Trap-efficiency investigation, Bernalillo Floodwater Retarding Reservoir No. 1 (Piedra Lisa Arroyo) near Bernalillo, New Mexico, water years 1956-1974

USGS Publications Warehouse

Funderburg, D.E.

1977-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey, in cooperation with the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, began an investigation of sedimentation of Bernalillo Floodwater Retarding Reservoir No. 1 (Piedra Lisa Arroyo) near Bernalillo, New Mexico in 1956. This investigation was part of a nationwide investigation of the trap efficiency of detention reservoirs. Reservoirs No. 1 is normally a dry reservoir and runoff from the 10.6 sq km drainage area generally occurs from high-intensity summer thundershowers. The mesa area of the drainage basin was treated to prevent erosion and gullying and to retard rapid runoff of rainfall. The land treatment consisted of pits, terraces, seeding, and restricted grazing. The total outflow recorded for the period of record (July 19, 1956 to June 30, 1974) was 133 acre-feet, yielding 1 ,439 tons of sediment. Over 99 percent of the coarse sediments and a high percentage of the silts and clays were deposited in the reservoir before reaching the outflow pipe. The determined trap efficiency of Reservoir No. 1 was 96 percent for the period of record. (Woordard-USGS)

High-efficiency volume holograms recording on acrylamide and N,N'methylene-bis-acrylamide photopolymer with pulsed laser

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gallego, Sergi; Ortuno, Manuel; Garcia, Celia; Neipp, Cristian; Belendez, Augusto; Pascual, Inmaculada V.

2004-09-01

In order to achieve higher diffraction efficiencies of the volume gratings stored in acrylamide based photopolymer, we introduce in the photopolymer a crosslinker (N,N'methylene-bis-acrylamide). The presence of this component increase the rate polymerization and the modulation of refraction index. The recording was performed using a holographic copying process. The original was a grating of 1000 lines/mm processed using silver halide sensitized gelatine, with diffraction efficiency around 50 % for a reconstruction wavelength of 532 nm. The main beam was split in two secondary beams by the original grating, with an intensity ratio 1:1. The results obtained using the new composition of material are compared with the composition without crosslinker. In the other hand the no linearity of the material's response is also studied comparing the energetic sensitivity, diffraction efficiencies and index modulation of gratings recorded with pulsed and continuous laser. This study is realized fitting the angular scan of each grating using Kogelnik's theory. The gratings are recorded with wavelength of 532 nm when pulsed exposure is used and with wavelength of 514 nm when continues exposure is used. Using pulsed laser at 532 nm the photopolymer without crosslinker presents the diffraction efficiencies lightly smaller than 60%. In the other hand when the crosslinker has been introduced in photopolymer composition, the diffraction efficiencies achieves are higher than 85 %.

Record-level quantum efficiency from a high polarization strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice photocathode with distributed Bragg reflector

DOE PAGES

Liu, Wei; Chen, Yiqiao; Lu, Wentao; ...

2016-12-19

Photocathodes that provide high polarization and high quantum efficiency (QE) can significantly enhance the physics capabilities of electron accelerators. We report record-level QE from a high-polarization strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice photocathode fabricated with a Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR). The DBR photocathode technique enhances the absorption of incident laser light thereby enhancing QE, but as literature suggests, it is very challenging to optimize all of the parameters associated with the fabrication of complicated photocathode structures composed of many distinct layers. Past reports of DBR photocathodes describe high polarization but typically QE of only ~ 1%, which is comparable to QE of highmore » polarization photocathodes grown without a DBR structure. As a result, this work describes a new strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice DBR photocathode exhibiting polarization of 84% and QE of 6.4%.« less

Record-level quantum efficiency from a high polarization strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice photocathode with distributed Bragg reflector

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

Liu, Wei; Chen, Yiqiao; Lu, Wentao

Photocathodes that provide high polarization and high quantum efficiency (QE) can significantly enhance the physics capabilities of electron accelerators. We report record-level QE from a high-polarization strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice photocathode fabricated with a Distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR). The DBR photocathode technique enhances the absorption of incident laser light thereby enhancing QE, but as literature suggests, it is very challenging to optimize all of the parameters associated with the fabrication of complicated photocathode structures composed of many distinct layers. Past reports of DBR photocathodes describe high polarization but typically QE of only ~ 1%, which is comparable to QE of highmore » polarization photocathodes grown without a DBR structure. As a result, this work describes a new strained GaAs/GaAsP superlattice DBR photocathode exhibiting polarization of 84% and QE of 6.4%.« less

Rayleigh-wave dispersive energy imaging and mode separating by high-resolution linear Radon transform

USGS Publications Warehouse

Luo, Y.; Xu, Y.; Liu, Q.; Xia, J.

2008-01-01

In recent years, multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) has been increasingly used for obtaining vertical shear-wave velocity profiles within near-surface materials. MASW uses a multichannel recording approach to capture the time-variant, full-seismic wavefield where dispersive surface waves can be used to estimate near-surface S-wave velocity. The technique consists of (1) acquisition of broadband, high-frequency ground roll using a multichannel recording system; (2) efficient and accurate algorithms that allow the extraction and analysis of 1D Rayleigh-wave dispersion curves; (3) stable and efficient inversion algorithms for estimating S-wave velocity profiles; and (4) construction of the 2D S-wave velocity field map.

Record figure of merit values of highly stoichiometric Sb 2Te 3 porous bulk synthesized from tailor-made molecular precursors in ionic liquids

DOE PAGES

Heimann, Stefan; Schulz, Stephan; Schaumann, Julian; ...

2015-08-06

We report on the synthesis of Sb 2Te 3 nanoparticles with record-high figure of merit values of up to 1.5. The central thermoelectric parameters, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient, were independently optimized. Critical influence of porosity for the fabrication of highly efficient thermoelectric materials is firstly demonstrated, giving a strong guidance for the optimization of other thermoelectric materials.

Design of high-efficiency, radiation-hard, GaInP/GaAs solar cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kurtz, Sarah R.; Bertness, K. A.; Kibbler, A. E.; Kramer, C.; Olson, J. M.

1994-01-01

In recently years, Ga(0.5)In((0.5)P/GaAs cells have drawn increased attention both because of their high efficiencies and because they are well suited for space applications. They can be grown and processed as two-junction devices with roughly twice the voltage and half the current of GaAs cells. They have low temperature coefficients, and have good potential for radiation hardness. We have previously reported the effects of electron irradiation on test cells which were not optimally designed for space. From those results we estimated that an optimally designed cell could achieve 20 percent after irradiation with 10(exp 15) cm(exp -2) 1 MeV electrons. Modeling studies predicted that slightly higher efficiencies may be achievable. Record efficiencies for EOL performance of other types of cells are significantly lower. Even the best Si and InP cells have BOL efficiencies lower than the EOL efficiency we report here. Good GaAs cells have an EOL efficiency of 16 percent. The InP/Ga(0.5)In(0.5)As two-junction, two-terminal device has a BOL efficiency as high as 22.2 percent, but radiation results for these cells were limited. In this study we use the previous modeling and irradiation results to design a set of Ga(0.5)In(0.5)P/GaAs cells that will demonstrate the importance of the design parameters and result in high-efficiency devices. We report record AMO efficiencies: a BOL efficiency of 25.7 percent for a device optimized for BOL performance and two of different designs with EOL efficiencies of 19.6 percent (at 10(exp 15) cm(exp -2) 1MeV electrons). We vary the bottom-cell base doping and the top-cell thickness to show the effects of these two important design parameters. We get an unexpected result indicating that the dopant added to the bottom-cell base also increases the degradation of the top cell.

High-efficient and high-content cytotoxic recording via dynamic and continuous cell-based impedance biosensor technology.

PubMed

Hu, Ning; Fang, Jiaru; Zou, Ling; Wan, Hao; Pan, Yuxiang; Su, Kaiqi; Zhang, Xi; Wang, Ping

2016-10-01

Cell-based bioassays were effective method to assess the compound toxicity by cell viability, and the traditional label-based methods missed much information of cell growth due to endpoint detection, while the higher throughputs were demanded to obtain dynamic information. Cell-based biosensor methods can dynamically and continuously monitor with cell viability, however, the dynamic information was often ignored or seldom utilized in the toxin and drug assessment. Here, we reported a high-efficient and high-content cytotoxic recording method via dynamic and continuous cell-based impedance biosensor technology. The dynamic cell viability, inhibition ratio and growth rate were derived from the dynamic response curves from the cell-based impedance biosensor. The results showed that the biosensors has the dose-dependent manners to diarrhetic shellfish toxin, okadiac acid based on the analysis of the dynamic cell viability and cell growth status. Moreover, the throughputs of dynamic cytotoxicity were compared between cell-based biosensor methods and label-based endpoint methods. This cell-based impedance biosensor can provide a flexible, cost and label-efficient platform of cell viability assessment in the shellfish toxin screening fields.

Molecular helices as electron acceptors in high-performance bulk heterojunction solar cells

DOE PAGES

Yu M. Zhong; Nam, Chang -Yong; Trinh, M. Tuan; ...

2015-09-18

Despite numerous organic semiconducting materials synthesized for organic photovoltaics in the past decade, fullerenes are widely used as electron acceptors in highly efficient bulk-heterojunction solar cells. None of the non-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells have achieved efficiencies as high as fullerene-based solar cells. Design principles for fullerene-free acceptors remain unclear in the field. Here we report examples of helical molecular semiconductors as electron acceptors that are on par with fullerene derivatives in efficient solar cells. We achieved an 8.3% power conversion efficiency in a solar cell, which is a record high for non-fullerene bulk heterojunctions. Femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy revealedmore » both electron and hole transfer processes at the donor–acceptor interfaces. Atomic force microscopy reveals a mesh-like network of acceptors with pores that are tens of nanometres in diameter for efficient exciton separation and charge transport. As a result, this study describes a new motif for designing highly efficient acceptors for organic solar cells.« less

Molecular helices as electron acceptors in high-performance bulk heterojunction solar cells.

PubMed

Zhong, Yu; Trinh, M Tuan; Chen, Rongsheng; Purdum, Geoffrey E; Khlyabich, Petr P; Sezen, Melda; Oh, Seokjoon; Zhu, Haiming; Fowler, Brandon; Zhang, Boyuan; Wang, Wei; Nam, Chang-Yong; Sfeir, Matthew Y; Black, Charles T; Steigerwald, Michael L; Loo, Yueh-Lin; Ng, Fay; Zhu, X-Y; Nuckolls, Colin

2015-09-18

Despite numerous organic semiconducting materials synthesized for organic photovoltaics in the past decade, fullerenes are widely used as electron acceptors in highly efficient bulk-heterojunction solar cells. None of the non-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells have achieved efficiencies as high as fullerene-based solar cells. Design principles for fullerene-free acceptors remain unclear in the field. Here we report examples of helical molecular semiconductors as electron acceptors that are on par with fullerene derivatives in efficient solar cells. We achieved an 8.3% power conversion efficiency in a solar cell, which is a record high for non-fullerene bulk heterojunctions. Femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy revealed both electron and hole transfer processes at the donor-acceptor interfaces. Atomic force microscopy reveals a mesh-like network of acceptors with pores that are tens of nanometres in diameter for efficient exciton separation and charge transport. This study describes a new motif for designing highly efficient acceptors for organic solar cells.

152 W average power Tm-doped fiber CPA system.

PubMed

Stutzki, Fabian; Gaida, Christian; Gebhardt, Martin; Jansen, Florian; Wienke, Andreas; Zeitner, Uwe; Fuchs, Frank; Jauregui, Cesar; Wandt, Dieter; Kracht, Dietmar; Limpert, Jens; Tünnermann, Andreas

2014-08-15

A high-power thulium (Tm)-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplification system emitting a record compressed average output power of 152 W and 4 MW peak power is demonstrated. This result is enabled by utilizing Tm-doped photonic crystal fibers with mode-field diameters of 35 μm, which mitigate detrimental nonlinearities, exhibit slope efficiencies of more than 50%, and allow for reaching a pump-power-limited average output power of 241 W. The high-compression efficiency has been achieved by using multilayer dielectric gratings with diffraction efficiencies higher than 98%.

On the predictability of extreme events in records with linear and nonlinear long-range memory: Efficiency and noise robustness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bogachev, Mikhail I.; Bunde, Armin

2011-06-01

We study the predictability of extreme events in records with linear and nonlinear long-range memory in the presence of additive white noise using two different approaches: (i) the precursory pattern recognition technique (PRT) that exploits solely the information about short-term precursors, and (ii) the return interval approach (RIA) that exploits long-range memory incorporated in the elapsed time after the last extreme event. We find that the PRT always performs better when only linear memory is present. In the presence of nonlinear memory, both methods demonstrate comparable efficiency in the absence of white noise. When additional white noise is present in the record (which is the case in most observational records), the efficiency of the PRT decreases monotonously with increasing noise level. In contrast, the RIA shows an abrupt transition between a phase of low level noise where the prediction is as good as in the absence of noise, and a phase of high level noise where the prediction becomes poor. In the phase of low and intermediate noise the RIA predicts considerably better than the PRT, which explains our recent findings in physiological and financial records.

Highly Efficient Coherent Optical Memory Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsiao, Ya-Fen; Tsai, Pin-Ju; Chen, Hung-Shiue; Lin, Sheng-Xiang; Hung, Chih-Chiao; Lee, Chih-Hsi; Chen, Yi-Hsin; Chen, Yong-Fan; Yu, Ite A.; Chen, Ying-Cheng

2018-05-01

Quantum memory is an important component in the long-distance quantum communication based on the quantum repeater protocol. To outperform the direct transmission of photons with quantum repeaters, it is crucial to develop quantum memories with high fidelity, high efficiency and a long storage time. Here, we achieve a storage efficiency of 92.0 (1.5)% for a coherent optical memory based on the electromagnetically induced transparency scheme in optically dense cold atomic media. We also obtain a useful time-bandwidth product of 1200, considering only storage where the retrieval efficiency remains above 50%. Both are the best record to date in all kinds of schemes for the realization of optical memory. Our work significantly advances the pursuit of a high-performance optical memory and should have important applications in quantum information science.

Highly Efficient Coherent Optical Memory Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency.

PubMed

Hsiao, Ya-Fen; Tsai, Pin-Ju; Chen, Hung-Shiue; Lin, Sheng-Xiang; Hung, Chih-Chiao; Lee, Chih-Hsi; Chen, Yi-Hsin; Chen, Yong-Fan; Yu, Ite A; Chen, Ying-Cheng

2018-05-04

Quantum memory is an important component in the long-distance quantum communication based on the quantum repeater protocol. To outperform the direct transmission of photons with quantum repeaters, it is crucial to develop quantum memories with high fidelity, high efficiency and a long storage time. Here, we achieve a storage efficiency of 92.0 (1.5)% for a coherent optical memory based on the electromagnetically induced transparency scheme in optically dense cold atomic media. We also obtain a useful time-bandwidth product of 1200, considering only storage where the retrieval efficiency remains above 50%. Both are the best record to date in all kinds of schemes for the realization of optical memory. Our work significantly advances the pursuit of a high-performance optical memory and should have important applications in quantum information science.

Highly Efficient Flexible Quantum Dot Solar Cells with Improved Electron Extraction Using MgZnO Nanocrystals.

PubMed

Zhang, Xiaoliang; Santra, Pralay Kanti; Tian, Lei; Johansson, Malin B; Rensmo, Håkan; Johansson, Erik M J

2017-08-22

Colloidal quantum dot (CQD) solar cells have high potential for realizing an efficient and lightweight energy supply for flexible or wearable electronic devices. To achieve highly efficient and flexible CQD solar cells, the electron transport layer (ETL), extracting electrons from the CQD solid layer, needs to be processed at a low-temperature and should also suppress interfacial recombination. Herein, a highly stable MgZnO nanocrystal (MZO-NC) layer is reported for efficient flexible PbS CQD solar cells. Solar cells fabricated with MZO-NC ETL give a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.4% and 9.4%, on glass and flexible plastic substrates, respectively. The reported flexible CQD solar cell has the record efficiency to date of flexible CQD solar cells. Detailed theoretical simulations and extensive characterizations reveal that the MZO-NCs significantly enhance charge extraction from CQD solids and diminish the charge accumulation at the ETL/CQD interface, suppressing charge interfacial recombination. These important results suggest that the low-temperature processed MZO-NCs are very promising for use in efficient flexible solar cells or other flexible optoelectronic devices.

Temperature effects on tunable cw Alexandrite lasers under diode end-pumping.

PubMed

Kerridge-Johns, William R; Damzen, Michael J

2018-03-19

Diode pumped Alexandrite is a promising route to high power, efficient and inexpensive lasers with a broad (701 nm to 858 nm) gain bandwidth; however, there are challenges with its complex laser dynamics. We present an analytical model applied to experimental red diode end-pumped Alexandrite lasers, which enabled a record 54 % slope efficiency with an output power of 1.2 W. A record lowest lasing wavelength (714 nm) and record tuning range (104 nm) was obtained by optimising the crystal temperature between 8 °C and 105 °C in the vibronic mode. The properties of Alexandrite and the analytical model were examined to understand and give general rules in optimising Alexandrite lasers, along with their fundamental efficiency limits. It was found that the lowest threshold laser wavelength was not necessarily the most efficient, and that higher and lower temperatures were optimal for longer and shorter laser wavelengths, respectively. The pump excited to ground state absorption ratio was measured to decrease from 0.8 to 0.7 by changing the crystal temperature from 10 °C to 90 °C.

High-power 671  nm laser by second-harmonic generation with 93% efficiency in an external ring cavity.

PubMed

Cui, Xing-Yang; Shen, Qi; Yan, Mei-Chen; Zeng, Chao; Yuan, Tao; Zhang, Wen-Zhuo; Yao, Xing-Can; Peng, Cheng-Zhi; Jiang, Xiao; Chen, Yu-Ao; Pan, Jian-Wei

2018-04-15

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) is useful for obtaining single-frequency continuous-wave laser sources at various wavelengths for applications ranging from biology to fundamental physics. Using an external power-enhancement cavity is an effective approach to improve the frequency conversion efficiency. However, thermal effects limit the efficiency, particularly, in high-power operation. Therefore, reducing thermal effects is important when designing a cavity. This Letter reports the use of an external ring cavity for SHG, yielding a 5.2 W, 671 nm laser light with a conversion efficiency of 93.8±0.8% which, to the best of our knowledge, is a new record of conversion efficiency for an external ring cavity. It is achieved using a 10 mm length periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystal and a 65 μm radius beam waist in the cavity so as to minimize thermal dephasing and thermal lensing. Furthermore, a method is developed to determine a conversion efficiency more accurately based on measuring the pump depletion using a photodiode detector and a maximum pump depletion up to 97% is recorded. In this method, the uncertainty is much less than that achieved in a common method by direct measuring with a power meter.

Angle amplifier based on multiplexed volume holographic gratings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cao, Liangcai; Zhao, Yifei; He, Qingsheng; Jin, Guofan

2008-03-01

Angle amplifier of laser beam scanner is a widely used device in optical systems. Volume holographic optical elements can be applied in the angle amplifier. Compared with the traditional angle amplifier, it has the advantages of high angle resolution, high diffraction efficiency, small size, and high angle magnification and flexible design. Bragg anglewavelength- compensating recording method is introduced. Because of the Bragg compensatory relation between angle and wavelength, this device could be recorded at another wavelength. The design of the angle amplifier recording at the wavelength of 514.2nm for the working wavelength of 632.8nm is described. An optical setup for recording the angle amplifier device is designed and discussed. Experimental results in the photorefractive crystal Fe:LiNbO 3 demonstrate the feasibility of the angle amplifier scheme.

Ictal high frequency oscillations distinguish two types of seizure territories in humans

PubMed Central

Weiss, Shennan A.; Banks, Garrett P.; McKhann, Guy M.; Goodman, Robert R.; Emerson, Ronald G.; Trevelyan, Andrew J.

2013-01-01

High frequency oscillations have been proposed as a clinically useful biomarker of seizure generating sites. We used a unique set of human microelectrode array recordings (four patients, 10 seizures), in which propagating seizure wavefronts could be readily identified, to investigate the basis of ictal high frequency activity at the cortical (subdural) surface. Sustained, repetitive transient increases in high gamma (80–150 Hz) amplitude, phase-locked to the low-frequency (1–25 Hz) ictal rhythm, correlated with strong multi-unit firing bursts synchronized across the core territory of the seizure. These repetitive high frequency oscillations were seen in recordings from subdural electrodes adjacent to the microelectrode array several seconds after seizure onset, following ictal wavefront passage. Conversely, microelectrode recordings demonstrating only low-level, heterogeneous neural firing correlated with a lack of high frequency oscillations in adjacent subdural recording sites, despite the presence of a strong low-frequency signature. Previously, we reported that this pattern indicates a failure of the seizure to invade the area, because of a feedforward inhibitory veto mechanism. Because multi-unit firing rate and high gamma amplitude are closely related, high frequency oscillations can be used as a surrogate marker to distinguish the core seizure territory from the surrounding penumbra. We developed an efficient measure to detect delayed-onset, sustained ictal high frequency oscillations based on cross-frequency coupling between high gamma amplitude and the low-frequency (1–25 Hz) ictal rhythm. When applied to the broader subdural recording, this measure consistently predicted the timing or failure of ictal invasion, and revealed a surprisingly small and slowly spreading seizure core surrounded by a far larger penumbral territory. Our findings thus establish an underlying neural mechanism for delayed-onset, sustained ictal high frequency oscillations, and provide a practical, efficient method for using them to identify the small ictal core regions. Our observations suggest that it may be possible to reduce substantially the extent of cortical resections in epilepsy surgery procedures without compromising seizure control. PMID:24176977

A solar-pumped Nd:YAG laser in the high collection efficiency regime

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lando, Mordechai; Kagan, Jacob; Linyekin, Boris; Dobrusin, Vadim

2003-07-01

Solar-pumped lasers can be used for space and terrestrial applications. We report on solar side-pumped Nd:YAG laser experiments, which included comprehensive beam quality measurements and demonstrated record collection efficiency and day long operation. A 6.75 m 2 segmented primary mirror was mounted on a commercial two-axis positioner and focused the solar radiation towards a stationary non-imaging-optics secondary concentrator, which illuminated a Nd:YAG laser rod. Solar side-pumped laser experiments were conducted in both the low and the high pumping density regimes. The low density system was composed of a 89 × 98-mm 2 aperture two-dimensional compound parabolic concentrator (CPC) and a 10-mm diameter 130-mm long Nd:YAG laser rod. The laser emitted up to 46 W and operated continuously for 5 h. The high density system was composed of a three-dimensional CPC with 98 mm entrance diameter and 24 mm exit diameter, followed by a two-dimensional CPC with a rectangular 24 × 33 mm 2 aperture. It pumped a 6-mm diameter 72 mm long Nd:YAG laser rod, which emitted up to 45 W. The results constitute a record collection efficiency of 6.7 W/m 2 of primary mirror. We compare the current results to previous solar side-pumped laser experiments, including experiments at higher pumping density but with low collection efficiency. Finally, we present a scaled up design for a 400 W laser pumped by a solar collection area of 60 m 2, incorporating simultaneously high collection efficiency and high pumping density.

High-efficiency in situ resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (iRIXS) endstation at the Advanced Light Source

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qiao, Ruimin; Li, Qinghao; Zhuo, Zengqing; Sallis, Shawn; Fuchs, Oliver; Blum, Monika; Weinhardt, Lothar; Heske, Clemens; Pepper, John; Jones, Michael; Brown, Adam; Spucces, Adrian; Chow, Ken; Smith, Brian; Glans, Per-Anders; Chen, Yanxue; Yan, Shishen; Pan, Feng; Piper, Louis F. J.; Denlinger, Jonathan; Guo, Jinghua; Hussain, Zahid; Chuang, Yi-De; Yang, Wanli

2017-03-01

An endstation with two high-efficiency soft x-ray spectrographs was developed at Beamline 8.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The endstation is capable of performing soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy, emission spectroscopy, and, in particular, resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS). Two slit-less variable line-spacing grating spectrographs are installed at different detection geometries. The endstation covers the photon energy range from 80 to 1500 eV. For studying transition-metal oxides, the large detection energy window allows a simultaneous collection of x-ray emission spectra with energies ranging from the O K-edge to the Ni L-edge without moving any mechanical components. The record-high efficiency enables the recording of comprehensive two-dimensional RIXS maps with good statistics within a short acquisition time. By virtue of the large energy window and high throughput of the spectrographs, partial fluorescence yield and inverse partial fluorescence yield signals could be obtained for all transition metal L-edges including Mn. Moreover, the different geometries of these two spectrographs (parallel and perpendicular to the horizontal polarization of the beamline) provide contrasts in RIXS features with two different momentum transfers.

Mark 3 wideband digital recorder in perspective

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hinteregger, H. F.

1980-01-01

The tape recorder used for the Mark 3 data acquisition and processing system is compared with earlier very long baseline interferometry recorders. Wideband 33-1/3 kbpi digital channel characteristics of instrumentation recorders and of a modern video cassette recorder are illustrated. Factors which influenced selection of the three major commercial components (transport, heads, and tape) are discussed. A brief functional description and the reasons for development of efficient signal electronics and necessary auxiliary control electronics are given. The design and operation of a digital bit synchronizer is illustrated as an example of the high degree of simplicity achieved.

A naphthodithiophene-diketopyrrolopyrrole donor molecule for efficient solution-processed solar cells.

PubMed

Loser, Stephen; Bruns, Carson J; Miyauchi, Hiroyuki; Ortiz, Rocío Ponce; Facchetti, Antonio; Stupp, Samuel I; Marks, Tobin J

2011-06-01

We report the synthesis, characterization, and first implementation of a naphtho[2,3-b:6,7-b']dithiophene (NDT)-based donor molecule in highly efficient organic photovoltaics (OPVs). When NDT(TDPP)(2) (TDPP = thiophene-capped diketopyrrolopyrrole) is combined with the electron acceptor PC(61)BM, a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.06 ± 0.06% is achieved-a record for a PC(61)BM-based small-molecule OPV. The substantial PCE is attributed to the broad, high oscillator strength visible absorption, the ordered molecular packing, and an exceptional hole mobility of NDT(TDPP)(2). © 2011 American Chemical Society

Highly efficient end-side-pumped Nd:YAG solar laser by a heliostat-parabolic mirror system.

PubMed

Almeida, J; Liang, D; Vistas, C R; Guillot, E

2015-03-10

We report a large improvement in the collection and slope efficiency of an Nd:YAG solar laser pumped by a heliostat-parabolic mirror system. A conical fused silica lens was used to further concentrate the solar radiation from the focal zone of a 2 m diameter primary concentrator to a Nd:YAG single-crystal rod within a conical pump cavity, which enabled multipass pumping to the active medium. A 56 W cw laser power was measured, corresponding to 21.1  W/m2 record-high solar laser collection efficiency with the heliostat-parabolic mirror system. 4.9% slope efficiency was calculated, corresponding to 175% enhancement over our previous result.

A Comparison of Wavetable and FM Data Reduction Methods for Resynthesis of Musical Sounds

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horner, Andrew

An ideal music-synthesis technique provides both high-level spectral control and efficient computation. Simple playback of recorded samples lacks spectral control, while additive sine-wave synthesis is inefficient. Wavetable and frequencymodulation synthesis, however, are two popular synthesis techniques that are very efficient and use only a few control parameters.

Surface-modified CMOS IC electrochemical sensor array targeting single chromaffin cells for highly parallel amperometry measurements.

PubMed

Huang, Meng; Delacruz, Joannalyn B; Ruelas, John C; Rathore, Shailendra S; Lindau, Manfred

2018-01-01

Amperometry is a powerful method to record quantal release events from chromaffin cells and is widely used to assess how specific drugs modify quantal size, kinetics of release, and early fusion pore properties. Surface-modified CMOS-based electrochemical sensor arrays allow simultaneous recordings from multiple cells. A reliable, low-cost technique is presented here for efficient targeting of single cells specifically to the electrode sites. An SU-8 microwell structure is patterned on the chip surface to provide insulation for the circuitry as well as cell trapping at the electrode sites. A shifted electrode design is also incorporated to increase the flexibility of the dimension and shape of the microwells. The sensitivity of the electrodes is validated by a dopamine injection experiment. Microwells with dimensions slightly larger than the cells to be trapped ensure excellent single-cell targeting efficiency, increasing the reliability and efficiency for on-chip single-cell amperometry measurements. The surface-modified device was validated with parallel recordings of live chromaffin cells trapped in the microwells. Rapid amperometric spikes with no diffusional broadening were observed, indicating that the trapped and recorded cells were in very close contact with the electrodes. The live cell recording confirms in a single experiment that spike parameters vary significantly from cell to cell but the large number of cells recorded simultaneously provides the statistical significance.

Documentation for assessment of modal pushover-based scaling procedure for nonlinear response history analysis of "ordinary standard" bridges

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kalkan, Erol; Kwong, Neal S.

2010-01-01

The earthquake engineering profession is increasingly utilizing nonlinear response history analyses (RHA) to evaluate seismic performance of existing structures and proposed designs of new structures. One of the main ingredients of nonlinear RHA is a set of ground-motion records representing the expected hazard environment for the structure. When recorded motions do not exist (as is the case for the central United States), or when high-intensity records are needed (as is the case for San Francisco and Los Angeles), ground motions from other tectonically similar regions need to be selected and scaled. The modal-pushover-based scaling (MPS) procedure recently was developed to determine scale factors for a small number of records, such that the scaled records provide accurate and efficient estimates of 'true' median structural responses. The adjective 'accurate' refers to the discrepancy between the benchmark responses and those computed from the MPS procedure. The adjective 'efficient' refers to the record-to-record variability of responses. Herein, the accuracy and efficiency of the MPS procedure are evaluated by applying it to four types of existing 'ordinary standard' bridges typical of reinforced-concrete bridge construction in California. These bridges are the single-bent overpass, multi span bridge, curved-bridge, and skew-bridge. As compared to benchmark analyses of unscaled records using a larger catalog of ground motions, it is demonstrated that the MPS procedure provided an accurate estimate of the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) accompanied by significantly reduced record-to-record variability of the responses. Thus, the MPS procedure is a useful tool for scaling ground motions as input to nonlinear RHAs of 'ordinary standard' bridges.

High efficiency Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 solar cells by applying a double In2S3/CdS emitter.

PubMed

Kim, Jeehwan; Hiroi, Homare; Todorov, Teodor K; Gunawan, Oki; Kuwahara, Masaru; Gokmen, Tayfun; Nair, Dhruv; Hopstaken, Marinus; Shin, Byungha; Lee, Yun Seog; Wang, Wei; Sugimoto, Hiroki; Mitzi, David B

2014-11-26

High-efficiency Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 solar cells are reported by applying In2S3/CdS double emitters. This new structure offers a high doping concentration within the Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 solar cells, resulting in a substantial enhancement in open-circuit voltage. The 12.4% device is obtained with a record open-circuit voltage deficit of 593 mV. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

High-efficiency hybrid solar cells based on polymer/PbSx Se1-x nanocrystals benefiting from vertical phase segregation.

PubMed

Liu, Zeke; Sun, Yaxiang; Yuan, Jianyu; Wei, Huaixin; Huang, Xiaodong; Han, Lu; Wang, Weiwei; Wang, Haiqiao; Ma, Wanli

2013-10-25

Solution-processed hybrid solar cells employing a low band-gap polymer and PbSx Se1-x alloy nanocrystals, achieving a record high PCE of 5.50% and an optimal FF of 67% are presented. The remarkable device efficiency can be attributed to the high-performance active materials, the optimal polymer/NCs ratio and, more importantly, the vertical donor/(donor:acceptor)/acceptor structure which benefits charge dissociation and transport. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

A high-efficiency real-time digital signal averager for time-of-flight mass spectrometry.

PubMed

Wang, Yinan; Xu, Hui; Li, Qingjiang; Li, Nan; Huang, Zhengxu; Zhou, Zhen; Liu, Husheng; Sun, Zhaolin; Xu, Xin; Yu, Hongqi; Liu, Haijun; Li, David D-U; Wang, Xi; Dong, Xiuzhen; Gao, Wei

2013-05-30

Analog-to-digital converter (ADC)-based acquisition systems are widely applied in time-of-flight mass spectrometers (TOFMS) due to their ability to record the signal intensity of all ions within the same pulse. However, the acquisition system raises the requirement for data throughput, along with increasing the conversion rate and resolution of the ADC. It is therefore of considerable interest to develop a high-performance real-time acquisition system, which can relieve the limitation of data throughput. We present in this work a high-efficiency real-time digital signal averager, consisting of a signal conditioner, a data conversion module and a signal processing module. Two optimization strategies are implemented using field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) to enhance the efficiency of the real-time processing. A pipeline procedure is used to reduce the time consumption of the accumulation strategy. To realize continuous data transfer, a high-efficiency transmission strategy is developed, based on a ping-pong procedure. The digital signal averager features good responsiveness, analog bandwidth and dynamic performance. The optimal effective number of bits reaches 6.7 bits. For a 32 µs record length, the averager can realize 100% efficiency with an extraction frequency below 31.23 kHz by modifying the number of accumulation steps. In unit time, the averager yields superior signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) compared with data accumulation in a computer. The digital signal averager is combined with a vacuum ultraviolet single-photon ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometer (VUV-SPI-TOFMS). The efficiency of the real-time processing is tested by analyzing the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from ordinary printed materials. In these experiments, 22 kinds of compounds are detected, and the dynamic range exceeds 3 orders of magnitude. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Holographic optical system for aberration corrections in laser Doppler velocimetry

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kim, R. C.; Case, S. K.; Schock, H. J.

1985-01-01

An optical system containing multifaceted holographic optical elements (HOEs) has been developed to correct for aberrations introduced by nonflat windows in laser Doppler velocimetry. The multifacet aberration correction approach makes it possible to record on one plate many sets of adjacent HOEs that address different measurement volume locations. By using 5-mm-diameter facets, it is practical to place 10-20 sets of holograms on one 10 x 12.5-cm plate, so that the procedure of moving the entire optical system to examine different locations may not be necessary. The holograms are recorded in dichromated gelatin and therefore are nonabsorptive and suitable for use with high-power argon laser beams. Low f-number optics coupled with a 90-percent efficient distortion-correcting hologram in the collection side of the system yield high optical efficiency.

Segmented media and medium damping in microwave assisted magnetic recording

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bai, Xiaoyu; Zhu, Jian-Gang

2018-05-01

In this paper, we present a methodology of segmented media stack design for microwave assisted magnetic recording. Through micro-magnetic modeling, it is demonstrated that an optimized media segmentation is able to yield high signal-to-noise ratio even with limited ac field power. With proper segmentation, the ac field power could be utilized more efficiently and this can alleviate the requirement for medium damping which has been previously considered a critical limitation. The micro-magnetic modeling also shows that with segmentation optimization, recording signal-to-noise ratio can have very little dependence on damping for different recording linear densities.

Holographic Optical Elements Recorded in Silver Halide Sensitized Gelatin Emulsions. Part I. Transmission Holographic Optical Elements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Jong Man; Choi, Byung So; Kim, Sun Il; Kim, Jong Min; Bjelkhagen, Hans I.; Phillips, Nicholas J.

2001-02-01

Silver halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) holograms are similar to holograms recorded in dichromated gelatin (DCG), the main recording material for holographic optical elements (HOE s). The drawback of DCG is its low sensitivity and limited spectral response. Silver halide materials can be processed in such a way that the final hologram will have properties like a DCG hologram. Recently this technique has become more interesting since the introduction of new ultra-high-resolution silver halide emulsions. An optimized processing technique for transmission HOE s recorded in these materials is introduced. Diffraction efficiencies over 90% can be obtained for transmissive diffraction gratings. Understanding the importance of the selective hardening process has made it possible to obtain results similar to conventional DCG processing. The main advantage of the SHSG process is that high-sensitivity recording can be performed with laser wavelengths anywhere within the visible spectrum. This simplifies the manufacturing of high-quality, large-format HOE s.

Triple-junction thin-film silicon solar cell fabricated on periodically textured substrate with a stabilized efficiency of 13.6%

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sai, Hitoshi; Matsui, Takuya; Koida, Takashi; Matsubara, Koji; Kondo, Michio; Sugiyama, Shuichiro; Katayama, Hirotaka; Takeuchi, Yoshiaki; Yoshida, Isao

2015-05-01

We report a high-efficiency triple-junction thin-film silicon solar cell fabricated with the so-called substrate configuration. It was verified whether the design criteria for developing single-junction microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) solar cells are applicable to multijunction solar cells. Furthermore, a notably high short-circuit current density of 32.9 mA/cm2 was achieved in a single-junction μc-Si:H cell fabricated on a periodically textured substrate with a high-mobility front transparent contacting layer. These technologies were also combined into a-Si:H/μc-Si:H/μc-Si:H triple-junction cells, and a world record stabilized efficiency of 13.6% was achieved.

High-efficiency in situ resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (iRIXS) endstation at the Advanced Light Source

DOE PAGES

Qiao, Ruimin; Li, Qinghao; Zhuo, Zengqing; ...

2017-03-17

In this paper, an endstation with two high-efficiency soft x-ray spectrographs was developed at Beamline 8.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The endstation is capable of performing soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy, emission spectroscopy, and, in particular, resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS). Two slit-less variable line-spacing grating spectrographs are installed at different detection geometries. The endstation covers the photon energy range from 80 to 1500 eV. For studying transition-metal oxides, the large detection energy window allows a simultaneous collection of x-ray emission spectra with energies ranging from the O K-edge to the Ni L-edge without movingmore » any mechanical components. The record-high efficiency enables the recording of comprehensive two-dimensional RIXS maps with good statistics within a short acquisition time. By virtue of the large energy window and high throughput of the spectrographs, partial fluorescence yield and inverse partial fluorescence yield signals could be obtained for all transition metal L-edges including Mn. Finally and moreover, the different geometries of these two spectrographs (parallel and perpendicular to the horizontal polarization of the beamline) provide contrasts in RIXS features with two different momentum transfers.« less

An ultralow power athermal silicon modulator.

PubMed

Timurdogan, Erman; Sorace-Agaskar, Cheryl M; Sun, Jie; Shah Hosseini, Ehsan; Biberman, Aleksandr; Watts, Michael R

2014-06-11

Silicon photonics has emerged as the leading candidate for implementing ultralow power wavelength-division-multiplexed communication networks in high-performance computers, yet current components (lasers, modulators, filters and detectors) consume too much power for the high-speed femtojoule-class links that ultimately will be required. Here we demonstrate and characterize the first modulator to achieve simultaneous high-speed (25 Gb s(-1)), low-voltage (0.5 VPP) and efficient 0.9 fJ per bit error-free operation. This low-energy high-speed operation is enabled by a record electro-optic response, obtained in a vertical p-n junction device that at 250 pm V(-1) (30 GHz V(-1)) is up to 10 times larger than prior demonstrations. In addition, this record electro-optic response is used to compensate for thermal drift over a 7.5 °C temperature range with little additional energy consumption (0.24 fJ per bit for a total energy consumption below 1.03 J per bit). The combined results of highly efficient modulation and electro-optic thermal compensation represent a new paradigm in modulator development and a major step towards single-digit femtojoule-class communications.

High-Quality (CH3NH3)3Bi2I9 Film-Based Solar Cells: Pushing Efficiency up to 1.64.

PubMed

Zhang, Zheng; Li, Xiaowei; Xia, Xiaohong; Wang, Zhuo; Huang, Zhongbing; Lei, Binglong; Gao, Yun

2017-09-07

Bismuth-based solar cells have exhibited some advantages over lead perovskite solar cells for nontoxicity and superior stability, which are currently two main concerns in the photovoltaic community. As for the perovskite-related compound (CH 3 NH 3 ) 3 Bi 2 I 9 applied for solar cells, the conversion efficiency is severely restricted by the unsatisfactory photoactive film quality. Herein we report a novel two-step approach- high-vacuum BiI 3 deposition and low-vacuum homogeneous transformation of BiI 3 to (CH 3 NH 3 ) 3 Bi 2 I 9 -for highly compact, pinhole-free, large-grained films, which are characterized with absorption coefficient, trap density of states, and charge diffusion length comparable to those of some lead perovskite analogues. Accordingly, the solar cells have realized a record power conversion of efficiency of 1.64% and also a high external quantum efficiency approaching 60%. Our work demonstrates the potential of (CH 3 NH 3 ) 3 Bi 2 I 9 for highly efficient and long-term stable solar cells.

Making Record-efficiency SnS Solar Cells by Thermal Evaporation and Atomic Layer Deposition

PubMed Central

Jaramillo, Rafael; Steinmann, Vera; Yang, Chuanxi; Hartman, Katy; Chakraborty, Rupak; Poindexter, Jeremy R.; Castillo, Mariela Lizet; Gordon, Roy; Buonassisi, Tonio

2015-01-01

Tin sulfide (SnS) is a candidate absorber material for Earth-abundant, non-toxic solar cells. SnS offers easy phase control and rapid growth by congruent thermal evaporation, and it absorbs visible light strongly. However, for a long time the record power conversion efficiency of SnS solar cells remained below 2%. Recently we demonstrated new certified record efficiencies of 4.36% using SnS deposited by atomic layer deposition, and 3.88% using thermal evaporation. Here the fabrication procedure for these record solar cells is described, and the statistical distribution of the fabrication process is reported. The standard deviation of efficiency measured on a single substrate is typically over 0.5%. All steps including substrate selection and cleaning, Mo sputtering for the rear contact (cathode), SnS deposition, annealing, surface passivation, Zn(O,S) buffer layer selection and deposition, transparent conductor (anode) deposition, and metallization are described. On each substrate we fabricate 11 individual devices, each with active area 0.25 cm2. Further, a system for high throughput measurements of current-voltage curves under simulated solar light, and external quantum efficiency measurement with variable light bias is described. With this system we are able to measure full data sets on all 11 devices in an automated manner and in minimal time. These results illustrate the value of studying large sample sets, rather than focusing narrowly on the highest performing devices. Large data sets help us to distinguish and remedy individual loss mechanisms affecting our devices. PMID:26067454

A comparison of select image-compression algorithms for an electronic still camera

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nerheim, Rosalee

1989-01-01

This effort is a study of image-compression algorithms for an electronic still camera. An electronic still camera can record and transmit high-quality images without the use of film, because images are stored digitally in computer memory. However, high-resolution images contain an enormous amount of information, and will strain the camera's data-storage system. Image compression will allow more images to be stored in the camera's memory. For the electronic still camera, a compression algorithm that produces a reconstructed image of high fidelity is most important. Efficiency of the algorithm is the second priority. High fidelity and efficiency are more important than a high compression ratio. Several algorithms were chosen for this study and judged on fidelity, efficiency and compression ratio. The transform method appears to be the best choice. At present, the method is compressing images to a ratio of 5.3:1 and producing high-fidelity reconstructed images.

Polychiral semiconducting carbon nanotube-fullerene solar cells.

PubMed

Gong, Maogang; Shastry, Tejas A; Xie, Yu; Bernardi, Marco; Jasion, Daniel; Luck, Kyle A; Marks, Tobin J; Grossman, Jeffrey C; Ren, Shenqiang; Hersam, Mark C

2014-09-10

Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) have highly desirable attributes for solution-processable thin-film photovoltaics (TFPVs), such as broadband absorption, high carrier mobility, and environmental stability. However, previous TFPVs incorporating photoactive SWCNTs have utilized architectures that have limited current, voltage, and ultimately power conversion efficiency (PCE). Here, we report a solar cell geometry that maximizes photocurrent using polychiral SWCNTs while retaining high photovoltage, leading to record-high efficiency SWCNT-fullerene solar cells with average NREL certified and champion PCEs of 2.5% and 3.1%, respectively. Moreover, these cells show significant absorption in the near-infrared portion of the solar spectrum that is currently inaccessible by many leading TFPV technologies.

Privacy-preserving matching of similar patients.

PubMed

Vatsalan, Dinusha; Christen, Peter

2016-02-01

The identification of similar entities represented by records in different databases has drawn considerable attention in many application areas, including in the health domain. One important type of entity matching application that is vital for quality healthcare analytics is the identification of similar patients, known as similar patient matching. A key component of identifying similar records is the calculation of similarity of the values in attributes (fields) between these records. Due to increasing privacy and confidentiality concerns, using the actual attribute values of patient records to identify similar records across different organizations is becoming non-trivial because the attributes in such records often contain highly sensitive information such as personal and medical details of patients. Therefore, the matching needs to be based on masked (encoded) values while being effective and efficient to allow matching of large databases. Bloom filter encoding has widely been used as an efficient masking technique for privacy-preserving matching of string and categorical values. However, no work on Bloom filter-based masking of numerical data, such as integer (e.g. age), floating point (e.g. body mass index), and modulus (numbers wrap around upon reaching a certain value, e.g. date and time), which are commonly required in the health domain, has been presented in the literature. We propose a framework with novel methods for masking numerical data using Bloom filters, thereby facilitating the calculation of similarities between records. We conduct an empirical study on publicly available real-world datasets which shows that our framework provides efficient masking and achieves similar matching accuracy compared to the matching of actual unencoded patient records. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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

Vaisman, Michelle; Fan, Shizhao; Nay Yaung, Kevin

As single-junction Si solar cells approach their practical efficiency limits, a new pathway is necessary to increase efficiency in order to realize more cost-effective photovoltaics. Integrating III-V cells onto Si in a multijunction architecture is a promising approach that can achieve high efficiency while leveraging the infrastructure already in place for Si and III-V technology. In this Letter, we demonstrate a record 15.3%-efficient 1.7 eV GaAsP top cell on GaP/Si, enabled by recent advances in material quality in conjunction with an improved device design and a high-performance antireflection coating. Furthermore, we present a separate Si bottom cell with a 1.7more » eV GaAsP optical filter to absorb most of the visible light with an efficiency of 6.3%, showing the feasibility of monolithic III-V/Si tandems with >20% efficiency. Through spectral efficiency analysis, we also compare our results to previously published GaAsP and Si devices, projecting tandem GaAsP/Si efficiencies of up to 25.6% based on current state-of-the-art individual subcells. With the aid of modeling, we further illustrate a realistic path toward 30% GaAsP/Si tandems for high-efficiency, monolithically integrated photovoltaics.« less

A cosmic-ray-mediated shock in the solar system

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Eichler, D.

1981-01-01

It is pointed out that the flare-induced blast wave of Aug. 4, 1972, the most violent disturbance in the solar wind on record, produced cosmic rays with an efficiency of about 50%. Such a high efficiency is predicted by the self-regulating production model of cosmic-ray origin in shocks. Most interplanetary shocks, according to simple theoretical analysis, are not strong enough to produce cosmic rays efficiently. However, if shock strength is the key parameter governing efficiency, as present interplanetary data suggest, then shocks from supernova blasts, quasar outbursts, and other violent astrophysical phenomena should be extremely efficient sources of cosmic rays.

The neural correlates of impaired inhibitory control in anxiety.

PubMed

Ansari, Tahereh L; Derakshan, Nazanin

2011-04-01

According to Attentional Control Theory (Eysenck et al., 2007) anxiety impairs the inhibition function of working memory by increasing the influence of stimulus-driven processes over efficient top-down control. We investigated the neural correlates of impaired inhibitory control in anxiety using an antisaccade task. Low- and high-anxious participants performed anti- and prosaccade tasks and electrophysiological activity was recorded. Consistent with previous research high-anxious individuals had longer antisaccade latencies in response to the to-be-inhibited target, compared with low-anxious individuals. Central to our predictions, high-anxious individuals showed lower ERP activity, at frontocentral and central recording sites, than low anxious individuals, in the period immediately prior to onset of the to-be-inhibited target on correct antisaccade trials. Our findings indicate that anxiety interferes with the efficient recruitment of top-down mechanisms required for the suppression of prepotent responses. Implications are discussed within current models of attentional control in anxiety (Bishop, 2009; Eysenck et al., 2007). Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A LabVIEW based experiment system for the efficient collection and analysis of cyclic voltametry and electrode charge capacity measurements.

PubMed

Detlefsen, D; Hu, Z; Troyk, P R

2006-01-01

Cyclic voltametry and recording of stimulation electrode voltage excursions are two critical methods of measurement for understanding the performance of implantable electrodes. Because implanted electrodes cannot easily be replaced, it is necessary to have an a-priori understanding of an electrode's implanted performance and capabilities. In-vitro exhaustive tests are often needed to quantify an electrodes performance. Using commonly available equipment, the human labor cost to conduct this work is immense. Presented is an automated experiment system that is highly configurable that can efficiently conduct a battery of repeatable CV and stimulation recording measurements. Results of preparing 96 electrodes prior to an animal implantation are also discussed.

