film sensor elements to which aluminum electrical circuits deposited upon the multiple layered dielectric substrate are connected.

Impact of statistical learning methods on the predictive power of multivariate normal tissue complication probability models.

PubMed

Xu, Cheng-Jian; van der Schaaf, Arjen; Schilstra, Cornelis; Langendijk, Johannes A; van't Veld, Aart A

2012-03-15

To study the impact of different statistical learning methods on the prediction performance of multivariate normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) models. In this study, three learning methods, stepwise selection, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), and Bayesian model averaging (BMA), were used to build NTCP models of xerostomia following radiotherapy treatment for head and neck cancer. Performance of each learning method was evaluated by a repeated cross-validation scheme in order to obtain a fair comparison among methods. It was found that the LASSO and BMA methods produced models with significantly better predictive power than that of the stepwise selection method. Furthermore, the LASSO method yields an easily interpretable model as the stepwise method does, in contrast to the less intuitive BMA method. The commonly used stepwise selection method, which is simple to execute, may be insufficient for NTCP modeling. The LASSO method is recommended. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A Novel Method Of Gradient Forming and Fluid Manipulation in Reduced Gravity Environments

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ramachandran N.; Leslie, F.

1999-01-01

The use of magnetic fields to control the motion and position of non-conducting liquids has received growing interest in recent times. The possibility of using the forces exerted by a nonuniform magnetic field on a ferrofluid to not only achieve fluid manipulation but also to actively control fluid motion makes it an attractive candidate for applications such as heat transfer in space systems. Terrestrial heat transfer equipment often relies on the normal gravitational force to hold liquid in a desired position or to provide a buoyant force to enhance the heat transfer rate. The residual gravitational force present in a space environment may no longer serve these useful functions and other forces, such as surface tension, can play a significant role in determining heat transfer rates. Although typically overwhelmed by gravitational forces in terrestrial applications, the body force induced in a ferrofluid by a nonuniform magnetic field can help to achieve these objectives in a microgravity environment. This paper will address the fluid manipulation aspect and will comprise of results from model fluid experiments and numerical modeling of the problem. Results from a novel method of forming concentration gradients that are applicable to low gravity applications will be presented. The ground based experiments are specifically tailored to demonstrate the magnetic manipulation capability of a ferrofluid and show that gravitational effects can be countered in carefully designed systems. The development of governing equations for the system will be presented along with a sampling of numerical results.

Automatic segmentation method of pelvic floor levator hiatus in ultrasound using a self-normalizing neural network

PubMed Central

Dietz, Hans Peter; D’hooge, Jan; Barratt, Dean; Deprest, Jan

2018-01-01

Abstract. Segmentation of the levator hiatus in ultrasound allows the extraction of biometrics, which are of importance for pelvic floor disorder assessment. We present a fully automatic method using a convolutional neural network (CNN) to outline the levator hiatus in a two-dimensional image extracted from a three-dimensional ultrasound volume. In particular, our method uses a recently developed scaled exponential linear unit (SELU) as a nonlinear self-normalizing activation function, which for the first time has been applied in medical imaging with CNN. SELU has important advantages such as being parameter-free and mini-batch independent, which may help to overcome memory constraints during training. A dataset with 91 images from 35 patients during Valsalva, contraction, and rest, all labeled by three operators, is used for training and evaluation in a leave-one-patient-out cross validation. Results show a median Dice similarity coefficient of 0.90 with an interquartile range of 0.08, with equivalent performance to the three operators (with a Williams’ index of 1.03), and outperforming a U-Net architecture without the need for batch normalization. We conclude that the proposed fully automatic method achieved equivalent accuracy in segmenting the pelvic floor levator hiatus compared to a previous semiautomatic approach. PMID:29340289

Automatic segmentation method of pelvic floor levator hiatus in ultrasound using a self-normalizing neural network.

PubMed

Bonmati, Ester; Hu, Yipeng; Sindhwani, Nikhil; Dietz, Hans Peter; D'hooge, Jan; Barratt, Dean; Deprest, Jan; Vercauteren, Tom

2018-04-01

Segmentation of the levator hiatus in ultrasound allows the extraction of biometrics, which are of importance for pelvic floor disorder assessment. We present a fully automatic method using a convolutional neural network (CNN) to outline the levator hiatus in a two-dimensional image extracted from a three-dimensional ultrasound volume. In particular, our method uses a recently developed scaled exponential linear unit (SELU) as a nonlinear self-normalizing activation function, which for the first time has been applied in medical imaging with CNN. SELU has important advantages such as being parameter-free and mini-batch independent, which may help to overcome memory constraints during training. A dataset with 91 images from 35 patients during Valsalva, contraction, and rest, all labeled by three operators, is used for training and evaluation in a leave-one-patient-out cross validation. Results show a median Dice similarity coefficient of 0.90 with an interquartile range of 0.08, with equivalent performance to the three operators (with a Williams' index of 1.03), and outperforming a U-Net architecture without the need for batch normalization. We conclude that the proposed fully automatic method achieved equivalent accuracy in segmenting the pelvic floor levator hiatus compared to a previous semiautomatic approach.