Energy analysis of holographic lenses for solar concentration

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Marín-Sáez, Julia; Collados, M. Victoria; Chemisana, Daniel; Atencia, Jesús

2017-05-01

The use of volume and phase holographic elements in the design of photovoltaic solar concentrators has become very popular as an alternative solution to refractive systems, due to their high efficiency, low cost and possibilities of building integration. Angular and chromatic selectivity of volume holograms can affect their behavior as solar concentrators. In holographic lenses, angular and chromatic selectivity varies along the lens plane. Besides, considering that the holographic materials are not sensitive to the wavelengths for which the solar cells are most efficient, the reconstruction wavelength is usually different from the recording one. As a consequence, not all points of the lens work at Bragg condition for a defined incident direction or wavelength. A software tool that calculates the direction and efficiency of solar rays at the output of a volume holographic element has been developed in this study. It allows the analysis of the total energy that reaches the solar cell, taking into account the sun movement, the solar spectrum and the sensitivity of the solar cell. The dependence of the recording wavelength on the collected energy is studied with this software. As the recording angle is different along a holographic lens, some zones of the lens could not act as a volume hologram. The efficiency at the transition zones between volume and thin behavior in lenses recorded in Bayfol HX is experimentally analyzed in order to decide if the energy of generated higher diffraction orders has to be included in the simulation.

Versatile Indolocarbazole-Isomer Derivatives as Highly Emissive Emitters and Ideal Hosts for Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescent OLEDs with Alleviated Efficiency Roll-Off.

PubMed

Zhang, Dongdong; Song, Xiaozeng; Cai, Minghan; Kaji, Hironori; Duan, Lian

2018-02-01

Maintaining high efficiency at high brightness levels is an exigent challenge for real-world applications of thermally activated delayed fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes (TADF-OLEDs). Here, versatile indolocarbazole-isomer derivatives are developed as highly emissive emitters and ideal hosts for TADF-OLEDs to alleviate efficiency roll-off. It is observed that photophysical and electronic properties of these compounds can be well modulated by varying the indolocarbazole isomers. A photoluminescence quantum yield (η PL ) approaching unity and a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE max ) of 25.1% are obtained for the emitter with indolo[3,2-a]carbazolyl subunit. Remarkably, record-high EQE/power efficiency of 26.2%/69.7 lm W -1 at the brightness level of 5000 cd m -2 with a voltage of only 3.74 V are also obtained using the same isomer as the host in a green TADF-OLED. It is evident that TADF hosts with high η PL values, fast reverse intersystem crossing processes, and balanced charge transport properties may open the path toward roll-off-free TADF-OLEDs. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Analysis of higher order harmonics with holographic reflection gratings

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mas-Abellan, P.; Madrigal, R.; Fimia, A.

2017-05-01

Silver halide emulsions have been considered one of the most energetic sensitive materials for holographic applications. Nonlinear recording effects on holographic reflection gratings recorded on silver halide emulsions have been studied by different authors obtaining excellent experimental results. In this communication specifically we focused our investigation on the effects of refractive index modulation, trying to get high levels of overmodulation that will produce high order harmonics. We studied the influence of the overmodulation and its effects on the transmission spectra for a wide exposure range by use of 9 μm thickness films of ultrafine grain emulsion BB640, exposed to single collimated beams using a red He-Ne laser (wavelength 632.8 nm) with Denisyuk configuration obtaining a spatial frequency of 4990 l/mm recorded on the emulsion. The experimental results show that high overmodulation levels of refractive index produce second order harmonics with high diffraction efficiency (higher than 75%) and a narrow grating bandwidth (12.5 nm). Results also show that overmodulation produce diffraction spectra deformation of the second order harmonic, transforming the spectrum from sinusoidal to approximation of square shape due to very high overmodulation. Increasing the levels of overmodulation of refractive index, we have obtained higher order harmonics, obtaining third order harmonic with diffraction efficiency (up to 23%) and narrowing grating bandwidth (5 nm). This study is the first step to develop a new easy technique to obtain narrow spectral filters based on the use of high index modulation reflection gratings.

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

Heimann, Stefan; Schulz, Stephan; Schaumann, Julian

We report on the synthesis of Sb 2Te 3 nanoparticles with record-high figure of merit values of up to 1.5. The central thermoelectric parameters, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity and Seebeck coefficient, were independently optimized. Critical influence of porosity for the fabrication of highly efficient thermoelectric materials is firstly demonstrated, giving a strong guidance for the optimization of other thermoelectric materials.

Transparent conductor-embedding nanocones for selective emitters: optical and electrical improvements of Si solar cells

PubMed Central

Kim, Joondong; Yun, Ju-Hyung; Kim, Hyunyub; Cho, Yunae; Park, Hyeong-Ho; Kumar, M. Melvin David; Yi, Junsin; Anderson, Wayne A.; Kim, Dong-Wook

2015-01-01

Periodical nanocone-arrays were employed in an emitter region for high efficient Si solar cells. Conventional wet-etching process was performed to form the nanocone-arrays for a large area, which spontaneously provides the graded doping features for a selective emitter. This enables to lower the electrical contact resistance and enhances the carrier collection due to the high electric field distribution through a nanocone. Optically, the convex-shaped nanocones efficiently reduce light-reflection and the incident light is effectively focused into Si via nanocone structure, resulting in an extremely improved the carrier collection performances. This nanocone-arrayed selective emitter simultaneously satisfies optical and electrical improvement. We report the record high efficiency of 16.3% for the periodically nanoscale patterned emitter Si solar cell. PMID:25787933

Transparent conductor-embedding nanocones for selective emitters: optical and electrical improvements of Si solar cells.

PubMed

Kim, Joondong; Yun, Ju-Hyung; Kim, Hyunyub; Cho, Yunae; Park, Hyeong-Ho; Kumar, M Melvin David; Yi, Junsin; Anderson, Wayne A; Kim, Dong-Wook

2015-03-19

Periodical nanocone-arrays were employed in an emitter region for high efficient Si solar cells. Conventional wet-etching process was performed to form the nanocone-arrays for a large area, which spontaneously provides the graded doping features for a selective emitter. This enables to lower the electrical contact resistance and enhances the carrier collection due to the high electric field distribution through a nanocone. Optically, the convex-shaped nanocones efficiently reduce light-reflection and the incident light is effectively focused into Si via nanocone structure, resulting in an extremely improved the carrier collection performances. This nanocone-arrayed selective emitter simultaneously satisfies optical and electrical improvement. We report the record high efficiency of 16.3% for the periodically nanoscale patterned emitter Si solar cell.

Digital voice recording: An efficient alternative for data collection

Treesearch

Mark A. Rumble; Thomas M. Juntti; Thomas W. Bonnot; Joshua J. Millspaugh

2009-01-01

Study designs are usually constrained by logistical and budgetary considerations that can affect the depth and breadth of the research. Little attention has been paid to increasing the efficiency of data recording. Digital voice recording and translation may offer improved efficiency of field personnel. Using this technology, we increased our data collection by 55...

15.3%-Efficient GaAsP Solar Cells on GaP/Si Templates

DOE PAGES

Vaisman, Michelle; Fan, Shizhao; Nay Yaung, Kevin; ...

2017-07-26

As single-junction Si solar cells approach their practical efficiency limits, a new pathway is necessary to increase efficiency in order to realize more cost-effective photovoltaics. Integrating III-V cells onto Si in a multijunction architecture is a promising approach that can achieve high efficiency while leveraging the infrastructure already in place for Si and III-V technology. In this Letter, we demonstrate a record 15.3%-efficient 1.7 eV GaAsP top cell on GaP/Si, enabled by recent advances in material quality in conjunction with an improved device design and a high-performance antireflection coating. Furthermore, we present a separate Si bottom cell with a 1.7more » eV GaAsP optical filter to absorb most of the visible light with an efficiency of 6.3%, showing the feasibility of monolithic III-V/Si tandems with >20% efficiency. Through spectral efficiency analysis, we also compare our results to previously published GaAsP and Si devices, projecting tandem GaAsP/Si efficiencies of up to 25.6% based on current state-of-the-art individual subcells. With the aid of modeling, we further illustrate a realistic path toward 30% GaAsP/Si tandems for high-efficiency, monolithically integrated photovoltaics.« less

Scalable High-Efficiency Thin Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Cells Enabled by Light-Trapping Nanostructures

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

Chen, Gang; Branham, Matthew S.; Hsu, Wei-Chun

2014-09-02

This report summarizes the research activities of the Chen group at MIT over the last two years pertaining to our research effort developing and proving light-trapping designs for ultrathin crystalline silicon solar cells. We present a new world record efficiency for a sub-20-micron crystalline silicon device, as well as details on the combined photonic/electronic transport simulation we developed for photovoltaic applications.

Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells Depending on TiO2 Nanorod Arrays.

PubMed

Li, Xin; Dai, Si-Min; Zhu, Pei; Deng, Lin-Long; Xie, Su-Yuan; Cui, Qian; Chen, Hong; Wang, Ning; Lin, Hong

2016-08-24

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with TiO2 materials have attracted much attention due to their high photovoltaic performance. Aligned TiO2 nanorods have long been used for potential application in highly efficient perovskite solar cells, but the previously reported efficiencies of perovskite solar cells based on TiO2 nanorod arrays were underrated. Here we show a solvothermal method based on a modified ketone-HCl system with the addition of organic acids suitable for modulation of the TiO2 nanorod array films to fabricate highly efficient perovskite solar cells. Photovoltaic measurements indicated that efficient nanorod-structured perovskite solar cells can be achieved with the length of the nanorods as long as approximately 200 nm. A record efficiency of 18.22% under the reverse scan direction has been optimized by avoiding direct contact between the TiO2 nanorods and the hole transport materials, eliminating the organic residues on the nanorod surfaces using UV-ozone treatment and tuning the nanorod array morphologies through addition of different organic acids in the solvothermal process.

Kesterite Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 Solar Cells with beyond 8% Efficiency by a Sol-Gel and Selenization Process.

PubMed

Liu, Fangyang; Zeng, Fangqin; Song, Ning; Jiang, Liangxing; Han, Zili; Su, Zhenghua; Yan, Chang; Wen, Xiaoming; Hao, Xiaojing; Liu, Yexiang

2015-07-08

A facile sol-gel and selenization process has been demonstrated to fabricate high-quality single-phase earth abundant kesterite Cu2ZnSn(S,Se)4 (CZTSSe) photovoltaic absorbers. The structure and band gap of the fabricated CZTSSe can be readily tuned by varying the [S]/([S] + [Se]) ratios via selenization condition control. The effects of [S]/([S] + [Se]) ratio on device performance have been presented. The best device shows 8.25% total area efficiency without antireflection coating. Low fill factor is the main limitation for the current device efficiency compared to record efficiency device due to high series resistance and interface recombination. By improving film uniformity, eliminating voids, and reducing the Mo(S,Se)2 interfacial layer, a further boost of the device efficiency is expected, enabling the proposed process for fabricating one of the most promising candidates for kesterite solar cells.

Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-Capped Pt Nanocubes with Superior Peroxidase-Like Activity

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

Ye, Haihang; Liu, Yuzi; Chhabra, Ashima

2016-12-21

Peroxidase mimics of inorganic nanoparticles are expected to circumvent the inherent issues of natural peroxidases, providing enhanced performance in important applications such as diagnosis and imaging. Despite the report of a variety of peroxidase mimics in the past decade, very limited progress has been made on improving their catalytic efficiency. The catalytic efficiencies of most previously reported mimics are only up to one order of magnitude higher than those of natural peroxidases. In this work, we demonstrate a type of highly efficient peroxidase mimic – polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-capped Pt nanocubes of sub-10 nm in size. These PVP-capped Pt cubes are ~200-foldmore » more active than the natural counterparts and exhibit a record-high specific catalytic efficiency. In addition to the superior efficiency, the new mimic shows several other promising features, including excellent stabilities, well-controlled uniformity in both size and shape, controllable sizes, and facile and scalable production.« less

High-Efficiency All-Solution-Processed Light-Emitting Diodes Based on Anisotropic Colloidal Heterostructures with Polar Polymer Injecting Layers.

PubMed

Castelli, Andrea; Meinardi, Francesco; Pasini, Mariacecilia; Galeotti, Francesco; Pinchetti, Valerio; Lorenzon, Monica; Manna, Liberato; Moreels, Iwan; Giovanella, Umberto; Brovelli, Sergio

2015-08-12

Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) are emerging as true candidates for light-emitting diodes with ultrasaturated colors. Here, we combine CdSe/CdS dot-in-rod heterostructures and polar/polyelectrolytic conjugated polymers to demonstrate the first example of fully solution-based quantum dot light-emitting diodes (QD-LEDs) incorporating all-organic injection/transport layers with high brightness, very limited roll-off and external quantum efficiency as high as 6.1%, which is 20 times higher than the record QD-LEDs with all-solution-processed organic interlayers and exceeds by over 200% QD-LEDs embedding vacuum-deposited organic molecules.

Holographic Optical Elements Recorded in Silver Halide Sensitized Gelatin Emulsions. Part 2. Reflection Holographic Optical Elements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Jong Man; Choi, Byung So; Choi, Yoon Sun; Kim, Jong Min; Bjelkhagen, Hans I.; Phillips, Nicholas J.

2002-03-01

Silver halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) holograms are similar to holograms recorded in dichromated gelatin (DCG), the main recording material for holographic optical elements (HOEs). The drawback of DCG is its low energetic sensitivity and limited spectral response. Silver halide materials can be processed in such a way that the final hologram will have properties like a DCG hologram. Recently this technique has become more interesting since the introduction of new ultra-fine-grain silver halide (AgHal) emulsions. In particular, high spatial-frequency fringes associated with HOEs of the reflection type are difficult to construct when SHSG processing methods are employed. Therefore an optimized processing technique for reflection HOEs recorded in the new AgHal materials is introduced. Diffraction efficiencies over 90% can be obtained repeatably for reflection diffraction gratings. Understanding the importance of a selective hardening process has made it possible to obtain results similar to conventional DCG processing. The main advantage of the SHSG process is that high-sensitivity recording can be performed with laser wavelengths anywhere within the visible spectrum. This simplifies the manufacturing of high-quality, large-format HOEs, also including high-quality display holograms of the reflection type in both monochrome and full color.

High Speed Photomicrography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hyzer, William G.

1983-03-01

One of the most challenging areas in applying high-speed photography and videography in the plant and laboratory is in the recording of rapid events at macro and microscopic scales. Depth of field, exposure efficiency, working distance, and required exposure time are all reduced as optical magnification is increased, which severely taxes the skill and ingenuity of workers interested in recording any fast moving phenomena through the microscope or with magnifying lenses. This paper defines the problems inherent in photographing within macro and microscopic ranges and offers a systematic approach to optimizing the selection of equipment and choice of applicable techniques.

Compressed sensing for energy-efficient wireless telemonitoring of noninvasive fetal ECG via block sparse Bayesian learning.

PubMed

Zhang, Zhilin; Jung, Tzyy-Ping; Makeig, Scott; Rao, Bhaskar D

2013-02-01

Fetal ECG (FECG) telemonitoring is an important branch in telemedicine. The design of a telemonitoring system via a wireless body area network with low energy consumption for ambulatory use is highly desirable. As an emerging technique, compressed sensing (CS) shows great promise in compressing/reconstructing data with low energy consumption. However, due to some specific characteristics of raw FECG recordings such as nonsparsity and strong noise contamination, current CS algorithms generally fail in this application. This paper proposes to use the block sparse Bayesian learning framework to compress/reconstruct nonsparse raw FECG recordings. Experimental results show that the framework can reconstruct the raw recordings with high quality. Especially, the reconstruction does not destroy the interdependence relation among the multichannel recordings. This ensures that the independent component analysis decomposition of the reconstructed recordings has high fidelity. Furthermore, the framework allows the use of a sparse binary sensing matrix with much fewer nonzero entries to compress recordings. Particularly, each column of the matrix can contain only two nonzero entries. This shows that the framework, compared to other algorithms such as current CS algorithms and wavelet algorithms, can greatly reduce code execution in CPU in the data compression stage.

Proceedings of the Flat-Plate Solar Array Project Workshop on Crystal Gowth for High-Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dumas, K. A. (Editor)

1985-01-01

A Workshop on Crystal Growth for High-Efficiency Silicon Solar Cells was held December 3 and 4, 1984, in San Diego, California. The Workshop offered a day and a half of technical presentations and discussions and an afternoon session that involved a panel discussion and general discussion of areas of research that are necessary to the development of materials for high-efficiency solar cells. Topics included the theoretical and experimental aspects of growing high-quality silicon crystals, the effects of growth-process-related defects on photovoltaic devices, and the suitability of various growth technologies as cost-effective processes. Fifteen invited papers were presented, with a discussion period following each presentation. The meeting was organized by the Flat-Plate Solar Array Project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. These Proceedings are a record of the presentations and discussions, edited for clarity and continuity.

Broadband high-efficiency dielectric metasurfaces for the visible spectrum

PubMed Central

Devlin, Robert C.; Khorasaninejad, Mohammadreza; Chen, Wei Ting; Oh, Jaewon; Capasso, Federico

2016-01-01

Metasurfaces are planar optical elements that hold promise for overcoming the limitations of refractive and conventional diffractive optics. Original dielectric metasurfaces are limited to transparency windows at infrared wavelengths because of significant optical absorption and loss at visible wavelengths. Thus, it is critical that new materials and nanofabrication techniques be developed to extend dielectric metasurfaces across the visible spectrum and to enable applications such as high numerical aperture lenses, color holograms, and wearable optics. Here, we demonstrate high performance dielectric metasurfaces in the form of holograms for red, green, and blue wavelengths with record absolute efficiency (>78%). We use atomic layer deposition of amorphous titanium dioxide with surface roughness less than 1 nm and negligible optical loss. We use a process for fabricating dielectric metasurfaces that allows us to produce anisotropic, subwavelength-spaced dielectric nanostructures with shape birefringence. This process is capable of realizing any high-efficiency metasurface optical element, e.g., metalenses and axicons. PMID:27601634

An ultralow power athermal silicon modulator

PubMed Central

Timurdogan, Erman; Sorace-Agaskar, Cheryl M.; Sun, Jie; Shah Hosseini, Ehsan; Biberman, Aleksandr; Watts, Michael R.

2014-01-01

Silicon photonics has emerged as the leading candidate for implementing ultralow power wavelength–division–multiplexed communication networks in high-performance computers, yet current components (lasers, modulators, filters and detectors) consume too much power for the high-speed femtojoule-class links that ultimately will be required. Here we demonstrate and characterize the first modulator to achieve simultaneous high-speed (25 Gb s−1), low-voltage (0.5 VPP) and efficient 0.9 fJ per bit error-free operation. This low-energy high-speed operation is enabled by a record electro-optic response, obtained in a vertical p–n junction device that at 250 pm V−1 (30 GHz V−1) is up to 10 times larger than prior demonstrations. In addition, this record electro-optic response is used to compensate for thermal drift over a 7.5 °C temperature range with little additional energy consumption (0.24 fJ per bit for a total energy consumption below 1.03 J per bit). The combined results of highly efficient modulation and electro-optic thermal compensation represent a new paradigm in modulator development and a major step towards single-digit femtojoule-class communications. PMID:24915772

Bright x-ray stainless steel K-shell source development at the National Ignition Facility

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

May, M. J.; Fournier, K. B.; Colvin, J. D.

2015-06-15

High x-ray conversion efficiency (XRCE) K-shell sources are being developed for high energy density experiments for use as backlighters and for the testing of materials exposed to high x-ray fluxes and fluences. Recently, sources with high XRCE in the K-shell x-ray energy range of iron and nickel were investigated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The x-ray conversion efficiency in the 5–9 keV spectral range was determined to be 6.8% ± 0.3%. These targets were 4.1 mm diameter, 4 mm tall hollow epoxy tubes having a 50 μm thick wall supporting a tube of 3 to 3.5 μm thick stainless steel. The NIF laser deposited ∼460 kJ ofmore » 3ω light into the target in a 140 TW, 3.3 ns square pulse. The absolute x-ray emission of the source was measured by two calibrated Dante x-ray spectrometers. Time resolved images filtered for the Fe K-shell were recorded to follow the heating of the target. Time integrated high-resolution spectra were recorded in the K-shell range.« less

Bright x-ray stainless steel K-shell source development at the National Ignition Facility

DOE PAGES

May, M. J.; Fournier, K. B.; Colvin, J. D.; ...

2015-06-01

High x-ray conversion efficiency (XRCE) K-shell sources are being developed for high energy density experiments for use as backlighters and for the testing of materials exposed to high x-ray fluxes and fluences. Recently, sources with high XRCE in the K-shell x-ray energy range of iron and nickel were investigated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The x-ray conversion efficiency in the 5–9 keV spectral range was determined to be 6.8% ± 0.3%. These targets were 4.1 mm diameter, 4 mm tall hollow epoxy tubes having a 50 μm thick wall supporting a tube of 3 to 3.5 μm thick stainlessmore » steel. The NIF laser deposited ~460 kJ of 3ω light into the target in a 140 TW, 3.3 ns square pulse. The absolute x-ray emission of the source was measured by two calibrated Dante x-ray spectrometers. In conclusion, time resolved images filtered for the Fe K-shell were recorded to follow the heating of the target. Time integrated high-resolution spectra were recorded in the K-shell range« less

Bright x-ray stainless steel K-shell source development at the National Ignition Facility

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

May, M. J.; Fournier, K. B.; Colvin, J. D.; Barrios, M. A.; Dewald, E. L.; Hohenberger, M.; Moody, J.; Patterson, J. R.; Schneider, M.; Widmann, K.; Regan, S. P.

2015-06-01

High x-ray conversion efficiency (XRCE) K-shell sources are being developed for high energy density experiments for use as backlighters and for the testing of materials exposed to high x-ray fluxes and fluences. Recently, sources with high XRCE in the K-shell x-ray energy range of iron and nickel were investigated at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). The x-ray conversion efficiency in the 5-9 keV spectral range was determined to be 6.8% ± 0.3%. These targets were 4.1 mm diameter, 4 mm tall hollow epoxy tubes having a 50 μm thick wall supporting a tube of 3 to 3.5 μm thick stainless steel. The NIF laser deposited ˜460 kJ of 3ω light into the target in a 140 TW, 3.3 ns square pulse. The absolute x-ray emission of the source was measured by two calibrated Dante x-ray spectrometers. Time resolved images filtered for the Fe K-shell were recorded to follow the heating of the target. Time integrated high-resolution spectra were recorded in the K-shell range.

Multiscale Space-Time Computational Methods for Fluid-Structure Interactions

DTIC Science & Technology

2015-09-13

prescribed fully or partially, is from an actual locust, extracted from high-speed, multi-camera video recordings of the locust in a wind tunnel . We use...With creative methods for coupling the fluid and structure, we can increase the scope and efficiency of the FSI modeling . Multiscale methods, which now...play an important role in computational mathematics, can also increase the accuracy and efficiency of the computer modeling techniques. The main

Holographic recording properties in thick films of ULSH-500 photopolymer

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Waldman, David A.; Li, H.-Y. S.; Cetin, Erdem A.

1998-06-01

The photopolymer holographic recording materials, ULSH-500, based upon cationic ring-opening polymerization, has been further optimized for recording in an increased film thickness of 200 micrometers . The dynamic range attained, at least M/# equals 16, is substantially greater than previously reported, while concurrently the inherent low transverse shrinkage and high sensitivity characteristics of the material have been retained. Dynamic range or cumulative grating strength, (Sigma) (eta) i0.5, has been determined from co-locationally recorded peristrophic and angle multiplexed plane-wave gratings which exhibit low diffraction efficiencies between about 0.1 and 0.2%. Good Bragg selectivity consistent with the imaged thickness and sinc2 function behavior is observed for the multiplexed holograms, and both the angular response and the diffraction efficiency are stable without the need for post-imaging fixing procedures. Sensitivity is in the range of 1 to 10 cm/mJ, and the refractive index modulation achievable during consumption of the accessible dynamic range is n1 equals 1.3 X 10-2 at the read wavelength of 514.5 nm.

IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 20th, Las Vegas, NV, Sept. 26-30, 1988, Conference Record. Volumes 1 & 2

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Various papers on photovoltaics are presented. The general topics considered include: amorphous materials and cells; amorphous silicon-based solar cells and modules; amorphous silicon-based materials and processes; amorphous materials characterization; amorphous silicon; high-efficiency single crystal solar cells; multijunction and heterojunction cells; high-efficiency III-V cells; modeling and characterization of high-efficiency cells; LIPS flight experience; space mission requirements and technology; advanced space solar cell technology; space environmental effects and modeling; space solar cell and array technology; terrestrial systems and array technology; terrestrial utility and stand-alone applications and testing; terrestrial concentrator and storage technology; terrestrial stand-alone systems applications; terrestrial systems test and evaluation; terrestrial flatplate and concentrator technology; use of polycrystalline materials; polycrystalline II-VI compound solar cells; analysis of and fabrication procedures for compound solar cells.

Polarization holograms allow highly efficient generation of complex light beams.

PubMed

Ruiz, U; Pagliusi, P; Provenzano, C; Volke-Sepúlveda, K; Cipparrone, Gabriella

2013-03-25

We report a viable method to generate complex beams, such as the non-diffracting Bessel and Weber beams, which relies on the encoding of amplitude information, in addition to phase and polarization, using polarization holography. The holograms are recorded in polarization sensitive films by the interference of a reference plane wave with a tailored complex beam, having orthogonal circular polarizations. The high efficiency, the intrinsic achromaticity and the simplicity of use of the polarization holograms make them competitive with respect to existing methods and attractive for several applications. Theoretical analysis, based on the Jones formalism, and experimental results are shown.

The mechanics of locomotion in the squid Loligo pealei: locomotory function and unsteady hydrodynamics of the jet and intramantle pressure.

PubMed

Anderson, E J; DeMont, M E

2000-09-01

High-speed, high-resolution digital video recordings of swimming squid (Loligo pealei) were acquired. These recordings were used to determine very accurate swimming kinematics, body deformations and mantle cavity volume. The time-varying squid profile was digitized automatically from the acquired swimming sequences. Mantle cavity volume flow rates were determined under the assumption of axisymmetry and the condition of incompressibility. The data were then used to calculate jet velocity, jet thrust and intramantle pressure, including unsteady effects. Because of the accurate measurements of volume flow rate, the standard use of estimated discharge coefficients was avoided. Equations for jet and whole-cycle propulsive efficiency were developed, including a general equation incorporating unsteady effects. Squid were observed to eject up to 94 % of their intramantle working fluid at relatively high swimming speeds. As a result, the standard use of the so-called large-reservoir approximation in the determination of intramantle pressure by the Bernoulli equation leads to significant errors in calculating intramantle pressure from jet velocity and vice versa. The failure of this approximation in squid locomotion also implies that pressure variation throughout the mantle cannot be ignored. In addition, the unsteady terms of the Bernoulli equation and the momentum equation proved to be significant to the determination of intramantle pressure and jet thrust. Equations of propulsive efficiency derived for squid did not resemble Froude efficiency. Instead, they resembled the equation of rocket motor propulsive efficiency. The Froude equation was found to underestimate the propulsive efficiency of the jet period of the squid locomotory cycle and to overestimate whole-cycle propulsive efficiency when compared with efficiencies calculated from equations derived with the squid locomotory apparatus in mind. The equations for squid propulsive efficiency reveal that the refill period of squid plays a greater role, and the jet period a lesser role, in the low whole-cycle efficiencies predicted in squid and similar jet-propelled organisms. These findings offer new perspectives on locomotory hydrodynamics, intramantle pressure measurements and functional morphology with regard to squid and other jet-propelled organisms.

High-throughput single-molecule force spectroscopy for membrane proteins

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bosshart, Patrick D.; Casagrande, Fabio; Frederix, Patrick L. T. M.; Ratera, Merce; Bippes, Christian A.; Müller, Daniel J.; Palacin, Manuel; Engel, Andreas; Fotiadis, Dimitrios

2008-09-01

Atomic force microscopy-based single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) is a powerful tool for studying the mechanical properties, intermolecular and intramolecular interactions, unfolding pathways, and energy landscapes of membrane proteins. One limiting factor for the large-scale applicability of SMFS on membrane proteins is its low efficiency in data acquisition. We have developed a semi-automated high-throughput SMFS (HT-SMFS) procedure for efficient data acquisition. In addition, we present a coarse filter to efficiently extract protein unfolding events from large data sets. The HT-SMFS procedure and the coarse filter were validated using the proton pump bacteriorhodopsin (BR) from Halobacterium salinarum and the L-arginine/agmatine antiporter AdiC from the bacterium Escherichia coli. To screen for molecular interactions between AdiC and its substrates, we recorded data sets in the absence and in the presence of L-arginine, D-arginine, and agmatine. Altogether ~400 000 force-distance curves were recorded. Application of coarse filtering to this wealth of data yielded six data sets with ~200 (AdiC) and ~400 (BR) force-distance spectra in each. Importantly, the raw data for most of these data sets were acquired in one to two days, opening new perspectives for HT-SMFS applications.

Ultrawidefield microscope for high-speed fluorescence imaging and targeted optogenetic stimulation.

PubMed

Werley, Christopher A; Chien, Miao-Ping; Cohen, Adam E

2017-12-01

The rapid increase in the number and quality of fluorescent reporters and optogenetic actuators has yielded a powerful set of tools for recording and controlling cellular state and function. To achieve the full benefit of these tools requires improved optical systems with high light collection efficiency, high spatial and temporal resolution, and patterned optical stimulation, in a wide field of view (FOV). Here we describe our 'Firefly' microscope, which achieves these goals in a Ø6 mm FOV. The Firefly optical system is optimized for simultaneous photostimulation and fluorescence imaging in cultured cells. All but one of the optical elements are commercially available, yet the microscope achieves 10-fold higher light collection efficiency at its design magnification than the comparable commercially available microscope using the same objective. The Firefly microscope enables all-optical electrophysiology ('Optopatch') in cultured neurons with a throughput and information content unmatched by other neuronal phenotyping systems. This capability opens possibilities in disease modeling and phenotypic drug screening. We also demonstrate applications of the system to voltage and calcium recordings in human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes.

Ultrawidefield microscope for high-speed fluorescence imaging and targeted optogenetic stimulation

PubMed Central

Werley, Christopher A.; Chien, Miao-Ping; Cohen, Adam E.

2017-01-01

The rapid increase in the number and quality of fluorescent reporters and optogenetic actuators has yielded a powerful set of tools for recording and controlling cellular state and function. To achieve the full benefit of these tools requires improved optical systems with high light collection efficiency, high spatial and temporal resolution, and patterned optical stimulation, in a wide field of view (FOV). Here we describe our ‘Firefly’ microscope, which achieves these goals in a Ø6 mm FOV. The Firefly optical system is optimized for simultaneous photostimulation and fluorescence imaging in cultured cells. All but one of the optical elements are commercially available, yet the microscope achieves 10-fold higher light collection efficiency at its design magnification than the comparable commercially available microscope using the same objective. The Firefly microscope enables all-optical electrophysiology (‘Optopatch’) in cultured neurons with a throughput and information content unmatched by other neuronal phenotyping systems. This capability opens possibilities in disease modeling and phenotypic drug screening. We also demonstrate applications of the system to voltage and calcium recordings in human induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes. PMID:29296505

Ultrahigh-efficiency solution-processed simplified small-molecule organic light-emitting diodes using universal host materials

PubMed Central

Han, Tae-Hee; Choi, Mi-Ri; Jeon, Chan-Woo; Kim, Yun-Hi; Kwon, Soon-Ki; Lee, Tae-Woo

2016-01-01

Although solution processing of small-molecule organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) has been considered as a promising alternative to standard vacuum deposition requiring high material and processing cost, the devices have suffered from low luminous efficiency and difficulty of multilayer solution processing. Therefore, high efficiency should be achieved in simple-structured small-molecule OLEDs fabricated using a solution process. We report very efficient solution-processed simple-structured small-molecule OLEDs that use novel universal electron-transporting host materials based on tetraphenylsilane with pyridine moieties. These materials have wide band gaps, high triplet energy levels, and good solution processabilities; they provide balanced charge transport in a mixed-host emitting layer. Orange-red (~97.5 cd/A, ~35.5% photons per electron), green (~101.5 cd/A, ~29.0% photons per electron), and white (~74.2 cd/A, ~28.5% photons per electron) phosphorescent OLEDs exhibited the highest recorded electroluminescent efficiencies of solution-processed OLEDs reported to date. We also demonstrate a solution-processed flexible solid-state lighting device as a potential application of our devices. PMID:27819053

Planar-Structure Perovskite Solar Cells with Efficiency beyond 21.

PubMed

Jiang, Qi; Chu, Zema; Wang, Pengyang; Yang, Xiaolei; Liu, Heng; Wang, Ye; Yin, Zhigang; Wu, Jinliang; Zhang, Xingwang; You, Jingbi

2017-12-01

Low temperature solution processed planar-structure perovskite solar cells gain great attention recently, while their power conversions are still lower than that of high temperature mesoporous counterpart. Previous reports are mainly focused on perovskite morphology control and interface engineering to improve performance. Here, this study systematically investigates the effect of precise stoichiometry, especially the PbI 2 contents on device performance including efficiency, hysteresis and stability. This study finds that a moderate residual of PbI 2 can deliver stable and high efficiency of solar cells without hysteresis, while too much residual PbI 2 will lead to serious hysteresis and poor transit stability. Solar cells with the efficiencies of 21.6% in small size (0.0737 cm 2 ) and 20.1% in large size (1 cm 2 ) with moderate residual PbI 2 in perovskite layer are obtained. The certificated efficiency for small size shows the efficiency of 20.9%, which is the highest efficiency ever recorded in planar-structure perovskite solar cells, showing the planar-structure perovskite solar cells are very promising. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Economics of immunization information systems in the United States: assessing costs and efficiency.

PubMed

Bartlett, Diana L; Molinari, Noelle-Angelique M; Ortega-Sanchez, Ismael R; Urquhart, Gary A

2006-08-22

One of the United States' national health objectives for 2010 is that 95% of children aged <6 years participate in fully operational population-based immunization information systems (IIS). Despite important progress, child participation in most IIS has increased slowly, in part due to limited economic knowledge about IIS operations. Should IIS need further improvement, characterizing costs and identifying factors that affect IIS efficiency become crucial. Data were collected from a national sampling frame of the 56 states/cities that received federal immunization grants under U.S. Public Health Service Act 317b and completed the federal 1999 Immunization Registry Annual Report. The sampling frame was stratified by IIS functional status, children's enrollment in the IIS, and whether the IIS had been developed as an independent system or was integrated into a larger system. These sites self-reported IIS developmental and operational program costs for calendar years 1998-2002 using a standardized data collection tool and underwent on-site interviews to verify reported data with information from the state/city financial management system and other financial records. A parametric cost-per-patient-record (CPR) model was estimated. The model assessed the impact of labor and non-labor resources used in development and operations tasks, as well as the impact of information technology, local providers' participation and compliance with federal IIS performance standards (e.g., ensuring the confidentiality and security of information, ensure timely vaccination data at the time of patient encounter, and produce official immunization records). Given the number of records minimizing CPR, the additional amount of resources needed to meet national health goals for the year 2010 was also calculated. Estimated CPR was as high as $10.30 and as low as $0.09 in operating IIS. About 20% of IIS had between 2.9 to 3.2 million records and showed CPR estimates of $0.09. Overall, CPR was highly sensitive to local providers' participation. To achieve the 2010 goals, additional aggregated costs were estimated to be $75.6 million nationwide. Efficiently increasing the number of records in IIS would require additional resources and careful consideration of various strategies to minimize CPR, such as boosting providers' participation.

Achieving Highly Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells with Improved Intermolecular Interaction and Open-Circuit Voltage

DOE PAGES

Yao, Huifeng; Ye, Long; Hou, Junxian; ...

2017-03-29

Here, a new acceptor–donor–acceptor-structured nonfullerene acceptor ITCC (3,9-bis(4-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-3-methylene-2-oxo-cyclopenta[b]thiophen)-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4-hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3- d':2,3- d'] -s-indaceno[1,2- b:5,6- b']-dithiophene) is designed and synthesized via simple end-group modification. ITCC shows improved electron-transport properties and a high-lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level. A power conversion efficiency of 11.4% with an impressive V OC of over 1 V is recorded in photovoltaic devices, suggesting that ITCC has great potential for applications in tandem organic solar cells.

Trap efficiency of reservoirs

USGS Publications Warehouse

Brune, Gunnar M.

1953-01-01

Forty-four records of reservoir trap efficiency and the factors affecting trap efficiency are analyzed. The capacity-inflow (C/I) ratio is found to offer a much closer correlation with trap efficiency than the capacity-watershed (C/W) ratio heretofore widely used. It appears likely from the cases studied that accurate timing of venting or sluicing operations to intercept gravity underflows can treble or quadruple the amount of sediment discharged from a reservoir. Desilting basins, because of their shape and method of operation, may have trap efficiencies above 90 pct even with very low C/I ratios.Semi-dry reservoirs with high C/I ratios, like John Martin Reservoir, may have trap efficiencies as low as 60 pct. Truly “dry” reservoirs, such as those in the Miami Conservancy District, probably have trap efficiencies in the 10 to 40 pct range, depending upon C/I ratio

Simplified dichromated gelatin hologram recording process

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Georgekutty, Tharayil G.; Liu, Hua-Kuang

1987-01-01

A simplified method for making dichromated gelatin (DCG) holographic optical elements (HOE) has been discovered. The method is much less tedious and it requires a period of processing time comparable with that for processing a silver halide hologram. HOE characteristics including diffraction efficiency (DE), linearity, and spectral sensitivity have been quantitatively investigated. The quality of the holographic grating is very high. Ninety percent or higher diffraction efficiency has been achieved in simple plane gratings made by this process.

Buried MoO x/Ag Electrode Enables High-Efficiency Organic/Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells with a High Fill Factor.

PubMed

Xia, Zhouhui; Gao, Peng; Sun, Teng; Wu, Haihua; Tan, Yeshu; Song, Tao; Lee, Shuit-Tong; Sun, Baoquan

2018-04-25

Silicon (Si)/organic heterojunction solar cells based on poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) and n-type Si have attracted wide interests because they promise cost-effectiveness and high-efficiency. However, the limited conductivity of PEDOT:PSS leads to an inefficient hole transport efficiency for the heterojunction device. Therefore, a high dense top-contact metal grid electrode is required to assure the efficient charge collection efficiency. Unfortunately, the large metal grid coverage ratio electrode would lead to undesirable optical loss. Here, we develop a strategy to balance PEDOT:PSS conductivity and grid optical transmittance via a buried molybdenum oxide/silver grid electrode. In addition, the grid electrode coverage ratio is optimized to reduce its light shading effect. The buried electrode dramatically reduces the device series resistance, which leads to a higher fill factor (FF). With the optimized buried electrode, a record FF of 80% is achieved for flat Si/PEDOT:PSS heterojunction devices. With further enhancement adhesion between the PEDOT:PSS film and Si substrate by a chemical cross-linkable silance, a power conversion efficiency of 16.3% for organic/textured Si heterojunction devices is achieved. Our results provide a path to overcome the inferior organic semiconductor property to enhance the organic/Si heterojunction solar cell.

Triggering soft bombs at the LHC

DOE PAGES

Knapen, Simon; Griso, Simone Pagan; Papucci, Michele; ...

2017-08-18

Very high multiplicity, spherically-symmetric distributions of soft particles, with p T ~ few×100 MeV, may be a signature of strongly-coupled hidden valleys that exhibit long, efficient showering windows. With traditional triggers, such ‘soft bomb’ events closely resemble pile-up and are therefore only recorded with minimum bias triggers at a very low efficiency. We demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a high-level triggering strategy that efficiently separates soft bombs from pile-up by searching for a ‘belt of fire’: a high density band of hits on the innermost layer of the tracker. Seeding our proposed high-level trigger with existing jet, missing transverse energy ormore » lepton hardware-level triggers, we show that net trigger efficiencies of order 10% are possible for bombs of mass several × 100 GeV. We also consider the special case that soft bombs are the result of an exotic decay of the 125 GeV Higgs. The fiducial rate for ‘Higgs bombs’ triggered in this manner is marginally higher than the rate achievable by triggering directly on a hard muon from associated Higgs production.« less

Triggering soft bombs at the LHC

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Knapen, Simon; Griso, Simone Pagan; Papucci, Michele; Robinson, Dean J.

2017-08-01

Very high multiplicity, spherically-symmetric distributions of soft particles, with p T ˜ few×100 MeV, may be a signature of strongly-coupled hidden valleys that exhibit long, efficient showering windows. With traditional triggers, such `soft bomb' events closely resemble pile-up and are therefore only recorded with minimum bias triggers at a very low efficiency. We demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a high-level triggering strategy that efficiently separates soft bombs from pile-up by searching for a `belt of fire': a high density band of hits on the innermost layer of the tracker. Seeding our proposed high-level trigger with existing jet, missing transverse energy or lepton hardware-level triggers, we show that net trigger efficiencies of order 10% are possible for bombs of mass several × 100 GeV. We also consider the special case that soft bombs are the result of an exotic decay of the 125 GeV Higgs. The fiducial rate for `Higgs bombs' triggered in this manner is marginally higher than the rate achievable by triggering directly on a hard muon from associated Higgs production.

Triggering soft bombs at the LHC

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

Knapen, Simon; Griso, Simone Pagan; Papucci, Michele

Very high multiplicity, spherically-symmetric distributions of soft particles, with p T ~ few×100 MeV, may be a signature of strongly-coupled hidden valleys that exhibit long, efficient showering windows. With traditional triggers, such ‘soft bomb’ events closely resemble pile-up and are therefore only recorded with minimum bias triggers at a very low efficiency. We demonstrate a proof-of-concept for a high-level triggering strategy that efficiently separates soft bombs from pile-up by searching for a ‘belt of fire’: a high density band of hits on the innermost layer of the tracker. Seeding our proposed high-level trigger with existing jet, missing transverse energy ormore » lepton hardware-level triggers, we show that net trigger efficiencies of order 10% are possible for bombs of mass several × 100 GeV. We also consider the special case that soft bombs are the result of an exotic decay of the 125 GeV Higgs. The fiducial rate for ‘Higgs bombs’ triggered in this manner is marginally higher than the rate achievable by triggering directly on a hard muon from associated Higgs production.« less

Enhanced mobility CsPbI3 quantum dot arrays for record-efficiency, high-voltage photovoltaic cells

PubMed Central

Sanehira, Erin M.; Marshall, Ashley R.; Christians, Jeffrey A.; Harvey, Steven P.; Ciesielski, Peter N.; Wheeler, Lance M.; Schulz, Philip; Lin, Lih Y.; Beard, Matthew C.; Luther, Joseph M.

2017-01-01

We developed lead halide perovskite quantum dot (QD) films with tuned surface chemistry based on A-site cation halide salt (AX) treatments. QD perovskites offer colloidal synthesis and processing using industrially friendly solvents, which decouples grain growth from film deposition, and at present produce larger open-circuit voltages (VOC’s) than thin-film perovskites. CsPbI3 QDs, with a tunable bandgap between 1.75 and 2.13 eV, are an ideal top cell candidate for all-perovskite multijunction solar cells because of their demonstrated small VOC deficit. We show that charge carrier mobility within perovskite QD films is dictated by the chemical conditions at the QD-QD junctions. The AX treatments provide a method for tuning the coupling between perovskite QDs, which is exploited for improved charge transport for fabricating high-quality QD films and devices. The AX treatments presented here double the film mobility, enabling increased photocurrent, and lead to a record certified QD solar cell efficiency of 13.43%. PMID:29098184

Coherent Optical Memory with High Storage Efficiency and Large Fractional Delay

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yi-Hsin; Lee, Meng-Jung; Wang, I.-Chung; Du, Shengwang; Chen, Yong-Fan; Chen, Ying-Cheng; Yu, Ite A.

2013-02-01

A high-storage efficiency and long-lived quantum memory for photons is an essential component in long-distance quantum communication and optical quantum computation. Here, we report a 78% storage efficiency of light pulses in a cold atomic medium based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency. At 50% storage efficiency, we obtain a fractional delay of 74, which is the best up-to-date record. The classical fidelity of the recalled pulse is better than 90% and nearly independent of the storage time, as confirmed by the direct measurement of phase evolution of the output light pulse with a beat-note interferometer. Such excellent phase coherence between the stored and recalled light pulses suggests that the current result may be readily applied to single photon wave packets. Our work significantly advances the technology of electromagnetically induced transparency-based optical memory and may find practical applications in long-distance quantum communication and optical quantum computation.

Coherent optical memory with high storage efficiency and large fractional delay.

PubMed

Chen, Yi-Hsin; Lee, Meng-Jung; Wang, I-Chung; Du, Shengwang; Chen, Yong-Fan; Chen, Ying-Cheng; Yu, Ite A

2013-02-22

A high-storage efficiency and long-lived quantum memory for photons is an essential component in long-distance quantum communication and optical quantum computation. Here, we report a 78% storage efficiency of light pulses in a cold atomic medium based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency. At 50% storage efficiency, we obtain a fractional delay of 74, which is the best up-to-date record. The classical fidelity of the recalled pulse is better than 90% and nearly independent of the storage time, as confirmed by the direct measurement of phase evolution of the output light pulse with a beat-note interferometer. Such excellent phase coherence between the stored and recalled light pulses suggests that the current result may be readily applied to single photon wave packets. Our work significantly advances the technology of electromagnetically induced transparency-based optical memory and may find practical applications in long-distance quantum communication and optical quantum computation.

A Streaming PCA VLSI Chip for Neural Data Compression.

PubMed

Wu, Tong; Zhao, Wenfeng; Guo, Hongsun; Lim, Hubert H; Yang, Zhi

2017-12-01

Neural recording system miniaturization and integration with low-power wireless technologies require compressing neural data before transmission. Feature extraction is a procedure to represent data in a low-dimensional space; its integration into a recording chip can be an efficient approach to compress neural data. In this paper, we propose a streaming principal component analysis algorithm and its microchip implementation to compress multichannel local field potential (LFP) and spike data. The circuits have been designed in a 65-nm CMOS technology and occupy a silicon area of 0.06 mm. Throughout the experiments, the chip compresses LFPs by 10 at the expense of as low as 1% reconstruction errors and 144-nW/channel power consumption; for spikes, the achieved compression ratio is 25 with 8% reconstruction errors and 3.05-W/channel power consumption. In addition, the algorithm and its hardware architecture can swiftly adapt to nonstationary spiking activities, which enables efficient hardware sharing among multiple channels to support a high-channel count recorder.

Fixation-free rehalogenating bleached reflection holograms recorded on BB-640 plates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neipp, C.; Pascual, I.; Beléndez, A.

2000-08-01

Fixation-free rehalogenating bleaching is an interesting process for the production of phase reflection holograms. The shrinkage of the emulsion is reduced in comparison with other bleaching methods (reversal bleaching or rehalogenating bleaching with a fixation step), which is particularly interesting in the case of reflection holograms. In this communication, we present experimental results for fixation-free rehalogenating bleached holograms derived from the novel BB-640 emulsion, a red-sensitive ultra-fine grain emulsion from Holographic Recording Technologies using an R-10 type bleach bath. The influence of the potassium bromide concentrations in the bleach solution on the final quality of the holograms is also studied. The concentrations of the different components of the bleach solution are adjusted to obtain the highest diffraction efficiencies. A high diffraction efficiency of 72% is obtained.

Evaluation of vaccination efficiency against HBV among Syrian multitransfused patients.

PubMed

Yazji, Wadad; Habal, Wafaa; Menem, Fawza

2018-03-05

This cross-sectional study estimates HBV prevalence and evaluates vaccination efficiency among multitransfused patients. 159 patients with various hemoglobinopathies were tested for HBsAg, anti-HBs, and anti-HBc, using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The serological results were then compared with the relevant documentation in medical records. Seropositivity of HBV was detected in 1/8 of recruited patients. Serological immunity was found in only half of patients, while the other half were either infected or non-immune. The vaccination against HBV appeared inefficient in almost half of vaccinated patients and was not documented in the medical records of 1/6 of patients. Thus, multitransfused patients are at risk of acquiring hepatitis B infection. Applying prophylactic vaccination, documenting vaccine doses, and monitoring immune response are highly recommended.

A quantitative and spatially resolved analysis of the performance-bottleneck in high efficiency, planar hybrid perovskite solar cells

DOE PAGES

Draguta, Sergiu; Christians, Jeffrey A.; Morozov, Yurii V.; ...

2018-01-01

Hybrid perovskites represent a potential paradigm shift for the creation of low-cost solar cells. Current power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceed 22%. However, despite this, record PCEs are still far from their theoretical Shockley–Queisser limit of 31%. To increase these PCE values, there is a pressing need to understand, quantify and microscopically model charge recombination processes in full working devices. Here, we present a complete microscopic account of charge recombination processes in high efficiency (18–19% PCE) hybrid perovskite (mixed cation and methylammonium lead iodide) solar cells. We employ diffraction-limited optical measurements along with relevant kinetic modeling to establish, for the firstmore » time, local photoluminescence quantum yields, trap densities, trapping efficiencies, charge extraction efficiencies, quasi-Fermi-level splitting, and effective PCE estimates. Correlations between these spatially resolved parameters, in turn, allow us to conclude that intrinsic electron traps in the perovskite active layers limit the performance of these state-of-the-art hybrid perovskite solar cells.« less

A quantitative and spatially resolved analysis of the performance-bottleneck in high efficiency, planar hybrid perovskite solar cells

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

Draguta, Sergiu; Christians, Jeffrey A.; Morozov, Yurii V.

Hybrid perovskites represent a potential paradigm shift for the creation of low-cost solar cells. Current power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) exceed 22%. However, despite this, record PCEs are still far from their theoretical Shockley–Queisser limit of 31%. To increase these PCE values, there is a pressing need to understand, quantify and microscopically model charge recombination processes in full working devices. Here, we present a complete microscopic account of charge recombination processes in high efficiency (18–19% PCE) hybrid perovskite (mixed cation and methylammonium lead iodide) solar cells. We employ diffraction-limited optical measurements along with relevant kinetic modeling to establish, for the firstmore » time, local photoluminescence quantum yields, trap densities, trapping efficiencies, charge extraction efficiencies, quasi-Fermi-level splitting, and effective PCE estimates. Correlations between these spatially resolved parameters, in turn, allow us to conclude that intrinsic electron traps in the perovskite active layers limit the performance of these state-of-the-art hybrid perovskite solar cells.« less

High-performance, polymer-based direct cellular interfaces for electrical stimulation and recording

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Seong-Min; Kim, Nara; Kim, Youngseok; Baik, Min-Seo; Yoo, Minsu; Kim, Dongyoon; Lee, Won-June; Kang, Dong-Hee; Kim, Sohee; Lee, Kwanghee; Yoon, Myung-Han

2018-04-01

Due to the trade-off between their electrical/electrochemical performance and underwater stability, realizing polymer-based, high-performance direct cellular interfaces for electrical stimulation and recording has been very challenging. Herein, we developed transparent and conductive direct cellular interfaces based on a water-stable, high-performance poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) film via solvent-assisted crystallization. The crystallized PEDOT:PSS on a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate exhibited excellent electrical/electrochemical/optical characteristics, long-term underwater stability without film dissolution/delamination, and good viability for primarily cultured cardiomyocytes and neurons over several weeks. Furthermore, the highly crystallized, nanofibrillar PEDOT:PSS networks enabled dramatically enlarged surface areas and electrochemical activities, which were successfully employed to modulate cardiomyocyte beating via direct electrical stimulation. Finally, the high-performance PEDOT:PSS layer was seamlessly incorporated into transparent microelectrode arrays for efficient, real-time recording of cardiomyocyte action potentials with a high signal fidelity. All these results demonstrate the strong potential of crystallized PEDOT:PSS as a crucial component for a variety of versatile bioelectronic interfaces.

Incident light adjustable solar cell by periodic nanolens architecture

PubMed Central

Yun, Ju-Hyung; Lee, Eunsongyi; Park, Hyeong-Ho; Kim, Dong-Wook; Anderson, Wayne A.; Kim, Joondong; Litchinitser, Natalia M.; Zeng, Jinwei; Yi, Junsin; Kumar, M. Melvin David; Sun, Jingbo

2014-01-01

Could nanostructures act as lenses to focus incident light for efficient utilization of photovoltaics? Is it possible, in order to avoid serious recombination loss, to realize periodic nanostructures in solar cells without direct etching in a light absorbing semiconductor? Here we propose and demonstrate a promising architecture to shape nanolenses on a planar semiconductor. Optically transparent and electrically conductive nanolenses simultaneously provide the optical benefit of modulating the incident light and the electrical advantage of supporting carrier transportation. A transparent indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanolens was designed to focus the incident light-spectrum in focal lengths overlapping to a strong electric field region for high carrier collection efficiency. The ITO nanolens effectively broadens near-zero reflection and provides high tolerance to the incident light angles. We present a record high light-conversion efficiency of 16.0% for a periodic nanostructured Si solar cell. PMID:25371099

Highly Functional TNTs with Superb Photocatalytic, Optical, and Electronic Performance Achieving Record PV Efficiency of 10.1% for 1D-Based DSSCs.

PubMed

Qadir, Muhammad Bilal; Li, Yuewen; Sahito, Iftikhar Ali; Arbab, Alvira Ayoub; Sun, Kyung Chul; Mengal, Naveed; Memon, Anam Ali; Jeong, Sung Hoon

2016-09-01

Different nanostructures of TiO2 play an important role in the photocatalytic and photoelectronic applications. TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) have received increasing attention for these applications due to their unique physicochemical properties. Focusing on highly functional TNTs (HF-TNTs) for photocatalytic and photoelectronic applications, this study describes the facile hydrothermal synthesis of HF-TNTs by using commercial and cheaper materials for cost-effective manufacturing. To prove the functionality and applicability, these TNTs are used as scattering structure in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Photocatalytic, optical, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), electrochemical impedance spectrum, incident-photon-to-current efficiency, and intensity-modulated photocurrent spectroscopy/intensity-modulated photovoltage spectroscopy characterizations are proving the functionality of HF-TNTs for DSSCs. HF-TNTs show 50% higher photocatalytic degradation rate and also 68% higher dye loading ability than conventional TNTs (C-TNTs). The DSSCs having HF-TNT and its composite-based multifunctional overlayer show effective light absorption, outstanding light scattering, lower interfacial resistance, longer electron lifetime, rapid electron transfer, and improved diffusion length, and consequently, J SC , quantum efficiency, and record photoconversion efficiency of 10.1% using commercial N-719 dye is achieved, for 1D-based DSSCs. These new and highly functional TNTs will be a concrete fundamental background toward the development of more functional applications in fuel cells, dye-sensitized solar cells, Li-ion batteries, photocatalysis process, ion-exchange/adsorption process, and photoelectrochemical devices. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Reducing the period of data collection for intake and gain to improve response to selection for feed efficiency in beef cattle

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Shortening the period of recording individual feed intake may improve selection response for feed efficiency by increasing the number of cattle that can be recorded given facilities of fixed capacity. Individual DMI and ADG records of 3,462 steers and 2,869 heifers over the entire intake recording p...

>100% output differential efficiency 1.55-μm VCSELs using submonolayer superlattices digital-alloy multiple-active-regions grown by MBE on InP

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, C. S.; Koda, R.; Huntington, A. S.; Gossard, A. C.; Coldren, L. A.

2005-04-01

High-quality InAlGaAs digital-alloy active regions using submonolayer superlattices were developed and employed in a 3-stage bipolar cascade multiple-active-region vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) design. The photoluminescence intensity and linewidth of these active regions were optimized by varying the substrate temperature and digitization period. These active regions exhibit considerable improvement over previously developed digital-alloy active regions and are comparable to analog-alloy active regions. Multiple-active-region VCSELs, grown all-epitaxially by MBE on InP, demonstrate greater than 100% output differential efficiency at 1.55-μm emission. A record high 104% output differential efficiency was achieved for a 3-stage long-wavelength VCSEL.

Highly-reliable operation of 638-nm broad stripe laser diode with high wall-plug efficiency for display applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yagi, Tetsuya; Shimada, Naoyuki; Nishida, Takehiro; Mitsuyama, Hiroshi; Miyashita, Motoharu

2013-03-01

Laser based displays, as pico to cinema laser projectors have gathered much attention because of wide gamut, low power consumption, and so on. Laser light sources for the displays are operated mainly in CW, and heat management is one of the big issues. Therefore, highly efficient operation is necessitated. Also the light sources for the displays are requested to be highly reliable. 638 nm broad stripe laser diode (LD) was newly developed for high efficiency and highly reliable operation. An AlGaInP/GaAs red LD suffers from low wall plug efficiency (WPE) due to electron overflow from an active layer to a p-cladding layer. Large optical confinement factor (Γ) design with AlInP cladding layers is adopted to improve the WPE. The design has a disadvantage for reliable operation because the large Γ causes high optical density and brings a catastrophic optical degradation (COD) at a front facet. To overcome the disadvantage, a window-mirror structure is also adopted in the LD. The LD shows WPE of 35% at 25°C, highest record in the world, and highly stable operation at 35°C, 550 mW up to 8,000 hours without any catastrophic optical degradation.

An Autonomous Underwater Recorder Based on a Single Board Computer.

PubMed

Caldas-Morgan, Manuel; Alvarez-Rosario, Alexander; Rodrigues Padovese, Linilson

2015-01-01

As industrial activities continue to grow on the Brazilian coast, underwater sound measurements are becoming of great scientific importance as they are essential to evaluate the impact of these activities on local ecosystems. In this context, the use of commercial underwater recorders is not always the most feasible alternative, due to their high cost and lack of flexibility. Design and construction of more affordable alternatives from scratch can become complex because it requires profound knowledge in areas such as electronics and low-level programming. With the aim of providing a solution; a well succeeded model of a highly flexible, low-cost alternative to commercial recorders was built based on a Raspberry Pi single board computer. A properly working prototype was assembled and it demonstrated adequate performance levels in all tested situations. The prototype was equipped with a power management module which was thoroughly evaluated. It is estimated that it will allow for great battery savings on long-term scheduled recordings. The underwater recording device was successfully deployed at selected locations along the Brazilian coast, where it adequately recorded animal and manmade acoustic events, among others. Although power consumption may not be as efficient as that of commercial and/or micro-processed solutions, the advantage offered by the proposed device is its high customizability, lower development time and inherently, its cost.

Performance of a pilot demonstration-scale hybrid constructed wetland system for on-site treatment of polluted urban river water in Northwestern China.

PubMed

Zheng, Yucong; Wang, Xiaochang C; Dzakpasu, Mawuli; Ge, Yuan; Zhao, Yaqian; Xiong, Jiaqing

2016-01-01

Hybrid constructed wetland (HCW) systems have been used to treat various wastewaters across the world. However, large-scale applications of HCWs are scarce, particularly for on-site improvement of the water quality of highly polluted urban rivers in semi-arid regions. In this study, a large pilot-scale HCW system was constructed to improve the water quality of the Zaohe River in Xi'an, China. With a total area of about 8000 m(2), the pilot HCW system, composed of different configurations of surface and subsurface flow wetlands, was operated for 2 years at an average inflow volume rate of 362 m(3)/day. Local Phragmites australis and Typha orientalis from the riverbank were planted in the HCW system. Findings indicate a higher treatment efficiency for organics and suspended solids than nutrients. The inflow concentrations of 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5), chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), total nitrogen (TN), NH3-N, and total phosphorus (TP) were 125.6, 350.9, 334.2, 38.5, 27.2, and 3.9 mg/L, respectively. Average removal efficiencies of 94.4, 74.5, 92.0, 56.3, 57.5, and 69.2%, respectively, were recorded. However, the pollutant removal rates were highly seasonal especially for nitrogen. Higher removals were recorded for all pollutants in the autumn while significantly lower removals were recorded in the winter. Plant uptake and assimilation accounted for circa 19-29 and 16-23% of the TN and TP removal, respectively. Moreover, P. australis demonstrated a higher nutrient uptake ability and competitive potential. Overall, the high efficiency of the pilot HCW for improving the water quality of such a highly polluted urban river provided practical evidence of the applicability of the HCW technology for protecting urban water environments.

High resolution time-to-space conversion of sub-picosecond pulses at 1.55µm by non-degenerate SFG in PPLN crystal.

PubMed

Shayovitz, Dror; Herrmann, Harald; Sohler, Wolfgang; Ricken, Raimund; Silberhorn, Christine; Marom, Dan M

2012-11-19

We demonstrate high resolution and increased efficiency background-free time-to-space conversion using spectrally resolved non-degenerate and collinear SFG in a bulk PPLN crystal. A serial-to-parallel resolution factor of 95 and a time window of 42 ps were achieved. A 60-fold increase in conversion efficiency slope compared with our previous work using a BBO crystal [D. Shayovitz and D. M. Marom, Opt. Lett. 36, 1957 (2011)] was recorded. Finally the measured 40 GHz narrow linewidth of the output SFG signal implies the possibility to extract phase information by employing coherent detection techniques.

Heuristic evaluation of eNote: an electronic notes system.

PubMed

Bright, Tiffani J; Bakken, Suzanne; Johnson, Stephen B

2006-01-01

eNote is an electronic health record (EHR) system based on semi-structured narrative documents. A heuristic evaluation was conducted with a sample of five usability experts. eNote performed highly in: 1)consistency with standards and 2)recognition rather than recall. eNote needs improvement in: 1)help and documentation, 2)aesthetic and minimalist design, 3)error prevention, 4)helping users recognize, diagnosis, and recover from errors, and 5)flexibility and efficiency of use. The heuristic evaluation was an efficient method of evaluating our interface.

Assessment of modal-pushover-based scaling procedure for nonlinear response history analysis of ordinary standard bridges

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kalkan, E.; Kwong, N.

2012-01-01

The earthquake engineering profession is increasingly utilizing nonlinear response history analyses (RHA) to evaluate seismic performance of existing structures and proposed designs of new structures. One of the main ingredients of nonlinear RHA is a set of ground motion records representing the expected hazard environment for the structure. When recorded motions do not exist (as is the case in the central United States) or when high-intensity records are needed (as is the case in San Francisco and Los Angeles), ground motions from other tectonically similar regions need to be selected and scaled. The modal-pushover-based scaling (MPS) procedure was recently developed to determine scale factors for a small number of records such that the scaled records provide accurate and efficient estimates of “true” median structural responses. The adjective “accurate” refers to the discrepancy between the benchmark responses and those computed from the MPS procedure. The adjective “efficient” refers to the record-to-record variability of responses. In this paper, the accuracy and efficiency of the MPS procedure are evaluated by applying it to four types of existing Ordinary Standard bridges typical of reinforced concrete bridge construction in California. These bridges are the single-bent overpass, multi-span bridge, curved bridge, and skew bridge. As compared with benchmark analyses of unscaled records using a larger catalog of ground motions, it is demonstrated that the MPS procedure provided an accurate estimate of the engineering demand parameters (EDPs) accompanied by significantly reduced record-to-record variability of the EDPs. Thus, it is a useful tool for scaling ground motions as input to nonlinear RHAs of Ordinary Standard bridges.

Analysis of simulated angiographic procedures. Part 2: extracting efficiency data from audio and video recordings.

PubMed

Duncan, James R; Kline, Benjamin; Glaiberman, Craig B

2007-04-01

To create and test methods of extracting efficiency data from recordings of simulated renal stent procedures. Task analysis was performed and used to design a standardized testing protocol. Five experienced angiographers then performed 16 renal stent simulations using the Simbionix AngioMentor angiographic simulator. Audio and video recordings of these simulations were captured from multiple vantage points. The recordings were synchronized and compiled. A series of efficiency metrics (procedure time, contrast volume, and tool use) were then extracted from the recordings. The intraobserver and interobserver variability of these individual metrics was also assessed. The metrics were converted to costs and aggregated to determine the fixed and variable costs of a procedure segment or the entire procedure. Task analysis and pilot testing led to a standardized testing protocol suitable for performance assessment. Task analysis also identified seven checkpoints that divided the renal stent simulations into six segments. Efficiency metrics for these different segments were extracted from the recordings and showed excellent intra- and interobserver correlations. Analysis of the individual and aggregated efficiency metrics demonstrated large differences between segments as well as between different angiographers. These differences persisted when efficiency was expressed as either total or variable costs. Task analysis facilitated both protocol development and data analysis. Efficiency metrics were readily extracted from recordings of simulated procedures. Aggregating the metrics and dividing the procedure into segments revealed potential insights that could be easily overlooked because the simulator currently does not attempt to aggregate the metrics and only provides data derived from the entire procedure. The data indicate that analysis of simulated angiographic procedures will be a powerful method of assessing performance in interventional radiology.

Efficient electroluminescent cooling with a light-emitting diode coupled to a photovoltaic cell (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xiao, Tianyao P.; Chen, Kaifeng; Santhanam, Parthiban; Fan, Shanhui; Yablonovitch, Eli

2017-02-01

The new breakthrough in photovoltaics, exemplified by the slogan "A great solar cell has to be a great light-emitting diode (LED)", has led to all the major new solar cell records, while also leading to extraordinary LED efficiency. As an LED becomes very efficient in converting its electrical input into light, the device cools as it operates because the photons carry away entropy as well as energy. If these photons are absorbed in a photovoltaic (PV) cell, the generated electricity can be used to provide part of the electrical input that drives the LED. Indeed, the LED/PV cell combination forms a new type of heat engine with light as the working fluid. The electroluminescent refrigerator requires only a small amount of external electricity to provide cooling, leading to a high coefficient of performance. We present the theoretical performance of such a refrigerator, in which the cool side (LED) is radiatively coupled to the hot side (PV) across a vacuum gap. The coefficient of performance is maximized by using a highly luminescent material, such as GaAs, together with device structures that optimize extraction of the luminescence. We consider both a macroscopic vacuum gap and a sub-wavelength gap; the latter allows for evanescent coupling of photons between the devices, potentially providing a further enhancement to the efficiency of light extraction. Using device assumptions based on the current record-efficiency solar cells, we show that electroluminescent cooling can, in certain regimes of cooling power, achieve a higher coefficient of performance than thermoelectric cooling.

Eyelid contour detection and tracking for startle research related eye-blink measurements from high-speed video records.

PubMed

Bernard, Florian; Deuter, Christian Eric; Gemmar, Peter; Schachinger, Hartmut

2013-10-01

Using the positions of the eyelids is an effective and contact-free way for the measurement of startle induced eye-blinks, which plays an important role in human psychophysiological research. To the best of our knowledge, no methods for an efficient detection and tracking of the exact eyelid contours in image sequences captured at high-speed exist that are conveniently usable by psychophysiological researchers. In this publication a semi-automatic model-based eyelid contour detection and tracking algorithm for the analysis of high-speed video recordings from an eye tracker is presented. As a large number of images have been acquired prior to method development it was important that our technique is able to deal with images that are recorded without any special parametrisation of the eye tracker. The method entails pupil detection, specular reflection removal and makes use of dynamic model adaption. In a proof-of-concept study we could achieve a correct detection rate of 90.6%. With this approach, we provide a feasible method to accurately assess eye-blinks from high-speed video recordings. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transmission and reflection SHSG holograms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kim, Jong Man; Choi, Byung S.; Choi, Yoon S.; Kim, Sun I.; Kim, Jong-Min; Bjelkhagen, Hans I.; Phillips, Nicholas J.

2001-06-01

Silver halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) holograms are similar to holograms recorded in dichromated gelatin (DCG), the main recording material for holographic optical elements (HOEs). The drawback of DCG is its low energetic sensitivity and limited spectral response. Silver halide materials can be processed in such a way that the final hologram will have properties like a DCG hologram. Recently this technique has become more interesting since the introduction of new ultra- fine grain silver halide (AgHal) emulsions. In particular, high spatial frequency fringes associated with HOEs of the reflection type are difficult to convert employing SHSG processing methods. Therefore, an optimized processing techniques for reflection HOEs recorded in the new AgHal- materials is introduced. Diffraction efficiencies over 90 percent can be obtained for both transmission and reflection diffraction gratings. Understanding the importance of the selective hardening process has made it possible to obtain results similar to conventional DCG processing. The main advantage of the SHSG process is that high-sensitivity recording can be performed with laser wavelengths anywhere within the visible spectrum. This simplifies the manufacturing of high-quality, large-format HOEs, including also high-quality display holograms of the reflection type, both monochrome and full color.

Nurses' perceptions of the impact of electronic health records on work and patient outcomes.

PubMed

Kossman, Susan P; Scheidenhelm, Sandra L

2008-01-01

This study addresses community hospital nurses' use of electronic health records and views of the impact of such records on job performance and patient outcomes. Questionnaire, interview, and observation data from 46 nurses in medical-surgical and intensive care units at two community hospitals were analyzed. Nurses preferred electronic health records to paper charts and were comfortable with technology. They reported use of electronic health records enhanced nursing work through increased information access, improved organization and efficiency, and helpful alert screens. They thought use of the records hindered nursing work through impaired critical thinking, decreased interdisciplinary communication, and a high demand on work time (73% reported spending at least half their shift using the records). They thought use of electronic health records enabled them to provide safer care but decreased the quality of care. Administrative implications include involving bedside nurses in system choice, streamlining processes, developing guidelines for consistent documentation quality and location, increasing system speed, choosing hardware that encourages bedside use, and improving system information technology support.

Traveling-Wave Tube Efficiency Enhancement

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dayton, James A., Jr.

2011-01-01

Traveling-wave tubes (TWT's) are used to amplify microwave communication signals on virtually all NASA and commercial spacecraft. Because TWT's are a primary power user, increasing their power efficiency is important for reducing spacecraft weight and cost. NASA Glenn Research Center has played a major role in increasing TWT efficiency over the last thirty years. In particular, two types of efficiency optimization algorithms have been developed for coupled-cavity TWT's. The first is the phase-adjusted taper which was used to increase the RF power from 420 to 1000 watts and the RF efficiency from 9.6% to 22.6% for a Ka-band (29.5 GHz) TWT. This was a record efficiency at this frequency level. The second is an optimization algorithm based on simulated annealing. This improved algorithm is more general and can be used to optimize efficiency over a frequency bandwidth and to provide a robust design for very high frequency TWT's in which dimensional tolerance variations are significant.

Metallic phase change material thermal storage for Dish Stirling

DOE PAGES

Andraka, C. E.; Kruizenga, A. M.; Hernandez-Sanchez, B. A.; ...

2015-06-05

Dish-Stirling systems provide high-efficiency solar-only electrical generation and currently hold the world record at 31.25%. This high efficiency results in a system with a high possibility of meeting the DOE SunShot goal of $0.06/kWh. However, current dish-Stirling systems do not incorporate thermal storage. For the next generation of non-intermittent and cost-competitive solar power plants, we propose adding a thermal energy storage system that combines latent (phase-change) energy transport and latent energy storage in order to match the isothermal input requirements of Stirling engines while also maximizing the exergetic efficiency of the entire system. This paper reports current findings in themore » area of selection, synthesis and evaluation of a suitable high performance metallic phase change material (PCM) as well as potential interactions with containment alloy materials. The metallic PCM's, while more expensive than salts, have been identified as having substantial performance advantages primarily due to high thermal conductivity, leading to high exergetic efficiency. Systems modeling has indicated, based on high dish Stirling system performance, an allowable cost of the PCM storage system that is substantially higher than SunShot goals for storage cost on tower systems. Several PCM's are identified with suitable melting temperature, cost, and performance.« less

Records for conversion of laser energy to nuclear energy in exploding nanostructures

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jortner, Joshua; Last, Isidore

2017-09-01

Table-top nuclear fusion reactions in the chemical physics laboratory can be driven by high-energy dynamics of Coulomb exploding, multicharged, deuterium containing nanostructures generated by ultraintense, femtosecond, near-infrared laser pulses. Theoretical-computational studies of table-top laser-driven nuclear fusion of high-energy (up to 15 MeV) deuterons with 7Li, 6Li and D nuclei demonstrate the attainment of high fusion yields within a source-target reaction design, which constitutes the highest table-top fusion efficiencies obtained up to date. The conversion efficiency of laser energy to nuclear energy (0.1-1.0%) for table-top fusion is comparable to that for DT fusion currently accomplished for 'big science' inertial fusion setups.

Smartphones Offer New Opportunities in Clinical Voice Research.

PubMed

Manfredi, C; Lebacq, J; Cantarella, G; Schoentgen, J; Orlandi, S; Bandini, A; DeJonckere, P H

2017-01-01

Smartphone technology provides new opportunities for recording standardized voice samples of patients and sending the files by e-mail to the voice laboratory. This drastically improves the collection of baseline data, as used in research on efficiency of voice treatments. However, the basic requirement is the suitability of smartphones for recording and digitizing pathologic voices (mainly characterized by period perturbations and noise) without significant distortion. In this experiment, two smartphones (a very inexpensive one and a high-level one) were tested and compared with direct microphone recordings in a soundproof room. The voice stimuli consisted in synthesized deviant voice samples (median of fundamental frequency: 120 and 200 Hz) with three levels of jitter and three levels of added noise. All voice samples were analyzed using PRAAT software. The results show high correlations between jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonics ratio measured on the recordings via both smartphones, the microphone, and measured directly on the sound files from the synthesizer. Smartphones thus appear adequate for reliable recording and digitizing of pathologic voices. Copyright © 2017 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Progress in color reflection holography

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bjelkhagen, Hans I.; Huang, Qiang; Jeong, Tung H.

1998-02-01

The recording technique of Denisyuk color reflection holograms has been simplified by using `white' laser light. The Slavich red-green-blue (RGB) sensitized ultra-high resolution silver halide emulsion was used for the hologram recording. The employed laser wavelengths were 633 nm, 531 nm, and 476 nm, generated by a helium-neon, a mixed argon- krypton ion, and an argon ion laser, respectively. A beam combination mechanism with dichroic filters enabled a simultaneously RGB exposure, which made the color balance and overall exposure energy easy to control as well as simplifying the recording procedure. Various approaches have been investigated in generating color hologram which have sufficiently high diffraction efficiency combined with improved color saturation. A specially designed test object consisting of the 1931 CIE chromaticity diagram, a rainbow ribbon cable, pure yellow dots, and a cloisonne elephant was used for color recording experiments. In addition, the Macbeth Color Checker chart was used. Both colorimetric evaluation and scattering noise measurements were performed using the PR-650 Photo Research SpectraScan SpectraCalorimeter.

A Novel Stimulus Artifact Removal Technique for High-Rate Electrical Stimulation

PubMed Central

Heffer, Leon F; Fallon, James B

2008-01-01

Electrical stimulus artifact corrupting electrophysiological recordings often make the subsequent analysis of the underlying neural response difficult. This is particularly evident when investigating short-latency neural activity in response to high-rate electrical stimulation. We developed and evaluated an off-line technique for the removal of stimulus artifact from electrophysiological recordings. Pulsatile electrical stimulation was presented at rates of up to 5000 pulses/s during extracellular recordings of guinea pig auditory nerve fibers. Stimulus artifact was removed by replacing the sample points at each stimulus artifact event with values interpolated along a straight line, computed from neighbouring sample points. This technique required only that artifact events be identifiable and that the artifact duration remained less than both the inter-stimulus interval and the time course of the action potential. We have demonstrated that this computationally efficient sample-and-interpolate technique removes the stimulus artifact with minimal distortion of the action potential waveform. We suggest that this technique may have potential applications in a range of electrophysiological recording systems. PMID:18339428

Holographic rugate structures for x-ray optics applications

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

Jannson, T.; Savant, Gajendra.; Qiao, Yong.

1988-07-01

XUV Bragg Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs), based on a single-step volume holographic recording, have been proposed by Physical Optic Corporation (POC), as an entirely new approach to x-ray optics. Their theory, as well as the first experimental proof-of-concept, have been demonstrated in Phase 1 of the DOE program. During the first year (exactly, 8-month duration) of the on-going Phase 2, the high-efficiency XUV Lippmann holographic mirrors have been fabricated and their optical, physical, and material properties have been investigated over the entire XUV region (1--100nm). The XUV Bragg HOEs, based on dichromated gelatin (DCG) and on DCG/polymer grafts, have beenmore » recorded in the visible region (using an Innova Argo laser) and reconstructed using twelve XUV wavelengths. In addition, these phase high-resolution holographic materials have been shown to be suitable to direct x-ray laser holographic recording (using Princeton's x-ray laser). The volume x-ray holographic recording will be realized within the second year of the program effort.« less

Efficient fiber-coupled single-photon source based on quantum dots in a photonic-crystal waveguide

PubMed Central

DAVEAU, RAPHAËL S.; BALRAM, KRISHNA C.; PREGNOLATO, TOMMASO; LIU, JIN; LEE, EUN H.; SONG, JIN D.; VERMA, VARUN; MIRIN, RICHARD; NAM, SAE WOO; MIDOLO, LEONARDO; STOBBE, SØREN; SRINIVASAN, KARTIK; LODAHL, PETER

2017-01-01

Many photonic quantum information processing applications would benefit from a high brightness, fiber-coupled source of triggered single photons. Here, we present a fiber-coupled photonic-crystal waveguide single-photon source relying on evanescent coupling of the light field from a tapered out-coupler to an optical fiber. A two-step approach is taken where the performance of the tapered out-coupler is recorded first on an independent device containing an on-chip reflector. Reflection measurements establish that the chip-to-fiber coupling efficiency exceeds 80 %. The detailed characterization of a high-efficiency photonic-crystal waveguide extended with a tapered out-coupling section is then performed. The corresponding overall single-photon source efficiency is 10.9 % ± 2.3 %, which quantifies the success probability to prepare an exciton in the quantum dot, couple it out as a photon in the waveguide, and subsequently transfer it to the fiber. The applied out-coupling method is robust, stable over time, and broadband over several tens of nanometers, which makes it a highly promising pathway to increase the efficiency and reliability of planar chip-based single-photon sources. PMID:28584859

Highly Efficient and Stable MAPbI₃ Perovskite Solar Cell Induced by Regulated Nucleation and Ostwald Recrystallization.

PubMed

Huang, Zhen; Wang, Duofa; Wang, Song; Zhang, Tianjin

2018-05-11

Perovskite solar cells have attracted great attention in recent years, due to their high conversion efficiency and solution-processable fabrication. However, most of the solar cells with high efficiency in the literature are prepared employing TiO₂ as electron transport material, which needs sintering at a temperature higher than 450 °C, and is not applicable to flexible device and low-cost fabrication. Herein, the MAPbI₃ perovskite solar cells are fabricated at a low temperature of 150 °C with SnO₂ as the electron transport layer. By dropping the antisolvent of ethyl acetate onto the perovskite precursor films during the spin coating process, compact MAPbI₃ films without pinholes are obtained. The addition of ethyl acetate is found to play an important role in regulating the nucleation, which subsequently improves the compactness of the film. The quality of MAPbI₃ films are further improved significantly through Ostwald recrystallization by optimizing the thermal treatment. The crystallinity is enhanced, the grain size is enlarged, and the defect density is reduced. Accordingly, the prepared MAPbI₃ perovskite solar cell exhibits a record-high conversion efficiency, outstanding reproducibility, and stability, owing to the reduced electron recombination. The average and best efficiency reaches 19.2% and 20.3%, respectively. The device without encapsulation maintains 94% of the original efficiency after storage in ambient air for 600 h.

Highly Efficient Visible Colloidal Lead-Halide Perovskite Nanocrystal Light-Emitting Diodes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yan, Fei; Xing, Jun; Xing, Guichuan; Quan, Lina; Tan, Swee Tiam; Zhao, Jiaxin; Su, Rui; Zhang, Lulu; Chen, Shi; Zhao, Yawen; Huan, Alfred; Sargent, Edward H.; Xiong, Qihua; Demir, Hilmi Volkan

2018-05-01

Lead-halide perovskites have been attracting attention for potential use in solid-state lighting. Following the footsteps of solar cells, the field of perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) has been growing rapidly. Their application prospects in lighting, however, remain still uncertain due to a variety of shortcomings in device performance including their limited levels of luminous efficiency achievable thus far. Here we show high-efficiency PeLEDs based on colloidal perovskite nanocrystals (PeNCs) synthesized at room temperature possessing dominant first-order excitonic radiation (enabling a photoluminescence quantum yield of 71% in solid film), unlike in the case of bulk perovskites with slow electron-hole bimolecular radiative recombination (a second-order process). In these PeLEDs, by reaching charge balance in the recombination zone, we find that the Auger nonradiative recombination, with its significant role in emission quenching, is effectively suppressed in low driving current density range. In consequence, these devices reach a record high maximum external quantum efficiency of 12.9% reported to date and an unprecedentedly high power efficiency of 30.3 lm W-1 at luminance levels above 1000 cd m-2 as required for various applications. These findings suggest that, with feasible levels of device performance, the PeNCs hold great promise for their use in LED lighting and displays.

A Wireless Fully Passive Neural Recording Device for Unobtrusive Neuropotential Monitoring.

PubMed

Kiourti, Asimina; Lee, Cedric W L; Chae, Junseok; Volakis, John L

2016-01-01

We propose a novel wireless fully passive neural recording device for unobtrusive neuropotential monitoring. Previous work demonstrated the feasibility of monitoring emulated brain signals in a wireless fully passive manner. In this paper, we propose a novel realistic recorder that is significantly smaller and much more sensitive. The proposed recorder utilizes a highly efficient microwave backscattering method and operates without any formal power supply or regulating elements. Also, no intracranial wires or cables are required. In-vitro testing is performed inside a four-layer head phantom (skin, bone, gray matter, and white matter). Compared to our former implementation, the neural recorder proposed in this study has the following improved features: 1) 59% smaller footprint, 2) up to 20-dB improvement in neuropotential detection sensitivity, and 3) encapsulation in biocompatible polymer. For the first time, temporal emulated neuropotentials as low as 63 μVpp can be detected in a wireless fully passive manner. Remarkably, the high-sensitivity achieved in this study implies reading of most neural signals generated by the human brain. The proposed recorder brings forward transformational possibilities in wireless fully passive neural detection for a very wide range of applications (e.g., epilepsy, Alzheimer's, mental disorders, etc.).

Impact of an electronic medication administration record on medication administration efficiency and errors.

PubMed

McComas, Jeffery; Riingen, Michelle; Chae Kim, Son

2014-12-01

The study aims were to evaluate the impact of electronic medication administration record implementation on medication administration efficiency and occurrence of medication errors as well as to identify the predictors of medication administration efficiency in an acute care setting. A prospective, observational study utilizing time-and-motion technique was conducted before and after electronic medication administration record implementation in November 2011. A total of 156 cases of medication administration activities (78 pre- and 78 post-electronic medication administration record) involving 38 nurses were observed at the point of care. A separate retrospective review of the hospital Midas+ medication error database was also performed to collect the rates and origin of medication errors for 6 months before and after electronic medication administration record implementation. The mean medication administration time actually increased from 11.3 to 14.4 minutes post-electronic medication administration record (P = .039). In a multivariate analysis, electronic medication administration record was not a predictor of medication administration time, but the distractions/interruptions during medication administration process were significant predictors. The mean hospital-wide medication errors significantly decreased from 11.0 to 5.3 events per month post-electronic medication administration record (P = .034). Although no improvement in medication administration efficiency was observed, electronic medication administration record improved the quality of care with a significant decrease in medication errors.

Efficient phase contrast imaging in STEM using a pixelated detector. Part 1: Experimental demonstration at atomic resolution

DOE PAGES

Pennycook, Timothy J.; Lupini, Andrew R.; Yang, Hao; ...

2014-10-15

In this paper, we demonstrate a method to achieve high efficiency phase contrast imaging in aberration corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) with a pixelated detector. The pixelated detector is used to record the Ronchigram as a function of probe position which is then analyzed with ptychography. Ptychography has previously been used to provide super-resolution beyond the diffraction limit of the optics, alongside numerically correcting for spherical aberration. Here we rely on a hardware aberration corrector to eliminate aberrations, but use the pixelated detector data set to utilize the largest possible volume of Fourier space to create high efficiency phasemore » contrast images. The use of ptychography to diagnose the effects of chromatic aberration is also demonstrated. In conclusion, the four dimensional dataset is used to compare different bright field detector configurations from the same scan for a sample of bilayer graphene. Our method of high efficiency ptychography produces the clearest images, while annular bright field produces almost no contrast for an in-focus aberration-corrected probe.« less

Hiding Electronic Patient Record (EPR) in medical images: A high capacity and computationally efficient technique for e-healthcare applications.

PubMed

Loan, Nazir A; Parah, Shabir A; Sheikh, Javaid A; Akhoon, Jahangir A; Bhat, Ghulam M

2017-09-01

A high capacity and semi-reversible data hiding scheme based on Pixel Repetition Method (PRM) and hybrid edge detection for scalable medical images has been proposed in this paper. PRM has been used to scale up the small sized image (seed image) and hybrid edge detection ensures that no important edge information is missed. The scaled up version of seed image has been divided into 2×2 non overlapping blocks. In each block there is one seed pixel whose status decides the number of bits to be embedded in the remaining three pixels of that block. The Electronic Patient Record (EPR)/data have been embedded by using Least Significant and Intermediate Significant Bit Substitution (ISBS). The RC4 encryption has been used to add an additional security layer for embedded EPR/data. The proposed scheme has been tested for various medical and general images and compared with some state of art techniques in the field. The experimental results reveal that the proposed scheme besides being semi-reversible and computationally efficient is capable of handling high payload and as such can be used effectively for electronic healthcare applications. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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

Qiao, Ruimin; Li, Qinghao; Zhuo, Zengqing

In this paper, an endstation with two high-efficiency soft x-ray spectrographs was developed at Beamline 8.0.1 of the Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The endstation is capable of performing soft x-ray absorption spectroscopy, emission spectroscopy, and, in particular, resonant inelastic soft x-ray scattering (RIXS). Two slit-less variable line-spacing grating spectrographs are installed at different detection geometries. The endstation covers the photon energy range from 80 to 1500 eV. For studying transition-metal oxides, the large detection energy window allows a simultaneous collection of x-ray emission spectra with energies ranging from the O K-edge to the Ni L-edge without movingmore » any mechanical components. The record-high efficiency enables the recording of comprehensive two-dimensional RIXS maps with good statistics within a short acquisition time. By virtue of the large energy window and high throughput of the spectrographs, partial fluorescence yield and inverse partial fluorescence yield signals could be obtained for all transition metal L-edges including Mn. Finally and moreover, the different geometries of these two spectrographs (parallel and perpendicular to the horizontal polarization of the beamline) provide contrasts in RIXS features with two different momentum transfers.« less

Establishment of the Dual Whole Cell Recording Patch Clamp Configuration for the Measurement of Gap Junction Conductance.

PubMed

Veenstra, Richard D

2016-01-01

The development of the patch clamp technique has enabled investigators to directly measure gap junction conductance between isolated pairs of small cells with resolution to the single channel level. The dual patch clamp recording technique requires specialized equipment and the acquired skill to reliably establish gigaohm seals and the whole cell recording configuration with high efficiency. This chapter describes the equipment needed and methods required to achieve accurate measurement of macroscopic and single gap junction channel conductances. Inherent limitations with the dual whole cell recording technique and methods to correct for series access resistance errors are defined as well as basic procedures to determine the essential electrical parameters necessary to evaluate the accuracy of gap junction conductance measurements using this approach.

Anxiety, anticipation and contextual information: A test of attentional control theory.

PubMed

Cocks, Adam J; Jackson, Robin C; Bishop, Daniel T; Williams, A Mark

2016-09-01

We tested the assumptions of Attentional Control Theory (ACT) by examining the impact of anxiety on anticipation using a dynamic, time-constrained task. Moreover, we examined the involvement of high- and low-level cognitive processes in anticipation and how their importance may interact with anxiety. Skilled and less-skilled tennis players anticipated the shots of opponents under low- and high-anxiety conditions. Participants viewed three types of video stimuli, each depicting different levels of contextual information. Performance effectiveness (response accuracy) and processing efficiency (response accuracy divided by corresponding mental effort) were measured. Skilled players recorded higher levels of response accuracy and processing efficiency compared to less-skilled counterparts. Processing efficiency significantly decreased under high- compared to low-anxiety conditions. No difference in response accuracy was observed. When reviewing directional errors, anxiety was most detrimental to performance in the condition conveying only contextual information, suggesting that anxiety may have a greater impact on high-level (top-down) cognitive processes, potentially due to a shift in attentional control. Our findings provide partial support for ACT; anxiety elicited greater decrements in processing efficiency than performance effectiveness, possibly due to predominance of the stimulus-driven attentional system.

Multiparameter structural optimization of single-walled carbon nanotube composites: toward record strength, stiffness, and toughness.

PubMed

Shim, Bong Sup; Zhu, Jian; Jan, Edward; Critchley, Kevin; Ho, Szushen; Podsiadlo, Paul; Sun, Kai; Kotov, Nicholas A

2009-07-28

Efficient coupling of mechanical properties of SWNTs with the matrix leading to the transfer of unique mechanical properties of SWNTs to the macroscopic composites is a tremendous challenge of today's materials science. The typical mechanical properties of known SWNT composites, such as strength, stiffness, and toughness, are assessed in an introductory survey where we focused on concrete numerical parameters characterizing mechanical properties. Obtaining ideal stress transfer will require fine optimization of nanotube-polymer interface. SWNT nanocomposites were made here by layer-by-layer (LBL) assembly with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA), and the first example of optimization in respect to key parameters determining the connectivity at the graphene-polymer interface, namely, degree of SWNT oxidation and cross-linking chemistry, was demonstrated. The resulting SWNT-PVA composites demonstrated tensile strength (σ(ult)) = 504.5 ± 67.3 MPa, stiffness (E) = 15.6 ± 3.8 GPa, and toughness (K) = 121.2 ± 19.2 J/g with maximum values recorded at σ(ult) = 600.1 MPa, E = 20.6 GPa, and K = 152.1 J/g. This represents the strongest and stiffest nonfibrous SWNT composites made to date outperforming other bulk composites by 2-10 times. Its high performance is attributed to both high nanotube content and efficient stress transfer. The resulting LBL composite is also one of the toughest in this category of materials and exceeding the toughness of Kevlar by 3-fold. Our observation suggests that the strengthening and toughening mechanism originates from the synergistic combination of high degree of SWNT exfoliation, efficient SWNT-PVA binding, crack surface roughening, and fairly efficient distribution of local stress over the SWNT network. The need for a multiscale approach in designing SWNT composites is advocated.

An Efficient User Interface Design for Nursing Information System Based on Integrated Patient Order Information.

PubMed

Chu, Chia-Hui; Kuo, Ming-Chuan; Weng, Shu-Hui; Lee, Ting-Ting

2016-01-01

A user friendly interface can enhance the efficiency of data entry, which is crucial for building a complete database. In this study, two user interfaces (traditional pull-down menu vs. check boxes) are proposed and evaluated based on medical records with fever medication orders by measuring the time for data entry, steps for each data entry record, and the complete rate of each medical record. The result revealed that the time for data entry is reduced from 22.8 sec/record to 3.2 sec/record. The data entry procedures also have reduced from 9 steps in the traditional one to 3 steps in the new one. In addition, the completeness of medical records is increased from 20.2% to 98%. All these results indicate that the new user interface provides a more user friendly and efficient approach for data entry than the traditional interface.

Technical Desiderata for the Integration of Genomic Data into Electronic Health Records

PubMed Central

Masys, Daniel R.; Jarvik, Gail P.; Abernethy, Neil F.; Anderson, Nicholas R.; Papanicolaou, George J.; Paltoo, Dina N.; Hoffman, Mark A.; Kohane, Isaac S.; Levy, Howard P.

2012-01-01

The era of “Personalized Medicine,” guided by individual molecular variation in DNA, RNA, expressed proteins and other forms of high volume molecular data brings new requirements and challenges to the design and implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). In this article we describe the characteristics of biomolecular data that differentiate it from other classes of data commonly found in EHRs, enumerate a set of technical desiderata for its management in healthcare settings, and offer a candidate technical approach to its compact and efficient representation in operational systems. PMID:22223081

A multi-channel instrumentation system for biosignal recording.

PubMed

Yu, Hong; Li, Pengfei; Xiao, Zhiming; Peng, Chung-Ching; Bashirullah, Rizwan

2008-01-01

This paper reports a highly integrated battery operated multi-channel instrumentation system intended for physiological signal recording. The mixed signal IC has been fabricated in standard 0.5microm 5V 3M-2P CMOS process and features 32 instrumentation amplifiers, four 8b SAR ADCs, a wireless power interface with Li-ion battery charger, low power bidirectional telemetry and FSM controller with power gating control for improved energy efficiency. The chip measures 3.2mm by 4.8mm and dissipates approximately 2.1mW when fully operational.

Memory and neural networks on the basis of color centers in solids.

PubMed

Winnacker, Albrecht; Osvet, Andres

2009-11-01

Optical data recording is one of the most widely used and efficient systems of memory in the non-living world. The application of color centers in this context offers not only systems of high speed in writing and read-out due to a high degree of parallelism in data handling but also a possibility to set up models of neural networks. In this way, systems with a high potential for image processing, pattern recognition and logical operations can be constructed. A limitation to storage density is given by the diffraction limit of optical data recording. It is shown that this limitation can at least in principle be overcome by the principle of spectral hole burning, which results in systems of storage capacities close to the human brain system.

An Autonomous Underwater Recorder Based on a Single Board Computer

PubMed Central

Caldas-Morgan, Manuel; Alvarez-Rosario, Alexander; Rodrigues Padovese, Linilson

2015-01-01

As industrial activities continue to grow on the Brazilian coast, underwater sound measurements are becoming of great scientific importance as they are essential to evaluate the impact of these activities on local ecosystems. In this context, the use of commercial underwater recorders is not always the most feasible alternative, due to their high cost and lack of flexibility. Design and construction of more affordable alternatives from scratch can become complex because it requires profound knowledge in areas such as electronics and low-level programming. With the aim of providing a solution; a well succeeded model of a highly flexible, low-cost alternative to commercial recorders was built based on a Raspberry Pi single board computer. A properly working prototype was assembled and it demonstrated adequate performance levels in all tested situations. The prototype was equipped with a power management module which was thoroughly evaluated. It is estimated that it will allow for great battery savings on long-term scheduled recordings. The underwater recording device was successfully deployed at selected locations along the Brazilian coast, where it adequately recorded animal and manmade acoustic events, among others. Although power consumption may not be as efficient as that of commercial and/or micro-processed solutions, the advantage offered by the proposed device is its high customizability, lower development time and inherently, its cost. PMID:26076479

Seismic excitation by the space shuttle Columbia

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kanamori, H.; Mori, J.; Anderson, D.L.; Heaton, T.H.

1991-01-01

SEISMIC stations in southern California recorded the atmospheric shock waves generated by the space shuttle Columbia on its return to the Edwards Air Force base on 13 August 1989 (Fig. 1). In addition to the shock wave, the broad-band IRIS-TERRAscope station at Pasadena recorded a distinct pulse with a period of ???2-3 seconds, which arrived 12.5 seconds before the shock wave (Fig. 2). This pulse was also recorded at the University of Southern California, near downtown Los Angeles, where it arrived 3 seconds after the shock wave. The origin of this pulse could not be readily identified. We show here that it was a seismic P wave excited by the motion of high-rise buildings in downtown Los Angeles, which were hit by the shock wave. The proximity of the natural period of the high-rise buildings to that of the Los Angeles basin enabled efficient energy transfer from shock wave to seismic wave.

Earth system feedback statistically extracted from the Indian Ocean deep-sea sediments recording Eocene hyperthermals.

PubMed

Yasukawa, Kazutaka; Nakamura, Kentaro; Fujinaga, Koichiro; Ikehara, Minoru; Kato, Yasuhiro

2017-09-12

Multiple transient global warming events occurred during the early Palaeogene. Although these events, called hyperthermals, have been reported from around the globe, geologic records for the Indian Ocean are limited. In addition, the recovery processes from relatively modest hyperthermals are less constrained than those from the severest and well-studied hothouse called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. In this study, we constructed a new and high-resolution geochemical dataset of deep-sea sediments clearly recording multiple Eocene hyperthermals in the Indian Ocean. We then statistically analysed the high-dimensional data matrix and extracted independent components corresponding to the biogeochemical responses to the hyperthermals. The productivity feedback commonly controls and efficiently sequesters the excess carbon in the recovery phases of the hyperthermals via an enhanced biological pump, regardless of the magnitude of the events. Meanwhile, this negative feedback is independent of nannoplankton assemblage changes generally recognised in relatively large environmental perturbations.

Economics of immunization information systems in the United States: assessing costs and efficiency

PubMed Central

Bartlett, Diana L; Molinari, Noelle-Angelique M; Ortega-Sanchez, Ismael R; Urquhart, Gary A

2006-01-01

Background One of the United States' national health objectives for 2010 is that 95% of children aged <6 years participate in fully operational population-based immunization information systems (IIS). Despite important progress, child participation in most IIS has increased slowly, in part due to limited economic knowledge about IIS operations. Should IIS need further improvement, characterizing costs and identifying factors that affect IIS efficiency become crucial. Methods Data were collected from a national sampling frame of the 56 states/cities that received federal immunization grants under U.S. Public Health Service Act 317b and completed the federal 1999 Immunization Registry Annual Report. The sampling frame was stratified by IIS functional status, children's enrollment in the IIS, and whether the IIS had been developed as an independent system or was integrated into a larger system. These sites self-reported IIS developmental and operational program costs for calendar years 1998–2002 using a standardized data collection tool and underwent on-site interviews to verify reported data with information from the state/city financial management system and other financial records. A parametric cost-per-patient-record (CPR) model was estimated. The model assessed the impact of labor and non-labor resources used in development and operations tasks, as well as the impact of information technology, local providers' participation and compliance with federal IIS performance standards (e.g., ensuring the confidentiality and security of information, ensure timely vaccination data at the time of patient encounter, and produce official immunization records). Given the number of records minimizing CPR, the additional amount of resources needed to meet national health goals for the year 2010 was also calculated. Results Estimated CPR was as high as $10.30 and as low as $0.09 in operating IIS. About 20% of IIS had between 2.9 to 3.2 million records and showed CPR estimates of $0.09. Overall, CPR was highly sensitive to local providers' participation. To achieve the 2010 goals, additional aggregated costs were estimated to be $75.6 million nationwide. Conclusion Efficiently increasing the number of records in IIS would require additional resources and careful consideration of various strategies to minimize CPR, such as boosting providers' participation. PMID:16925823

Long term changes in Intrinsic Water Use Efficiency, the palaoe record derived from stable carbon isotope measurements from tree rings.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gagen, Mary; McCarroll, Danny; Loader, Neil; Young, Giles; Robertson, Iain

2015-04-01

Stable carbon isotope (δ13C) measurements from the annual rings of trees are increasingly used to explore long term changes in plant-carbon-water relations, via changes in intrinsic water use efficiency (iWUE); the ratio of photosynthetic rate to stomatal conductance. Many studies report a significant increase in iWEU since industrialisation, which tracks rising global atmospheric CO2. Such changes are logical are trees are known to change their stomatal geometry, number and action in response to rising CO2. However, which increasing iWUE suggests physiological changes which should lead to increased growth increasing iWUE is rarely matched by enhanced tree growth when tree rings are measured, despite increases of up to 30% in iWUE over the recent past (van der Sleen et al 2015). Explanations for the mismatch between iWUE and tree growth records encompass questions over the veracity of δ13C records for recording physiological change (Silva and Howarth 2013), suggestions that moisture stress in warming climates becomes a limit to growth and prevents opportunistic use of rising CO2 by trees (Andreu-Hayles et al 2011) and questions regarding the use of tree ring width, which does not record tree height gain, to record growth. Here we present an extensive range of long term iWUE records, derived broadly from the temperate, high latitude and one tropical forest site to explore the palaeoclimatic perspective on the iWUE-fertilization conundrum in a spatio temporally extensive manner.

Highly efficient solar-pumped Nd:YAG laser.

PubMed

Liang, Dawei; Almeida, Joana

2011-12-19

The recent progress in solar-pumped laser with Fresnel lens and Cr:Nd:YAG ceramic medium has revitalized solar laser researches, revealing a promising future for renewable reduction of magnesium from magnesium oxide. Here we show a big advance in solar laser collection efficiency by utilizing an economical Fresnel lens and a most widely used Nd:YAG single-crystal rod. The incoming solar radiation from the sun is focused by a 0.9 m diameter Fresnel lens. A dielectric totally internally reflecting secondary concentrator is employed to couple the concentrated solar radiation from the focal zone to a 4 mm diameter Nd:YAG rod within a conical pumping cavity. 12.3 W cw laser power is produced, corresponding to 19.3 W/m(2) collection efficiency, which is 2.9 times larger than the previous results with Nd:YAG single-crystal medium. Record-high slope efficiency of 3.9% is also registered. Laser beam quality is considerably improved by pumping a 3 mm diameter Nd:YAG rod.

Enhanced mobility CsPbI 3 quantum dot arrays for record-efficiency, high-voltage photovoltaic cells

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

Sanehira, Erin M.; Marshall, Ashley R.; Christians, Jeffrey A.

Here, we developed lead halide perovskite quantum dot (QD) films with tuned surface chemistry based on A-site cation halide salt (AX) treatments. QD perovskites offer colloidal synthesis and processing using industrially friendly solvents, which decouples grain growth from film deposition, and at present produce larger open-circuit voltages (V OC's) than thin-film perovskites. CsPbI 3 QDs, with a tunable bandgap between 1.75 and 2.13 eV, are an ideal top cell candidate for all-perovskite multijunction solar cells because of their demonstrated small V OC deficit. We show that charge carrier mobility within perovskite QD films is dictated by the chemical conditions atmore » the QD-QD junctions. The AX treatments provide a method for tuning the coupling between perovskite QDs, which is exploited for improved charge transport for fabricating high-quality QD films and devices. The AX treatments presented here double the film mobility, enabling increased photocurrent, and lead to a record certified QD solar cell efficiency of 13.43%.« less

A multi-user real time inventorying system for radioactive materials: a networking approach.

PubMed

Mehta, S; Bandyopadhyay, D; Hoory, S

1998-01-01

A computerized system for radioisotope management and real time inventory coordinated across a large organization is reported. It handles hundreds of individual users and their separate inventory records. Use of highly efficient computer network and database technologies makes it possible to accept, maintain, and furnish all records related to receipt, usage, and disposal of the radioactive materials for the users separately and collectively. The system's central processor is an HP-9000/800 G60 RISC server and users from across the organization use their personal computers to login to this server using the TCP/IP networking protocol, which makes distributed use of the system possible. Radioisotope decay is automatically calculated by the program, so that it can make the up-to-date radioisotope inventory data of an entire institution available immediately. The system is specifically designed to allow use by large numbers of users (about 300) and accommodates high volumes of data input and retrieval without compromising simplicity and accuracy. Overall, it is an example of a true multi-user, on-line, relational database information system that makes the functioning of a radiation safety department efficient.

Enhanced mobility CsPbI 3 quantum dot arrays for record-efficiency, high-voltage photovoltaic cells

DOE PAGES

Sanehira, Erin M.; Marshall, Ashley R.; Christians, Jeffrey A.; ...

2017-10-27

Here, we developed lead halide perovskite quantum dot (QD) films with tuned surface chemistry based on A-site cation halide salt (AX) treatments. QD perovskites offer colloidal synthesis and processing using industrially friendly solvents, which decouples grain growth from film deposition, and at present produce larger open-circuit voltages (V OC's) than thin-film perovskites. CsPbI 3 QDs, with a tunable bandgap between 1.75 and 2.13 eV, are an ideal top cell candidate for all-perovskite multijunction solar cells because of their demonstrated small V OC deficit. We show that charge carrier mobility within perovskite QD films is dictated by the chemical conditions atmore » the QD-QD junctions. The AX treatments provide a method for tuning the coupling between perovskite QDs, which is exploited for improved charge transport for fabricating high-quality QD films and devices. The AX treatments presented here double the film mobility, enabling increased photocurrent, and lead to a record certified QD solar cell efficiency of 13.43%.« less

Synergistic doping of fullerene electron transport layer and colloidal quantum dot solids enhances solar cell performance.

PubMed

Yuan, Mingjian; Voznyy, Oleksandr; Zhitomirsky, David; Kanjanaboos, Pongsakorn; Sargent, Edward H

2015-02-04

The spatial location of the predominant source of performance-limiting recombination in today's best colloidal quantum dot (CQD) cells is identified, pinpointing the TiO2:CQD junction; then, a highly n-doped PCBM layer is introduced at the CQD:TiO2 heterointerface. An n-doped PCBM layer is essential to maintain the depletion region and allow for efficient current extraction, thereby producing a record 8.9% in overall power conversion efficiency. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Velocity map imaging using an in-vacuum pixel detector.

PubMed

Gademann, Georg; Huismans, Ymkje; Gijsbertsen, Arjan; Jungmann, Julia; Visschers, Jan; Vrakking, Marc J J

2009-10-01

The use of a new type in-vacuum pixel detector in velocity map imaging (VMI) is introduced. The Medipix2 and Timepix semiconductor pixel detectors (256 x 256 square pixels, 55 x 55 microm2) are well suited for charged particle detection. They offer high resolution, low noise, and high quantum efficiency. The Medipix2 chip allows double energy discrimination by offering a low and a high energy threshold. The Timepix detector allows to record the incidence time of a particle with a temporal resolution of 10 ns and a dynamic range of 160 micros. Results of the first time application of the Medipix2 detector to VMI are presented, investigating the quantum efficiency as well as the possibility to operate at increased background pressure in the vacuum chamber.

Application of acoustic agglomeration to enhance air filtration efficiency in air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) systems.

PubMed

Ng, Bing Feng; Xiong, Jin Wen; Wan, Man Pun

2017-01-01

The recent episodes of haze in Southeast Asia have caused some of the worst regional atmospheric pollution ever recorded in history. In order to control the levels of airborne fine particulate matters (PM) indoors, filtration systems providing high PM capturing efficiency are often sought, which inadvertently also results in high airflow resistance (or pressure drop) that increases the energy consumption for air distribution. A pre-conditioning mechanism promoting the formation of particle clusters to enhance PM capturing efficiency without adding flow resistance in the air distribution ductwork could provide an energy-efficient solution. This pre-conditioning mechanism can be fulfilled by acoustic agglomeration, which is a phenomenon that promotes the coagulation of suspended particles by acoustic waves propagating in the fluid medium. This paper discusses the basic mechanisms of acoustic agglomeration along with influencing factors that could affect the agglomeration efficiency. The feasibility to apply acoustic agglomeration to improve filtration in air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) systems is investigated experimentally in a small-scale wind tunnel. Experimental results indicate that this novel application of acoustic pre-conditioning improves the PM2.5 filtration efficiency of the test filters by up to 10% without introducing additional pressure drop. The fan energy savings from not having to switch to a high capturing efficiency filter largely outstrip the additional energy consumed by the acoustics system. This, as a whole, demonstrates potential energy savings from the combined acoustic-enhanced filtration system without compromising on PM capturing efficiency.

Application of acoustic agglomeration to enhance air filtration efficiency in air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) systems

PubMed Central

Xiong, Jin Wen; Wan, Man Pun

2017-01-01

The recent episodes of haze in Southeast Asia have caused some of the worst regional atmospheric pollution ever recorded in history. In order to control the levels of airborne fine particulate matters (PM) indoors, filtration systems providing high PM capturing efficiency are often sought, which inadvertently also results in high airflow resistance (or pressure drop) that increases the energy consumption for air distribution. A pre-conditioning mechanism promoting the formation of particle clusters to enhance PM capturing efficiency without adding flow resistance in the air distribution ductwork could provide an energy-efficient solution. This pre-conditioning mechanism can be fulfilled by acoustic agglomeration, which is a phenomenon that promotes the coagulation of suspended particles by acoustic waves propagating in the fluid medium. This paper discusses the basic mechanisms of acoustic agglomeration along with influencing factors that could affect the agglomeration efficiency. The feasibility to apply acoustic agglomeration to improve filtration in air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation (ACMV) systems is investigated experimentally in a small-scale wind tunnel. Experimental results indicate that this novel application of acoustic pre-conditioning improves the PM2.5 filtration efficiency of the test filters by up to 10% without introducing additional pressure drop. The fan energy savings from not having to switch to a high capturing efficiency filter largely outstrip the additional energy consumed by the acoustics system. This, as a whole, demonstrates potential energy savings from the combined acoustic-enhanced filtration system without compromising on PM capturing efficiency. PMID:28594862

Genetic analysis of efficiency traits in Austrian dairy cattle and their relationships with body condition score and lameness.

PubMed

Köck, A; Ledinek, M; Gruber, L; Steininger, F; Fuerst-Waltl, B; Egger-Danner, C

2018-01-01

This study is part of a larger project whose overall objective was to evaluate the possibilities for genetic improvement of efficiency in Austrian dairy cattle. In 2014, a 1-yr data collection was carried out. Data from 6,519 cows kept on 161 farms were recorded. In addition to routinely recorded data (e.g., milk yield, fertility, disease data), data of novel traits [e.g., body weight (BW), body condition score (BCS), lameness score, body measurements] and individual feeding information and feed quality were recorded on each test-day. The specific objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for efficiency (related) traits and to investigate their relationships with BCS and lameness in Austrian Fleckvieh, Brown Swiss, and Holstein cows. The following efficiency (related) traits were considered: energy-corrected milk (ECM), BW, dry matter intake (DMI), energy intake (INEL), ratio of milk output to metabolic BW (ECM/BW 0.75 ), ratio of milk output to DMI (ECM/DMI), and ratio of milk energy output to total energy intake (LE/INEL, LE = energy in milk). For Fleckvieh, the heritability estimates of the efficiency (related) traits ranged from 0.11 for LE/INEL to 0.44 for BW. Heritabilities for BCS and lameness were 0.19 and 0.07, respectively. Repeatabilities were high and ranged from 0.30 for LE/INEL to 0.83 for BW. Heritability estimates were generally lower for Brown Swiss and Holstein, but repeatabilities were in the same range as for Fleckvieh. In all 3 breeds, more-efficient cows were found to have a higher milk yield, lower BW, slightly higher DMI, and lower BCS. Higher efficiency was associated with slightly fewer lameness problems, most likely due to the lower BW (especially in Fleckvieh) and higher DMI of the more-efficient cows. Body weight and BCS were positively correlated. Therefore, when selecting for a lower BW, BCS is required as additional information because, otherwise, no distinction between large animals with low BCS and smaller animals with normal BCS would be possible. Copyright © 2018 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Resonantly cladding-pumped Yb-free Er-doped LMA fiber laser with record high power and efficiency.

PubMed

Zhang, Jun; Fromzel, Viktor; Dubinskii, Mark

2011-03-14

We report the results of our power scaling experiments with resonantly cladding-pumped Er-doped eye-safe large mode area (LMA) fiber laser. While using commercial off-the-shelf LMA fiber we achieved over 88 W of continuous-wave (CW) single transverse mode power at ~1590 nm while pumping at 1532.5 nm. Maximum observed optical-to-optical efficiency was 69%. This result presents, to the best of our knowledge, the highest power reported from resonantly-pumped Yb-free Er-doped LMA fiber laser, as well as the highest efficiency ever reported for any cladding-pumped Er-doped laser, either Yb-co-doped or Yb-free.

Rear surface effects in high efficiency silicon solar cells

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

Wenham, S.R.; Robinson, S.J.; Dai, X.

1994-12-31

Rear surface effects in PERL solar cells can lead not only to degradation in the short circuit current and open circuit voltage, but also fill factor. Three mechanisms capable of changing the effective rear surface recombination velocity with injection level are identified, two associated with oxidized p-type surfaces, and the third with two dimensional effects associated with a rear floating junction. Each of these will degrade the fill factor if the range of junction biases corresponding to the rear surface transition, coincides with the maximum power point. Despite the identified non idealities, PERL cells with rear floating junctions (PERF cells)more » have achieved record open circuit voltages for silicon solar cells, while simultaneously achieving fill factor improvements relative to standard PERL solar cells. Without optimization, a record efficiency of 22% has been demonstrated for a cell with a rear floating junction. The results of both theoretical and experimental studies are provided.« less

Apparatus and method using a holographic optical element for converting a spectral distribution to image points

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

McGill, Matthew J. (Inventor); Scott, Vibart S. (Inventor); Marzouk, Marzouk (Inventor)

2001-01-01

A holographic optical element transforms a spectral distribution of light to image points. The element comprises areas, each of which acts as a separate lens to image the light incident in its area to an image point. Each area contains the recorded hologram of a point source object. The image points can be made to lie in a line in the same focal plane so as to align with a linear array detector. A version of the element has been developed that has concentric equal areas to match the circular fringe pattern of a Fabry-Perot interferometer. The element has high transmission efficiency, and when coupled with high quantum efficiency solid state detectors, provides an efficient photon-collecting detection system. The element may be used as part of the detection system in a direct detection Doppler lidar system or multiple field of view lidar system.

Intermediate photovoltaic system application experiment operational performance report. Volume 6: Beverly High School, Beverly, Mass.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1982-03-01

Performance data are given for the month of February, 1982 for a photovoltaic power supply at a Massachusetts high school. Data given include: monthly and daily electrical energy yield; monthly and daily insolation; monthly and daily array efficiency; energy production as a function of power level, voltage, cell temperature, and hour of day; insolation as a function of hour of the day; input, output and efficiency for each of two power conditioning units and for the total power conditioning system; energy supplied to the load by the photovoltaic system and by the grid; photovoltaic system efficiency; dollar value of the energy supplied by the photovoltaic system; capacity factor; daily photovoltaic energy to load; daily system availability and hours of daylight; heating and cooling degree days; hourly cell temperature, ambient temperature, wind speed, and insolation; average monthly wind speed; wind direction distribution; and daily data acquisition mode and recording interval plot.

Employing clinical decision support to attain our strategic goal: the safe care of the surgical patient.

PubMed

Magid, Steven K; Pancoast, Paul E; Fields, Theodore; Bradley, Diane G; Williams, Robert B

2007-01-01

Clinical decision support can be employed to increase patient safety and improve workflow efficiencies for physicians and other healthcare providers. Physician input into the design and deployment of clinical decision support systems can increase the utility of the alerts and reduce the likelihood of "alert fatigue." The Hospital for Special Surgery is a 146-bed orthopedic facility that performs approximately 18,000 surgeries a year Efficient work processes are a necessity. The facility began implementing a new electronic health record system in June 2005 and plan to go live in summer 2007. This article reports on some of the clinical decision support rules and alerts being incorporated into the facility's system in the following categories--high-risk, high-frequency scenarios, rules that provide efficiencies and value from the presciber perspective, and rules that relate to patient safety.

Development of high-performance GaInAsP solar cells for tandem solar cell applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wanlass, M. W.; Ward, J. S.; Gessert, T. A.; Emery, K. A.; Horner, G. S.

1990-01-01

Recent results in the development of high-efficiency, low-bandgap GaInAsP solar cells epitaxially grown and lattice matched on InP substrates are presented. Such cells are intended to be used as optimum bottom cell components in tandem solar cells. Assuming that a GaAs-based top cell is used, computer simulation of the potential bottom cell performance as a function of the cell bandgap and incident spectrum indicates that two particular alloys are desirable: Ga0.47In0.53As (Eg = 0.75 eV) for space applications and Ga0.25In0.75As0.54P0.46 (Eg = 0.95 eV) for terrestrial applications. In each of these materials, solar cells with new record-level efficiencies have been fabricated. The efficiency boost available to tandem configurations from these low-bandgap cells is discussed.

Time-varying span efficiency through the wingbeat of desert locusts.

PubMed

Henningsson, Per; Bomphrey, Richard J

2012-06-07

The flight performance of animals depends greatly on the efficacy with which they generate aerodynamic forces. Accordingly, maximum range, load-lifting capacity and peak accelerations during manoeuvres are all constrained by the efficiency of momentum transfer to the wake. Here, we use high-speed particle image velocimetry (1 kHz) to record flow velocities in the near wake of desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria, Forskål). We use the measured flow fields to calculate time-varying span efficiency throughout the wing stroke cycle. The locusts are found to operate at a maximum span efficiency of 79 per cent, typically at a plateau of about 60 per cent for the majority of the downstroke, but at lower values during the upstroke. Moreover, the calculated span efficiencies are highest when the largest lift forces are being generated (90% of the total lift is generated during the plateau of span efficiency) suggesting that the combination of wing kinematics and morphology in locust flight perform most efficiently when doing the most work.

Highly Efficient and Stable MAPbI3 Perovskite Solar Cell Induced by Regulated Nucleation and Ostwald Recrystallization

PubMed Central

Huang, Zhen; Wang, Song; Zhang, Tianjin

2018-01-01

Perovskite solar cells have attracted great attention in recent years, due to their high conversion efficiency and solution-processable fabrication. However, most of the solar cells with high efficiency in the literature are prepared employing TiO2 as electron transport material, which needs sintering at a temperature higher than 450 °C, and is not applicable to flexible device and low-cost fabrication. Herein, the MAPbI3 perovskite solar cells are fabricated at a low temperature of 150 °C with SnO2 as the electron transport layer. By dropping the antisolvent of ethyl acetate onto the perovskite precursor films during the spin coating process, compact MAPbI3 films without pinholes are obtained. The addition of ethyl acetate is found to play an important role in regulating the nucleation, which subsequently improves the compactness of the film. The quality of MAPbI3 films are further improved significantly through Ostwald recrystallization by optimizing the thermal treatment. The crystallinity is enhanced, the grain size is enlarged, and the defect density is reduced. Accordingly, the prepared MAPbI3 perovskite solar cell exhibits a record-high conversion efficiency, outstanding reproducibility, and stability, owing to the reduced electron recombination. The average and best efficiency reaches 19.2% and 20.3%, respectively. The device without encapsulation maintains 94% of the original efficiency after storage in ambient air for 600 h. PMID:29751646

Flexible Neural Electrode Array Based-on Porous Graphene for Cortical Microstimulation and Sensing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lu, Yichen; Lyu, Hongming; Richardson, Andrew G.; Lucas, Timothy H.; Kuzum, Duygu

2016-09-01

Neural sensing and stimulation have been the backbone of neuroscience research, brain-machine interfaces and clinical neuromodulation therapies for decades. To-date, most of the neural stimulation systems have relied on sharp metal microelectrodes with poor electrochemical properties that induce extensive damage to the tissue and significantly degrade the long-term stability of implantable systems. Here, we demonstrate a flexible cortical microelectrode array based on porous graphene, which is capable of efficient electrophysiological sensing and stimulation from the brain surface, without penetrating into the tissue. Porous graphene electrodes show superior impedance and charge injection characteristics making them ideal for high efficiency cortical sensing and stimulation. They exhibit no physical delamination or degradation even after 1 million biphasic stimulation cycles, confirming high endurance. In in vivo experiments with rodents, same array is used to sense brain activity patterns with high spatio-temporal resolution and to control leg muscles with high-precision electrical stimulation from the cortical surface. Flexible porous graphene array offers a minimally invasive but high efficiency neuromodulation scheme with potential applications in cortical mapping, brain-computer interfaces, treatment of neurological disorders, where high resolution and simultaneous recording and stimulation of neural activity are crucial.

High efficiency low threshold current 1.3 μm InAs quantum dot lasers on on-axis (001) GaP/Si

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Jung, Daehwan; Norman, Justin; Kennedy, M. J.; Shang, Chen; Shin, Bongki; Wan, Yating; Gossard, Arthur C.; Bowers, John E.

2017-09-01

We demonstrate highly efficient, low threshold InAs quantum dot lasers epitaxially grown on on-axis (001) GaP/Si substrates using molecular beam epitaxy. Electron channeling contrast imaging measurements show a threading dislocation density of 7.3 × 106 cm-2 from an optimized GaAs template grown on GaP/Si. The high-quality GaAs templates enable as-cleaved quantum dot lasers to achieve a room-temperature continuous-wave (CW) threshold current of 9.5 mA, a threshold current density as low as 132 A/cm2, a single-side output power of 175 mW, and a wall-plug-efficiency of 38.4% at room temperature. As-cleaved QD lasers show ground-state CW lasing up to 80 °C. The application of a 95% high-reflectivity coating on one laser facet results in a CW threshold current of 6.7 mA, which is a record-low value for any kind of Fabry-Perot laser grown on Si.

Low-power silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) modulators for advanced modulation formats.

PubMed

Lauermann, M; Palmer, R; Koeber, S; Schindler, P C; Korn, D; Wahlbrink, T; Bolten, J; Waldow, M; Elder, D L; Dalton, L R; Leuthold, J; Freude, W; Koos, C

2014-12-01

We demonstrate silicon-organic hybrid (SOH) electro-optic modulators that enable quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) and 16-state quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) with high signal quality and record-low energy consumption. SOH integration combines highly efficient electro-optic organic materials with conventional silicon-on-insulator (SOI) slot waveguides, and allows to overcome the intrinsic limitations of silicon as an optical integration platform. We demonstrate QPSK and 16QAM signaling at symbol rates of 28 GBd with peak-to-peak drive voltages of 0.6 V(pp). For the 16QAM experiment at 112 Gbit/s, we measure a bit-error ratio of 5.1 × 10⁻⁵ and a record-low energy consumption of only 19 fJ/bit.

High efficiency solar cells for concentrator systems: silicon or multi-junction?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slade, Alexander; Stone, Kenneth W.; Gordon, Robert; Garboushian, Vahan

2005-08-01

Amonix has become the first company to begin production of high concentration silicon solar cells where volumes are over 10 MW/year. Higher volumes are available due to the method of manufacture; Amonix solely uses semiconductor foundries for solar cell production. In the previous years of system and cell field testing, this method of manufacturing enabled Amonix to maintain a very low overhead while incurring a high cost for the solar cell. However, recent simplifications to the solar cell processing sequence resulted in cost reduction and increased yield. This new process has been tested by producing small qualities in very short time periods, enabling a simulation of high volume production. Results have included over 90% wafer yield, up to 100% die yield and world record performance (η =27.3%). This reduction in silicon solar cell cost has increased the required efficiency for multi-junction concentrator solar cells to be competitive / advantageous. Concentrator systems are emerging as a low-cost, high volume option for solar-generated electricity due to the very high utilization of the solar cell, leading to a much lower $/Watt cost of a photovoltaic system. Parallel to this is the onset of alternative solar cell technologies, such as the very high efficiency multi-junction solar cells developed at NREL over the last two decades. The relatively high cost of these type of solar cells has relegated their use to non-terrestrial applications. However, recent advancements in both multi-junction concentrator cell efficiency and their stability under high flux densities has made their large-scale terrestrial deployment significantly more viable. This paper presents Amonix's experience and testing results of both high-efficiency silicon rear-junction solar cells and multi-junction solar cells made for concentrated light operation.

Hilbert-Huang transform analysis of dynamic and earthquake motion recordings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Zhang, R.R.; Ma, S.; Safak, E.; Hartzell, S.

2003-01-01

This study examines the rationale of Hilbert-Huang transform (HHT) for analyzing dynamic and earthquake motion recordings in studies of seismology and engineering. In particular, this paper first provides the fundamentals of the HHT method, which consist of the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) and the Hilbert spectral analysis. It then uses the HHT to analyze recordings of hypothetical and real wave motion, the results of which are compared with the results obtained by the Fourier data processing technique. The analysis of the two recordings indicates that the HHT method is able to extract some motion characteristics useful in studies of seismology and engineering, which might not be exposed effectively and efficiently by Fourier data processing technique. Specifically, the study indicates that the decomposed components in EMD of HHT, namely, the intrinsic mode function (IMF) components, contain observable, physical information inherent to the original data. It also shows that the grouped IMF components, namely, the EMD-based low- and high-frequency components, can faithfully capture low-frequency pulse-like as well as high-frequency wave signals. Finally, the study illustrates that the HHT-based Hilbert spectra are able to reveal the temporal-frequency energy distribution for motion recordings precisely and clearly.

Si photonics technology for future optical interconnection

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Xuezhe; Krishnamoorthy, Ashok V.

2011-12-01

Scaling of computing systems require ultra-efficient interconnects with large bandwidth density. Silicon photonics offers a disruptive solution with advantages in reach, energy efficiency and bandwidth density. We review our progress in developing building blocks for ultra-efficient WDM silicon photonic links. Employing microsolder based hybrid integration with low parasitics and high density, we optimize photonic devices on SOI platforms and VLSI circuits on more advanced bulk CMOS technology nodes independently. Progressively, we successfully demonstrated single channel hybrid silicon photonic transceivers at 5 Gbps and 10 Gbps, and 80 Gbps arrayed WDM silicon photonic transceiver using reverse biased depletion ring modulators and Ge waveguide photo detectors. Record-high energy efficiency of less than 100fJ/bit and 385 fJ/bit were achieved for the hybrid integrated transmitter and receiver, respectively. Waveguide grating based optical proximity couplers were developed with low loss and large optical bandwidth to enable multi-layer intra/inter-chip optical interconnects. Thermal engineering of WDM devices by selective substrate removal, together with WDM link using synthetic wavelength comb, we significantly improved the device tuning efficiency and reduced the tuning range. Using these innovative techniques, two orders of magnitude tuning power reduction was achieved. And tuning cost of only a few 10s of fJ/bit is expected for high data rate WDM silicon photonic links.

Concentrating light in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmid, M.; Yin, G.; Song, M.; Duan, S.; Heidmann, B.; Sancho-Martinez, D.; Kämmer, S.; Köhler, T.; Manley, P.; Lux-Steiner, M. Ch.

2016-09-01

Light concentration has proven beneficial for solar cells, most notably for highly efficient but expensive absorber materials using high concentrations and large scale optics. Here we investigate light concentration for cost efficient thinfilm solar cells which show nano- or microtextured absorbers. Our absorber material of choice is Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe) which has a proven stabilized record efficiency of 22.6% and which - despite being a polycrystalline thin-film material - is very tolerant to environmental influences. Taking a nanoscale approach, we concentrate light in the CIGSe absorber layer by integrating photonic nanostructures made from dielectric materials. The dielectric nanostructures give rise to resonant modes and field localization in their vicinity. Thus when inserted inside or adjacent to the absorber layer, absorption and efficiency enhancement are observed. In contrast to this internal absorption enhancement, external enhancement is exploited in the microscale approach: mm-sized lenses can be used to concentrate light onto CIGSe solar cells with lateral dimensions reduced down to the micrometer range. These micro solar cells come with the benefit of improved heat dissipation compared to the large scale concentrators and promise compact high efficiency devices. Both approaches of light concentration allow for reduction in material consumption by restricting the absorber dimension either vertically (ultra-thin absorbers for dielectric nanostructures) or horizontally (micro absorbers for concentrating lenses) and have significant potential for efficiency enhancement.

Concentrating light in Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schmid, Martina; Yin, Guanchao; Song, Min; Duan, Shengkai; Heidmann, Berit; Sancho-Martinez, Diego; Kämmer, Steven; Köhler, Tristan; Manley, Phillip; Lux-Steiner, Martha Ch.

2017-01-01

Light concentration has proven beneficial for solar cells, most notably for highly efficient but expensive absorber materials using high concentrations and large scale optics. Here, we investigate the light concentration for cost-efficient thin-film solar cells that show nano- or microtextured absorbers. Our absorber material of choice is Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGSe), which has a proven stabilized record efficiency of 22.6% and which-despite being a polycrystalline thin-film material-is very tolerant to environmental influences. Taking a nanoscale approach, we concentrate light in the CIGSe absorber layer by integrating photonic nanostructures made from dielectric materials. The dielectric nanostructures give rise to resonant modes and field localization in their vicinity. Thus, when inserted inside or adjacent to the absorber layer, absorption and efficiency enhancement are observed. In contrast to this internal absorption enhancement, external enhancement is exploited in the microscaled approach: mm-sized lenses can be used to concentrate light onto CIGSe solar cells with lateral dimensions reduced down to the micrometer range. These micro solar cells come with the benefit of improved heat dissipation compared with the large scale concentrators and promise compact high-efficiency devices. Both approaches of light concentration allow for reduction in material consumption by restricting the absorber dimension either vertically (ultrathin absorbers for dielectric nanostructures) or horizontally (microabsorbers for concentrating lenses) and have significant potential for efficiency enhancement.

Micro–mesoporous iron oxides with record efficiency for the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide: morphology driven catalysis for the degradation of organic contaminants

EPA Science Inventory

A template-free solid-state synthesis of a morphologically controlled and highly organized iron(III)oxide micro–mesoporous Fenton catalyst has been engineered through a simple two-step synthetic procedure. The 3D nanoassembly of hematite nanoparticles (5–7 nm) organized into a ro...

What's Going on in Gym: Descriptive Studies of Physical Education Classes. Monograph 1. Motor Skills: Theory into Practice.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anderson, William G., Ed.; Barrette, Gary T., Ed.

This monograph reports on the establishment of a videotape data bank designed to record activities in physical education classes for analyzing and describing teacher and student behaviors. The process of obtaining approximately 80 tapes of elementary and high schools classes and of developing procedures for efficiently describing what was…

Claims for Solar Cell Efficiency Put to Test at NREL | News | NREL

Science.gov Websites

cell. The record was confirmed by AIST. NREL and the other the laboratories testing these high containers with zero oxygen and zero water vapor, and were sealed in chambers that maintained zero oxygen , zero water," Emery said. "As soon as we opened the containers the cells started degrading, so

Use of graph theory measures to identify errors in record linkage.

PubMed

Randall, Sean M; Boyd, James H; Ferrante, Anna M; Bauer, Jacqueline K; Semmens, James B

2014-07-01

Ensuring high linkage quality is important in many record linkage applications. Current methods for ensuring quality are manual and resource intensive. This paper seeks to determine the effectiveness of graph theory techniques in identifying record linkage errors. A range of graph theory techniques was applied to two linked datasets, with known truth sets. The ability of graph theory techniques to identify groups containing errors was compared to a widely used threshold setting technique. This methodology shows promise; however, further investigations into graph theory techniques are required. The development of more efficient and effective methods of improving linkage quality will result in higher quality datasets that can be delivered to researchers in shorter timeframes. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Experimental study of efficiency of solar panel by phase change material cooling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Nicholas Tan Jian; Nan, Wong Jian; Guiping, Cheng

2017-07-01

The dependence of efficiency of photovoltaic panels on their temperature during operation is a major concern for developers and users. In this paper, a phase change material (PCM) cooling system was designed for a 60W mono-crystalline solar panel. Tealights candle was selected as the cooling medium. The solar irradiance was recorded using Kipp & Zonen CMP3 pyranometer and Meteon data logger. Temperature distribution on the surface of solar panel, output voltage and output current of solar panel were measured. The average irradiance throughout data collection was found to be 705W/m2 and highest irradiance was 1100 W/m2. The average solar panel temperature was 43.6°C and a maximum temperature of 53°C was at the center of solar panel. Results showed that average power output and efficiency of the solar panel were 44.4W and 15%, respectively. It was found that the higher the solar irradiance, the lower the efficiency of solar panel and the higher the temperature and power output of solar panel. This is due to the fact that high irradiance results in high power input and high solar panel temperature. But high PV panel temperature reduces its power output. Therefore, the increase of power input outweighs that of power output, which leads to the decrease of efficiency of solar panel with the increase of solar irradiance. Compared with solar panel without cooling, the power output and efficiency of solar panel did not increase with PCM cooling. It indicates that Tealights candle as PCM cooling is not efficient in improving the efficiency of solar panel in this study.

Elucidating the reaction pathways in the synthesis of organolead trihalide perovskite for high-performance solar cells.

PubMed

Wang, Baohua; Young Wong, King; Xiao, Xudong; Chen, Tao

2015-05-28

The past two years have witnessed unprecedentedly rapid development of organic-inorganic halide perovskite-based solar cells. The solution-processability and high efficiency make this technology extraordinarily attractive. The intensive investigations have accumulated rich experiences in the perovskite fabrication; while the mechanism of the chemical synthesis still remains unresolved. Here, we set up the chemical equation of the synthesis and elucidate the reactions from both thermodynamic and kinetic perspectives. Our study shows that gaseous products thermodynamically favour the reaction, while the activation energy and "collision" probability synergistically determine the reaction rate. These understandings enable us to finely tune the crystal size for high-quality perovskite film, leading to a record fill factor among similar device structures in the literature. This investigation provides a general strategy to explore the mechanism of perovskite synthesis and benefits the fabrication of high-efficiency perovskite photoactive layer.

Comparison of holographic lens and filter systems for lateral spectrum splitting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vorndran, Shelby; Chrysler, Benjamin; Kostuk, Raymond K.

2016-09-01

Spectrum splitting is an approach to increasing the conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic (PV) system. Several methods can be used to perform this function which requires efficient spatial separation of different spectral bands of the incident solar radiation. In this paper several of holographic methods for implementing spectrum splitting are reviewed along with the benefits and disadvantages associated with each approach. The review indicates that a volume holographic lens has many advantages for spectrum splitting in terms of both power conversion efficiency and energy yield. A specific design for a volume holographic spectrum splitting lens is discussed for use with high bandgap InGaP and low bandgap silicon PV cells. The holographic lenses are modeled using rigorous coupled wave analysis, and the optical efficiency is evaluated using non-sequential raytracing. A proof-of-concept off-axis holographic lens is also recorded in dichromated gelatin film and the spectral diffraction efficiency of the hologram is measured with multiple laser sources across the diffracted spectral band. The experimental volume holographic lens (VHL) characteristics are compared to an ideal spectrum splitting filter in terms of power conversion efficiency and energy yield in environments with high direct normal incidence (DNI) illumination and high levels of diffuse illumination. The results show that the experimental VHL can achieve 62.5% of the ideal filter power conversion efficiency, 64.8% of the ideal filter DNI environment energy yield, and 57.7% of the ideal diffuse environment energy yield performance.

NREL and CSEM Jointly Set New Efficiency Record with Dual-Junction Solar

Science.gov Websites

converting non-concentrated (1-sun) sunlight into electricity using a dual-junction III-V/Si solar cell. The 29.8 percent one-sun efficiency," which details the steps taken to break the previous record. His

Low-temperature operation of a Buck DC/DC converter

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Ray, Biswajit; Gerber, Scott S.; Patterson, Richard L.; Myers, Ira T.

1995-01-01

Low-temperature (77 K) operation of a 42/28 V, 175 W, 50 kHz PWM Buck DC/DC converter designed with commercially available components is reported. Overall, the converter losses decreased at 77 K compared to room temperature operation. A full-load efficiency of 97 percent was recorded at liquid-nitrogen temperature, compared to 95.8 percent at room temperature. Power MOSFET operation improved significantly where as the output rectifier operation deteriorated at low-temperature. The performance of the output filter inductor and capacitor did not change significantly at 77 K compared to room temperature performance. It is possible to achieve high-density and high efficiency power conversion at low-temperatures due to improved electronic, electrical and thermal properties of materials.

Achieving High Current Density of Perovskite Solar Cells by Modulating the Dominated Facets of Room-Temperature DC Magnetron Sputtered TiO2 Electron Extraction Layer.

PubMed

Huang, Aibin; Lei, Lei; Zhu, Jingting; Yu, Yu; Liu, Yan; Yang, Songwang; Bao, Shanhu; Cao, Xun; Jin, Ping

2017-01-25

The short circuit current density of perovskite solar cell (PSC) was boosted by modulating the dominated plane facets of TiO 2 electron transport layer (ETL). Under optimized condition, TiO 2 with dominant {001} facets showed (i) low incident light loss, (ii) highly smooth surface and excellent wettability for precursor solution, (iii) efficient electron extraction, and (iv) high conductivity in perovskite photovoltaic application. A current density of 24.19 mA cm -2 was achieved as a value near the maximum limit. The power conversion efficiency was improved to 17.25%, which was the record value of PSCs with DC magnetron sputtered carrier transport layer. What is more, the room-temperature process had a great significance for the cost reduction and flexible application of PSCs.

Velocity map imaging using an in-vacuum pixel detector

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

Gademann, Georg; Huismans, Ymkje; Gijsbertsen, Arjan

The use of a new type in-vacuum pixel detector in velocity map imaging (VMI) is introduced. The Medipix2 and Timepix semiconductor pixel detectors (256x256 square pixels, 55x55 {mu}m{sup 2}) are well suited for charged particle detection. They offer high resolution, low noise, and high quantum efficiency. The Medipix2 chip allows double energy discrimination by offering a low and a high energy threshold. The Timepix detector allows to record the incidence time of a particle with a temporal resolution of 10 ns and a dynamic range of 160 {mu}s. Results of the first time application of the Medipix2 detector to VMImore » are presented, investigating the quantum efficiency as well as the possibility to operate at increased background pressure in the vacuum chamber.« less

A POD reduced order model for resolving angular direction in neutron/photon transport problems

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

Buchan, A.G., E-mail: andrew.buchan@imperial.ac.uk; Calloo, A.A.; Goffin, M.G.

2015-09-01

This article presents the first Reduced Order Model (ROM) that efficiently resolves the angular dimension of the time independent, mono-energetic Boltzmann Transport Equation (BTE). It is based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) and uses the method of snapshots to form optimal basis functions for resolving the direction of particle travel in neutron/photon transport problems. A unique element of this work is that the snapshots are formed from the vector of angular coefficients relating to a high resolution expansion of the BTE's angular dimension. In addition, the individual snapshots are not recorded through time, as in standard POD, but instead theymore » are recorded through space. In essence this work swaps the roles of the dimensions space and time in standard POD methods, with angle and space respectively. It is shown here how the POD model can be formed from the POD basis functions in a highly efficient manner. The model is then applied to two radiation problems; one involving the transport of radiation through a shield and the other through an infinite array of pins. Both problems are selected for their complex angular flux solutions in order to provide an appropriate demonstration of the model's capabilities. It is shown that the POD model can resolve these fluxes efficiently and accurately. In comparison to high resolution models this POD model can reduce the size of a problem by up to two orders of magnitude without compromising accuracy. Solving times are also reduced by similar factors.« less

Color silver halide hologram production and mastering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bjelkhagen, Hans I.; Huang, Qiang

1997-04-01

Color reflection holograms recorded with the Denisyuk geometry have been demonstrated by the recently formed HOLOS Corporation in New Hampshire. The Slavich red-green-blue (RGB) sensitized ultra-high resolution silver halide emulsion was used for the hologram recording. The employed laser wavelengths were 647 nm, 532 nm, and 476 nm, generated by an argon ion, a frequency doubled Nd:YAG, and a krypton ion laser, respectively. A beam combination mechanism with dichroic filters enabled a simultaneous RGB exposure, which made the color balance and overall exposure energy easy to control as well as simplifying the recording procedure. HOLOS has been producing limited edition color holograms in various sizes from 4' X 5' to 12' X 16'. A 30 foot long optical table and high power lasers will enable HOLOS to record color holograms up to the size of one meter square in the near future. Various approaches have been investigated in generating color hologram masters which have sufficiently high diffraction efficiency to contact copy the color images onto photopolymer materials. A specially designed test object including the 1931 CIE chromaticity diagram, a rainbow ribbon cable, pure yellow dots, and a cloisonne elephant was used for color recording experiments. In addition, the Macbeth Color Checker chart was used. Both colorimetric evaluation and scattering noise measurements were performed using the PR-650 Photo Research SpectraScan SpectraCalorimeter.

High-Performance Fluorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Utilizing an Asymmetric Anthracene Derivative as an Electron-Transporting Material.

PubMed

Zhang, Dongdong; Song, Xiaozeng; Li, Haoyuan; Cai, Minghan; Bin, Zhengyang; Huang, Tianyu; Duan, Lian

2018-05-17

Fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes with thermally activated delayed fluorescent sensitizers (TSF-OLEDs) have aroused wide attention, the power efficiencies of which, however, are limited by the mutual exclusion of high electron-transport mobility and large triplet energy of electron-transporting materials (ETMs). Here, an asymmetric anthracene derivative with electronic properties manipulated by different side groups is developed as an ETM to promote TSF-OLED performances. Multiple intermolecular interactions are observed, leading to a kind of "cable-like packing" in the crystal and favoring the simultaneous realization of high electron-transporting mobility and good exciton-confinement ability, albeit the low triplet energy of the ETM. The optimized TSF-OLEDs exhibit a record-high maximum external quantum efficiency/power efficiency of 24.6%/76.0 lm W -1 , which remain 23.8%/69.0 lm W -1 at a high luminance of even 5000 cd m -2 with an extremely low operation voltage of 3.14 V. This work opens a new paradigm for designing ETMs and also paves the way toward practical application of TSF-OLEDs. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Synthesis and properties of 1,3-dioxo-1H-inden-2(3H)-ylidene fragment and (3-(dicyanomethylene)-5,5-dimethylcyclohex-1-enyl)vinyl fragment containing derivatives of azobenzene for holographic recording materials

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zarins, Elmars; Kokars, Valdis; Ozols, Andris; Augustovs, Peteris

2011-06-01

New glassy 1,3-dioxo-1H-inden-2(3H)-ylidene fragment und (3-(dicyanomethylene)-5,5-dimethylcyclohex-1-enyl)vinyl fragment containing push-pull type derivatives of azobenzene able to create thin layers have been synthesized. Thin films of synthesized glasses for holographic recording were prepared using spin coating technique from saturated chloroform solution. Holographic grating recording in films of 6a-b, 7 and 12 has been experimentally studied at 633 and 532 nm in both transmission and reflection modes with p-p recording beam polarizations. The film 12 was found to be the most efficient at both wavelengths in transmission mode exhibiting the maximum self-diffraction efficiency of 9.9% at 633 nm, and 15.3% at 532 nm. The film of 6a was the most efficient in reflection mode with the maximum selfdiffraction efficiency of about 3%.

75 W 40% efficiency single-mode all-fiber erbium-doped laser cladding pumped at 976 nm.

PubMed

Kotov, L V; Likhachev, M E; Bubnov, M M; Medvedkov, O I; Yashkov, M V; Guryanov, A N; Lhermite, J; Février, S; Cormier, E

2013-07-01

Optimization of Yb-free Er-doped fiber for lasers and amplifiers cladding pumped at 976 nm was performed in this Letter. The single-mode fiber design includes an increased core diameter of 34 μm and properly chosen erbium and co-dopant concentrations. We demonstrate an all-fiber high power laser and power amplifier based on this fiber with the record slope efficiency of 40%. To the best of our knowledge, the achieved output power of 75 W is the highest power reported for such lasers.

Highly scalable, resonantly cladding-pumped, Er-doped fiber laser with record efficiency.

PubMed

Dubinskii, M; Zhang, J; Ter-Mikirtychev, V

2009-05-15

We report the performance of a resonantly cladding-pumped, Yb-free, Er-doped fiber laser. We believe this is the first reported resonantly cladding-pumped fiber-Bragg-grating-based, Er-doped, large-mode-area (LMA) fiber laser. The laser, pumped by fiber-coupled InGaAsP/InP laser diode modules at 1,532.5 nm, delivers approximately 48 W of cw output at 1,590 nm. It is believed to be the highest power ever reported from a Yb-free Er-doped LMA fiber. This fully integrated laser also has the optical-to-optical efficiency of approximately 57%, to the best of our knowledge, the highest efficiency reported for cladding-pumped unidirectionally emitting Er-doped laser.

Performance of an off-grid solar home in northwestern Vermont

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

Rawlings, L.K.

1997-12-31

In 1995 an off-grid integrated solar home was built in Middlesex, VT for Peter Clark and Gloria DeSousa. This home was included as a pilot home in the US DOE PV:BONUS program to develop factory-built integrated solar homes. The home incorporates a 1.44 KW PV system, 0.6 KW of wind turbine capacity, and very high-efficiency electrical loads. The home also features passive solar design, high-efficiency heating systems, and a greenhouse-based septic treatment system. The performance of the PV system and the wind system, and the total power usage of the household, are measured and recorded by a data acquisition system.more » The home`s electrical loads have operated very efficiently, using on average about one tenth the power used by the average American residence. The PV system has operated reliably and efficiently, providing about 97% of the power needs of the home. The wind turbines have operated efficiently, but the wind regime at the site has not been sufficient to generate more than 1% of the total power needs. The other 2% has been provided by a gasoline backup generator.« less

Angular multiplexing holograms of four images recorded on photopolymer films with recording-film-thickness-dependent holographic characteristics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Osabe, Keiichi; Kawai, Kotaro

2017-03-01

In this study, angular multiplexing hologram recording photopolymer films were studied experimentally. The films contained acrylamide as a monomer, eosin Y as a sensitizer, and triethanolamine as a promoter in a polyvinyl alcohol matrix. In order to determine the appropriate thickness of the photopolymer films for angular multiplexing, photopolymer films with thicknesses of 29-503 μm were exposed to two intersecting beams of a YVO laser at a wavelength of 532 nm to form a holographic grating with a spatial frequency of 653 line/mm. The diffraction efficiencies as a function of the incident angle of reconstruction were measured. A narrow angular bandwidth and high diffraction efficiency are required for angular multiplexing; hence, we define the Q value, which is the diffraction efficiency divided by half the bandwidth. The Q value of the films depended on the thickness of the films, and was calculated based on the measured diffraction efficiencies. The Q value of a 297-μm-thick film was the highest of the all films. Therefore, the angular multiplexing experiments were conducted using 300-μm-thick films. In the angular multiplexing experiments, the object beam transmitted by a square aperture was focused by a Fourier transform lens and interfered with a reference beam. The maximum order of angular multiplexing was four. The signal intensity that corresponds to the squared-aperture transmission and the noise intensity that corresponds to transmission without the square aperture were measured. The signal intensities decreased as the order of angular multiplexing increased, and the noise intensities were not dependent on the order of angular multiplexing.

Development of a full-waveform voltage and current recording device for multichannel transient electromagnetic transmitters

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Xinyue; Zhang, Qisheng; Wang, Meng; Kong, Qiang; Zhang, Shengquan; He, Ruihao; Liu, Shenghui; Li, Shuhan; Yuan, Zhenzhong

2017-11-01

Due to the pressing demand for metallic ore exploration technology in China, several new technologies are being employed in the relevant exploration instruments. In addition to possessing the high resolution of the traditional transient electromagnetic method, high-efficiency measurements, and a short measurement time, the multichannel transient electromagnetic method (MTEM) technology can also sensitively determine the characteristics of a low-resistivity geologic body, without being affected by the terrain. Besides, the MTEM technology also solves the critical, existing interference problem in electrical exploration technology. This study develops a full-waveform voltage and current recording device for MTEM transmitters. After continuous acquisition and storage of the large, pseudo-random current signals emitted by the MTEM transmitter, these signals are then convoluted with the signals collected by the receiver to obtain the earth's impulse response. In this paper, the overall design of the full-waveform recording apparatus, including the hardware and upper-computer software designs, the software interface display, and the results of field test, is discussed in detail.

How to identify students for school-based depression intervention: can school record review be substituted for universal depression screening?

PubMed

Kuo, Elena S; Vander Stoep, Ann; Herting, Jerald R; Grupp, Katherine; McCauley, Elizabeth

2013-02-01

Early identification and intervention are critical for reducing the adverse effects of depression on academic and occupational performance. Cost-effective approaches are needed for identifying adolescents at high depression risk. This study evaluated the utility of school record review versus universal school-based depression screening for determining eligibility for an indicated depression intervention program implemented in the middle school setting. Algorithms derived from grades, attendance, suspensions, and basic demographic information were evaluated with regard to their ability to predict students' depression screening scores. The school information-based algorithms proved poor proxies for individual students' depression screening results. However, school records showed promise for identifying low, medium, and high-yield subgroups on the basis of which efficient screening targeting decisions could be made. Study results will help to guide school nurses who coordinate indicated depression intervention programs in school settings as they evaluate options of approaches for determining which students are eligible for participation. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Adolescents with greater mental toughness show higher sleep efficiency, more deep sleep and fewer awakenings after sleep onset.

PubMed

Brand, Serge; Gerber, Markus; Kalak, Nadeem; Kirov, Roumen; Lemola, Sakari; Clough, Peter J; Pühse, Uwe; Holsboer-Trachsler, Edith

2014-01-01

Mental toughness (MT) is understood as the display of confidence, commitment, challenge, and control. Mental toughness is associated with resilience against stress. However, research has not yet focused on the relation between MT and objective sleep. The aim of the present study was therefore to explore the extent to which greater MT is associated with objectively assessed sleep among adolescents. A total of 92 adolescents (35% females; mean age, 18.92 years) completed the Mental Toughness Questionnaire. Participants were split into groups of high and low mental toughness. Objective sleep was recorded via sleep electroencephalograms and subjective sleep was assessed via a questionnaire. Compared with participants with low MT, participants with high MT had higher sleep efficiency, a lower number of awakenings after sleep onset, less light sleep, and more deep sleep. They also reported lower daytime sleepiness. Adolescents reporting higher MT also had objectively better sleep, as recorded via sleep electroencephalograms. A bidirectional association between MT and sleep seems likely; therefore, among adolescence, improving sleep should increase MT, and improving MT should increase sleep. Copyright © 2014 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Tuning coercive force by adjusting electric potential in solution processed Co/Pt(111) and the mechanism involved

PubMed Central

Chang, Cheng-Hsun-Tony; Kuo, Wei-Hsu; Chang, Yu-Chieh; Tsay, Jyh-Shen; Yau, Shueh-Lin

2017-01-01

A combination of a solution process and the control of the electric potential for magnetism represents a new approach to operating spintronic devices with a highly controlled efficiency and lower power consumption with reduced production cost. As a paradigmatic example, we investigated Co/Pt(111) in the Bloch-wall regime. The depression in coercive force was detected by applying a negative electric potential in an electrolytic solution. The reversible control of coercive force by varying the electric potential within few hundred millivolts is demonstrated. By changing the electric potential in ferromagnetic layers with smaller thicknesses, the efficiency for controlling the tunable coercive force becomes higher. Assuming that the pinning domains are independent of the applied electric potential, an electric potential tuning-magnetic anisotropy energy model was derived and provided insights into our knowledge of the relation between the electric potential tuning coercive force and the thickness of the ferromagnetic layer. Based on the fact that the coercive force can be tuned by changing the electric potential using a solution process, we developed a novel concept of electric-potential-tuned magnetic recording, resulting in a stable recording media with a high degree of writing ability. PMID:28255160

Advances in indirect detector systems for ultra high-speed hard X-ray imaging with synchrotron light

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olbinado, M. P.; Grenzer, J.; Pradel, P.; De Resseguier, T.; Vagovic, P.; Zdora, M.-C.; Guzenko, V. A.; David, C.; Rack, A.

2018-04-01

We report on indirect X-ray detector systems for various full-field, ultra high-speed X-ray imaging methodologies, such as X-ray phase-contrast radiography, diffraction topography, grating interferometry and speckle-based imaging performed at the hard X-ray imaging beamline ID19 of the European Synchrotron—ESRF. Our work highlights the versatility of indirect X-ray detectors to multiple goals such as single synchrotron pulse isolation, multiple-frame recording up to millions frames per second, high efficiency, and high spatial resolution. Besides the technical advancements, potential applications are briefly introduced and discussed.

High power diode laser Master Oscillator-Power Amplifier (MOPA)

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Andrews, John R.; Mouroulis, P.; Wicks, G.

1994-01-01

High power multiple quantum well AlGaAs diode laser master oscillator - power amplifier (MOPA) systems were examined both experimentally and theoretically. For two pass operation, it was found that powers in excess of 0.3 W per 100 micrometers of facet length were achievable while maintaining diffraction-limited beam quality. Internal electrical-to-optical conversion efficiencies as high as 25 percent were observed at an internal amplifier gain of 9 dB. Theoretical modeling of multiple quantum well amplifiers was done using appropriate rate equations and a heuristic model of the carrier density dependent gain. The model gave a qualitative agreement with the experimental results. In addition, the model allowed exploration of a wider design space for the amplifiers. The model predicted that internal electrical-to-optical conversion efficiencies in excess of 50 percent should be achievable with careful system design. The model predicted that no global optimum design exists, but gain, efficiency, and optical confinement (coupling efficiency) can be mutually adjusted to meet a specific system requirement. A three quantum well, low optical confinement amplifier was fabricated using molecular beam epitaxial growth. Coherent beam combining of two high power amplifiers injected from a common master oscillator was also examined. Coherent beam combining with an efficiency of 93 percent resulted in a single beam having diffraction-limited characteristics. This beam combining efficiency is a world record result for such a system. Interferometric observations of the output of the amplifier indicated that spatial mode matching was a significant factor in the less than perfect beam combining. Finally, the system issues of arrays of amplifiers in a coherent beam combining system were investigated. Based upon experimentally observed parameters coherent beam combining could result in a megawatt-scale coherent beam with a 10 percent electrical-to-optical conversion efficiency.

Modification of ordinary-mode reflectometry system to detect lower-hybrid waves in Alcator C-Mod

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

Baek, S. G.; Shiraiwa, S.; Parker, R. R.

2012-10-15

Backscattering experiments to detect lower-hybrid (LH) waves have been performed in Alcator C-Mod, using the two modified channels (60 GHz and 75 GHz) of an ordinary-mode reflectometry system with newly developed spectral recorders that can continuously monitor spectral power at a target frequency. The change in the baseline of the spectral recorder during the LH wave injection is highly correlated to the strength of the X-mode non-thermal electron cyclotron emission. In high density plasmas where an anomalous drop in the lower hybrid current drive efficiency is observed, the observed backscattered signals are expected to be generated near the last closedmore » flux surface, demonstrating the presence of LH waves within the plasma. This experimental technique can be useful in identifying spatially localized LH electric fields in the periphery of high-density plasmas.« less

Polarization holographic gratings in PAZO azopolymer recorded with different recording-beams polarizations

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mateev, G.; Nedelchev, L.; Ivanov, D.; Tomova, R.; Petrova, P.; Strijkova, V.; Berberova, N.; Nazarova, D.

2018-03-01

Polarization holographic gratings (PHG) were recorded using a laser emitting a wavelength of 491 nm in thin films of the (poly[1-[4-(3-carboxy-4-hydroxyphenylazo)benzenesulfonamido]-1,2-ethanediyl, sodium salt]) azopolymer, shortly denoted as PAZO. Thin azopolymer films with various thicknesses were spin-coated on plastic and glass substrates. Four different polarization states of the recording beams were used, and the results compared: a) two vertical linear polarizations, b) horizontal and vertical linear polarizations, c) linear polarizations at +45° and –45° relative to the recording plane, and d) two orthogonal circular polarizations – left- and right-handed (LCP and RCP). The diffraction efficiency in the +1 diffraction order was monitored in real time by a probing laser beam at the wavelength of 635 nm. The results indicate that the highest diffraction efficiency is achieved when recording with orthogonal polarizations – linear at ±45° or left and right circular. This is explained by the ability of the azopolymer material to record the variations in the polarization state of light better than the variations in its intensity. The holographic gratings obtained can be used to enhance the light-extraction efficiency of an OLED device.

Determining the optimal model for role-substitution in NHS dental services in the United Kingdom.

PubMed

Brocklehurst, Paul; Birch, Stephen; McDonald, Ruth; Tickle, Martin

2013-09-24

Role-substitution describes a model of dental care where Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) provide some of the clinical activity previously undertaken by General Dental Practitioners. This has the potential to increase technical efficiency, the capacity to care and reduce costs. Technical efficiency is defined as the production of the maximum amount of output from a given amount of input so that the service operates at the production frontier i.e. optimal level of productivity. Academic research into technical efficiency is becoming increasingly utilised in health care, although no studies have investigated the efficiency of NHS dentistry or role-substitution in high-street dental practices. The aim of this study is to examine the barriers and enablers that exist for role-substitution in general dental practices in the NHS and to determine the most technically efficient model for role-substitution. A screening questionnaire will be sent to DCPs to determine the type and location of role-substitutive models employed in NHS dental practices in the United Kingdom (UK). Semi-structured interviews will then be conducted with practice owners, DCPs and patients at selected sites identified by the questionnaire. Detail will be recorded about the organisational structure of the dental team, the number of NHS hours worked and the clinical activity undertaken. The interviews will continue until saturation and will record the views and attitudes of the members of the dental team. Final numbers of interviews will be determined by saturation.The second work-stream will examine the technical efficiency of the selected practices using Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Modeling. The former is a non-parametric technique and is considered to be a highly flexible approach for applied health applications. The latter is parametric and is based on frontier regression models that estimate a conventional cost function. Maximising health for a given level and mix of resources is an ethical imperative for health service planners. This study will determine the technical efficiency of role-substitution and so address one of the key recommendations of the Independent Review of NHS dentistry in England.

Determining the optimal model for role-substitution in NHS dental services in the United Kingdom

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Role-substitution describes a model of dental care where Dental Care Professionals (DCPs) provide some of the clinical activity previously undertaken by General Dental Practitioners. This has the potential to increase technical efficiency, the capacity to care and reduce costs. Technical efficiency is defined as the production of the maximum amount of output from a given amount of input so that the service operates at the production frontier i.e. optimal level of productivity. Academic research into technical efficiency is becoming increasingly utilised in health care, although no studies have investigated the efficiency of NHS dentistry or role-substitution in high-street dental practices. The aim of this study is to examine the barriers and enablers that exist for role-substitution in general dental practices in the NHS and to determine the most technically efficient model for role-substitution. Methods/design A screening questionnaire will be sent to DCPs to determine the type and location of role-substitutive models employed in NHS dental practices in the United Kingdom (UK). Semi-structured interviews will then be conducted with practice owners, DCPs and patients at selected sites identified by the questionnaire. Detail will be recorded about the organisational structure of the dental team, the number of NHS hours worked and the clinical activity undertaken. The interviews will continue until saturation and will record the views and attitudes of the members of the dental team. Final numbers of interviews will be determined by saturation. The second work-stream will examine the technical efficiency of the selected practices using Data Envelopment Analysis and Stochastic Frontier Modeling. The former is a non-parametric technique and is considered to be a highly flexible approach for applied health applications. The latter is parametric and is based on frontier regression models that estimate a conventional cost function. Discussion Maximising health for a given level and mix of resources is an ethical imperative for health service planners. This study will determine the technical efficiency of role-substitution and so address one of the key recommendations of the Independent Review of NHS dentistry in England. PMID:24063247

Application of wavelet multi-resolution analysis for correction of seismic acceleration records

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ansari, Anooshiravan; Noorzad, Assadollah; Zare, Mehdi

2007-12-01

During an earthquake, many stations record the ground motion, but only a few of them could be corrected using conventional high-pass and low-pass filtering methods and the others were identified as highly contaminated by noise and as a result useless. There are two major problems associated with these noisy records. First, since the signal to noise ratio (S/N) is low, it is not possible to discriminate between the original signal and noise either in the frequency domain or in the time domain. Consequently, it is not possible to cancel out noise using conventional filtering methods. The second problem is the non-stationary characteristics of the noise. In other words, in many cases the characteristics of the noise are varied over time and in these situations, it is not possible to apply frequency domain correction schemes. When correcting acceleration signals contaminated with high-level non-stationary noise, there is an important question whether it is possible to estimate the state of the noise in different bands of time and frequency. Wavelet multi-resolution analysis decomposes a signal into different time-frequency components, and besides introducing a suitable criterion for identification of the noise among each component, also provides the required mathematical tool for correction of highly noisy acceleration records. In this paper, the characteristics of the wavelet de-noising procedures are examined through the correction of selected real and synthetic acceleration time histories. It is concluded that this method provides a very flexible and efficient tool for the correction of very noisy and non-stationary records of ground acceleration. In addition, a two-step correction scheme is proposed for long period correction of the acceleration records. This method has the advantage of stable results in displacement time history and response spectrum.

Image and Video Compression with VLSI Neural Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Fang, W.; Sheu, B.

1993-01-01

An advanced motion-compensated predictive video compression system based on artificial neural networks has been developed to effectively eliminate the temporal and spatial redundancy of video image sequences and thus reduce the bandwidth and storage required for the transmission and recording of the video signal. The VLSI neuroprocessor for high-speed high-ratio image compression based upon a self-organization network and the conventional algorithm for vector quantization are compared. The proposed method is quite efficient and can achieve near-optimal results.

Magnetic record associated with tree ring density: Possible climate proxy

PubMed Central

Kletetschka, Gunther; Pruner, Petr; Venhodova, Daniela; Kadlec, Jaroslav

2007-01-01

A magnetic signature of tree rings was tested as a potential paleo-climatic indicator. We examined wood from sequoia tree, located in Mountain Home State Forest, California, whose tree ring record spans over the period 600 – 1700 A.D. We measured low and high-field magnetic susceptibility, the natural remanent magnetization (NRM), saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM), and stability against thermal and alternating field (AF) demagnetization. Magnetic investigation of the 200 mm long sequoia material suggests that magnetic efficiency of natural remanence may be a sensitive paleoclimate indicator because it is substantially higher (in average >1%) during the Medieval Warm Epoch (700–1300 A.D.) than during the Little Ice Age (1300–1850 A.D.) where it is <1%. Diamagnetic behavior has been noted to be prevalent in regions with higher tree ring density. The mineralogical nature of the remanence carrier was not directly detected but maghemite is suggested due to low coercivity and absence of Verwey transition. Tree ring density, along with the wood's magnetic remanence efficiency, records the Little Ice Age (LIA) well documented in Europe. Such a record suggests that the European LIA was a global phenomenon. Magnetic analysis of the thermal stability reveals the blocking temperatures near 200 degree C. This phenomenon suggests that the remanent component in this tree may be thermal in origin and was controlled by local thermal condition. PMID:17381844

A diabetes dashboard and physician efficiency and accuracy in accessing data needed for high-quality diabetes care.

PubMed

Koopman, Richelle J; Kochendorfer, Karl M; Moore, Joi L; Mehr, David R; Wakefield, Douglas S; Yadamsuren, Borchuluun; Coberly, Jared S; Kruse, Robin L; Wakefield, Bonnie J; Belden, Jeffery L

2011-01-01

We compared use of a new diabetes dashboard screen with use of a conventional approach of viewing multiple electronic health record (EHR) screens to find data needed for ambulatory diabetes care. We performed a usability study, including a quantitative time study and qualitative analysis of information-seeking behaviors. While being recorded with Morae Recorder software and "think-aloud" interview methods, 10 primary care physicians first searched their EHR for 10 diabetes data elements using a conventional approach for a simulated patient, and then using a new diabetes dashboard for another. We measured time, number of mouse clicks, and accuracy. Two coders analyzed think-aloud and interview data using grounded theory methodology. The mean time needed to find all data elements was 5.5 minutes using the conventional approach vs 1.3 minutes using the diabetes dashboard (P <.001). Physicians correctly identified 94% of the data requested using the conventional method, vs 100% with the dashboard (P <.01). The mean number of mouse clicks was 60 for conventional searching vs 3 clicks with the diabetes dashboard (P <.001). A common theme was that in everyday practice, if physicians had to spend too much time searching for data, they would either continue without it or order a test again. Using a patient-specific diabetes dashboard improves both the efficiency and accuracy of acquiring data needed for high-quality diabetes care. Usability analysis tools can provide important insights into the value of optimizing physician use of health information technologies.

Refraction effects in soft x-ray multilayer blazed gratings.

PubMed

Voronov, D L; Salmassi, F; Meyer-Ilse, J; Gullikson, E M; Warwick, T; Padmore, H A

2016-05-30

A 2500 lines/mm Multilayer Blazed Grating (MBG) optimized for the soft x-ray wavelength range was fabricated and tested. The grating coated with a W/B₄C multilayer demonstrated a record diffraction efficiency in the 2nd blazed diffraction order in the energy range from 500 to 1200 eV. Detailed investigation of the diffraction properties of the grating demonstrated that the diffraction efficiency of high groove density MBGs is not limited by the normal shadowing effects that limits grazing incidence x-ray grating performance. Refraction effects inherent in asymmetrical Bragg diffraction were experimentally confirmed for MBGs. The refraction affects the blazing properties of the MBGs and results in a shift of the resonance wavelength of the gratings and broadening or narrowing of the grating bandwidth depending on diffraction geometry. The true blaze angle of the MBGs is defined by both the real structure of the multilayer stack and by asymmetrical refraction effects. Refraction effects can be used as a powerful tool in providing highly efficient suppression of high order harmonics.

Dependencies of surface plasmon coupling effects on the p-GaN thickness of a thin-p-type light-emitting diode.

PubMed

Su, Chia-Ying; Lin, Chun-Han; Yao, Yu-Feng; Liu, Wei-Heng; Su, Ming-Yen; Chiang, Hsin-Chun; Tsai, Meng-Che; Tu, Charng-Gan; Chen, Hao-Tsung; Kiang, Yean-Woei; Yang, C C

2017-09-04

The high performance of a light-emitting diode (LED) with the total p-type thickness as small as 38 nm is demonstrated. By increasing the Mg doping concentration in the p-AlGaN electron blocking layer through an Mg pre-flow process, the hole injection efficiency can be significantly enhanced. Based on this technique, the high LED performance can be maintained when the p-type layer thickness is significantly reduced. Then, the surface plasmon coupling effects, including the enhancement of internal quantum efficiency, increase in output intensity, reduction of efficiency droop, and increase of modulation bandwidth, among the thin p-type LED samples of different p-type thicknesses that are compared. These advantageous effects are stronger as the p-type layer becomes thinner. However, the dependencies of these effects on p-type layer thickness are different. With a circular mesa size of 10 μm in radius, through surface plasmon coupling, we achieve the record-high modulation bandwidth of 625.6 MHz among c-plane GaN-based LEDs.

Role of intermolecular charge delocalization and its dimensionality in efficient band-like electron transport in crystalline 2,5-difluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F2-TCNQ).

PubMed

Sosorev, Andrey Yu

2017-09-27

Theoretical understanding of charge transport in organic semiconductors is exclusively important for organic electronics, but still remains a subject of debate. The recently discovered record-high band-like electron mobility in single crystals of 2,5-difluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (F 2 -TCNQ) is challenging from the theoretical viewpoint. First, the very small size of the F 2 -TCNQ molecule implies high reorganization energy that seems incompatible with efficient charge transport. Second, it is not clear why the crystals of a similar compound, 7,7,8,8-tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ), show an inefficient hopping electron transport mechanism. To address these issues, we apply DFT and QM/MM calculations to the F n -TCNQ (n = 0,2,4) crystal series. We show that multidimensional intermolecular charge delocalization is of key importance for efficient charge transport in materials consisting of small-sized molecules, and commonly used guidelines for the search for high-mobility organic semiconductors are to be corrected.

Wideband two-port beam splitter of a binary fused-silica phase grating.

PubMed

Wang, Bo; Zhou, Changhe; Feng, Jijun; Ru, Huayi; Zheng, Jiangjun

2008-08-01

The usual beam splitter of multilayer-coated film with a wideband spectrum is not easy to achieve. We describe the realization of a wideband transmission two-port beam splitter based on a binary fused-silica phase grating. To achieve high efficiency and equality in the diffracted 0th and -1st orders, the grating profile parameters are optimized using rigorous coupled-wave analysis at a wavelength of 1550 nm. Holographic recording and the inductively coupled plasma dry etching technique are used to fabricate the fused-silica beam splitter grating. The measured efficiency of (45% x 2) = 90% diffracted into the both orders can be obtained with the fabricated grating under Littrow mounting. The physical mechanism of such a wideband two-port beam splitter grating can be well explained by the modal method based on two-beam interference of the modes excited by the incident wave. With the high damage threshold, low coefficient of thermal expansion, and wideband high efficiency, the presented beam splitter etched in fused silica should be a useful optical element for a variety of practical applications.

Low-Cost III-V Photovoltaic Materials by Chloride Vapor Transport Deposition Using Safe Solid Precursors

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

Boettcher, Shannon; Aloni, Shaul; Weiss, Robert

Si-based photovoltaic devices dominate the market. As photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing costs have plummeted, technologies which increase efficiency have become critical. Si cell efficiencies are nearing theoretical limits and Si-based PV modules are unlikely to reach the 25-30% efficiency range. The use of III-V semiconductors is an obvious technical solution to improve efficiency, especially if they can be integrated directly with existing Si technology as tandems. High coefficients of light absorption along with tunable bandgaps and lattice constants have resulted in record conversion efficiencies for both one-sun and concentrator PV applications. GaAs, for example, has been used to manufacture single-junction photovoltaicsmore » with world-record efficiencies of 28.8% at one sun.2 However, costs for III-Vs must be dramatically reduced to produce cost-effective, high-efficiency PV solutions. III-V costs are controlled by two factors: semiconductor growth and the substrate. III-V growth is dominated today by metal-organic vapor phase epitaxy (MOVPE) with a lesser role played by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). MOVPE costs are high due to the expense and low utilization (~30%) of precursors, modest growth rates (~100 nm min-1), equipment complexity, and safety infrastructure needed to handle toxic, pyrophoric gases.3 MBE costs are high due to slow growth rates and limitations of scalability. Details comparing plausible low-cost III-V growth methods are available in a review article published as a result of this project. The primary goal of this project was to demonstrate that close-spaced vapor transport (CSVT) using chloride (from HCl) as a transport agent can be used for the rapid growth of device-ready III-V layers from safe, solid-source precursors. In pursuit of this goal, we designed, built, and installed a new Cl-CSVT reactor based on insights from our previous H2O-CSVT growth system and in collaboration with equipment professionals at Malachite Technologies. This system was successfully used to grow epitaxial GaAs with controlled n-type doping, having mobilities similar to MOVPE. Detailed technical information and results can also be found in the primary publication resulting from this project. This work sets the stage for tackling the development of high-performance III-V single junctions and tandem devices directly on Si substrates, which was beyond the capabilities of our H2O-CSVT system. The design of the reactor’s source and substrate transfer system should allow for direct deposition of device structures. The collective innovations of our Cl-CSVT system might ultimately serve as an enabling process for commercialization of the technology through a collaboration with appropriate industrial partners.« less

Filtration of human EEG recordings from physiological artifacts with empirical mode method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grubov, Vadim V.; Runnova, Anastasiya E.; Khramova, Marina V.

2017-03-01

In the paper we propose the new method for dealing with noise and physiological artifacts in experimental human EEG recordings. The method is based on analysis of EEG signals with empirical mode decomposition (Hilbert-Huang transform). We consider noises and physiological artifacts on EEG as specific oscillatory patterns that cause problems during EEG analysis and can be detected with additional signals recorded simultaneously with EEG (ECG, EMG, EOG, etc.) We introduce the algorithm of the method with following steps: empirical mode decomposition of EEG signal, choosing of empirical modes with artifacts, removing empirical modes with artifacts, reconstruction of the initial EEG signal. We test the method on filtration of experimental human EEG signals from eye-moving artifacts and show high efficiency of the method.

Operative record using intraoperative digital data in neurosurgery.

PubMed

Houkin, K; Kuroda, S; Abe, H

2000-01-01

The purpose of this study was to develop a new method for more efficient and accurate operative records using intra-operative digital data in neurosurgery, including macroscopic procedures and microscopic procedures under an operating microscope. Macroscopic procedures were recorded using a digital camera and microscopic procedures were also recorded using a microdigital camera attached to an operating microscope. Operative records were then recorded digitally and filed in a computer using image retouch software and database base software. The time necessary for editing of the digital data and completing the record was less than 30 minutes. Once these operative records are digitally filed, they are easily transferred and used as database. Using digital operative records along with digital photography, neurosurgeons can document their procedures more accurately and efficiently than by the conventional method (handwriting). A complete digital operative record is not only accurate but also time saving. Construction of a database, data transfer and desktop publishing can be achieved using the intra-operative data, including intra-operative photographs.

Tellurium-Impregnated Porous Cobalt-Doped Carbon Polyhedra as Superior Cathodes for Lithium-Tellurium Batteries.

PubMed

He, Jiarui; Lv, Weiqiang; Chen, Yuanfu; Wen, Kechun; Xu, Chen; Zhang, Wanli; Li, Yanrong; Qin, Wu; He, Weidong

2017-08-22

Lithium-tellurium (Li-Te) batteries are attractive for energy storage owing to their high theoretical volumetric capacity of 2621 mAh cm -3 . In this work, highly nanoporous cobalt and nitrogen codoped carbon polyhedra (C-Co-N) derived from a metal-organic framework (MOF) is synthesized and employed as tellurium host for Li-Te batteries. The Te@C-Co-N cathode with a high Te loading of 77.2 wt % exhibits record-breaking electrochemical performances including an ultrahigh initial capacity of 2615.2 mAh cm -3 approaching the theoretical capacity of Te (2621 mAh cm -3 ), a superior cycling stability with a high capacity retention of 93.6%, a ∼99% Columbic efficiency after 800 cycles as well as rate capacities of 2160, 1327.6, and 894.8 mAh cm -3 at 4, 10, and 20 C, respectively. The redox chemistry of tellurium is revealed by in operando Raman spectroscopic analysis and density functional theory simulations. The results illustrate that the performances are attributed to the highly conductive C-Co-N matrix with an advantageous structure of abundant micropores, which provides highly efficient channels for electron transfer and ionic diffusion as well as sufficient surface area to efficiently host tellurium while mitigating polytelluride dissolution and suppressing volume expansion.

[Design method of convex master gratings for replicating flat-field concave gratings].

PubMed

Zhou, Qian; Li, Li-Feng

2009-08-01

Flat-field concave diffraction grating is the key device of a portable grating spectrometer with the advantage of integrating dispersion, focusing and flat-field in a single device. It directly determines the quality of a spectrometer. The most important two performances determining the quality of the spectrometer are spectral image quality and diffraction efficiency. The diffraction efficiency of a grating depends mainly on its groove shape. But it has long been a problem to get a uniform predetermined groove shape across the whole concave grating area, because the incident angle of the ion beam is restricted by the curvature of the concave substrate, and this severely limits the diffraction efficiency and restricts the application of concave gratings. The authors present a two-step method for designing convex gratings, which are made holographically with two exposure point sources placed behind a plano-convex transparent glass substrate, to solve this problem. The convex gratings are intended to be used as the master gratings for making aberration-corrected flat-field concave gratings. To achieve high spectral image quality for the replicated concave gratings, the refraction effect at the planar back surface and the extra optical path lengths through the substrate thickness experienced by the two divergent recording beams are considered during optimization. This two-step method combines the optical-path-length function method and the ZEMAX software to complete the optimization with a high success rate and high efficiency. In the first step, the optical-path-length function method is used without considering the refraction effect to get an approximate optimization result. In the second step, the approximate result of the first step is used as the initial value for ZEMAX to complete the optimization including the refraction effect. An example of design problem was considered. The simulation results of ZEMAX proved that the spectral image quality of a replicated concave grating is comparable with that of a directly recorded concave grating.

Spike detection, characterization, and discrimination using feature analysis software written in LabVIEW.

PubMed

Stewart, C M; Newlands, S D; Perachio, A A

2004-12-01

Rapid and accurate discrimination of single units from extracellular recordings is a fundamental process for the analysis and interpretation of electrophysiological recordings. We present an algorithm that performs detection, characterization, discrimination, and analysis of action potentials from extracellular recording sessions. The program was entirely written in LabVIEW (National Instruments), and requires no external hardware devices or a priori information about action potential shapes. Waveform events are detected by scanning the digital record for voltages that exceed a user-adjustable trigger. Detected events are characterized to determine nine different time and voltage levels for each event. Various algebraic combinations of these waveform features are used as axis choices for 2-D Cartesian plots of events. The user selects axis choices that generate distinct clusters. Multiple clusters may be defined as action potentials by manually generating boundaries of arbitrary shape. Events defined as action potentials are validated by visual inspection of overlain waveforms. Stimulus-response relationships may be identified by selecting any recorded channel for comparison to continuous and average cycle histograms of binned unit data. The algorithm includes novel aspects of feature analysis and acquisition, including higher acquisition rates for electrophysiological data compared to other channels. The program confirms that electrophysiological data may be discriminated with high-speed and efficiency using algebraic combinations of waveform features derived from high-speed digital records.

Programmable CGH on photochromic material using DMD generated masks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Alata, Romain; Zamkotsian, Frédéric; Lanzoni, Patrick; Pariani, Giorgio; Bianco, Andrea; Bertarelli, Chiara

2018-02-01

Computer Generated Holograms (CGHs) are used for wavefront shaping and complex optics testing, including aspherical and free-form optics. Today, CGHs are recorded directly with a laser or intermediate masks, allowing only the realization of binary CGHs; they are efficient but can reconstruct only pixilated images. We propose a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) as a reconfigurable mask, to record rewritable binary and grayscale CGHs on a photochromic plate. The DMD is composed of 2048x1080 individually controllable micro-mirrors, with a pitch of 13.68 μm. This is a real-time reconfigurable mask, perfect for recording CGHs. The photochromic plate is opaque at rest and becomes transparent when it is illuminated with visible light of suitable wavelength. We have successfully recorded the very first amplitude grayscale CGH, in equally spaced levels, so called stepped CGH. We recorded up to 1000x1000 pixels CGHs with a contrast greater than 50, using Fresnel as well as Fourier coding scheme. Fresnel's CGH are obtained by calculating the inverse Fresnel transform of the original image at a given focus, ranging from 50cm to 2m. The reconstruction of the recorded images with a 632.8nm He-Ne laser beam leads to images with a high fidelity in shape, intensity, size and location. These results reveal the high potential of this method for generating programmable/rewritable grayscale CGHs, which combine DMDs and photochromic substrates.

Measurement of X-ray emission efficiency for K-lines.

PubMed

Procop, M

2004-08-01

Results for the X-ray emission efficiency (counts per C per sr) of K-lines for selected elements (C, Al, Si, Ti, Cu, Ge) and for the first time also for compounds and alloys (SiC, GaP, AlCu, TiAlC) are presented. An energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS) of known detection efficiency (counts per photon) has been used to record the spectra at a takeoff angle of 25 degrees determined by the geometry of the secondary electron microscope's specimen chamber. Overall uncertainty in measurement could be reduced to 5 to 10% in dependence on the line intensity and energy. Measured emission efficiencies have been compared with calculated efficiencies based on models applied in standardless analysis. The widespread XPP and PROZA models give somewhat too low emission efficiencies. The best agreement between measured and calculated efficiencies could be achieved by replacing in the modular PROZA96 model the original expression for the ionization cross section by the formula given by Casnati et al. (1982) A discrepancy remains for carbon, probably due to the high overvoltage ratio.

Development of Advanced Deposition Technology for Microcrystalline Si Based Solar Cells and Modules: Final Technical Report, 1 May 2002-31 July 2004

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

Li, Y. M.

2004-12-01

The key objective of this subcontract was to take the first steps to extend the radio-frequency plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (RF-PECVD) manufacturing technology of Energy Photovoltaics, Inc. (EPV), to the promising field of a-Si/nc-Si solar cell fabrication by demonstrating ''proof-of-concept'' devices of good efficiencies that previously were believed to be unobtainable in single-chamber reactors owing to contamination problems. A complementary goal was to find a new high-rate deposition method that can conceivably be deployed in large PECVD-type reactors. We emphasize that our goal was not to produce 'champion' devices of near-record efficiencies, but rather, to achieve modestly high efficiencies usingmore » a far simpler (cheaper) system, via practical processing methods and materials. To directly attack issues in solar-cell fabrication at EPV, the nc-Si thin films were studied almost exclusively in the p-i-n device configuration (as absorbers or i-layers), not as stand-alone films. Highly efficient, p-i-n type, nc-Si-based solar cells are generally grown on expensive, laboratory superstrates, such as custom ZnO/glass of high texture (granular surface) and low absorption. Also standard was the use of a highly effective back-reflector ZnO/Ag, where the ZnO can be surface-textured for efficient diffuse reflection. The high-efficiency ''champion'' devices made by the PECVD methods were invariably prepared in sophisticated (i.e., expensive), multi-chamber, or at least load-locked deposition systems. The electrode utilization efficiency, defined as the surface-area ratio of the powered electrode to that of the substrates, was typically low at about one (1:1). To evaluate the true potential of nc-Si absorbers for cost-competitive, commercially viable manufacturing of large-area PV modules, we took a more down-to-earth approach, based on our proven production of a-Si PV modules by a massively parallel batch process in single-chamber RF-PECVD systems, to the study of nc-Si solar cells, with the aim of producing high-efficiency a-Si/nc-Si solar cells and sub-modules.« less

Second harmonics HOE recording in Bayfol HX

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bruder, Friedrich-Karl; Fäcke, Thomas; Hagen, Rainer; Hönel, Dennis; Orselli, Enrico; Rewitz, Christian; Rölle, Thomas; Walze, Günther; Wewer, Brita

2015-05-01

Volume Holographic Optical Elements (vHOEs) provide superior optical properties over DOEs (surface gratings) due to high diffraction efficiencies in the -1st order and their excellent Bragg selectivity. Bayer MaterialScience is offering a variety of customized instant-developing photopolymer films to meet requirements for a specific optics design of a phase hologram. For instance, the photopolymer film thickness is an ideal means to adjust the angular and the spectral selectivity while the index modulation can be adopted with the film thickness to achieve a specific required dynamic range. This is especially helpful for transmission type holograms and in multiplex recordings. The selection of different substrates is helpful to achieve the overall optical properties for a targeted application that we support in B2B-focused developments. To provide further guidance on how to record volume holograms in Bayfol HX, we describe in this paper a new route towards the recording of substrate guided vHOEs by using optimized photopolymer films. Furthermore, we discuss special writing conditions that are suitable to create higher 2nd harmonic intensities and their useful applications. Due to total internal reflection (TIR) at the photopolymer-air interface in substrate guided vHOEs, hologram recording with those large diffraction angles cannot usually be done with two free-space beams. Edge-lit recording setups are used to circumvent this limitation. However, such setups require bulky recording blocks or liquid bathes and are complex and hard to align. A different approach that we present in this paper is to exploit 2nd harmonic grating generation in a freespace recording scheme. Those 2nd harmonic components allow the replay of diffraction angles that are normally only accessible with edge-lit writing configurations. Therefore, this approach significantly simplifies master recordings for vHOEs with edge-lit functionalities, which later can be used in contact copy schemes for mass replication. In this paper, we will discuss and illustrate recording parameters to influence 2nd harmonic efficiency in optimized photopolymer films and will explain preferred geometries for recording.

Statistical properties of proportional residual energy intake as a new measure of energetic efficiency.

PubMed

Zamani, Pouya

2017-08-01

Traditional ratio measures of efficiency, including feed conversion ratio (FCR), gross milk efficiency (GME), gross energy efficiency (GEE) and net energy efficiency (NEE) may have some statistical problems including high correlations with milk yield. Residual energy intake (REI) or residual feed intake (RFI) is another criterion, proposed to overcome the problems attributed to the traditional ratio criteria, but it does not account for production or intake levels. For example, the same REI value could be considerable for low producing and negligible for high producing cows. The aim of this study was to propose a new measure of efficiency to overcome the problems attributed to the previous criteria. A total of 1478 monthly records of 268 lactating Holstein cows were used for this study. In addition to FCR, GME, GEE, NEE and REI, a new criterion called proportional residual energy intake (PREI) was calculated as REI to net energy intake ratio and defined as proportion of net energy intake lost as REI. The PREI had an average of -0·02 and range of -0·36 to 0·27, meaning that the least efficient cow lost 0·27 of her net energy intake as REI, while the most efficient animal saved 0·36 of her net energy intake as less REI. Traditional ratio criteria (FCR, GME, GEE and NEE) had high correlations with milk and fat corrected milk yields (absolute values from 0·469 to 0·816), while the REI and PREI had low correlations (0·000 to 0·069) with milk production. The results showed that the traditional ratio criteria (FCR, GME, GEE and NEE) are highly influenced by production traits, while the REI and PREI are independent of production level. Moreover, the PREI adjusts the REI magnitude for intake level. It seems that the PREI could be considered as a worthwhile measure of efficiency for future studies.

High-Efficiency, Multijunction Solar Cells for Large-Scale Solar Electricity Generation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kurtz, Sarah

2006-03-01

A solar cell with an infinite number of materials (matched to the solar spectrum) has a theoretical efficiency limit of 68%. If sunlight is concentrated, this limit increases to about 87%. These theoretical limits are calculated using basic physics and are independent of the details of the materials. In practice, the challenge of achieving high efficiency depends on identifying materials that can effectively use the solar spectrum. Impressive progress has been made with the current efficiency record being 39%. Today's solar market is also showing impressive progress, but is still hindered by high prices. One strategy for reducing cost is to use lenses or mirrors to focus the light on small solar cells. In this case, the system cost is dominated by the cost of the relatively inexpensive optics. The value of the optics increases with the efficiency of the solar cell. Thus, a concentrator system made with 35%- 40%-efficient solar cells is expected to deliver 50% more power at a similar cost when compare with a system using 25%-efficient cells. Today's markets are showing an opportunity for large concentrator systems that didn't exist 5-10 years ago. Efficiencies may soon pass 40% and ultimately may reach 50%, providing a pathway to improved performance and decreased cost. Many companies are currently investigating this technology for large-scale electricity generation. The presentation will cover the basic physics and more practical considerations to achieving high efficiency as well as describing the current status of the concentrator industry. This work has been authored by an employee of the Midwest Research Institute under Contract No. DE- AC36-99GO10337 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes.

Enhanced photovoltaic performance of a quantum dot-sensitized solar cell using a Nb-doped TiO2 electrode.

PubMed

Jiang, Lei; You, Ting; Deng, Wei-Qiao

2013-10-18

In this work Nb-doped anatase TiO2 nanocrystals are used as the photoanode of quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells. A solar cell with CdS/CdSe quantum dots co-sensitized 2.5 mol% Nb-doped anatase TiO2 nanocrystals can achieve a photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 3.3%, which is almost twice as high as the 1.7% obtained by a cell based on undoped TiO2 nanocrystals. The incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency can reach as high as 91%, which is a record for all quantum-dot-sensitized solar cells. Detailed analysis shows that such an enhancement is due to improved lifetime and diffusion length of electrons in the solar cell.

Computer-Based Medical System

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1998-01-01

SYMED, Inc., developed a unique electronic medical records and information management system. The S2000 Medical Interactive Care System (MICS) incorporates both a comprehensive and interactive medical care support capability and an extensive array of digital medical reference materials in either text or high resolution graphic form. The system was designed, in cooperation with NASA, to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of physician practices. The S2000 is a MS (Microsoft) Windows based software product which combines electronic forms, medical documents, records management, and features a comprehensive medical information system for medical diagnostic support and treatment. SYMED, Inc. offers access to its medical systems to all companies seeking competitive advantages.

Silicon Nanowire/Polymer Hybrid Solar Cell-Supercapacitor: A Self-Charging Power Unit with a Total Efficiency of 10.5.

PubMed

Liu, Ruiyuan; Wang, Jie; Sun, Teng; Wang, Mingjun; Wu, Changsheng; Zou, Haiyang; Song, Tao; Zhang, Xiaohong; Lee, Shuit-Tong; Wang, Zhong Lin; Sun, Baoquan

2017-07-12

An integrated self-charging power unit, combining a hybrid silicon nanowire/polymer heterojunction solar cell with a polypyrrole-based supercapacitor, has been demonstrated to simultaneously harvest solar energy and store it. By efficiency enhancement of the hybrid nanowire solar cells and a dual-functional titanium film serving as conjunct electrode of the solar cell and supercapacitor, the integrated system is able to yield a total photoelectric conversion to storage efficiency of 10.5%, which is the record value in all the integrated solar energy conversion and storage system. This system may not only serve as a buffer that diminishes the solar power fluctuations from light intensity, but also pave its way toward cost-effective high efficiency self-charging power unit. Finally, an integrated device based on ultrathin Si substrate is demonstrated to expand its feasibility and potential application in flexible energy conversion and storage devices.

Overcoming the Fundamental Bottlenecks to a new world-record silicon solar cell. Final Technical Report

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

Rohatgi, Ajeet; Zimbardi, Francesco; Rounsaville, Brian

The objective of the work performed within this contract is to reveal the materials and device physics that currently limit the experimental world record efficiency to 25% for single junction Si (2013), and to demonstrate 26.5% efficiency. The starting efficiency for this project was 23.9% in 2013. Four strategies are being combined throughout the project to achieve 26.5% cell efficiency: (1) passivated contacts via tunnel dielectrics, (2) emitter optimization and passivation through dopant profile engineering, (3) enhanced light trapping through development of photonic crystals and (4) base optimization.

A generic concept to overcome bandgap limitations for designing highly efficient multi-junction photovoltaic cells

PubMed Central

Guo, Fei; Li, Ning; Fecher, Frank W.; Gasparini, Nicola; Quiroz, Cesar Omar Ramirez; Bronnbauer, Carina; Hou, Yi; Radmilović, Vuk V.; Radmilović, Velimir R.; Spiecker, Erdmann; Forberich, Karen; Brabec, Christoph J.

2015-01-01

The multi-junction concept is the most relevant approach to overcome the Shockley–Queisser limit for single-junction photovoltaic cells. The record efficiencies of several types of solar technologies are held by series-connected tandem configurations. However, the stringent current-matching criterion presents primarily a material challenge and permanently requires developing and processing novel semiconductors with desired bandgaps and thicknesses. Here we report a generic concept to alleviate this limitation. By integrating series- and parallel-interconnections into a triple-junction configuration, we find significantly relaxed material selection and current-matching constraints. To illustrate the versatile applicability of the proposed triple-junction concept, organic and organic-inorganic hybrid triple-junction solar cells are constructed by printing methods. High fill factors up to 68% without resistive losses are achieved for both organic and hybrid triple-junction devices. Series/parallel triple-junction cells with organic, as well as perovskite-based subcells may become a key technology to further advance the efficiency roadmap of the existing photovoltaic technologies. PMID:26177808

A generic concept to overcome bandgap limitations for designing highly efficient multi-junction photovoltaic cells.

PubMed

Guo, Fei; Li, Ning; Fecher, Frank W; Gasparini, Nicola; Ramirez Quiroz, Cesar Omar; Bronnbauer, Carina; Hou, Yi; Radmilović, Vuk V; Radmilović, Velimir R; Spiecker, Erdmann; Forberich, Karen; Brabec, Christoph J

2015-07-16

The multi-junction concept is the most relevant approach to overcome the Shockley-Queisser limit for single-junction photovoltaic cells. The record efficiencies of several types of solar technologies are held by series-connected tandem configurations. However, the stringent current-matching criterion presents primarily a material challenge and permanently requires developing and processing novel semiconductors with desired bandgaps and thicknesses. Here we report a generic concept to alleviate this limitation. By integrating series- and parallel-interconnections into a triple-junction configuration, we find significantly relaxed material selection and current-matching constraints. To illustrate the versatile applicability of the proposed triple-junction concept, organic and organic-inorganic hybrid triple-junction solar cells are constructed by printing methods. High fill factors up to 68% without resistive losses are achieved for both organic and hybrid triple-junction devices. Series/parallel triple-junction cells with organic, as well as perovskite-based subcells may become a key technology to further advance the efficiency roadmap of the existing photovoltaic technologies.

Rocket flight of a multilayer coated high-density EUV toroidal grating

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Keski-Kuha, Ritva A. M.; Thomas, Roger J.; Davila, Joseph M.

1992-01-01

A multilayer coated high density toroidal grating was flown on a sounding rocket experiment in the Solar EUV Rocket Telescope and Spectrograph (SERTS) instrument. To our knowledge this is the first space flight of a multilayer coated grating. Pre-flight performance evaluation showed that the application of a 10-layer Ir/Si multilayer coating to the 3600 l/mm blazed toroidal replica grating produced a factor of 9 enhancement in peak efficiency near the design wavelength around 30 nm in first order over the standard gold coating, with a measured EUV efficiency that peaked at 3.3 percent. In addition, the grating's spectral resolution of better than 5000 was maintained. The region of enhanced grating efficiency due to the multilayer coating is clearly evident in the flight data. Within the bandpass of the multilayer coating, the recorded film densities were roughly equivalent to those obtained with a factor of six longer exposure on the previous flight of the SERTS instrument.

Efficiency at rest: magnetoencephalographic resting-state connectivity and individual differences in verbal working memory.

PubMed

del Río, David; Cuesta, Pablo; Bajo, Ricardo; García-Pacios, Javier; López-Higes, Ramón; del-Pozo, Francisco; Maestú, Fernando

2012-11-01

Inter-individual differences in cognitive performance are based on an efficient use of task-related brain resources. However, little is known yet on how these differences might be reflected on resting-state brain networks. Here we used Magnetoencephalography resting-state recordings to assess the relationship between a behavioral measurement of verbal working memory and functional connectivity as measured through Mutual Information. We studied theta (4-8 Hz), low alpha (8-10 Hz), high alpha (10-13 Hz), low beta (13-18 Hz) and high beta (18-30 Hz) frequency bands. A higher verbal working memory capacity was associated with a lower mutual information in the low alpha band, prominently among right-anterior and left-lateral sensors. The results suggest that an efficient brain organization in the domain of verbal working memory might be related to a lower resting-state functional connectivity across large-scale brain networks possibly involving right prefrontal and left perisylvian areas. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cascaded plasmon-plasmon coupling mediated energy transfer across stratified metal-dielectric nanostructures

PubMed Central

Golmakaniyoon, Sepideh; Hernandez-Martinez, Pedro Ludwig; Demir, Hilmi Volkan; Sun, Xiao Wei

2016-01-01

Surface plasmon (SP) coupling has been successfully applied to nonradiative energy transfer via exciton-plasmon-exciton coupling in conventionally sandwiched donor-metal film-acceptor configurations. However, these structures lack the desired efficiency and suffer poor photoemission due to the high energy loss. Here, we show that the cascaded exciton-plasmon-plasmon-exciton coupling in stratified architecture enables an efficient energy transfer mechanism. The overlaps of the surface plasmon modes at the metal-dielectric and dielectric-metal interfaces allow for strong cross-coupling in comparison with the single metal film configuration. The proposed architecture has been demonstrated through the analytical modeling and numerical simulation of an oscillating dipole near the stratified nanostructure of metal-dielectric-metal-acceptor. Consistent with theoretical and numerical results, experimental measurements confirm at least 50% plasmon resonance energy transfer enhancement in the donor-metal-dielectric-metal-acceptor compared to the donor-metal-acceptor structure. Cascaded plasmon-plasmon coupling enables record high efficiency for exciton transfer through metallic structures. PMID:27698422

Evaluation of modal pushover-based scaling of one component of ground motion: Tall buildings

USGS Publications Warehouse

Kalkan, Erol; Chopra, Anil K.

2012-01-01

Nonlinear response history analysis (RHA) is now increasingly used for performance-based seismic design of tall buildings. Required for nonlinear RHAs is a set of ground motions selected and scaled appropriately so that analysis results would be accurate (unbiased) and efficient (having relatively small dispersion). This paper evaluates accuracy and efficiency of recently developed modal pushover–based scaling (MPS) method to scale ground motions for tall buildings. The procedure presented explicitly considers structural strength and is based on the standard intensity measure (IM) of spectral acceleration in a form convenient for evaluating existing structures or proposed designs for new structures. Based on results presented for two actual buildings (19 and 52 stories, respectively), it is demonstrated that the MPS procedure provided a highly accurate estimate of the engineering demand parameters (EDPs), accompanied by significantly reduced record-to-record variability of the responses. In addition, the MPS procedure is shown to be superior to the scaling procedure specified in the ASCE/SEI 7-05 document.

Aircraft tracking and logging for commercial airports

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wren, Lee; Dwyer, David; Thornton, John; Bonsor, Nigel

2002-07-01

Airport congestion is becoming a major problem, with many airports stretched to capacity. Monitoring of airport traffic is becoming of increased importance as airport operators try to maximize their efficiency whilst maintaining a high safety standard. This paper describes a fully automatic electro-optic tracking system, designed to track aircraft whilst on, or near, the runway. The system uses a single camera and several surveyed landmarks to predict the 3D location of the aircraft. Two modes of operation are available: take off and landing, with aircraft statistics recorded for each. Aircraft are tracked until they are clear of the runway, either airborne or having turned off onto a taxiway. Statistics and video imagery are recorded for each aircraft movement, detailing the time interval between landings or take offs, the time taken to clear the runway as well as for landing aircraft, details of approach speed, glide slope, point of touch-down and which exit taxiway was used. This information can be analyzed to monitor efficiency and to highlight violations in any safety regulations.

CAMEA—A novel multiplexing analyzer for neutron spectroscopy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Groitl, Felix; Graf, Dieter; Birk, Jonas Okkels; Markó, Márton; Bartkowiak, Marek; Filges, Uwe; Niedermayer, Christof; Rüegg, Christian; Rønnow, Henrik M.

2016-03-01

The analyzer detector system continuous angle multiple energy analysis will be installed on the cold-neutron triple-axis spectrometer RITA-2 at SINQ, PSI. CAMEA is optimized for efficiency in the horizontal scattering plane enabling rapid and detailed mapping of excitations. As a novelty the design employs a series of several sequential upward scattering analyzer arcs. Each arc is set to a different, fixed, final energy and scatters neutrons towards position sensitive detectors. Thus, neutrons with different final energies are recorded simultaneously over a large angular range. In a single data-acquisition many entire constant-energy lines in the horizontal scattering plane are recorded for a quasi-continuous angular coverage of about 60°. With a large combined coverage in energy and momentum, this will result in a very efficient spectrometer, which will be particularly suited for parametric studies under extreme conditions with restrictive sample environments (high field magnets or pressure cells) and for small samples of novel materials. In this paper we outline the concept and the specifications of the instrument currently under construction.

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

Groitl, Felix, E-mail: felix.groitl@psi.ch; Paul Scherrer Institute, Laboratory for Neutron Scattering and Imaging, 5232 Villigen; Graf, Dieter

The analyzer detector system continuous angle multiple energy analysis will be installed on the cold-neutron triple-axis spectrometer RITA-2 at SINQ, PSI. CAMEA is optimized for efficiency in the horizontal scattering plane enabling rapid and detailed mapping of excitations. As a novelty the design employs a series of several sequential upward scattering analyzer arcs. Each arc is set to a different, fixed, final energy and scatters neutrons towards position sensitive detectors. Thus, neutrons with different final energies are recorded simultaneously over a large angular range. In a single data-acquisition many entire constant-energy lines in the horizontal scattering plane are recorded formore » a quasi-continuous angular coverage of about 60°. With a large combined coverage in energy and momentum, this will result in a very efficient spectrometer, which will be particularly suited for parametric studies under extreme conditions with restrictive sample environments (high field magnets or pressure cells) and for small samples of novel materials. In this paper we outline the concept and the specifications of the instrument currently under construction.« less

Comparing usability testing outcomes and functions of six electronic nursing record systems.

PubMed

Cho, Insook; Kim, Eunman; Choi, Woan Heui; Staggers, Nancy

2016-04-01

This study examined the usability of six differing electronic nursing record (ENR) systems on the efficiency, proficiency and available functions for documenting nursing care and subsequently compared the results to nurses' perceived satisfaction from a previous study. The six hospitals had different ENR systems, all with narrative nursing notes in use for more than three years. Stratified by type of nursing unit, 54 staff nurses were digitally recorded during on-site usability testing by employing validated patient care scenarios and think-aloud protocols. The time to complete specific tasks was also measured. Qualitative performance data were converted into scores on efficiency (relevancy), proficiency (accuracy), and a competency index using scoring schemes described by McGuire and Babbott. Six nurse managers and the researchers completed assessments of available ENR functions and examined computerized nursing process components including the linkages among them. For the usability test, participants' mean efficiency score was 94.2% (95% CI, 91.4-96.9%). The mean proficiency was 60.6% (95% CI, 54.3-66.8%), and the mean competency index was 59.5% (95% CI, 52.9-66.0). Efficiency scores were significantly different across ENRs as was the time to complete tasks, ranging from 226.3 to 457.2s (χ(2)=12.3, P=0.031; χ(2)=11.2, P=0.048). No significant differences were seen for proficiency scores. The coverage of the various ENRs' nursing process ranged from 67% to 100%, but only two systems had complete integration of nursing components. Two systems with high efficiency and proficiency scores had much lower usability test scores and perceived user satisfaction along with more complex navigation patterns. In terms of system usability and functions, different levels of sophistication of and interaction performance with ENR systems exist in practice. This suggests that ENRs may have variable impacts on clinical outcomes and care quality. Future studies are needed to explore ENR impact on nursing care quality, efficiency, and safety. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual differences in brain activity during visuo-spatial processing assessed by slow cortical potentials and LORETA.

PubMed

Lamm, Claus; Fischmeister, Florian Ph S; Bauer, Herbert

2005-12-01

Using slow-cortical potentials (SCPs), Vitouch et al. demonstrated that subjects with low ability to solve a complex visuo-spatial imagery task show higher activity in occipital, parietal and frontal cortex during task processing than subjects with high ability. This finding has been interpreted in the sense of the so-called "neural efficiency" hypothesis, which assumes that the central nervous system of individuals with higher intellectual abilities is functioning in a more efficient way than the one of individuals with lower abilities. Using a higher spatial resolution of SCP recordings, and by employing the source localization method of LORETA (low-resolution electromagnetic tomography), we investigated this hypothesis by performing an extended replication of Vitouch et al.'s study. SCPs during processing of a visuo-spatial imagery task were recorded in pre-selected subjects with either high or low abilities in solving the imagery task. Topographic and LORETA analyses of SCPs revealed that a distributed network of extrastriate occipital, superior parietal, temporal, medial frontal and prefrontal areas was active during task solving. This network is well in line with former studies of the functional neuroanatomy of visuo-spatial imagery. Contrary to our expectations, however, the results of Vitouch et al. as well as of other studies supporting the neural efficiency hypothesis could not be confirmed since no difference in brain activity between groups was observed. This inconsistency between studies might be due to differing task processing strategies. While subjects with high abilities in the Vitouch et al. study seemed to use a visuo-perceptual task solving approach, all other subjects relied upon a visuo-motor task processing strategy.

Amorphous silicon research. Final technical progress report, 1 August 1994--28 February 1998

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

Guha, S

1998-05-01

This report describes the status and accomplishments of work performed under this subcontract by United Solar Systems. United Solar researchers explored several new deposition regimes/conditions to investigate their effect on material/device performance. To facilitate optimum ion bombardment during growth, a large parameter space involving chamber pressure, rf power, and hydrogen dilution were investigated. United Solar carried out a series of experiments using discharge modulation at various pulsed-plasma intervals to study the effect of Si-particle incorporation on solar cell performance. Hydrogen dilution during deposition is found to improve both the initial and stable performance of a-Si and a-SiGe alloy cells. Researchersmore » conducted a series of temperature-ramping experiments on samples prepared with high and low hydrogen dilutions to study the effect of hydrogen effusion on solar cell performance. Using an internal photoemission method, the electrical bandgap of a microcrystalline p layer used in high-efficiency solar cells was measured to be 1.6 eV. New measurement techniques were developed to evaluate the interface and bulk contributions of losses to solar cell performance. Researchers replaced hydrogen with deuterium and found deuterated amorphous silicon alloy solar cells exhibit reduced light-induced degradation. The incorporation of a microcrystalline n layer in a multijunction cell is seen to improve cell performance. United Solar achieved a world-record single-junction a-Si alloy stable cell efficiency of 9.2% with an active area of 0.25 cm{sup 2} grown with high hydrogen dilution. They also achieved a world-record triple-junction, stable, active-area cell efficiency of 13.0% with an active area of 0.25 cm{sup 2}.« less

Highly-compliant, microcable neuroelectrodes fabricated from thin-film gold and PDMS.

PubMed

McClain, Maxine A; Clements, Isaac P; Shafer, Richard H; Bellamkonda, Ravi V; LaPlaca, Michelle C; Allen, Mark G

2011-04-01

Bio-electrodes have traditionally been made of materials such as metal and silicon that are much stiffer than the tissue from which they record or stimulate. This difference in mechanical compliance can cause incomplete or ineffective contact with the tissue. The electrode stiffness has also been hypothesized to cause chronic low-grade injury and scar-tissue encapsulation, reducing stimulation and recording efficiency. As an initial step to resolve these issues with electrode performance, we have developed and characterized electrically-functional, low-Young's modulus, microcable-shaped neuroelectrodes and demonstrated electrophysiological recording functionality. The microcable geometry gives the electrodes a similar footprint to traditional wire and microwire neuroelectrodes, while reducing the difference in Young's modulus from nervous tissue by orders of magnitude. The electrodes are composed of PDMS and thin-film gold, affording them a high-level of compliance that is well suited for in vivo applications. The composite Young's modulus of the electrode was experimentally determined to be 1.81 ± 0.01 MPa. By incorporating a high-tear-strength silicone, Sylgard 186, the load at failure was increased by 92%, relative to that of the commonly used Sylgard 184. The microcable electrodes were also electromechanically tested, with measurable conductivity (220 kΩ) at an average 8% strain (n = 2) after the application of 200% strain. Electrophysiological recording is demonstrated by wrapping the electrode around a peripheral nerve, utilizing the compliance and string-like profile of the electrode for effective recording in nerve tissue.

High self-perceived exercise exertion before bedtime is associated with greater objectively assessed sleep efficiency.

PubMed

Brand, Serge; Kalak, Nadeem; Gerber, Markus; Kirov, Roumen; Pühse, Uwe; Holsboer-Trachsler, Edith

2014-09-01

To assess the association between self-perceived exercise exertion before bedtime and objectively measured sleep. Fifty-two regularly exercising young adults (mean age, 19.70 years; 54% females) underwent sleep electroencephalographic recordings 1.5 h after completing moderate to vigorous exercise in the evening. Before sleeping, participants answered questions regarding degree of exertion of the exercise undertaken. Greater self-perceived exertion before bedtime was associated with higher objectively assessed sleep efficiency (r = 0.69, P <0.001); self-perceived exertion explained 48% of the variance in sleep efficiency (R2 = 0.48). Moreover, high self-perceived exercise exertion was associated with more deep sleep, shortened sleep onset time, fewer awakenings after sleep onset, and shorter wake duration after sleep onset. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that objective sleep efficiency was predicted by increased exercise exertion, shortened sleep onset time, increased deep sleep, and decreased light sleep. Against expectations and general recommendations for sleep hygiene, high self-perceived exercise exertion before bedtime was associated with better sleep patterns in a sample of healthy young adults. Further studies should also focus on elderly adults and adults suffering from insomnia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ultrathin high band gap solar cells with improved efficiencies from the world's oldest photovoltaic material.

PubMed

Todorov, Teodor K; Singh, Saurabh; Bishop, Douglas M; Gunawan, Oki; Lee, Yun Seog; Gershon, Talia S; Brew, Kevin W; Antunez, Priscilla D; Haight, Richard

2017-09-25

Selenium was used in the first solid state solar cell in 1883 and gave early insights into the photoelectric effect that inspired Einstein's Nobel Prize work; however, the latest efficiency milestone of 5.0% was more than 30 years ago. The recent surge of interest towards high-band gap absorbers for tandem applications led us to reconsider this attractive 1.95 eV material. Here, we show completely redesigned selenium devices with improved back and front interfaces optimized through combinatorial studies and demonstrate record open-circuit voltage (V OC ) of 970 mV and efficiency of 6.5% under 1 Sun. In addition, Se devices are air-stable, non-toxic, and extremely simple to fabricate. The absorber layer is only 100 nm thick, and can be processed at 200 ˚C, allowing temperature compatibility with most bottom substrates or sub-cells. We analyze device limitations and find significant potential for further improvement making selenium an attractive high-band-gap absorber for multi-junction device applications.Wide band gap semiconductors are important for the development of tandem photovoltaics. By introducing buffer layers at the front and rear side of solar cells based on selenium; Todorov et al., reduce interface recombination losses to achieve photoconversion efficiencies of 6.5%.

Event-related potential evidence for the processing efficiency theory.

PubMed

Murray, N P; Janelle, C M

2007-01-15

The purpose of this study was to examine the central tenets of the processing efficiency theory using psychophysiological measures of attention and effort. Twenty-eight participants were divided equally into either a high or low trait anxiety group. They were then required to perform a simulated driving task while responding to one of four target light-emitting diodes. Cortical activity and dual task performance were recorded under two conditions -- baseline and competition -- with cognitive anxiety being elevated in the competitive session by an instructional set. Although driving speed was similar across sessions, a reduction in P3 amplitude to cue onset in the light detection task occurred for both groups during the competitive session, suggesting a reduction in processing efficiency as participants became more state anxious. Our findings provide more comprehensive and mechanistic evidence for processing efficiency theory, and confirm that increases in cognitive anxiety can result in a reduction of processing efficiency with little change in performance effectiveness.

Dendron engineering in self-host blue iridium dendrimers towards low-voltage-driving and power-efficient nondoped electrophosphorescent devices.

PubMed

Wang, Yang; Wang, Shumeng; Ding, Junqiao; Wang, Lixiang; Jing, Xiabin; Wang, Fosong

2016-12-20

Dendron engineering in self-host blue Ir dendrimers is reported to develop power-efficient nondoped electrophosphorescent devices for the first time, which can be operated at low voltage close to the theoretical limit (E g /e: corresponding to the optical bandgap divided by the electron charge). With increasing dendron's HOMO energy levels from B-POCz to B-CzCz and B-CzTA, effective hole injection is favored to promote exciton formation, resulting in a significant reduction of driving voltage and improvement of power efficiency. Consequently, the nondoped device of B-CzTA achieves extremely low driving voltages of 2.7/3.4/4.4 V and record high power efficiencies of 30.3/24.4/16.3 lm W -1 at 1, 100 and 1000 cd m -2 , respectively. We believe that this work will pave the way to the design of novel power-efficient self-host blue phosphorescent dendrimers used for energy-saving displays and solid-state lightings.

Dual-function beam splitter of a subwavelength fused-silica grating.

PubMed

Feng, Jijun; Zhou, Changhe; Zheng, Jiangjun; Cao, Hongchao; Lv, Peng

2009-05-10

We present the design and fabrication of a novel dual-function subwavelength fused-silica grating that can be used as a polarization-selective beam splitter. For TM polarization, the grating can be used as a two-port beam splitter at a wavelength of 1550 nm with a total diffraction efficiency of 98%. For TE polarization, the grating can function as a high-efficiency grating, and the diffraction efficiency of the -1st order is 95% under Littrow mounting. This dual-function grating design is based on a simplified modal method. By using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis, the optimum grating parameters can be determined. Holographic recording technology and inductively coupled plasma etching are used to manufacture the fused-silica grating. Experimental results are in agreement with the theoretical values.

Effective holographic recordings in the photopolymer nanocomposites with functionalized silica nanoparticle and polyurethane matrix

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Han, Samsook; Lee, Muncheul; Kim, Byung Kyu

2011-11-01

Effective holographic nanocomposites were developed by the surface-functionalized silica nanoparticles and two acrylate monomers/polyurethane (PU) matrix polymer. The functionalization was done with silane compounds carrying long alkyl chain or vinyl group. We evaluated the holographic nanocomposite films by the diffraction efficiency, volume shrinkage, optical loss, and the film morphology. It was found that acrylate monomers/PU system gave higher diffraction efficiency than those of two monomers due to the high refractive index mismatch between the acrylate-rich and PU-rich regions. With the modification of silica particle, up to 35% of particle loading was possible to give a maximum diffraction efficiency of 93.6% for a film of 20 μm in thickness, along with improved refractive index modulation and the sensitivity.

Silver-halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) processing method for pulse holograms recorded on VRP plates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Evstigneeva, Maria K.; Drozdova, Olga V.; Mikhailov, Viktor N.

2002-06-01

One of the most important area of holograph applications is display holography. In case of pulse recording the requirement for vibration stability is easier than compared to CW exposure. At the same time it is widely known that the behavior of sliver-halide holographic materials strongly depends on the exposure duration. In particular the exposure sensitivity drastically decreases under nanosecond pulse duration. One of the effective ways of the diffraction efficiency improvement is SHSG processing method. This processing scheme is based on high modulation of refractive index due to microvoids appearance inside emulsion layer. It should be mentioned that the SHSG method was used earlier only in the cases when the holograms were recorded by use of CW lasers. This work is devoted to the investigation of SHSG method for pulse hologram recording on VRP plates. We used a pulsed YLF:Nd laser with pulse duration of 25 nanoseconds and wavelength of 527 nm. Both transmission and reflection holograms were recorded. The different kinds of bleaching as well as developing solutions were investigated. Our final processing scheme includes the following stages: 1) development in non-tanning solution, 2) rehalogenating bleach, 3) intermediate alcohol drying, 4) uniform second exposure, 5) second development in diluted developer, 6) reverse bleaching, 7) fixing and 8) gradient drying in isopropyl alcohol. Diffraction efficiency of transmission holograms was of about 60 percent and reflection mirror holograms was of about 45 percent. Thus we have demonstrated the SHSG processing scheme for producing effective holograms on VRP plates under pulse exposure.

Record fifth-harmonic-generation efficiency producing 211 nm, joule-level pulses using cesium lithium borate

DOE PAGES

Begishev, I. A.; Bromage, J.; Yang, S. T.; ...

2018-05-16

The fifth harmonic of a pulsed Nd:YLF laser has been realized in a cascade of nonlinear crystals with a record efficiency of 30%. Cesium lithium borate is used in a Type-I configuration for sum-frequency mixing of 1053 nm and 266 nm, producing 211-nm pulses. Flattopped beam profiles and pulse shapes optimize efficiency. Furthermore, energies of the fifth harmonic up to 335 mJ in 2.4 ns pulses were demonstrated.

Record fifth-harmonic-generation efficiency producing 211  nm, joule-level pulses using cesium lithium borate

DOE PAGES

Begishev, I. A.; Bromage, J.; Yang, S. T.; ...

2018-01-01

The fifth harmonic of a pulsed Nd:YLF laser has been realized in a cascade of nonlinear crystals with a record efficiency of 30%. Cesium lithium borate is used in a Type-I configuration for sum-frequency mixing of 1053 nm and 266 nm, producing 211-nm pulses. Flattopped beam profiles and pulse shapes optimize efficiency. Energies of the fifth harmonic up to 335 mJ in 2.4 ns pulses were demonstrated.

Record fifth-harmonic-generation efficiency producing 211 nm, joule-level pulses using cesium lithium borate

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

Begishev, I. A.; Bromage, J.; Yang, S. T.

The fifth harmonic of a pulsed Nd:YLF laser has been realized in a cascade of nonlinear crystals with a record efficiency of 30%. Cesium lithium borate is used in a Type-I configuration for sum-frequency mixing of 1053 nm and 266 nm, producing 211-nm pulses. Flattopped beam profiles and pulse shapes optimize efficiency. Furthermore, energies of the fifth harmonic up to 335 mJ in 2.4 ns pulses were demonstrated.

Efficient entanglement distribution over 200 kilometers.

PubMed

Dynes, J F; Takesue, H; Yuan, Z L; Sharpe, A W; Harada, K; Honjo, T; Kamada, H; Tadanaga, O; Nishida, Y; Asobe, M; Shields, A J

2009-07-06

Here we report the first demonstration of entanglement distribution over a record distance of 200 km which is of sufficient fidelity to realize secure communication. In contrast to previous entanglement distribution schemes, we use detection elements based on practical avalanche photodiodes (APDs) operating in a self-differencing mode. These APDs are low-cost, compact and easy to operate requiring only electrical cooling to achieve high single photon detection efficiency. The self-differencing APDs in combination with a reliable parametric down-conversion source demonstrate that entanglement distribution over ultra-long distances has become both possible and practical. Consequently the outlook is extremely promising for real world entanglement-based communication between distantly separated parties.

High Beginning-of-Life Efficiency p/n InP Solar Cells

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hoffman, Richard W., Jr.; Fatemi, Navid S.; Weizer, Victor G.; Jenkins, Phillip P.; Ringel, Steven A.; Scheiman, David A.; Wilt, David M.; Brinker, David J.

2004-01-01

We have achieved a new record efficiency of 17.6%, (AM0) for a p/n InP homo-epitaxy solar cell. In addition, we have eliminated a previously observed photo-degradation of cell performance, which was due to losses in J(sub sc). Cells soaked in AM0 spectrum at one-sun intensity for an hour showed no significant change in cell performance. We have discovered carrier passivation effects when using Zn as the p-type dopant in the OMVPE growth of InP and have found a method to avoid the unexpected effects which result from typical operation of OMVPE cell growth.

36 CFR 1220.30 - What are an agency's records management responsibilities?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the... program for the economical and efficient management of the records of the agency. (c) Agency records...

Propulsive performance of biologically inspired flapping foils at high Reynolds numbers.

PubMed

Techet, Alexandra H

2008-01-01

Propulsion and maneuvering underwater by flapping foil motion, optimized through years of evolution, is ubiquitous in nature, yet marine propulsors inspired by examples of highly maneuverable marine life or aquatic birds are not widely implemented in engineering. Performance data from flapping foils, moving in a rolling and pitching motion, are presented at high Reynolds numbers, Re=Uc/nu, or O(10(4)), where U is the relative inflow velocity, c is the chord length of the foil, and nu is the kinematic viscosity of the fluid, from water tunnel experiments using a foil actuator module designed after an aquatic penguin or turtle fin. The average thrust coefficients and efficiency measurements are recorded over a range of kinematic flapping amplitudes and frequencies. Results reveal a maximum thrust coefficient of 2.09, and for low values of angle of attack the thrust generally increases with Strouhal number, without much penalty to efficiency. Strouhal number is defined as St=2h(0)f/U, where f is the frequency of flapping, and 2h(0) is the peak-to-peak amplitude of flapping. The thrust and efficiency contour plots also present a useful performance trend where, at low angles of attack, high thrust and efficiency can be gained at sufficiently high Strouhal numbers. Understanding the motion of aquatic penguins and turtle wings and emulating these motions mechanically can yield insight into the hydrodynamics of how these animals swim and also improve performance of biologically inspired propulsive devices.

49 CFR 239.301 - Operational (efficiency) tests.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Operational (efficiency) tests. 239.301 Section... ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PASSENGER TRAIN EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS Operational (Efficiency) Tests; Inspection of Records and Recordkeeping § 239.301 Operational (efficiency) tests. (a) Each...

Silver halide sensitized gelatin derived from BB-640 holographic emulsion.

PubMed

Neipp, C; Pascual, I; Beléndez, A

1999-03-10

Silver halide sensitized gelatin (SHSG) is one of the most interesting techniques for the production of holographic optical elements, achieving relatively high sensitivity of photographic material with a low scattering of dichromated gelatin. Here we present experimental results for SHSG derived from the novel BB-640, a red-sensitive ultra-fine-grain emulsion from Holographic Recording Technologies (Steinau, Germany). The material is characterized before recording and after processing, and information about the thickness, absorption, and refractive-index modulation of the final holograms is obtained. The influence of the developer is analyzed, and diffraction efficiencies as great as 96.2% (after allowing for reflections) with a transmission of 1% and absorption and scatter losses of 2.8% are obtained with AAC developer. Our investigations reveal that high-quality SHSG transmission holograms may be obtained with the new BB-640 plates.

Evaluation of catalytic combustion of actual coal-derived gas

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Blanton, J. C.; Shisler, R. A.

1982-01-01

The combustion characteristics of a Pt-Pl catalytic reactor burning coal-derived, low-Btu gas were investigated. A large matrix of test conditions was explored involving variations in fuel/air inlet temperature and velocity, reactor pressure, and combustor exit temperature. Other data recorded included fuel gas composition, reactor temperatures, and exhaust emissions. Operating experience with the reactor was satisfactory. Combustion efficiencies were quite high (over 95 percent) over most of the operating range. Emissions of NOx were quite high (up to 500 ppm V and greater), owing to the high ammonia content of the fuel gas.

Sedentary behavior and sleep efficiency in active community-dwelling older adults.

PubMed

Madden, Kenneth M; Ashe, Maureen C; Lockhart, Chris; Chase, Jocelyn M

2014-06-01

Previous studies have demonstrated that aerobic exercise interventions have a positive impact on sleep efficiency in older adults. However, little work has been done on the impact of sedentary behavior (sitting, watching television, etc.) on sleep efficiency. 54 Community-dwelling men and women >65 years of age living in Whistler, British Columbia (mean 71.5 years) were enrolled in this cross-sectional observational study. Measures of sleep efficiency as well as average waking sedentary (ST), light (LT), and moderate (MT) activity were recorded with Sensewear accelerometers worn continuously for 7 days. From the univariate regression analysis, there was no association between sleep efficiency and the predictors LT and MT. There was a small negative association between ST and sleep efficiency that remained significant in our multivariate regression model containing alcohol consumption, age and gender as covariates. (standardized β correlation coefficient -0.322, p=0.019). Although significant, this effect was small (an increase in sedentary time of 3 hours per day was associated with an approximately 5% reduction in sleep efficiency). This study found a small significant association between the time spent sedentary and sleep efficiency, despite high levels of activity in this older adult group.

Go Pink! The Effect of Secondary Quanta on Detective Quantum Efficiency

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

Watson, Scott

2017-09-05

Photons are never directly observable. Consequently, we often use photoelectric detectors (eg CCDs) to record associated photoelectrons statistically. Nonetheless, it is an implicit goal of radiographic detector designers to achieve the maximum possible detector efficiency1. In part the desire for ever higher efficiency has been due to the fact that detectors are far less expensive than associated accelerator facilities (e.g. DARHT and PHERMEX2). In addition, higher efficiency detectors often have better spatial resolution. Consequently, the optimization of the detector, not the accelerator, is the system component with the highest leverage per dollar. In recent years, imaging scientists have adopted themore » so-called Detective Quantum Efficiency, or DQE as a summary measure of detector performance. Unfortunately, owing to the complex nature of the trade-space associated with detector components, and the natural desire for simplicity and low(er) cost, there has been a recent trend in Los Alamos to focus only on the zerofrequency efficiency, or DQE(0), when designing such systems. This narrow focus leads to system designs that neglect or even ignore the importance of high-spatial-frequency image components. In this paper we demonstrate the significant negative impact of these design choices on the Noise Power Spectrum1 (NPS) and recommend a more holistic approach to detector design. Here we present a statistical argument which indicates that a very large number (>20) of secondary quanta (typically visible light and/or recorded photo-electrons) are needed to take maximum advantage of the primary quanta (typically x-rays or protons) which are available to form an image. Since secondary particles come in bursts, they are not independent. In short, we want to maximize the pink nature of detector noise at DARHT.« less

Development of a Highly Efficient Hybrid White Organic-Light-Emitting Diode with a Single Emission Layer by Solution Processing.

PubMed

Wu, Jun-Yi; Chen, Show-An

2018-02-07

We use a mixed host, 2,6-bis[3-(carbazol-9-yl)phenyl]pyridine blended with 20 wt % tris(4-carbazoyl-9-ylphenyl)amine, to lower the hole-injection barrier, along with the bipolar and high-photoluminescence-quantum-yield (Φ p = 84%), blue thermally activated delay fluorescence (TADF) material of 9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine-2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine (DMAC-TRZ) as a blue dopant to compose the emission layer for the fabrication of a TADF blue organic-light-emitting diode (BOLED). The device is highly efficient with the following performance parameters: maximum brightness (B max ) = 57586 cd/m 2 , maximum current efficiency (CE max ) = 35.3 cd/A, maximum power efficiency (PE max ) = 21.4 lm/W, maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE max ) = 14.1%, and CIE coordinates (0.18, 0.42). This device has the best performance recorded among the reported solution-processed TADF BOLEDs and has a low efficiency roll-off: at brightness values of 1000 and 5000 cd/m 2 , its CEs are close, being 35.1 and 30.1 cd/A, respectively. Upon further doping of the red phosphor Ir(dpm)PQ 2 (emission peak λ max = 595 nm) into the blue emission layer, we obtained a TADF-phosphor hybrid white organic-light-emitting diode (T-P hybrid WOLED) with high performance: B max = 43594 cd/m 2 , CE max = 28.8 cd/A, PE max = 18.1 lm/W, and CIE coordinates (0.38, 0.44). This B max = 43594 cd/m 2 is better than that of the vacuum-deposited WOLED with a blue TADF emitter, 10000 cd/m 2 . This is also the first report on a T-P hybrid WOLED with a solution-processed emitting layer.

Design of a high-power, high-brightness Nd:YAG solar laser.

PubMed

Liang, Dawei; Almeida, Joana; Garcia, Dário

2014-03-20

A simple high-power, high-brightness Nd:YAG solar laser pumping approach is presented in this paper. The incoming solar radiation is both collected and concentrated by four Fresnel lenses and redirected toward a Nd:YAG laser head by four plane-folding mirrors. A fused-silica secondary concentrator is used to compress the highly concentrated solar radiation to a laser rod. Optimum pumping conditions and laser resonator parameters are found through ZEMAX and LASCAD numerical analysis. Solar laser power of 96 W is numerically calculated, corresponding to the collection efficiency of 24  W/m². A record-high solar laser beam brightness figure of merit of 9.6 W is numerically achieved.

Fiberless multicolor neural optoelectrode for in vivo circuit analysis.

PubMed

Kampasi, Komal; Stark, Eran; Seymour, John; Na, Kyounghwan; Winful, Herbert G; Buzsáki, György; Wise, Kensall D; Yoon, Euisik

2016-08-03

Maximizing the potential of optogenetic approaches in deep brain structures of intact animals requires optical manipulation of neurons at high spatial and temporal resolutions, while simultaneously recording electrical data from those neurons. Here, we present the first fiber-less optoelectrode with a monolithically integrated optical waveguide mixer that can deliver multicolor light at a common waveguide port to achieve multicolor modulation of the same neuronal population in vivo. We demonstrate successful device implementation by achieving efficient coupling between a side-emitting injection laser diode (ILD) and a dielectric optical waveguide mixer via a gradient-index (GRIN) lens. The use of GRIN lenses attains several design features, including high optical coupling and thermal isolation between ILDs and waveguides. We validated the packaged devices in the intact brain of anesthetized mice co-expressing Channelrhodopsin-2 and Archaerhodopsin in pyramidal cells in the hippocampal CA1 region, achieving high quality recording, activation and silencing of the exact same neurons in a given local region. This fully-integrated approach demonstrates the spatial precision and scalability needed to enable independent activation and silencing of the same or different groups of neurons in dense brain regions while simultaneously recording from them, thus considerably advancing the capabilities of currently available optogenetic toolsets.

Novel KCNQ2 channel activators discovered using fluorescence-based and automated patch-clamp-based high-throughput screening techniques

PubMed Central

Yue, Jin-feng; Qiao, Guan-hua; Liu, Ni; Nan, Fa-jun; Gao, Zhao-bing

2016-01-01

Aim: To establish an improved, high-throughput screening techniques for identifying novel KCNQ2 channel activators. Methods: KCNQ2 channels were stably expressed in CHO cells (KCNQ2 cells). Thallium flux assay was used for primary screening, and 384-well automated patch-clamp IonWorks Barracuda was used for hit validation. Two validated activators were characterized using a conventional patch-clamp recording technique. Results: From a collection of 80 000 compounds, the primary screening revealed a total of 565 compounds that potentiated the fluorescence signals in thallium flux assay by more than 150%. When the 565 hits were examined in IonWorks Barracuda, 38 compounds significantly enhanced the outward currents recorded in KCNQ2 cells, and were confirmed as KCNQ2 activators. In the conventional patch-clamp recordings, two validated activators ZG1732 and ZG2083 enhanced KCNQ2 currents with EC50 values of 1.04±0.18 μmol/L and 1.37±0.06 μmol/L, respectively. Conclusion: The combination of thallium flux assay and IonWorks Barracuda assay is an efficient high-throughput screening (HTS) route for discovering KCNQ2 activators. PMID:26725738

Quickly updatable hologram images with high performance photorefractive polymer composites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsutsumi, Naoto; Kinashi, Kenji; Nonomura, Asato; Sakai, Wataru

2012-02-01

We present here quickly updatable hologram images using high performance photorefractive (PR) polymer composite based on poly(N-vinyl carbazole) (PVCz). PVCz is one of the pioneer materials for photoconductive polymer. PVCz/7- DCST/CzEPA/TNF (44/35/20/1 by wt) gives high diffraction efficiency of 68 % at E = 45 V/μm with fast response speed. Response speed of optical diffraction is the key parameter for real-time 3D holographic display. Key parameter for obtaining quickly updatable hologram images is to control the glass transition temperature lower enough to enhance chromophore orientation. Object image of the reflected coin surface recorded with reference beam at 532 nm (green beam) in the PR polymer composite is simultaneously reconstructed using a red probe beam at 642 nm. Instead of using coin object, object image produced by a computer was displayed on a spatial light modulator (SLM) is used as an object for hologram. Reflected object beam from a SLM interfered with reference beam on PR polymer composite to record a hologram and simultaneously reconstructed by a red probe beam. Movie produced in a computer was recorded as a realtime hologram in the PR polymer composite and simultaneously clearly reconstructed with a video rate.

Fast novel nonlinear optical NLC system with local response

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iljin, Andrey; Residori, Stefania; Bortolozzo, Umberto

2017-06-01

Nonlinear optical performance of a novel liquid crystalline (LC) cell has been studied in two-wave mixing experiments revealing high diffraction efficiency within extremely wide intensity range, fast recording times and spatial resolution. Photo-induced modulation of the LC order parameter resulting from trans-cis isomerisation of dye molecules causes consequent changes of refractive indices of the medium (Light-Induced Order Modification, LIOM-mechanism) and is proved to be the main mechanism of optical nonlinearity. The proposed arrangement of the electric-field-stabilised homeotropic alignment hinders the LC director reorientation, prevents appearance of surface effects and ensures the optical cell quality. The LIOM-type nonlinearity, characterised with the substantially local nonlinear optical response, could also be extended for the recording of arbitrary phase profiles as requested in several applications for light-beam manipulation, recording of dynamic volume holograms and photonic lattices.

State-of-the-art Architectures and Technologies of High-Efficiency Solar Cells Based on III-V Heterostructures for Space and Terrestrial Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pakhanov, N. A.; Andreev, V. M.; Shvarts, M. Z.; Pchelyakov, O. P.

2018-03-01

Multi-junction solar cells based on III-V compounds are the most efficient converters of solar energy to electricity and are widely used in space solar arrays and terrestrial photovoltaic modules with sunlight concentrators. All modern high-efficiency III-V solar cells are based on the long-developed triple-junction III-V GaInP/GaInAs/Ge heterostructure and have an almost limiting efficiency for a given architecture — 30 and 41.6% for space and terrestrial concentrated radiations, respectively. Currently, an increase in efficiency is achieved by converting from the 3-junction to the more efficient 4-, 5-, and even 6-junction III-V architectures: growth technologies and methods of post-growth treatment of structures have been developed, new materials with optimal bandgaps have been designed, and crystallographic parameters have been improved. In this review, we consider recent achievements and prospects for the main directions of research and improvement of architectures, technologies, and materials used in laboratories to develop solar cells with the best conversion efficiency: 35.8% for space, 38.8% for terrestrial, and 46.1% for concentrated sunlight. It is supposed that by 2020, the efficiency will approach 40% for direct space radiation and 50% for concentrated terrestrial solar radiation. This review considers the architecture and technologies of solar cells with record-breaking efficiency for terrestrial and space applications. It should be noted that in terrestrial power plants, the use of III-V SCs is economically advantageous in systems with sunlight concentrators.

Highly efficient and bendable organic solar cells using a three-dimensional transparent conducting electrode

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Wei; Bae, Tae-Sung; Park, Yeon Hyun; Kim, Dong Ho; Lee, Sunghun; Min, Guanghui; Lee, Gun-Hwan; Song, Myungkwan; Yun, Jungheum

2014-05-01

A three-dimensional (3D) transparent conducting electrode, consisting of a quasi-periodic array of discrete indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanoparticles superimposed on a highly conducting oxide-metal-oxide multilayer using ITO and silver oxide (AgOx) as oxide and metal layers, respectively, is synthesized on a polymer substrate and used as an anode in highly flexible organic solar cells (OSCs). The 3D electrode is fabricated using vacuum sputtering sequences to achieve self-assembly of distinct ITO nanoparticles on a continuous ITO-AgOx-ITO multilayer at room-temperature without applying conventional high-temperature vapour-liquid-solid growth, solution-based nanoparticle coating, or complicated nanopatterning techniques. Since the 3D electrode enhances the hole-extraction rate in OSCs owing to its high surface area and low effective series resistance for hole transport, OSCs based on this 3D electrode exhibit a power conversion efficiency that is 11-22% higher than that achievable in OSCs by means of conventional planar ITO film-type electrodes. A record high efficiency of 6.74% can be achieved in a bendable OSC fabricated on a poly(ethylene terephthalate) substrate.A three-dimensional (3D) transparent conducting electrode, consisting of a quasi-periodic array of discrete indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanoparticles superimposed on a highly conducting oxide-metal-oxide multilayer using ITO and silver oxide (AgOx) as oxide and metal layers, respectively, is synthesized on a polymer substrate and used as an anode in highly flexible organic solar cells (OSCs). The 3D electrode is fabricated using vacuum sputtering sequences to achieve self-assembly of distinct ITO nanoparticles on a continuous ITO-AgOx-ITO multilayer at room-temperature without applying conventional high-temperature vapour-liquid-solid growth, solution-based nanoparticle coating, or complicated nanopatterning techniques. Since the 3D electrode enhances the hole-extraction rate in OSCs owing to its high surface area and low effective series resistance for hole transport, OSCs based on this 3D electrode exhibit a power conversion efficiency that is 11-22% higher than that achievable in OSCs by means of conventional planar ITO film-type electrodes. A record high efficiency of 6.74% can be achieved in a bendable OSC fabricated on a poly(ethylene terephthalate) substrate. Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: FE-SEM images of Ar plasma-treated PET surfaces, curve deconvolution of XPS Ag 3d5/2 spectra, refractive indices and extinction coefficients of the Ag and AgOx (O/Ag = 10 at%), changes in the specular reflections of the IAOI-NPA and IAI-NPA electrodes for different O/Ag atomic ratios and thicknesses of the AgOx layer, and comparisons between the Jsc values determined from simulated AM 1.5G illumination and IPCE spectra. See DOI: 10.1039/c3nr06755f

Surface and Bulk Effects of K in Highly Efficient Cu1-xKxInSe2 Solar Cells

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

Muzzillo, Christopher; Mansfield, Lorelle M; Ramanathan, Kannan

To advance knowledge of the beneficial effects of K in Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2 (CIGS) photovoltaic (PV) absorbers, recent Cu-K-In-Se phase growth studies have been extended to PV performance. First, the effect of distributing K throughout bulk Cu1-xKxInSe2 absorbers at low K/(K+Cu) compositions (0 = x = 0.30) was studied. Efficiency, open-circuit voltage (VOC), and fill factor (FF) were greatly enhanced for x ~ 0.07, resulting in an officially-measured 15.0%-efficient solar cell, matching the world record CuInSe2 efficiency. The improvements were a result of reduced interface and bulk recombination, relative to CuInSe2 (x ~ 0). However, higher x compositions had reduced efficiency, short-circuitmore » current density (JSC), and FF due to greatly increased interface recombination, relative to the x ~ 0 baseline. Next, the effect of confining K at the absorber/buffer interface at high K/(K+Cu) compositions (0.30 = x = 0.92) was researched. Previous work showed that these surface layer growth conditions produced CuInSe2 with a large phase fraction of KInSe2. After optimization (75 nm surface layer with x ~ 0.41), these KInSe2 surface samples exhibited increased efficiency (officially 14.9%), VOC, and FF as a result of decreased interface recombination. The KInSe2 surfaces had features similar to previous reports for KF post-deposition treatments (PDTs) used in world record CIGS solar cells - taken as indirect evidence that KInSe2 can form during these PDTs. Both the bulk and surface growth processes greatly reduced interface recombination. However, the KInSe2 surface had higher K levels near the surface, greater lifetimes, and increased inversion near the buffer interface, relative to the champion bulk Cu1-xKxInSe2 absorber. These characteristics demonstrate that K may benefit PV performance by different mechanisms at the surface and in the absorber bulk.« less

Development of Deep-tow Autonomous Cable Seismic (ACS) for Seafloor Massive Sulfides (SMSs) Exploration.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asakawa, Eiichi; Murakami, Fumitoshi; Tsukahara, Hitoshi; Saito, Shutaro; Lee, Sangkyun; Tara, Kenji; Kato, Masafumi; Jamali Hondori, Ehsan; Sumi, Tomonori; Kadoshima, Kazuyuki; Kose, Masami

2017-04-01

Within the EEZ of Japan, numerous surveys exploring ocean floor resources have been conducted. The exploration targets are gas hydrates, mineral resources (manganese, cobalt or rare earth) and especially seafloor massive sulphide (SMS) deposits. These resources exist in shallow subsurface areas in deep waters (>1500m). For seismic explorations very high resolution images are required. These cannot be effectively obtained with conventional marine seismic techniques. Therefore we have been developing autonomous seismic survey systems which record the data close to the seafloor to preserve high frequency seismic energy. Very high sampling rate (10kHz) and high accurate synchronization between recording systems and shot time are necessary. We adopted Cs-base atomic clock considering its power consumption. At first, we developed a Vertical Cable Seismic (VCS) system that uses hydrophone arrays moored vertically from the ocean bottom to record close to the target area. This system has been successfully applied to SMS exploration. Specifically it fixed over known sites to assess the amount of reserves with the resultant 3D volume. Based on the success of VCS, we modified the VCS system to use as a more efficient deep-tow seismic survey system. Although there are other examples of deep-tow seismic systems, signal transmission cables present challenges in deep waters. We use our autonomous recording system to avoid these problems. Combining a high frequency piezoelectric source (Sub Bottom Profiler:SBP) that automatically shots with a constant interval, we achieve the high resolution deep-tow seismic without data transmission/power cable to the board. Although the data cannot be monitored in real-time, the towing system becomes very simple. We have carried out survey trial, which showed the systems utility as a high-resolution deep-tow seismic survey system. Furthermore, the frequency ranges of deep-towed source (SBP) and surface towed sparker are 700-2300Hz and 10-200Hz respectively. Therefore we can use these sources simultaneously and distinguish the records of each source in the data processing stage. We have developed new marine seismic survey systems with autonomous recording for the exploration of the ocean floor resources. The applications are vertical cable seismic (VCS) and deep-tow seismic (ACS). These enable us the recording close to the seafloor and give the high resolution results with a simple, cost-effective configuration.

Stop the Bleeding: the Development of a Tool to Streamline NASA Earth Science Metadata Curation Efforts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

le Roux, J.; Baker, A.; Caltagirone, S.; Bugbee, K.

2017-12-01

The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) is a high-performance, high-quality repository for Earth science metadata records, and serves as the primary way to search NASA's growing 17.5 petabytes of Earth science data holdings. Released in 2015, CMR has the capability to support several different metadata standards already being utilized by NASA's combined network of Earth science data providers, or Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). The Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team located at Marshall Space Flight Center is working to improve the quality of records already in CMR with the goal of making records optimal for search and discovery. This effort entails a combination of automated and manual review, where each NASA record in CMR is checked for completeness, accuracy, and consistency. This effort is highly collaborative in nature, requiring communication and transparency of findings amongst NASA personnel, DAACs, the CMR team and other metadata curation teams. Through the evolution of this project it has become apparent that there is a need to document and report findings, as well as track metadata improvements in a more efficient manner. The ARC team has collaborated with Element 84 in order to develop a metadata curation tool to meet these needs. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of this metadata curation tool and its current capabilities. Challenges and future plans for the tool will also be discussed.

Solution-Processed Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Ultralow Driving Voltage and Very High Power Efficiency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shumeng; Wang, Xingdong; Yao, Bing; Zhang, Baohua; Ding, Junqiao; Xie, Zhiyuan; Wang, Lixiang

2015-07-01

To realize power efficient solution-processed phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (s-PhOLEDs), the corresponding high driving voltage issue should be well solved. To solve it, efforts have been devoted to the exploitation of novel host or interfacial materials. However, the issues of charge trapping of phosphor and/or charge injection barrier are still serious, largely restraining the power efficiency (PE) levels. Herein, with the utilization of an exciplex-forming couple 4, 4‧, 4″ -tris[3-methylphenyl(phenyl)amino]triphenylamine (m-MTDATA) and 1,3,5-tri(m-pyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene (TmPyPB), the efficient charge injection and transporting, barrier-free hole-electron recombination for the formation of the interfacial exciplex, and elimination of charge traps of phosphors in the emissive layer are realized simultaneously, resulting in a turn-on voltage of 2.36 V, a record high PE of 97.2 lm W-1, as well as extremely low driving voltage of 2.60 V at 100 cd m-2, 3.03 V at 1000 cd m-2 and 4.08 V at 10000 cd m-2. This report is the first time that the PE performance of s-PhOLED approaches 100 lm W-1 high level, even superior to the corresponding state-of-the-art performance of the same color vacuum-deposited PhOLED (v-PhOLED) counterpart. We anticipate this report opens a new avenue for achieving power efficient monochromatic and white s-PhOLEDs with simple structures.

Solution-Processed Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Ultralow Driving Voltage and Very High Power Efficiency

PubMed Central

Wang, Shumeng; Wang, Xingdong; Yao, Bing; Zhang, Baohua; Ding, Junqiao; Xie, Zhiyuan; Wang, Lixiang

2015-01-01

To realize power efficient solution-processed phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (s-PhOLEDs), the corresponding high driving voltage issue should be well solved. To solve it, efforts have been devoted to the exploitation of novel host or interfacial materials. However, the issues of charge trapping of phosphor and/or charge injection barrier are still serious, largely restraining the power efficiency (PE) levels. Herein, with the utilization of an exciplex-forming couple 4, 4′, 4″ -tris[3-methylphenyl(phenyl)amino]triphenylamine (m-MTDATA) and 1,3,5-tri(m-pyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene (TmPyPB), the efficient charge injection and transporting, barrier-free hole-electron recombination for the formation of the interfacial exciplex, and elimination of charge traps of phosphors in the emissive layer are realized simultaneously, resulting in a turn-on voltage of 2.36 V, a record high PE of 97.2 lm W−1, as well as extremely low driving voltage of 2.60 V at 100 cd m−2, 3.03 V at 1000 cd m−2 and 4.08 V at 10000 cd m−2. This report is the first time that the PE performance of s-PhOLED approaches 100 lm W−1 high level, even superior to the corresponding state-of-the-art performance of the same color vacuum-deposited PhOLED (v-PhOLED) counterpart. We anticipate this report opens a new avenue for achieving power efficient monochromatic and white s-PhOLEDs with simple structures. PMID:26204810

Solution-Processed Phosphorescent Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Ultralow Driving Voltage and Very High Power Efficiency.

PubMed

Wang, Shumeng; Wang, Xingdong; Yao, Bing; Zhang, Baohua; Ding, Junqiao; Xie, Zhiyuan; Wang, Lixiang

2015-07-24

To realize power efficient solution-processed phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (s-PhOLEDs), the corresponding high driving voltage issue should be well solved. To solve it, efforts have been devoted to the exploitation of novel host or interfacial materials. However, the issues of charge trapping of phosphor and/or charge injection barrier are still serious, largely restraining the power efficiency (PE) levels. Herein, with the utilization of an exciplex-forming couple 4, 4', 4″-tris[3-methylphenyl(phenyl)amino]triphenylamine (m-MTDATA) and 1,3,5-tri(m-pyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene (TmPyPB), the efficient charge injection and transporting, barrier-free hole-electron recombination for the formation of the interfacial exciplex, and elimination of charge traps of phosphors in the emissive layer are realized simultaneously, resulting in a turn-on voltage of 2.36 V, a record high PE of 97.2 lm W(-1), as well as extremely low driving voltage of 2.60 V at 100 cd m(-2), 3.03 V at 1000 cd m(-2) and 4.08 V at 10000 cd m(-2). This report is the first time that the PE performance of s-PhOLED approaches 100 lm W(-1) high level, even superior to the corresponding state-of-the-art performance of the same color vacuum-deposited PhOLED (v-PhOLED) counterpart. We anticipate this report opens a new avenue for achieving power efficient monochromatic and white s-PhOLEDs with simple structures.

The Electronic McPhail Trap

PubMed Central

Potamitis, Ilyas; Rigakis, Iraklis; Fysarakis, Konstantinos

2014-01-01

Certain insects affect cultivations in a detrimental way. A notable case is the olive fruit fly (Bactrocera oleae (Rossi)), that in Europe alone causes billions of euros in crop-loss/per year. Pests can be controlled with aerial and ground bait pesticide sprays, the efficiency of which depends on knowing the time and location of insect infestations as early as possible. The inspection of traps is currently carried out manually. Automatic monitoring traps can enhance efficient monitoring of flying pests by identifying and counting targeted pests as they enter the trap. This work deals with the hardware setup of an insect trap with an embedded optoelectronic sensor that automatically records insects as they fly in the trap. The sensor responsible for detecting the insect is an array of phototransistors receiving light from an infrared LED. The wing-beat recording is based on the interruption of the emitted light due to the partial occlusion from insect's wings as they fly in the trap. We show that the recordings are of high quality paving the way for automatic recognition and transmission of insect detections from the field to a smartphone. This work emphasizes the hardware implementation of the sensor and the detection/counting module giving all necessary implementation details needed to construct it. PMID:25429412

All-Nonvacuum-Processed CIGS Solar Cells Using Scalable Ag NWs/AZO-Based Transparent Electrodes.

PubMed

Wang, Mingqing; Choy, Kwang-Leong

2016-07-06

With record cell efficiency of 21.7%, CIGS solar cells have demonstrated to be a very promising photovoltaic (PV) technology. However, their market penetration has been limited due to the inherent high cost of the cells. In this work, to lower the cost of CIGS solar cells, all nonvacuum-processed CIGS solar cells were designed and developed. CIGS absorber was prepared by the annealing of electrodeposited metallic layers in a chalcogen atmosphere. Nonvacuum-deposited Ag nanowires (NWs)/AZO transparent electrodes (TEs) with good transmittance (92.0% at 550 nm) and high conductivity (sheet resistance of 20 Ω/□) were used to replace the vacuum-sputtered window layer. Additional thermal treatment after device preparation was conducted at 220 °C for a few of minutes to improve both the value and the uniformity of the efficiency of CIGS pixel cell on 5 × 5 cm substrate. The best performance of the all-nonvacuum-fabricated CIGS solar cells showed an efficiency of 14.05% with Jsc of 34.82 mA/cm(2), Voc of 0.58 V, and FF of 69.60%, respectively, which is comparable with the efficiency of 14.45% of a reference cell using a sputtered window layer.

A Diabetes Dashboard and Physician Efficiency and Accuracy in Accessing Data Needed for High-Quality Diabetes Care

PubMed Central

Koopman, Richelle J.; Kochendorfer, Karl M.; Moore, Joi L.; Mehr, David R.; Wakefield, Douglas S.; Yadamsuren, Borchuluun; Coberly, Jared S.; Kruse, Robin L.; Wakefield, Bonnie J.; Belden, Jeffery L.

2011-01-01

PURPOSE We compared use of a new diabetes dashboard screen with use of a conventional approach of viewing multiple electronic health record (EHR) screens to find data needed for ambulatory diabetes care. METHODS We performed a usability study, including a quantitative time study and qualitative analysis of information-seeking behaviors. While being recorded with Morae Recorder software and “think-aloud” interview methods, 10 primary care physicians first searched their EHR for 10 diabetes data elements using a conventional approach for a simulated patient, and then using a new diabetes dashboard for another. We measured time, number of mouse clicks, and accuracy. Two coders analyzed think-aloud and interview data using grounded theory methodology. RESULTS The mean time needed to find all data elements was 5.5 minutes using the conventional approach vs 1.3 minutes using the diabetes dashboard (P <.001). Physicians correctly identified 94% of the data requested using the conventional method, vs 100% with the dashboard (P <.01). The mean number of mouse clicks was 60 for conventional searching vs 3 clicks with the diabetes dashboard (P <.001). A common theme was that in everyday practice, if physicians had to spend too much time searching for data, they would either continue without it or order a test again. CONCLUSIONS Using a patient-specific diabetes dashboard improves both the efficiency and accuracy of acquiring data needed for high-quality diabetes care. Usability analysis tools can provide important insights into the value of optimizing physician use of health information technologies. PMID:21911758

A nanodiamond-tapered fiber system with high single-mode coupling efficiency.

PubMed

Schröder, Tim; Fujiwara, Masazumi; Noda, Tetsuya; Zhao, Hong-Quan; Benson, Oliver; Takeuchi, Shigeki

2012-05-07

We present a fiber-coupled diamond-based single photon system. Single nanodiamonds containing nitrogen vacancy defect centers are deposited on a tapered fiber of 273 nanometer in diameter providing a record-high number of 689,000 single photons per second from a defect center in a single-mode fiber. The system can be cooled to cryogenic temperatures and coupled evanescently to other nanophotonic structures, such as microresonators. The system is suitable for integrated quantum transmission experiments, two-photon interference, quantum-random-number generation and nano-magnetometry.

Phase recording for formation of holographic optical elements on silver-halide photographic emulsions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ganzherli, Nina M.; Gulyaev, Sergey N.; Maurer, Irina A.; Chernykh, Dmitrii F.

2009-05-01

Holographic fabrication methods of regular and nonregular relief-phase structures on silver-halide photographic emulsions are considered. Methods of gelatin photodestruction under short-wave ultra-violet radiation and chemical hardening with the help of dichromated solutions were used as a technique for surface relief formation. The developed techniques permitted us to study specimens of holographic diffusers and microlens rasters with small absorption and high light efficiency.

NREL's III-V Team Demonstrates Record Efficiency Dual-Junction Solar Cell |

Science.gov Websites

-junction solar cell, surpassing the previous mark by a full percentage. Under one sun of illumination, the . Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a record efficiency for a dual lattice-mismatched, 1.1-eV GaInAs bottom cell, grown monolithically by atmospheric pressure metal-organic

Enabling Efficient Intelligence Analysis in Degraded Environments

DTIC Science & Technology

2013-06-01

Magnets Grid widget for multidimensional information exploration ; and a record browser of Visual Summary Cards widget for fast visual identification of...evolution analysis; a Magnets Grid widget for multi- dimensional information exploration ; and a record browser of Visual Summary Cards widget for fast...attention and inattentional blindness. It also explores and develops various techniques to represent information in a salient way and provide efficient

Bioelectronic neural pixel: Chemical stimulation and electrical sensing at the same site

PubMed Central

Jonsson, Amanda; Inal, Sahika; Uguz, Ilke; Williamson, Adam J.; Kergoat, Loïg; Rivnay, Jonathan; Khodagholy, Dion; Berggren, Magnus; Bernard, Christophe; Malliaras, George G.

2016-01-01

Local control of neuronal activity is central to many therapeutic strategies aiming to treat neurological disorders. Arguably, the best solution would make use of endogenous highly localized and specialized regulatory mechanisms of neuronal activity, and an ideal therapeutic technology should sense activity and deliver endogenous molecules at the same site for the most efficient feedback regulation. Here, we address this challenge with an organic electronic multifunctional device that is capable of chemical stimulation and electrical sensing at the same site, at the single-cell scale. Conducting polymer electrodes recorded epileptiform discharges induced in mouse hippocampal preparation. The inhibitory neurotransmitter, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), was then actively delivered through the recording electrodes via organic electronic ion pump technology. GABA delivery stopped epileptiform activity, recorded simultaneously and colocally. This multifunctional “neural pixel” creates a range of opportunities, including implantable therapeutic devices with automated feedback, where locally recorded signals regulate local release of specific therapeutic agents. PMID:27506784

Two-step recording of visible holographic elements in photo-thermo-refractive glass

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kompan, Fedor; Divliansky, Ivan; Smirnov, Vadim; Glebov, Leonid B.

2018-02-01

Photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass) is a photosensitive silicate glass doped with Ce3+ where a permanent refractive index decrement is produced by UV exposure followed by thermal development. This material provides high efficiency and low losses combined with high thermal, ionizing and laser tolerance of holographic optical elements (HOEs). This is why PTR glass is widely used for holographic recording of volume Bragg gratings (trivial holograms produced by interference of two collimated beams) and phase plates operating in near UV, visible, and near IR spectral regions. It would be very beneficial though to record also complex HOEs (lenses and curved mirrors) for those spectral regions. However, PTR is not sensitive to visible or IR radiation and therefore does not allow the recording of nonplanar holograms for these regions. The present paper describes a technique for recording complex HOEs using visible radiation in Ce3+ doped PTR glass. This two-step technique includes a blank exposure to UV radiation followed by structured exposure to a visible beam. It was found that the second exposure decreases the refractive index decrement induced in the UV exposed glass after thermal development. This means that areas, which underwent double exposure, have refractive index lower than in unexposed areas but higher than in just UV exposed ones. Thus, this technique provides refractive index increment after visible irradiation of UV exposed PTR glass. Using this approach, complex holograms (curved mirrors and lenses) operating in the visible region, were recorded in PTR glass.

Studies on dhal recovery from pre-treated pigeon pea ( Cajanus cajan L .) cultivars.

PubMed

Hiregoudar, Sharanagouda; Sandeep, T N; Nidoni, Udaykumar; Shrestha, Bijay; Meda, Venkatesh

2014-05-01

Dhal recovery from three popular varieties of North Karnataka was studied using CFTRI mini dhal mill with five different treatments at three different levels. It was observed that Gulyal variety treated with mustard oil recorded maximum hulling efficiency (79.4%) and finished product (68.8%) when compared to a Maruti and Asha variety. However, acetic acid treatment recorded higher hulling efficiency (76.5%) for Maruti followed by Asha (56.9%). The plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) treatment yielded minimum hulling efficiency and finished product recovery for all the varieties.

Construction records study : final report.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1975-09-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of change and revision necessary for efficient record keeping and to revise the record keeping process in the field, eliminating irrelevant entries. This study attempted to standardize field recor...

Electric charging influence in holograms of total internal reflection, recorded in a very thin chalcogenide film

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vlaeva, I.; Petkov, K.; Tasseva, J.; Todorov, R.; Yovcheva, T.; Sainov, S.

2010-12-01

We report the results of electric field influence on holographic recording in very thin chalcogenide glass films. The total internal reflection prism recording technique (Stetson's scheme) is applied for holographic recording. The main advantage of this scheme is the possibility of holographic recording in micro- and nanometer thick photosensitive materials. In the present work, 30 nm, 50 nm and 1.0 µm thick films are used. In the 1.0 µm thick film two slanted gratings are simultaneously recorded. In this recording geometry only one reconstructed beam is observed. The corona charging influence on the diffraction efficiency of the recorded gratings is investigated. A negative voltage of 5 kV is applied to the corona electrode (needle) prior to the holographic recording. The observed diffraction efficiency of charged samples is always higher in comparison with uncharged samples. The reconstructed beam intensity is monitored with a red (635 nm) semiconductor laser. The possible reason is an additional refractive index modulation due to the increase in polarization, caused by the electric charging.

Open source cardiology electronic health record development for DIGICARDIAC implementation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dugarte, Nelson; Medina, Rubén.; Huiracocha, Lourdes; Rojas, Rubén.

2015-12-01

This article presents the development of a Cardiology Electronic Health Record (CEHR) system. Software consists of a structured algorithm designed under Health Level-7 (HL7) international standards. Novelty of the system is the integration of high resolution ECG (HRECG) signal acquisition and processing tools, patient information management tools and telecardiology tools. Acquisition tools are for management and control of the DIGICARDIAC electrocardiograph functions. Processing tools allow management of HRECG signal analysis searching for indicative patterns of cardiovascular pathologies. Telecardiology tools incorporation allows system communication with other health care centers decreasing access time to the patient information. CEHR system was completely developed using open source software. Preliminary results of process validation showed the system efficiency.

Highly Efficient Compression Algorithms for Multichannel EEG.

PubMed

Shaw, Laxmi; Rahman, Daleef; Routray, Aurobinda

2018-05-01

The difficulty associated with processing and understanding the high dimensionality of electroencephalogram (EEG) data requires developing efficient and robust compression algorithms. In this paper, different lossless compression techniques of single and multichannel EEG data, including Huffman coding, arithmetic coding, Markov predictor, linear predictor, context-based error modeling, multivariate autoregression (MVAR), and a low complexity bivariate model have been examined and their performances have been compared. Furthermore, a high compression algorithm named general MVAR and a modified context-based error modeling for multichannel EEG have been proposed. The resulting compression algorithm produces a higher relative compression ratio of 70.64% on average compared with the existing methods, and in some cases, it goes up to 83.06%. The proposed methods are designed to compress a large amount of multichannel EEG data efficiently so that the data storage and transmission bandwidth can be effectively used. These methods have been validated using several experimental multichannel EEG recordings of different subjects and publicly available standard databases. The satisfactory parametric measures of these methods, namely percent-root-mean square distortion, peak signal-to-noise ratio, root-mean-square error, and cross correlation, show their superiority over the state-of-the-art compression methods.

Multiple-try differential evolution adaptive Metropolis for efficient solution of highly parameterized models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Eric, L.; Vrugt, J. A.

2010-12-01

Spatially distributed hydrologic models potentially contain hundreds of parameters that need to be derived by calibration against a historical record of input-output data. The quality of this calibration strongly determines the predictive capability of the model and thus its usefulness for science-based decision making and forecasting. Unfortunately, high-dimensional optimization problems are typically difficult to solve. Here we present our recent developments to the Differential Evolution Adaptive Metropolis (DREAM) algorithm (Vrugt et al., 2009) to warrant efficient solution of high-dimensional parameter estimation problems. The algorithm samples from an archive of past states (Ter Braak and Vrugt, 2008), and uses multiple-try Metropolis sampling (Liu et al., 2000) to decrease the required burn-in time for each individual chain and increase efficiency of posterior sampling. This approach is hereafter referred to as MT-DREAM. We present results for 2 synthetic mathematical case studies, and 2 real-world examples involving from 10 to 240 parameters. Results for those cases show that our multiple-try sampler, MT-DREAM, can consistently find better solutions than other Bayesian MCMC methods. Moreover, MT-DREAM is admirably suited to be implemented and ran on a parallel machine and is therefore a powerful method for posterior inference.

Spying on small wildlife sounds using affordable collar-mounted miniature microphones: an innovative method to record individual daylong vocalisations in chipmunks.

PubMed

Couchoux, Charline; Aubert, Maxime; Garant, Dany; Réale, Denis

2015-05-06

Technological advances can greatly benefit the scientific community by making new areas of research accessible. The study of animal vocal communication, in particular, can gain new insights and knowledge from technological improvements in recording equipment. Our comprehension of the acoustic signals emitted by animals would be greatly improved if we could continuously track the daily natural emissions of individuals in the wild, especially in the context of integrating individual variation into evolutionary ecology research questions. We show here how this can be accomplished using an operational tiny audio recorder that can easily be fitted as an on-board acoustic data-logger on small free-ranging animals. The high-quality 24 h acoustic recording logged on the spy microphone device allowed us to very efficiently collect daylong chipmunk vocalisations, giving us much more detailed data than the classical use of a directional microphone over an entire field season. The recordings also allowed us to monitor individual activity patterns and record incredibly long resting heart rates, and to identify self-scratching events and even whining from pre-emerging pups in their maternal burrow.

Spying on small wildlife sounds using affordable collar-mounted miniature microphones: an innovative method to record individual daylong vocalisations in chipmunks

PubMed Central

Couchoux, Charline; Aubert, Maxime; Garant, Dany; Réale, Denis

2015-01-01

Technological advances can greatly benefit the scientific community by making new areas of research accessible. The study of animal vocal communication, in particular, can gain new insights and knowledge from technological improvements in recording equipment. Our comprehension of the acoustic signals emitted by animals would be greatly improved if we could continuously track the daily natural emissions of individuals in the wild, especially in the context of integrating individual variation into evolutionary ecology research questions. We show here how this can be accomplished using an operational tiny audio recorder that can easily be fitted as an on-board acoustic data-logger on small free-ranging animals. The high-quality 24 h acoustic recording logged on the spy microphone device allowed us to very efficiently collect daylong chipmunk vocalisations, giving us much more detailed data than the classical use of a directional microphone over an entire field season. The recordings also allowed us to monitor individual activity patterns and record incredibly long resting heart rates, and to identify self-scratching events and even whining from pre-emerging pups in their maternal burrow. PMID:25944509

Manuel Johnson's Tide Record at St. Helena

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Cartwright, David E.; Woodworth, Philip L.; Ray, Richard D.

2017-01-01

The astronomer Manuel Johnson, a future President of the Royal Astronomical Society, recorded the ocean tides with his own instrument at St. Helena in 1826-1827, while waiting for an observatory to be built. It is an important record in the history of tidal science, as the only previous measurements at St. Helena had been those made by Nevil Maskelyne in 1761, and there were to be no other systematic measurements until the late 20th century. Johnsons tide gauge, of a curious but unique design, recorded efficiently the height of every tidal high and low water for at least 13 months, in spite of requiring frequent re-setting. These heights compare very reasonably with a modern tidal synthesis based on present-day tide gauge measurements from the same site.Johnsons method of timing is unknown, but his calculations of lunar phases suggest that his tidal measurements were recorded in Local Apparent Time. Unfortunately, the recorded times are found to be seriously and variably lagged by many minutes. Johnsons data have never been fully published, but his manuscripts have been safely archived and are available for inspection at Cambridge University. His data have been converted to computerfiles as part of this study for the benefit of future researchers.

Stimulated low-frequency Raman scattering in plant virus suspensions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Donchenko, E. K.; Karpova, O. V.; Kudryavtseva, A. D.; Pershin, S. M.; Savichev, V. I.; Strokov, M. A.; Tcherniega, N. V.; Zemskov, K. I.

2017-11-01

The study deals with laser pulse interaction with plant viruses: we investigated tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) and two types of potato viruses (PVX and PVA) in Tris-HCl pH7.5 buffer and in water. We used 20 ns ruby laser pulses for excitation. We employed Fabry-Pérot interferometers to record spectra of the light passing through the sample and reflected from it. For TMV and PVX in Tris-HCl pH7.5 buffer, same as for PVA in water, we observed additional spectral lines corresponding to the stimulated low-frequency Raman scattering (SLFRS). We believe we were the first to measure SLFRS frequency shifts, conversion efficiency and threshold. High conversion efficiency of the scattered light is evidence of laser pulses efficiently exciting gigahertz vibrations in viruses. SLFRS can be used to identify and affect biological nanoparticles.

Achieving high performance polymer optoelectronic devices for high efficiency, long lifetime and low fabrication cost

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Jinsong

This thesis described three types of organic optoelectronic devices: polymer light emitting diodes (PLED), polymer photovoltaic solar cell, and organic photo detector. The research in this work focuses improving their performance including device efficiency, operation lifetime simplifying fabrication process. With further understanding in PLED device physics, we come up new device operation model and improved device architecture design. This new method is closely related to understanding of the science and physics at organic/metal oxide and metal oxide/metal interface. In our new device design, both material and interface are considered in order to confine and balance all injected carriers, which has been demonstrated very be successful in increasing device efficiency. We created two world records in device efficiency: 18 lm/W for white emission fluorescence PLED, 22 lm/W for red emission phosphorescence PLED. Slow solvent drying process has been demonstrated to significantly increase device efficiency in poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl C 61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) mixture polymer solar cell. From the mobility study by time of flight, the increase of efficiency can be well correlated to the improved carrier transport property due to P3HT crystallization during slow solvent drying. And it is found that, similar to PLED, balanced carrier mobility is essential in high efficient polymer solar cell. There is also a revolution in our device fabrication method. A unique device fabrication method is presented by an electronic glue based lamination process combined with interface modification as a one-step polymer solar cell fabrication process. It can completely skip the thermal evaporation process, and benefit device lifetime by several merits: no air reactive. The device obtained is metal free, semi-transparent, flexible, self-encapsulated, and comparable efficiency with that by regular method. We found the photomultiplication (PM) phenomenon in C60 based device accidentally. The high PM factor makes it good candidate for photo detector. The high gain was assigned to the trapped-charge induced enhanced-injection at C60/PEDOT:PSS interface.

An Innovative Mobile Health System to Improve and Standardize Antenatal Care Among Underserved Communities: A Feasibility Study in an Italian Hosting Center for Asylum Seekers.

PubMed

Borsari, Lucia; Stancanelli, Giovanna; Guarenti, Laura; Grandi, Teresa; Leotta, Serena; Barcellini, Lucia; Borella, Paola; Benski, Anne Caroline

2017-11-16

Innovative migrant-friendly tools are needed to assist health personnel manage the high number of pregnancies within reception centers. This study tests functionality and acceptability of a new mHealth system in providing antenatal care amongst migrants. The study, carried out between 2014 and 2016, involved 150 pregnant women residing in the largest European migrant reception center in Sicily. A ticket tracking system assessed the system's functionality and a questionnaire assessed women's acceptability. The system facilitated the collection of clinical data, enabling the creation of electronic patient records and identifying 10% of pregnancies as high-risk. The application's digital format increased health providers' adherence to antenatal-care recommendations, while the graphic interface facilitated women's engagement and retention of the health education modules. The study recorded a 91.9% patient satisfaction rate. The system was efficient in providing comprehensive and high-quality antenatal care amongst migrants, facilitating the continuity of care for a population undergoing frequent relocations.

The effects of working memory training on functional brain network efficiency.

PubMed

Langer, Nicolas; von Bastian, Claudia C; Wirz, Helen; Oberauer, Klaus; Jäncke, Lutz

2013-10-01

The human brain is a highly interconnected network. Recent studies have shown that the functional and anatomical features of this network are organized in an efficient small-world manner that confers high efficiency of information processing at relatively low connection cost. However, it has been unclear how the architecture of functional brain networks is related to performance in working memory (WM) tasks and if these networks can be modified by WM training. Therefore, we conducted a double-blind training study enrolling 66 young adults. Half of the subjects practiced three WM tasks and were compared to an active control group practicing three tasks with low WM demand. High-density resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded before and after training to analyze graph-theoretical functional network characteristics at an intracortical level. WM performance was uniquely correlated with power in the theta frequency, and theta power was increased by WM training. Moreover, the better a person's WM performance, the more their network exhibited small-world topology. WM training shifted network characteristics in the direction of high performers, showing increased small-worldness within a distributed fronto-parietal network. Taken together, this is the first longitudinal study that provides evidence for the plasticity of the functional brain network underlying WM. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How many records should be used in ASCE/SEI-7 ground motion scaling procedure?

USGS Publications Warehouse

Reyes, Juan C.; Kalkan, Erol

2012-01-01

U.S. national building codes refer to the ASCE/SEI-7 provisions for selecting and scaling ground motions for use in nonlinear response history analysis of structures. Because the limiting values for the number of records in the ASCE/SEI-7 are based on engineering experience, this study examines the required number of records statistically, such that the scaled records provide accurate, efficient, and consistent estimates of “true” structural responses. Based on elastic–perfectly plastic and bilinear single-degree-of-freedom systems, the ASCE/SEI-7 scaling procedure is applied to 480 sets of ground motions; the number of records in these sets varies from three to ten. As compared to benchmark responses, it is demonstrated that the ASCE/SEI-7 scaling procedure is conservative if fewer than seven ground motions are employed. Utilizing seven or more randomly selected records provides more accurate estimate of the responses. Selecting records based on their spectral shape and design spectral acceleration increases the accuracy and efficiency of the procedure.

Improving production efficiency in the presence of genotype by environment interactions in pig genomic selection breeding programmes.

PubMed

Nirea, K G; Meuwissen, T H E

2017-04-01

We simulated a genomic selection pig breeding schemes containing nucleus and production herds to improve feed efficiency of production pigs that were cross-breed. Elite nucleus herds had access to high-quality feed, and production herds were fed low-quality feed. Feed efficiency in the nucleus herds had a heritability of 0.3 and 0.25 in the production herds. It was assumed the genetic relationships between feed efficiency in the nucleus and production were low (r g  = 0.2), medium (r g  = 0.5) and high (r g  = 0.8). In our alternative breeding schemes, different proportion of production animals were recorded for feed efficiency and genotyped with high-density panel of genetic markers. Genomic breeding value of the selection candidates for feed efficiency was estimated based on three different approaches. In one approach, genomic breeding value was estimated including nucleus animals in the reference population. In the second approach, the reference population was containing a mixture of nucleus and production animals. In the third approach, the reference population was only consisting of production herds. Using a mixture reference population, we generated 40-115% more genetic gain in the production environment as compared to only using nucleus reference population that were fed high-quality feed sources when the production animals were offspring of the nucleus animals. When the production animals were grand offspring of the nucleus animals, 43-104% more genetic gain was generated. Similarly, a higher genetic gain generated in the production environment when mixed reference population was used as compared to only using production animals. This was up to 19 and 14% when the production animals were offspring and grand offspring of nucleus animals, respectively. Therefore, in genomic selection pig breeding programmes, feed efficiency traits could be improved by properly designing the reference population. © 2016 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Mechanical, Thermal, and Electrical Energy Storage in a Single Working Body: Electrification and Thermal Effects upon Pressure-Induced Water Intrusion-Extrusion in Nanoporous Solids.

PubMed

Grosu, Yaroslav; Mierzwa, Michał; Eroshenko, Valentine A; Pawlus, Sebastian; Chorażewski, Mirosław; Nedelec, Jean-Marie; Grolier, Jean-Pierre E

2017-03-01

This paper presents the first experimental evidence of pronounced electrification effects upon reversible cycle of forced water intrusion-extrusion in nanoporous hydrophobic materials. Recorded generation of electricity combined with high-pressure calorimetric measurements improves the energy balance of {nanoporous solid + nonwetting liquid} systems by compensating mechanical and thermal energy hysteresis in the cycle. Revealed phenomena provide a novel way of "mechanical to electrical" and/or "thermal to electrical" energy transformation with unprecedented efficiency and additionally open a perspective to increase the efficiency of numerous energy applications based on such systems taking advantage of electricity generation during operational cycle.

Solar thermophotovoltaic system using nanostructures.

PubMed

Ungaro, Craig; Gray, Stephen K; Gupta, Mool C

2015-09-21

This paper presents results on a highly efficient experimental solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) system using simulated solar energy. An overall power conversion efficiency of 6.2% was recorded under solar simulation. This was matched with a thermodynamic model, and the losses within the system, as well as a path forward to mitigate these losses, have been investigated. The system consists of a planar, tungsten absorbing/emitting structure with an anti-reflection layer coated laser-microtextured absorbing surface and single-layer dielectric coated emitting surface. A GaSb PV cell was used to capture the emitted radiation and convert it into electrical energy. This simple structure is both easy to fabricate and temperature stable, and contains no moving parts or heat exchange fluids.

Rubidium distribution at atomic scale in high efficient Cu(In,Ga)Se2 thin-film solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Vilalta-Clemente, Arantxa; Raghuwanshi, Mohit; Duguay, Sébastien; Castro, Celia; Cadel, Emmanuel; Pareige, Philippe; Jackson, Philip; Wuerz, Roland; Hariskos, Dimitrios; Witte, Wolfram

2018-03-01

The introduction of a rubidium fluoride post deposition treatment (RbF-PDT) for Cu(In,Ga)Se2 (CIGS) absorber layers has led to a record efficiency up to 22.6% for thin-film solar cell technology. In the present work, high efficiency CIGS samples with RbF-PDT have been investigated by atom probe tomography (APT) to reveal the atomic distribution of all alkali elements present in CIGS layers and compared with non-treated samples. A Scanning Electron Microscopy Dual beam station (Focused Ion Beam-Gas Injection System) as well as Transmission Kikuchi diffraction is used for atom probe sample preparation and localization of the grain boundaries (GBs) in the area of interest. The analysis of the 3D atomic scale APT reconstructions of CIGS samples with RbF-PDT shows that inside grains, Rb is under the detection limit, but the Na concentration is enhanced as compared to the reference sample without Rb. At the GBs, a high concentration of Rb reaching 1.5 at. % was found, and Na and K (diffusing from the glass substrate) are also segregated at GBs but at lower concentrations as compared to Rb. The intentional introduction of Rb leads to significant changes in the chemical composition of CIGS matrix and at GBs, which might contribute to improve device efficiency.

A national survey assessing the number of records allowed open in electronic health records at hospitals and ambulatory sites.

PubMed

Adelman, Jason S; Berger, Matthew A; Rai, Amisha; Galanter, William L; Lambert, Bruce L; Schiff, Gordon D; Vawdrey, David K; Green, Robert A; Salmasian, Hojjat; Koppel, Ross; Schechter, Clyde B; Applebaum, Jo R; Southern, William N

2017-09-01

To reduce the risk of wrong-patient errors, safety experts recommend limiting the number of patient records providers can open at once in electronic health records (EHRs). However, it is unknown whether health care organizations follow this recommendation or what rationales drive their decisions. To address this gap, we conducted an electronic survey via 2 national listservs. Among 167 inpatient and outpatient study facilities using EHR systems designed to open multiple records at once, 44.3% were configured to allow ≥3 records open at once (unrestricted), 38.3% allowed only 1 record open (restricted), and 17.4% allowed 2 records open (hedged). Decision-making centered on efforts to balance safety and efficiency, but there was disagreement among organizations about how to achieve that balance. Results demonstrate no consensus on the number of records to be allowed open at once in EHRs. Rigorous studies are needed to determine the optimal number of records that balances safety and efficiency. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Improving Efficiency of III-N Quantum Well Based Optoelectronic Devices through Active Region Design and Growth Techniques

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Young, Nathan Garrett

The III-Nitride materials system provides a fascinating platform for developing optoelectronic devices, such as solar cells and LEDs, which have the power to dramatically improve the efficiency of our power consumption and reduce our environmental footprint. Finding ways to make these devices more efficient is key to driving their widespread adoption. This dissertation focuses on the intersection of challenges in physics and metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) growth at the nanoscale when designing for device efficiency. In order to create the best possible InGaN solar cell, a multiple quantum well (MQW) active region design had to be employed to prevent strain relaxation related degradation. There were two competing challenges for MQW active region design and growth. First, it was observed current collection efficiency improved with thinner quantum barriers, which promoted efficient tunneling transport instead of inefficiency thermally activated escape. Second, GaN barriers could planarize surface defects in the MQW region under the right conditions and when grown thick enough. A two-step growth method for thinner quantum barriers was developed that simultaneously allowed for tunneling transport and planarized V-defects. Barriers as thin as 4 nm were employed in MQW active regions with up to 30 periods without structural or electrical degradation, leading to record performance. Application of dielectric optical coatings greatly reduced surface reflections and allowed a second pass of light through the device. This both demonstrated the feasibility of multijunction solar integration and boosted conversion efficiency to record levels for an InGaN solar cell. III-N LEDs have achieved state-of-the-art performance for decades, but still suffer from the phenomena of efficiency droop, where device efficiency drops dramatically at high power operation. Droop is exacerbated by the polarization-induced electric fields in InGaN quantum wells, which originate from a lack of inversion symmetry in GaN's wurtzite crystal structure. These fields can be screened by using highly doped layers, but the extreme dopant densities predicted by simulation for complete screening may require using Ge as an alternative n-type dopant to Si. GaN:Ge layers with excellent electrical characteristics were grown by MOCVD with doping densities exceeding 1020 cm -3. However, their surface morphologies were very poor and they proved a poor screening dopant in LED structures. Using Si as the n-type screening dopant, LEDs with single QW active regions were grown, packaged, and tested. Biased photoluminescence showed strong evidence of complete polarization screening. The LEDs had low droop, but also low peak efficiencies. Possible explanations for trends in efficiency with varying QW width and field screening will be discussed.

Ubiquitous-Severance Hospital Project: Implementation and Results

PubMed Central

Chang, Bung-Chul; Kim, Young-A; Kim, Jee Hea; Jung, Hae Kyung; Kang, Eun Hae; Kang, Hee Suk; Lee, Hyung Il; Kim, Yong Ook; Yoo, Sun Kook; Sunwoo, Ilnam; An, Seo Yong; Jeong, Hye Jeong

2010-01-01

Objectives The purpose of this study was to review an implementation of u-Severance information system with focus on electronic hospital records (EHR) and to suggest future improvements. Methods Clinical Data Repository (CDR) of u-Severance involved implementing electronic medical records (EMR) as the basis of EHR and the management of individual health records. EHR were implemented with service enhancements extending to the clinical decision support system (CDSS) and expanding the knowledge base for research with a repository for clinical data and medical care information. Results The EMR system of Yonsei University Health Systems (YUHS) consists of HP integrity superdome servers using MS SQL as a database management system and MS Windows as its operating system. Conclusions YUHS is a high-performing medical institution with regards to efficient management and customer satisfaction; however, after 5 years of implementation of u-Severance system, several limitations with regards to expandability and security have been identified. PMID:21818425

Microearthquake networks and earthquake prediction

USGS Publications Warehouse

Lee, W.H.K.; Steward, S. W.

1979-01-01

A microearthquake network is a group of highly sensitive seismographic stations designed primarily to record local earthquakes of magnitudes less than 3. Depending on the application, a microearthquake network will consist of several stations or as many as a few hundred . They are usually classified as either permanent or temporary. In a permanent network, the seismic signal from each is telemetered to a central recording site to cut down on the operating costs and to allow more efficient and up-to-date processing of the data. However, telemetering can restrict the location sites because of the line-of-site requirement for radio transmission or the need for telephone lines. Temporary networks are designed to be extremely portable and completely self-contained so that they can be very quickly deployed. They are most valuable for recording aftershocks of a major earthquake or for studies in remote areas.  

Ubiquitous-severance hospital project: implementation and results.

PubMed

Chang, Bung-Chul; Kim, Nam-Hyun; Kim, Young-A; Kim, Jee Hea; Jung, Hae Kyung; Kang, Eun Hae; Kang, Hee Suk; Lee, Hyung Il; Kim, Yong Ook; Yoo, Sun Kook; Sunwoo, Ilnam; An, Seo Yong; Jeong, Hye Jeong

2010-03-01

The purpose of this study was to review an implementation of u-Severance information system with focus on electronic hospital records (EHR) and to suggest future improvements. Clinical Data Repository (CDR) of u-Severance involved implementing electronic medical records (EMR) as the basis of EHR and the management of individual health records. EHR were implemented with service enhancements extending to the clinical decision support system (CDSS) and expanding the knowledge base for research with a repository for clinical data and medical care information. The EMR system of Yonsei University Health Systems (YUHS) consists of HP integrity superdome servers using MS SQL as a database management system and MS Windows as its operating system. YUHS is a high-performing medical institution with regards to efficient management and customer satisfaction; however, after 5 years of implementation of u-Severance system, several limitations with regards to expandability and security have been identified.

Automated recognition and extraction of tabular fields for the indexing of census records

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clawson, Robert; Bauer, Kevin; Chidester, Glen; Pohontsch, Milan; Kennard, Douglas; Ryu, Jongha; Barrett, William

2013-01-01

We describe a system for indexing of census records in tabular documents with the goal of recognizing the content of each cell, including both headers and handwritten entries. Each document is automatically rectified, registered and scaled to a known template following which lines and fields are detected and delimited as cells in a tabular form. Whole-word or whole-phrase recognition of noisy machine-printed text is performed using a glyph library, providing greatly increased efficiency and accuracy (approaching 100%), while avoiding the problems inherent with traditional OCR approaches. Constrained handwriting recognition results for a single author reach as high as 98% and 94.5% for the Gender field and Birthplace respectively. Multi-author accuracy (currently 82%) can be improved through an increased training set. Active integration of user feedback in the system will accelerate the indexing of records while providing a tightly coupled learning mechanism for system improvement.

Applying Use Cases to Describe the Role of Standards in e-Health Information Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chávez, Emma; Finnie, Gavin; Krishnan, Padmanabhan

Individual health records (IHRs) contain a person's lifetime records of their key health history and care within a health system (National E-Health Transition Authority, Retrieved Jan 12, 2009 from http://www.nehta.gov.au/coordinated-care/whats-in-iehr, 2004). This information can be processed and stored in different ways. The record should be available electronically to authorized health care providers and the individual anywhere, anytime, to support high-quality care. Many organizations provide a diversity of solutions for e-health and its services. Standards play an important role to enable these organizations to support information interchange and improve efficiency of health care delivery. However, there are numerous standards to choose from and not all of them are accessible to the software developer. This chapter proposes a framework to describe the e-health standards that can be used by software engineers to implement e-health information systems.

Detuned surface plasmon resonance scattering of gold nanorods for continuous wave multilayered optical recording and readout.

PubMed

Taylor, Adam B; Kim, Jooho; Chon, James W M

2012-02-27

In a multilayered structure of absorptive optical recording media, continuous-wave laser operation is highly disadvantageous due to heavy beam extinction. For a gold nanorod based recording medium, the narrow surface plasmon resonance (SPR) profile of gold nanorods enables the variation of extinction through mulilayers by a simple detuning of the readout wavelength from the SPR peak. The level of signal extinction through the layers can then be greatly reduced, resulting more efficient readout at deeper layers. The scattering signal strength may be decreased at the detuned wavelength, but balancing these two factors results an optimal scattering peak wavelength that is specific to each layer. In this paper, we propose to use detuned SPR scattering from gold nanorods as a new mechanism for continuous-wave readout scheme on gold nanorod based multilayered optical storage. Using this detuned scattering method, readout using continuous-wave laser is demonstrated on a 16 layer optical recording medium doped with heavily distributed, randomly oriented gold nanorods. Compared to SPR on-resonant readout, this method reduced the required readout power more than one order of magnitude, with only 60 nm detuning from SPR peak. The proposed method will be highly beneficial to multilayered optical storage applications as well as applications using a continuous medium doped heavily with plasmonic nanoparticles.

Temperature stability of static and dynamic properties of 1.55 µm quantum dot lasers.

PubMed

Abdollahinia, A; Banyoudeh, S; Rippien, A; Schnabel, F; Eyal, O; Cestier, I; Kalifa, I; Mentovich, E; Eisenstein, G; Reithmaier, J P

2018-03-05

Static and dynamic properties of InP-based 1.55 µm quantum dot (QD) lasers were investigated. Due to the reduced size inhomogeneity and a high dot density of the newest generation of 1.55 µm QD gain materials, ridge waveguide lasers (RWG) exhibit improved temperature stability and record-high modulation characteristics. Detailed results are shown for the temperature dependence of static properties including threshold current, voltage-current characteristics, external differential efficiency and emission wavelength. Similarly, small and large signal modulations were found to have only minor dependences on temperature. Moreover, we show the impact of the active region design and the cavity length on the temperature stability. Measurements were performed in pulsed and continuous wave operation. High characteristic temperatures for the threshold current were obtained with T 0 values of 144 K (15 - 60 °C), 101 K (60 - 110 °C) and 70 K up to 180 °C for a 900-µm-long RWG laser comprising 8 QD layers. The slope efficiency in these lasers is nearly independent of temperature showing a T 1 value of more than 900 K up to 110 °C. Due to the high modal gain, lasers with a cavity length of 340 µm reached new record modulation bandwidths of 17.5 GHz at 20 °C and 9 GHz at 80 °C, respectively. These lasers were modulated at 26 GBit/s in the non-return to zero format at 80 °C and at 25 GBaud using a four-level pulse amplitude format at 21 °C.

Composite Bloom Filters for Secure Record Linkage.

PubMed

Durham, Elizabeth Ashley; Kantarcioglu, Murat; Xue, Yuan; Toth, Csaba; Kuzu, Mehmet; Malin, Bradley

2014-12-01

The process of record linkage seeks to integrate instances that correspond to the same entity. Record linkage has traditionally been performed through the comparison of identifying field values ( e.g., Surname ), however, when databases are maintained by disparate organizations, the disclosure of such information can breach the privacy of the corresponding individuals. Various private record linkage (PRL) methods have been developed to obscure such identifiers, but they vary widely in their ability to balance competing goals of accuracy, efficiency and security. The tokenization and hashing of field values into Bloom filters (BF) enables greater linkage accuracy and efficiency than other PRL methods, but the encodings may be compromised through frequency-based cryptanalysis. Our objective is to adapt a BF encoding technique to mitigate such attacks with minimal sacrifices in accuracy and efficiency. To accomplish these goals, we introduce a statistically-informed method to generate BF encodings that integrate bits from multiple fields, the frequencies of which are provably associated with a minimum number of fields. Our method enables a user-specified tradeoff between security and accuracy. We compare our encoding method with other techniques using a public dataset of voter registration records and demonstrate that the increases in security come with only minor losses to accuracy.

Composite Bloom Filters for Secure Record Linkage

PubMed Central

Durham, Elizabeth Ashley; Kantarcioglu, Murat; Xue, Yuan; Toth, Csaba; Kuzu, Mehmet; Malin, Bradley

2014-01-01

The process of record linkage seeks to integrate instances that correspond to the same entity. Record linkage has traditionally been performed through the comparison of identifying field values (e.g., Surname), however, when databases are maintained by disparate organizations, the disclosure of such information can breach the privacy of the corresponding individuals. Various private record linkage (PRL) methods have been developed to obscure such identifiers, but they vary widely in their ability to balance competing goals of accuracy, efficiency and security. The tokenization and hashing of field values into Bloom filters (BF) enables greater linkage accuracy and efficiency than other PRL methods, but the encodings may be compromised through frequency-based cryptanalysis. Our objective is to adapt a BF encoding technique to mitigate such attacks with minimal sacrifices in accuracy and efficiency. To accomplish these goals, we introduce a statistically-informed method to generate BF encodings that integrate bits from multiple fields, the frequencies of which are provably associated with a minimum number of fields. Our method enables a user-specified tradeoff between security and accuracy. We compare our encoding method with other techniques using a public dataset of voter registration records and demonstrate that the increases in security come with only minor losses to accuracy. PMID:25530689

Efficient Record Linkage Algorithms Using Complete Linkage Clustering.

PubMed

Mamun, Abdullah-Al; Aseltine, Robert; Rajasekaran, Sanguthevar

2016-01-01

Data from different agencies share data of the same individuals. Linking these datasets to identify all the records belonging to the same individuals is a crucial and challenging problem, especially given the large volumes of data. A large number of available algorithms for record linkage are prone to either time inefficiency or low-accuracy in finding matches and non-matches among the records. In this paper we propose efficient as well as reliable sequential and parallel algorithms for the record linkage problem employing hierarchical clustering methods. We employ complete linkage hierarchical clustering algorithms to address this problem. In addition to hierarchical clustering, we also use two other techniques: elimination of duplicate records and blocking. Our algorithms use sorting as a sub-routine to identify identical copies of records. We have tested our algorithms on datasets with millions of synthetic records. Experimental results show that our algorithms achieve nearly 100% accuracy. Parallel implementations achieve almost linear speedups. Time complexities of these algorithms do not exceed those of previous best-known algorithms. Our proposed algorithms outperform previous best-known algorithms in terms of accuracy consuming reasonable run times.

Efficient Record Linkage Algorithms Using Complete Linkage Clustering

PubMed Central

Mamun, Abdullah-Al; Aseltine, Robert; Rajasekaran, Sanguthevar

2016-01-01

Data from different agencies share data of the same individuals. Linking these datasets to identify all the records belonging to the same individuals is a crucial and challenging problem, especially given the large volumes of data. A large number of available algorithms for record linkage are prone to either time inefficiency or low-accuracy in finding matches and non-matches among the records. In this paper we propose efficient as well as reliable sequential and parallel algorithms for the record linkage problem employing hierarchical clustering methods. We employ complete linkage hierarchical clustering algorithms to address this problem. In addition to hierarchical clustering, we also use two other techniques: elimination of duplicate records and blocking. Our algorithms use sorting as a sub-routine to identify identical copies of records. We have tested our algorithms on datasets with millions of synthetic records. Experimental results show that our algorithms achieve nearly 100% accuracy. Parallel implementations achieve almost linear speedups. Time complexities of these algorithms do not exceed those of previous best-known algorithms. Our proposed algorithms outperform previous best-known algorithms in terms of accuracy consuming reasonable run times. PMID:27124604

Photonic-Assisted mm-Wave and THz Wireless Transmission towards 100 Gbit/s Data Rate

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Freire Hermelo, Maria; Chuenchom, Rattana; Rymanov, Vitaly; Kaiser, Thomas; Sheikh, Fawad; Czylwik, Andreas; Stöhr, Andreas

2017-09-01

This paper presents photonic-assisted 60 GHz mm-wave and 325 GHz system approaches that enable the transmission of spectral-efficient and high data rate signals over fiber and over air. First, we focus on generic channel characteristics within the mm-wave 60 GHz band and at the terahertz (THz) band around 325 GHz. Next, for generating the high data rate baseband signals, we present a technical solution for constructing an extreme bandwidth arbitrary waveform generator (AWG). We then report the development of a novel coherent photonic mixer (CPX) module for direct optic-to-RF conversion of extreme wideband optical signals, with a>5 dB higher conversion gain compared to conventional photodiodes. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate record spectral efficient wireless transmission for both bands. The achieved spectral efficiencies reach 10 bit/s/Hz for the 60 GHz band and 6 bit/s/Hz for the 325 GHz band. The maximum data rate transmitted at THz frequencies in the 325 GHz band is 59 Gbit/s using a 64-QAM-OFDM modulation format and a 10 GHz wide data signal.

Deep-etched sinusoidal polarizing beam splitter grating.

PubMed

Feng, Jijun; Zhou, Changhe; Cao, Hongchao; Lv, Peng

2010-04-01

A sinusoidal-shaped fused-silica grating as a highly efficient polarizing beam splitter (PBS) is investigated based on the simplified modal method. The grating structure depends mainly on the ratio of groove depth to grating period and the ratio of incident wavelength to grating period. These ratios can be used as a guideline for the grating design at different wavelengths. A sinusoidal-groove PBS grating is designed at a wavelength of 1310 nm under Littrow mounting, and the transmitted TM and TE polarized waves are mainly diffracted into the zeroth order and the -1st order, respectively. The grating profile is optimized by using rigorous coupled-wave analysis. The designed PBS grating is highly efficient (>95.98%) over the O-band wavelength range (1260-1360 nm) for both TE and TM polarizations. The sinusoidal grating can exhibit higher diffraction efficiency, larger extinction ratio, and less reflection loss than the rectangular-groove PBS grating. By applying wet etching technology on the rectangular grating, which was manufactured by holographic recording and inductively coupled plasma etching technology, the sinusoidal grating can be approximately fabricated. Experimental results are in agreement with theoretical values.

Novel strategies for sedentary behavior research.

PubMed

Rosenberg, Dori E; Lee, I-Min; Young, Deborah Rohm; Prohaska, Thomas R; Owen, Neville; Buchner, David M

2015-06-01

This article reports on the "Novel Strategies for Sedentary Behavior Research" session of the Sedentary Behavior: Identifying Research Priorities workshop. The purpose of this session of the workshop were to propose strategies for accomplishing a research agenda in dealing with sedentary behavior and to consider research priorities for people at high risk for excess sedentary behavior. The four major recommendations from this workshop were as follows: 1) To add repeated objective measures of physical activity and sedentary behavior to existing cohort studies and standardize approaches to measurement and analysis. Epidemiologic studies will be the most efficient design for addressing some research questions. 2) To increase research efficiency, consider the advantages of a network of connected research studies and health systems. Advantages include access to existing data in electronic health records. 3) To carefully select a variety of high-risk study populations and preplan collaboration among studies in intervention research. This strategy can efficiently address the breadth of issues in sedentary behavior research. 4) To include comparative effectiveness designs and pure environmental interventions in intervention research. This strategy facilitates and enhances translation of interventions into practice.

A new approach for solving seismic tomography problems and assessing the uncertainty through the use of graph theory and direct methods

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bogiatzis, P.; Ishii, M.; Davis, T. A.

2016-12-01

Seismic tomography inverse problems are among the largest high-dimensional parameter estimation tasks in Earth science. We show how combinatorics and graph theory can be used to analyze the structure of such problems, and to effectively decompose them into smaller ones that can be solved efficiently by means of the least squares method. In combination with recent high performance direct sparse algorithms, this reduction in dimensionality allows for an efficient computation of the model resolution and covariance matrices using limited resources. Furthermore, we show that a new sparse singular value decomposition method can be used to obtain the complete spectrum of the singular values. This procedure provides the means for more objective regularization and further dimensionality reduction of the problem. We apply this methodology to a moderate size, non-linear seismic tomography problem to image the structure of the crust and the upper mantle beneath Japan using local deep earthquakes recorded by the High Sensitivity Seismograph Network stations.

Surface hole gas enabled transparent deep ultraviolet light-emitting diode

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Jianping; Gao, Ying; Zhou, Ling; Gil, Young-Un; Kim, Kyoung-Min

2018-07-01

The inherent deep-level nature of acceptors in wide-band-gap semiconductors makes p-ohmic contact formation and hole supply difficult, impeding progress for short-wavelength optoelectronics and high-power high-temperature bipolar electronics. We provide a general solution by demonstrating an ultrathin rather than a bulk wide-band-gap semiconductor to be a successful hole supplier and ohmic contact layer. Free holes in this ultrathin semiconductor are assisted to activate from deep acceptors and swept to surface to form hole gases by a large electric field, which can be provided by engineered spontaneous and piezoelectric polarizations. Experimentally, a 6 nm thick AlN layer with surface hole gas had formed p-ohmic contact to metals and provided sufficient hole injection to a 280 nm light-emitting diode, demonstrating a record electrical-optical conversion efficiency exceeding 8.5% at 20 mA (55 A cm‑2). Our approach of forming p-type wide-band-gap semiconductor ohmic contact is critical to realizing high-efficiency ultraviolet optoelectronic devices.

Dye-controlled interfacial electron transfer for high-current indium tin oxide photocathodes.

PubMed

Huang, Zhongjie; He, Mingfu; Yu, Mingzhe; Click, Kevin; Beauchamp, Damian; Wu, Yiying

2015-06-01

Efficient sensitized photocathodes are highly desired for solar fuels and tandem solar cells, yet the development is hindered by the scarcity of suitable p-type semiconductors. The generation of high cathodic photocurrents by sensitizing a degenerate n-type semiconductor (tin-doped indium oxide; ITO) is reported. The sensitized mesoporous ITO electrodes deliver cathodic photocurrents of up to 5.96±0.19 mA cm(-2), which are close to the highest record in conventional p-type sensitized photocathodes. This is realized by the rational selection of dyes with appropriate energy alignments with ITO. The energy level alignment between the highest occupied molecular orbital of the sensitizer and the conduction band of ITO is crucial for efficient hole injection. Transient absorption spectroscopy studies demonstrate that the cathodic photocurrent results from reduction of the photoexcited sensitizer by free electrons in ITO. Our results reveal a new perspective toward the selection of electrode materials for sensitized photocathodes. © 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Two-photon imaging in living brain slices.

PubMed

Mainen, Z F; Maletic-Savatic, M; Shi, S H; Hayashi, Y; Malinow, R; Svoboda, K

1999-06-01

Two-photon excitation laser scanning microscopy (TPLSM) has become the tool of choice for high-resolution fluorescence imaging in intact neural tissues. Compared with other optical techniques, TPLSM allows high-resolution imaging and efficient detection of fluorescence signal with minimal photobleaching and phototoxicity. The advantages of TPLSM are especially pronounced in highly scattering environments such as the brain slice. Here we describe our approaches to imaging various aspects of synaptic function in living brain slices. To combine several imaging modes together with patch-clamp electrophysiological recordings we found it advantageous to custom-build an upright microscope. Our design goals were primarily experimental convenience and efficient collection of fluorescence. We describe our TPLSM imaging system and its performance in detail. We present dynamic measurements of neuronal morphology of neurons expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP) and GFP fusion proteins as well as functional imaging of calcium dynamics in individual dendritic spines. Although our microscope is a custom instrument, its key advantages can be easily implemented as a modification of commercial laser scanning microscopes. Copyright 1999 Academic Press.

Realization of GaInP/Si dual-junction solar cells with 29.8% 1-sun efficiency

DOE PAGES

Essig, Stephanie; Steiner, Myles A.; Allebe, Christophe; ...

2016-04-27

Combining a Si solar cell with a high-bandgap top cell reduces the thermalization losses in the short wavelength and enables theoretical 1-sun efficiencies far over 30%. We have investigated the fabrication and optimization of Si-based tandem solar cells with 1.8-eV rear-heterojunction GaInP top cells. The III-V and Si heterojunction subcells were fabricated separately and joined by mechanical stacking using electrically insulating optically transparent interlayers. Our GaInP/Si dual-junction solar cells have achieved a certified cumulative 1-sun efficiency of 29.8% ± 0.6% (AM1.5g) in four-terminal operation conditions, which exceeds the record 1-sun efficiencies achieved with both III-V and Si single-junction solar cells.more » Furthermore, the effect of luminescent coupling between the subcells has been investigated, and optical losses in the solar cell structure have been addressed.« less

Modeling the Performance Limitations and Prospects of Perovskite/Si Tandem Solar Cells under Realistic Operating Conditions

PubMed Central

2017-01-01

Perovskite/Si tandem solar cells have the potential to considerably out-perform conventional solar cells. Under standard test conditions, perovskite/Si tandem solar cells already outperform the Si single junction. Under realistic conditions, however, as we show, tandem solar cells made from current record cells are hardly more efficient than the Si cell alone. We model the performance of realistic perovskite/Si tandem solar cells under real-world climate conditions, by incorporating parasitic cell resistances, nonradiative recombination, and optical losses into the detailed-balance limit. We show quantitatively that when optimizing these parameters in the perovskite top cell, perovskite/Si tandem solar cells could reach efficiencies above 38% under realistic conditions, even while leaving the Si cell untouched. Despite the rapid efficiency increase of perovskite solar cells, our results emphasize the need for further material development, careful device design, and light management strategies, all necessary for highly efficient perovskite/Si tandem solar cells. PMID:28920081

Multiple hot-carrier collection in photo-excited graphene Moiré superlattices

PubMed Central

Wu, Sanfeng; Wang, Lei; Lai, You; Shan, Wen-Yu; Aivazian, Grant; Zhang, Xian; Taniguchi, Takashi; Watanabe, Kenji; Xiao, Di; Dean, Cory; Hone, James; Li, Zhiqiang; Xu, Xiaodong

2016-01-01

In conventional light-harvesting devices, the absorption of a single photon only excites one electron, which sets the standard limit of power-conversion efficiency, such as the Shockley-Queisser limit. In principle, generating and harnessing multiple carriers per absorbed photon can improve efficiency and possibly overcome this limit. We report the observation of multiple hot-carrier collection in graphene/boron-nitride Moiré superlattice structures. A record-high zero-bias photoresponsivity of 0.3 A/W (equivalently, an external quantum efficiency exceeding 50%) is achieved using graphene’s photo-Nernst effect, which demonstrates a collection of at least five carriers per absorbed photon. We reveal that this effect arises from the enhanced Nernst coefficient through Lifshtiz transition at low-energy Van Hove singularities, which is an emergent phenomenon due to the formation of Moiré minibands. Our observation points to a new means for extremely efficient and flexible optoelectronics based on van der Waals heterostructures. PMID:27386538

Modeling the Performance Limitations and Prospects of Perovskite/Si Tandem Solar Cells under Realistic Operating Conditions.

PubMed

Futscher, Moritz H; Ehrler, Bruno

2017-09-08

Perovskite/Si tandem solar cells have the potential to considerably out-perform conventional solar cells. Under standard test conditions, perovskite/Si tandem solar cells already outperform the Si single junction. Under realistic conditions, however, as we show, tandem solar cells made from current record cells are hardly more efficient than the Si cell alone. We model the performance of realistic perovskite/Si tandem solar cells under real-world climate conditions, by incorporating parasitic cell resistances, nonradiative recombination, and optical losses into the detailed-balance limit. We show quantitatively that when optimizing these parameters in the perovskite top cell, perovskite/Si tandem solar cells could reach efficiencies above 38% under realistic conditions, even while leaving the Si cell untouched. Despite the rapid efficiency increase of perovskite solar cells, our results emphasize the need for further material development, careful device design, and light management strategies, all necessary for highly efficient perovskite/Si tandem solar cells.

Remediation of the effect of adding cyanides on an algal/bacterial treatment of a mixture of organic pollutants in a continuous photobioreactor.

PubMed

Essam, Tamer; ElRakaiby, Marwa; Agha, Azza

2014-09-01

The effect of inorganic pollutants on the treatment of organic pollutants using algal/bacterial microcosm was investigated in a continuous photobioreactor. The microcosm was composed of Chlorella vulgaris MM1 and Pseudomonas MT1 and was able to efficiently treat artificial waste-water contaminated with 6.4 salicylate and 2.2 mM phenol at a hydraulic retention time of 4 days. No negative effect was recorded when the waste-water was supplemented with 1.6 mM thiocyanate; however, the treatment efficiency severely deteriorated when the system was challenged with 0.74 mM cyanide. Addition of 2 g NaHCO3 l(-1) did not improve the efficiency of the treatment. Toxicity of the pollutants to the alga was cyanide > thiocyanate > phenol > salicylate. The high toxicity of the waste-water was eliminated either by a 25-fold dilution or by photocatalytic pre-treatment which allowed the subsequent efficient biological treatment.

Degradation in the efficiency of glass Resistive Plate Chambers operated without external gas supply

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Baesso, P.; Cussans, D.; Thomay, C.; Velthuis, J.; Burns, J.; Quillin, S.; Stapleton, M.; Steer, C.

2015-06-01

Resistive plate chambers (RPC) are particle detectors commonly used by the high energy physics community. Their normal operation requires a constant flow of gas mixture to prevent self-poisoning which reduces the chamber's capability to detect particles. We studied how quickly the efficiency of two RPCs drops when operated in sealed mode, i.e. without refreshing the gas mixture. The test aim is to determine how RPCs could be used as particle detectors in non-laboratory applications, such as those exploiting muon tomography for geological imaging or homeland security. The two sealed RPCs were operated in proportional mode for a period of more than three months, and their efficiencies were recorded continuously and analysed in 8-hours intervals. The results show that the efficiency drops on average by 0.79 ± 0.01 % every 24 hours of operation and returns close to the initial value after purging the old gas mixture and flushing the chambers with fresh gas.

Realization of GaInP/Si dual-junction solar cells with 29.8% 1-sun efficiency

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

Essig, Stephanie; Steiner, Myles A.; Allebe, Christophe

Combining a Si solar cell with a high-bandgap top cell reduces the thermalization losses in the short wavelength and enables theoretical 1-sun efficiencies far over 30%. We have investigated the fabrication and optimization of Si-based tandem solar cells with 1.8-eV rear-heterojunction GaInP top cells. The III-V and Si heterojunction subcells were fabricated separately and joined by mechanical stacking using electrically insulating optically transparent interlayers. Our GaInP/Si dual-junction solar cells have achieved a certified cumulative 1-sun efficiency of 29.8% ± 0.6% (AM1.5g) in four-terminal operation conditions, which exceeds the record 1-sun efficiencies achieved with both III-V and Si single-junction solar cells.more » Furthermore, the effect of luminescent coupling between the subcells has been investigated, and optical losses in the solar cell structure have been addressed.« less

Multilayer Lead-Free Ceramic Capacitors with Ultrahigh Energy Density and Efficiency.

PubMed

Li, Jinglei; Li, Fei; Xu, Zhuo; Zhang, Shujun

2018-06-26

The utilization of antiferroelectric (AFE) materials is thought to be an effective approach to enhance the energy density of dielectric capacitors. However, the high energy dissipation and inferior reliability that are associated with the antiferroelectric-ferroelectric phase transition are the main issues that restrict the applications of antiferroelectric ceramics. Here, simultaneously achieving high energy density and efficiency in a dielectric ceramic is proposed by combining antiferroelectric and relaxor features. Based on this concept, a lead-free dielectric (Na 0.5 Bi 0.5 )TiO 3 -x(Sr 0.7 Bi 0.2 )TiO 3 (NBT-xSBT) system is investigated and the corresponding multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCCs) are fabricated. A record-high energy density of 9.5 J cm -3 , together with a high energy efficiency of 92%, is achieved in NBT-0.45SBT multilayer ceramic capacitors, which consist of ten dielectric layers with the single-layer thickness of 20 µm and the internal electrode area of 6.25 mm 2 . Furthermore, the newly developed capacitor exhibits a wide temperature usage range of -60 to 120 °C, with an energy-density variation of less than 10%, and satisfactory cycling reliability, with degradation of less than 8% over 10 6 cycles. These characteristics demonstrate that the NBT-0.45SBT multilayer ceramic is a promising candidate for high-power energy storage applications. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

A study of photosynthetic biogas upgrading based on a high rate algal pond under alkaline conditions: Influence of the illumination regime.

PubMed

Franco-Morgado, Mariana; Alcántara, Cynthia; Noyola, Adalberto; Muñoz, Raúl; González-Sánchez, Armando

2017-08-15

Microalgal-bacterial processes have emerged as environmental friendly systems for the cost-effective treatment of anaerobic effluents such as biogas and nutrients-laden digestates. Environmental parameters such as temperature, irradiation, nutrient concentration and pH effect the performance of the systems. In this paper, the potential of a microalgal-bacterial photobioreactor operated under high pH (≈9.5) and high alkalinity to convert biogas into biomethane was evaluated. The influence of the illumination regime (continuous light supply vs 12h/12h light/dark cycles) on the synthetic biogas upgrading efficiency, biomass productivity and nutrient removal efficiency was assessed in a High-Rate Algal Pond interconnected to a biogas absorption bubble column. No significant differences in the removal efficiency of CO 2 and H 2 S (91.5±2% and 99.5%±0.5, respectively) were recorded regardless of the illumination regime. The high fluctuations of the dissolved oxygen concentration during operation under light/dark cycles allowed to evaluate the specific growth rate and the specific partial degradation rate of the microalgae biomass by photosynthesis and respiration, respectively. The respiration reduced the net microalgae biomass productivity under light/dark cycles compared with process operation under the continuous light supply. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Monolithic fiber laser oscillator with record high power

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Baolai; Shi, Chen; Zhang, Hanwei; Ye, Qing; Pi, Haoyang; Tao, Rumao; Wang, Xiaolin; Ma, Pengfei; Leng, Jinyong; Chen, Zilun; Zhou, Pu; Xu, Xiaojun; Chen, Jinbao; Liu, Zejin

2018-07-01

With an increasing output power, the power scaling of monolithic fiber laser oscillators faces the severe limitations of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and the transverse mode instability (TMI) effect. In this work, we report a high power monolithic fiber laser oscillator with a maximum output power of 5.2 kW, which is realized with a trade-off design between the SRS and TMI. The monolithic fiber laser oscillator is constructed with ytterbium-doped fiber with a core/inner cladding diameter of 25/400 µm and corresponding home-made FBG. High-power 915 nm laser diodes are employed as a pump source and are distributed in a bidirectional-pump configuration. By optimizing the bidirectional pump proportion, the monolithic fiber laser oscillator is scaled up to 5.2 kW with a slope efficiency of ~63%. Operating at 5.2 kW, the intensity of the Raman stokes light is ~22 dB below the signal laser and the beam quality (M2-factor) is ~2.2. To the best of our knowledge, this is a record high power for monolithic fiber laser oscillators.

High-sensitivity, high-speed continuous imaging system

DOEpatents

Watson, Scott A; Bender, III, Howard A

2014-11-18

A continuous imaging system for recording low levels of light typically extending over small distances with high-frame rates and with a large number of frames is described. Photodiode pixels disposed in an array having a chosen geometry, each pixel having a dedicated amplifier, analog-to-digital convertor, and memory, provide parallel operation of the system. When combined with a plurality of scintillators responsive to a selected source of radiation, in a scintillator array, the light from each scintillator being directed to a single corresponding photodiode in close proximity or lens-coupled thereto, embodiments of the present imaging system may provide images of x-ray, gamma ray, proton, and neutron sources with high efficiency.

Low-loss, submicron chalcogenide integrated photonics with chlorine plasma etching

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

Chiles, Jeff; Malinowski, Marcin; Rao, Ashutosh

A chlorine plasma etching-based method for the fabrication of high-performance chalcogenide-based integrated photonics on silicon substrates is presented. By optimizing the etching conditions, chlorine plasma is employed to produce extremely low-roughness etched sidewalls on waveguides with minimal penalty to propagation loss. Using this fabrication method, microring resonators with record-high intrinsic Q-factors as high as 450 000 and a corresponding propagation loss as low as 0.42 dB/cm are demonstrated in submicron chalcogenide waveguides. Furthermore, the developed chlorine plasma etching process is utilized to demonstrate fiber-to-waveguide grating couplers in chalcogenide photonics with high power coupling efficiency of 37% for transverse-electric polarized modes.

Heuristic evaluation and thinking aloud test of a digitized questionnaire for diabetes outpatient clinics.

PubMed

Schaarup, Clara; Hejlesen, Ole K

2014-01-01

Diabetes is a chronic disease characterized by hyperglycaemia. The number of patients with diabetes is expected to exceed 592 million in 2035. The growing number of diabetics is a great burden for the Danish healthcare system. The Danish government desires a modern and efficient healthcare system with a high patient security and a coherent continuity of care. To achieve these outcomes medical record-keeping, paper questionnaires and notes must be digitized. The current system enforces that the diabetics fill out questionnaires in paper form after which the healthcare personnel enter the same information in the electronic health record. In this study, an online questionnaire was designed and the usability was evaluated using the following parameters: learnability, efficiency, memorability, errors, and satisfaction. The parameters were evaluated by using the discount usability engineering method. 5 double specialists and 6 patients diagnosed with diabetes provided the data of the study. The results indicated that simple and obvious figures were preferred in the online questionnaire, as well as error preventing in the form of validation fields. This study inspire to further development in the digitizing process.

Application of robust face recognition in video surveillance systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, De-xin; An, Peng; Zhang, Hao-xiang

2018-03-01

In this paper, we propose a video searching system that utilizes face recognition as searching indexing feature. As the applications of video cameras have great increase in recent years, face recognition makes a perfect fit for searching targeted individuals within the vast amount of video data. However, the performance of such searching depends on the quality of face images recorded in the video signals. Since the surveillance video cameras record videos without fixed postures for the object, face occlusion is very common in everyday video. The proposed system builds a model for occluded faces using fuzzy principal component analysis (FPCA), and reconstructs the human faces with the available information. Experimental results show that the system has very high efficiency in processing the real life videos, and it is very robust to various kinds of face occlusions. Hence it can relieve people reviewers from the front of the monitors and greatly enhances the efficiency as well. The proposed system has been installed and applied in various environments and has already demonstrated its power by helping solving real cases.

Holographic recording materials development. [development of cis-trans isomerization for holographic memory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1974-01-01

Developments in the area of organic cis-trans isomerization systems for holographic memory applications are reported. The chemical research effort consisted of photochemical studies leading to the selection of a stilbene derivative and a polymer matrix system which have greatly improved refractive index differences between the cis and trans isomers as well as demonstrated efficiency of the photoisomerization process. In work on lithium niobate effects of sample stoichiometry and of read and write beam polarizations on recording efficiency were investigated. LiNbO3 was used for a study of angular sensitivity and of capability for simultaneous recording of extended objects without interference. The current status of LiNbO3 as a holographic recording material is summarized.

Precise multi-instrument data on exceptional fireballs recorded over Central Europe in the period 2012-2014

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Spurny, P.; Borovicka, J.

2014-07-01

Introduction: Instrumental recordings of fireballs provide an excellent means of examining the physical and structural properties of larger meteoroids, as well as their temporal and spatial distribution in the Solar System. Except direct information about this component of interplanetary bodies this study also yields very valuable knowledge about their parent bodies, asteroids and comets. In some special and very rare cases, when such instrumentally observed fireball terminates by a meteorite fall, we have even direct information about the composition, structure and mineralogy not only of this particular meteorite but also of its parent body. The most efficient systems for systematic fireball observations are so-called fireball networks. In this work we present precise and complex data on several exceptional fireballs based on photographic and photoelectric records taken by the Czech Fireball Network, which is the longest continuously operated and the most developed part of the European Fireball Network (EN). Instruments and data processing: The Czech part of the EN has been entirely modernized in the last decade and its operation was in the large extent automatized [1]. This change significantly increased not only efficiency but also quality and complexity of our observations. However, this observing system, which provides us with photographic and photoelectric data about fireballs brighter than -4 magnitude, still uses photographic films, which brings some limitations for the data processing. Primarily it implies a non-negligible delay between data acquisition and their analysis as we had to transport photographic films physically from remote stations and only then to develop and digitize them. There is also much lower efficiency of observations during the full Moon period than during moonless nights. Taking the advantage of fast progress of digital photography, we have constructed a new generation of the Digital Autonomous Fireball Observatory (DAFO), which provides us with high-resolution digital images available immediately after their recording. This observatory, developed during the last 2 years, sorted out all the above-mentioned disadvantages. These sophisticated digital cameras are currently being deployed on the stations of the Czech Fireball Network. In this work, we present the first data from this new observing system and the comparison with the previous one. Along with this significant modernization we also improved our software for positional and photometric measurement of photographic records, which partly automatizes this time consuming work and make it much more efficient, easier, and even more precise. This observing system based on the DAFO's, provides us not only with the similarly precise dataset of fireballs as the previous large format film system but thanks to the different observing strategy and higher sensitivity limit, significantly increased effective observing time and number of recorded fireballs. Average absolute positional accuracy for the recorded fireballs stayed similar for both systems and it is about 15 m for each point on a fireball luminous trajectory. Results: To demonstrate this fact, we present complete and precise data on atmospheric trajectories, orbits, lightcurves and dynamics for several fireballs, which are in some sense exceptional and which were recorded by both systems in the last two years. This sample contains, among others the cases which very probably terminate by the fall of a small meteorite, the cases with interesting internal structure and orbital characteristics and also the cases with interesting orbits with respect to their structural properties (i.e. cometary material on a typical asteroidal orbit and vice versa). As the examples of uniqueness of our data we can mention recording of the deep penetrating Geminid fireball (EN141212) which certainly terminated by the fall of a small, only tens of grams meteorite. This unique case with very precise trajectory, dynamic and orbital data (one of the most precise Geminid ever observed) proved that in some special cases even meteoroids with a high initial velocity of 36 km/s can produce a meteorite and that there is real possibility that we could find a piece of Phaethon, the parent of Geminids. Another example is the fireball designated EN130114 which was recorded only by our new digital cameras (it was during the full Moon period). The main exceptionality of this case consists in its lowest ever observed initial velocity which we recorded for natural interplanetary body. Its initial speed of only 11.090 km/s means among others that this meteoroid orbited Sun on a very Earth-like orbit. All presented fireballs well document the high standard of our observations and their usefulness for better knowledge of properties of meteoroids and their parents as well as their distribution in the Solar System.

Vertical cavity surface-emitting semiconductor lasers with injection laser pumping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McDaniel, D. L., Jr.; McInerney, J. G.; Raja, M. Y. A.; Schaus, C. F.; Brueck, S. R. J.

1990-05-01

Continuous-wave GaAs/GaAlAs edge-emitting diode lasers were used to pump GaAs/AlGaAs and InGaAs/AlGaAs vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) with resonant periodic gain (RPG) at room temperature. Pump threshold as low as 11 mW, output powers as high as 27 mW at 850 nm, and external differential quantum efficiencies of about 70 percent were observed in GaAs/AlGaAs surface -emitters; spectral brightness 22 times that of the pump laser was also observed. Output powers as high as 85 mW at 950 nm and differential quantum efficiencies of up to 58 percent were recorded for the InGaAs surface-emitting laser. This is the highest quasi-CW output power ever reported for any RPG VCSEL, and the first time such a device has been pumped using an injection laser diode.

Report of the ultraviolet and visible sensors panel

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Timothy, J. Gethyn; Blouke, M.; Bredthauer, R.; Kimble, R.; Lee, T.-H.; Lesser, M.; Siegmund, O.; Weckler, G.

1991-01-01

In order to meet the science objectives of the Astrotech 21 mission set the Ultraviolet (UV) and Visible Sensors Panel made a number of recommendations. In the UV wavelength range of 0.01 to 0.3 micro-m the focus is on the need for large format high quantum efficiency, radiation hard 'solar-blind' detectors. Options recommended for support include Si and non-Si charge coupled devices (CCDs) as well as photocathodes with improved microchannel plate readouts. For the 0.3 to 0.9 micro-m range, it was felt that Si CCDs offer the best option for high quantum efficiencies at these wavelengths. In the 0.9 to 2.5 micro-m the panel recommended support for the investigation of monolithic arrays. Finally, the panel noted that the implementation of very large arrays will require new data transmission, data recording, and data handling technologies.

A Bike Built for Magnetic Mapping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schattner, U.; Segev, A.; Lyakhovsky, V.

2017-12-01

Understanding the magnetic signature of the subsurface geology is crucial for structural, groundwater, earthquake propagation, and mineral studies. The cheapest measuring method is by walking with sensors. This approach yields high-resolution maps, yet its coverage is limited. We invented a new design that records magnetic data while riding a bicycle. The new concept offers an efficient, low-cost method of collecting high-resolution ground magnetic field data over rough terrain where conventional vehicles dare not venture. It improves the efficiency of the traditional method by more than five times. The Bike-magnetic scales up ground magnetism from a localized site survey to regional coverage. By now we covered 3300 square KM (about the size of Rhode Island) across northern Israel, in profile spacing of 1-2 km. Initial Total Magnetic Intensity maps reveal a myriad of new features that were not detected by the low-resolution regional aeromagnetic survey that collected data from 1000 m height.

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

Kang, Dongseok; Young, James L.; Lim, Haneol

Despite their excellent photophysical properties and record-high solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency, the high cost and limited stability of III-V compound semiconductors prohibit their practical application in solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here in this paper we present a strategy for III-V photocatalysis that can circumvent these difficulties via printed assemblies of epitaxially grown compound semiconductors. A thin film stack of GaAs-based epitaxial materials is released from the growth wafer and printed onto a non-native transparent substrate to form an integrated photocatalytic electrode for solar hydrogen generation. The heterogeneously integrated electrode configuration together with specialized epitaxial design serve to decouple the material interfacesmore » for illumination and electrocatalysis. Subsequently, this allows independent control and optimization of light absorption, carrier transport, charge transfer, and material stability. Using this approach, we construct a series-connected wireless tandem system of GaAs photoelectrodes and demonstrate 13.1% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of unassisted-mode water splitting.« less

Carbon Nanotube Electrodes for Effective Interfacing with Retinal Tissue

PubMed Central

Shoval, Asaf; Adams, Christopher; David-Pur, Moshe; Shein, Mark; Hanein, Yael; Sernagor, Evelyne

2009-01-01

We have investigated the use of carbon nanotube coated microelectrodes as an interface material for retinal recording and stimulation applications. Test devices were micro-fabricated and consisted of 60, 30 μm diameter electrodes at spacing of 200 μm. These electrodes were coated via chemical vapor deposition of carbon nanotubes, resulting in conducting, three dimensional surfaces with a high interfacial area. These attributes are important both for the quality of the cell-surface coupling as well as for electro-chemical interfacing efficiency. The entire chip was packaged to fit a commercial multielectrode recording and stimulation system. Electrical recordings of spontaneous spikes from whole-mount neonatal mouse retinas were consistently obtained minutes after retinas were placed over the electrodes, exhibiting typical bursting and propagating waves. Most importantly, the signals obtained with carbon nanotube electrodes have exceptionally high signal to noise ratio, reaching values as high as 75. Moreover, spikes are marked by a conspicuous gradual increase in amplitude recorded over a period of minutes to hours, suggesting improvement in cell-electrode coupling. This phenomenon is not observed in conventional commercial electrodes. Electrical stimulation using carbon nanotube electrodes was also achieved. We attribute the superior performances of the carbon nanotube electrodes to their three dimensional nature and the strong neuro-carbon nanotube affinity. The results presented here show the great potential of carbon nanotube electrodes for retinal interfacing applications. Specifically, our results demonstrate a route to achieve a reduction of the electrode down to few micrometers in order to achieve high efficacy local stimulation needed in retinal prosthetic devices. PMID:19430595

Dual vs. single computer monitor in a Canadian hospital Archiving Department: a study of efficiency and satisfaction.

PubMed

Poder, Thomas G; Godbout, Sylvie T; Bellemare, Christian

This paper describes a comparative study of clinical coding by Archivists (also known as Clinical Coders in some other countries) using single and dual computer monitors. In the present context, processing a record corresponds to checking the available information; searching for the missing physician information; and finally, performing clinical coding. We collected data for each Archivist during her use of the single monitor for 40 hours and during her use of the dual monitor for 20 hours. During the experimental periods, Archivists did not perform other related duties, so we were able to measure the real-time processing of records. To control for the type of records and their impact on the process time required, we categorised the cases as major or minor, based on whether acute care or day surgery was involved. Overall results show that 1,234 records were processed using a single monitor and 647 records using a dual monitor. The time required to process a record was significantly higher (p= .071) with a single monitor compared to a dual monitor (19.83 vs.18.73 minutes). However, the percentage of major cases was significantly higher (p= .000) in the single monitor group compared to the dual monitor group (78% vs. 69%). As a consequence, we adjusted our results, which reduced the difference in time required to process a record between the two systems from 1.1 to 0.61 minutes. Thus, the net real-time difference was only 37 seconds in favour of the dual monitor system. Extrapolated over a 5-year period, this would represent a time savings of 3.1% and generate a net cost savings of $7,729 CAD (Canadian dollars) for each workstation that devoted 35 hours per week to the processing of records. Finally, satisfaction questionnaire responses indicated a high level of satisfaction and support for the dual-monitor system. The implementation of a dual-monitor system in a hospital archiving department is an efficient option in the context of scarce human resources and has the strong support of Archivists.

The diversity of (13)C isotope discrimination in a Quercus robur full-sib family is associated with differences in intrinsic water use efficiency, transpiration efficiency, and stomatal conductance.

PubMed

Roussel, Magali; Dreyer, Erwin; Montpied, Pierre; Le-Provost, Grégoire; Guehl, Jean-Marc; Brendel, Oliver

2009-01-01

(13)C discrimination in organic matter with respect to atmospheric CO(2) (Delta(13)C) is under tight genetic control in many plant species, including the pedunculate oak (Quercus robur L.) full-sib progeny used in this study. Delta(13)C is expected to reflect intrinsic water use efficiency, but this assumption requires confirmation due to potential interferences with mesophyll conductance to CO(2), or post-photosynthetic discrimination. In order to dissect the observed Delta(13)C variability in this progeny, six genotypes that have previously been found to display extreme phenotypic values of Delta(13)C [either very high ('high Delta') or low ('low Delta') phenotype] were selected, and transpiration efficiency (TE; accumulated biomass/transpired water), net CO(2) assimilation rate (A), stomatal conductance for water vapour (g(s)), and intrinsic water use efficiency (W(i)=A/g(s)) were compared with Delta(13)C in bulk leaf matter, wood, and cellulose in wood. As expected, 'high Delta' displayed higher values of Delta(13)C not only in bulk leaf matter, but also in wood and cellulose. This confirmed the stability of the genotypic differences in Delta(13)C recorded earlier. 'High Delta' also displayed lower TE, lower W(i), and higher g(s). A small difference was detected in photosynthetic capacity but none in mesophyll conductance to CO(2). 'High Delta' and 'low Delta' displayed very similar leaf anatomy, except for higher stomatal density in 'high Delta'. Finally, diurnal courses of leaf gas exchange revealed a higher g(s) in 'high Delta' in the morning than in the afternoon when the difference decreased. The gene ERECTA, involved in the control of water use efficiency, leaf differentiation, and stomatal density, displayed higher expression levels in 'low Delta'. In this progeny, the variability of Delta(13)C correlated closely with that of W(i) and TE. Genetic differences of Delta(13)C and W(i) can be ascribed to differences in stomatal conductance and stomatal density but not in photosynthetic capacity.

Improving residual feed intake of mule progeny of Muscovy ducks: genetic parameters and responses to selection with emphasis on carcass composition and fatty liver quality.

PubMed

Drouilhet, L; Basso, B; Bernadet, M-D; Cornuez, A; Bodin, L; David, I; Gilbert, H; Marie-Etancelin, C

2014-10-01

In France, about 95% of the fatty liver production comes from mule ducks, an infertile hybrid cross between female common ducks (Anas platyrhynchos) and Muscovy drakes (Cairina moschata). As a hybrid, genetic improvement of the performance of mule ducks is achieved by selection of the parental populations. Feed represents two-thirds of the total costs of duck production; thus, the breeders' main concern is to improve the birds' feed efficiency without impairing their capacity to be overfed after the growing period. To obtain insight into this economically important trait, we designed a divergent selection experiment for Muscovy sires on the basis of the residual feed intake (RFI) of their male mule progeny. Residual feed intake represents the fraction of feed intake that cannot be explained by maintenance and production requirements. Data comprised records from generations 0 to 2 with 227 Muscovy sires of 2,016 mule ducks. Growth and fat deposition were measured individually for all mule ducks. Half-sib mule ducks were placed together in 1 small pen, and the feed consumption was recorded for each pen; all half-sibs therefore had the same feed intake estimates. Heritability of RFI was high (0.83 ± 0.42), and after 2 generations of selection, the differences between lines in terms of RFI (contrast of 9.13 g/d, representing 0.76 phenotypic standard deviation; P < 0.0001) and feed conversion ratio (contrast of 0.08, representing 0.28 phenotypic standard deviation; P = 0.0003) were marked. In regard to carcass traits, the low-RFI line (high-efficiency animals) had heavier legs (476 vs. 463 g; P < 0.0001) and magret muscles (268 vs. 262 g; P = 0.001) than the high-RFI line (low-efficiency animals). No differences were observed for either the liver weight or the melting rate between the 2 lines (P > 0.46). Selection on RFI thus improves the feed efficiency of animals without impairing their capacity to produce fatty liver.

Advanced Technologies in Safe and Efficient Operating Rooms

DTIC Science & Technology

2007-02-01

facilities that deal with trauma. The resulting chaos can be overwhelming, even with some form of electronic health record ( EHR ) system (currently...computers which process this data to deliver more efficient health -related services. The EMR is an essential part of systems like the Traumapod [24...perioperative situational awareness system that captures and records data from various medical devices and provides an integrated display to allow the operating

Factors influencing the chance of cows being pregnant 30 days after the herd voluntary waiting period.

PubMed

Löf, E; Gustafsson, H; Emanuelson, U

2014-01-01

The objective of this study was to study factors affecting a reproductive performance indicator at the cow level adjusted for herd management strategy. Associations between the outcome variable, pregnant or not at the herd voluntary waiting period (VWP) plus 30d (pregnant at VWP+30), and the predictor variables were analyzed using a multivariable, generalized estimation equations model that adjusted for clustering of the data at the herd level. The statistical analysis was stratified on parity. In total, 132,721 cows were retained for analyses, of which 29,113 (22%) were pregnant at VWP+30d. Of the nonpregnant cows, 81,483 cows had records of artificial inseminations (AI) and 22,125 cows had no records of AI. The chance of pregnancy was higher for cows of the Swedish Red and for other/crossbreeds compared with Swedish Holstein, for cows from herds with high heat detection efficiency compared with cows from herds with medium and low heat detection efficiency, for cows from herds with long VWP (i.e., >51d) compared with cows from herds with short VWP (<51d), and for cows in freestalls compared with cows in tiestalls. The chance for pregnancy was lower for cows with severe problems at claw trimming compared with cows with no problems at trimming (only for second- and higher-parity cows), for cows that had a record of reproduction-related disease, for cows that had a record of any other disease compared with cows without record, for second- and higher-parity cows with records of dystocia compared with cows with no record of dystocia, for first-parity cows in the group with the highest milk yield compared with first-parity cows in the group with the lowest milk yield, for cows of third and higher parity in the group with the lowest milk yield compared with cows in higher yielding groups, for cows bred in summer compared with those bred in winter-spring (not significant for first-parity cows), and for cows with a twin birth had compared with cows with a single birth. We observed associations of the dose-response type, such that when the milk fat-to-protein ratio increased, the chance for pregnancy decreased, and as the somatic cell count increased, the chance for pregnancy decreased. In conclusion, factors that are known to affect reproductive efficiency also affect the chance of cows being pregnant at the herd VWP plus 30d. Copyright © 2014 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Quantifying losses and thermodynamic limits in nanophotonic solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mann, Sander A.; Oener, Sebastian Z.; Cavalli, Alessandro; Haverkort, Jos E. M.; Bakkers, Erik P. A. M.; Garnett, Erik C.

2016-12-01

Nanophotonic engineering shows great potential for photovoltaics: the record conversion efficiencies of nanowire solar cells are increasing rapidly and the record open-circuit voltages are becoming comparable to the records for planar equivalents. Furthermore, it has been suggested that certain nanophotonic effects can reduce costs and increase efficiencies with respect to planar solar cells. These effects are particularly pronounced in single-nanowire devices, where two out of the three dimensions are subwavelength. Single-nanowire devices thus provide an ideal platform to study how nanophotonics affects photovoltaics. However, for these devices the standard definition of power conversion efficiency no longer applies, because the nanowire can absorb light from an area much larger than its own size. Additionally, the thermodynamic limit on the photovoltage is unknown a priori and may be very different from that of a planar solar cell. This complicates the characterization and optimization of these devices. Here, we analyse an InP single-nanowire solar cell using intrinsic metrics to place its performance on an absolute thermodynamic scale and pinpoint performance loss mechanisms. To determine these metrics we have developed an integrating sphere microscopy set-up that enables simultaneous and spatially resolved quantitative absorption, internal quantum efficiency (IQE) and photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) measurements. For our record single-nanowire solar cell, we measure a photocurrent collection efficiency of >90% and an open-circuit voltage of 850 mV, which is 73% of the thermodynamic limit (1.16 V).

Fiberless multicolor neural optoelectrode for in vivo circuit analysis

PubMed Central

Kampasi, Komal; Stark, Eran; Seymour, John; Na, Kyounghwan; Winful, Herbert G.; Buzsáki, György; Wise, Kensall D.; Yoon, Euisik

2016-01-01

Maximizing the potential of optogenetic approaches in deep brain structures of intact animals requires optical manipulation of neurons at high spatial and temporal resolutions, while simultaneously recording electrical data from those neurons. Here, we present the first fiber-less optoelectrode with a monolithically integrated optical waveguide mixer that can deliver multicolor light at a common waveguide port to achieve multicolor modulation of the same neuronal population in vivo. We demonstrate successful device implementation by achieving efficient coupling between a side-emitting injection laser diode (ILD) and a dielectric optical waveguide mixer via a gradient-index (GRIN) lens. The use of GRIN lenses attains several design features, including high optical coupling and thermal isolation between ILDs and waveguides. We validated the packaged devices in the intact brain of anesthetized mice co-expressing Channelrhodopsin-2 and Archaerhodopsin in pyramidal cells in the hippocampal CA1 region, achieving high quality recording, activation and silencing of the exact same neurons in a given local region. This fully-integrated approach demonstrates the spatial precision and scalability needed to enable independent activation and silencing of the same or different groups of neurons in dense brain regions while simultaneously recording from them, thus considerably advancing the capabilities of currently available optogenetic toolsets. PMID:27485264

Improving record linkage performance in the presence of missing linkage data.

PubMed

Ong, Toan C; Mannino, Michael V; Schilling, Lisa M; Kahn, Michael G

2014-12-01

Existing record linkage methods do not handle missing linking field values in an efficient and effective manner. The objective of this study is to investigate three novel methods for improving the accuracy and efficiency of record linkage when record linkage fields have missing values. By extending the Fellegi-Sunter scoring implementations available in the open-source Fine-grained Record Linkage (FRIL) software system we developed three novel methods to solve the missing data problem in record linkage, which we refer to as: Weight Redistribution, Distance Imputation, and Linkage Expansion. Weight Redistribution removes fields with missing data from the set of quasi-identifiers and redistributes the weight from the missing attribute based on relative proportions across the remaining available linkage fields. Distance Imputation imputes the distance between the missing data fields rather than imputing the missing data value. Linkage Expansion adds previously considered non-linkage fields to the linkage field set to compensate for the missing information in a linkage field. We tested the linkage methods using simulated data sets with varying field value corruption rates. The methods developed had sensitivity ranging from .895 to .992 and positive predictive values (PPV) ranging from .865 to 1 in data sets with low corruption rates. Increased corruption rates lead to decreased sensitivity for all methods. These new record linkage algorithms show promise in terms of accuracy and efficiency and may be valuable for combining large data sets at the patient level to support biomedical and clinical research. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

SU-F-T-234: Quality Improvements in the Electronic Medical Record of Patients Treated with High Dose-Rate Brachytherapy

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

Diener, T; Wilkinson, D

Purpose: To improve workflow efficiency and patient safety by assessing the quality control documentation for HDR brachytherapy within our Electronic Medical Record System (Mosaiq). Methods: A list of parameters based on NRC regulations, our quality management program (QMP), recommendations of the ACR and the American Brachytherapy Society, and HDR treatment planning risks identified in our previous FMEA study was made. Next, the parameter entries were classified according to the type of data input—manual, electronic, or both. Manual entry included the electronic Brachytherapy Treatment Record (BTR) and pre-treatment Mosaiq Assessments list. Oncentra Treatment Reports (OTR) from the Oncentra Treatment Control Systemmore » constituted the electronic data. The OTR includes a Pre-treatment Report for each fraction, and a Treatment Summary Report at the completion of treatment. Each entry was then examined for appropriateness and completeness of data; adjustments and additions as necessary were then made. Results: Ten out of twenty-one recorded treatment parameters were identified to be documented within both the BTR and OTR. Of these ten redundancies, eight were changed from recorded values to a simple checklist in the BTR to avoid recording errors. The other redundancies were kept in both documents due to their value to ensuring patient safety. An edit was made to the current BTR quality assessment; this change revises the definition of a medical event in accordance with ODH Regulation 3701:1-58-101. One addition was made to the current QMP documents regarding HDR. This addition requires a physician to be present through the duration of HDR treatment in accordance with ODH Regulation 3701:1-58-59; Paragraph (F); Section (2); Subsection (a). Conclusion: Careful examination of HDR documentation that originates from different sources can help to improve the accuracy and reliability of the documents. In addition, there may be a small improvement in efficiency due to elimination of unnecessary redundancies.« less

From photoluminescence to thermal emission: Thermally-enhanced PL (TEPL) for efficient PV (Conference Presentation)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manor, Assaf; Kruger, Nimrod; Martin, Leopoldo L.; Rotschild, Carmel

2016-09-01

The Shockley-Queisser efficiency limit of 40% for single-junction photovoltaic (PV) cells is mainly caused by the heat dissipation accompanying the process of electro-chemical potential generation. Concepts such as solar thermo-photovoltaics (STPV) aim to harvest this heat loss by the use of a primary absorber which acts as a mediator between the sun and the PV, spectrally shaping the light impinging on the cell. However, this approach is challenging to realize due to the high operating temperatures of above 2000K required in order to generate high thermal emission fluxes. After over thirty years of STPV research, the record conversion efficiency for STPV device stands at 3.2% for 1285K operating temperature. In contrast, we recently demonstrated how thermally-enhanced photoluminescence (TEPL) is an optical heat-pump, in which photoluminescence is thermally blue-shifted upon heating while the number of emitted photons is conserved. This process generates energetic photon-rates which are comparable to thermal emission in significantly reduced temperatures, opening the way for a TEPL based energy converter. In such a device, a photoluminescent low bandgap absorber replaces the STPV thermal absorber. The thermalization heat induces a temperature rise and a blue-shifted emission, which is efficiently harvested by a higher bandgap PV. We show that such an approach can yield ideal efficiencies of 70% at 1140K, and realistic efficiencies of almost 50% at moderate concentration levels. As an experimental proof-of-concept, we demonstrate 1.4% efficient TEPL energy conversion of an Nd3+ system coupled to a GaAs cell, at 600K.

High-Reproducibility and High-Accuracy Method for Automated Topic Classification

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lancichinetti, Andrea; Sirer, M. Irmak; Wang, Jane X.; Acuna, Daniel; Körding, Konrad; Amaral, Luís A. Nunes

2015-01-01

Much of human knowledge sits in large databases of unstructured text. Leveraging this knowledge requires algorithms that extract and record metadata on unstructured text documents. Assigning topics to documents will enable intelligent searching, statistical characterization, and meaningful classification. Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) is the state of the art in topic modeling. Here, we perform a systematic theoretical and numerical analysis that demonstrates that current optimization techniques for LDA often yield results that are not accurate in inferring the most suitable model parameters. Adapting approaches from community detection in networks, we propose a new algorithm that displays high reproducibility and high accuracy and also has high computational efficiency. We apply it to a large set of documents in the English Wikipedia and reveal its hierarchical structure.

Spectroscopic investigation and luminescent properties of Schiff base metal complex for OLED

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gondia, N. K.; Priya, J.; Sharma, S. K.

2018-05-01

Organic light emitting diode (OLED) display technology has demonstrated high efficiency and brightness, is leading to a strong commercial interest. One of the remaining problems with the OLED technology is efficiency and colour saturation. The efficiency of OLED devices can be improved by doping the host organic layer with a suitable phosphorescent material in the emissive layer. We have synthesized a Schiff base zinc metal complex for OLEDs applications. Metal complex was characterized by FTIR, HNMR technique. PL emission spectra were recorded by keeping excitation wavelength fixed at 240 nm. A strong intense emission peak was observed at 410 nm. CIE chromaticity colour coordinates were observed at x =0.239 & y = 0.159. HOMO/LUMO energy gap were found to be -0.223 and -0.067 respectively for prepared zinc metal complex. It could be considered as a good light emitting phosphor material for possible application as emissive layer in OLEDs.

120 watt continuous wave solar-pumped laser with a liquid light-guide lens and an Nd:YAG rod.

PubMed

Dinh, T H; Ohkubo, T; Yabe, T; Kuboyama, H

2012-07-01

We propose a simple and efficient pumping approach for a high-power solar-pumped laser by using a liquid light-guide lens (LLGL) and a hybrid pumping cavity. A 2×2 m Fresnel lens is used as a primary concentrator to collect natural sunlight; 120 W cw laser power and a 4.3% total slope efficiency are achieved with a 6-mm diameter Nd:YAG rod within a 14-mm diameter LLGL. The corresponded collection efficiency is 30.0 W/m(2), which is 1.5 times larger than the previous record. This result is unexpectedly better than that of Cr:Nd:YAG ceramics. It is because the scattering coefficient of Cr:Nd:YAG ceramics is 0.004cm(1), which is 2 times larger than that of the Nd:YAG crystal, although both have similar saturation gains.

High Storage Efficiency and Large Fractional Delay of EIT-Based Memory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yi-Hsin; Lee, Meng-Jung; Wang, I.-Chung; Du, Shengwang; Chen, Yong-Fan; Chen, Ying-Cheng; Yu, Ite

2013-05-01

In long-distance quantum communication and optical quantum computation, an efficient and long-lived quantum memory is an important component. We first experimentally demonstrated that a time-space-reversing method plus the optimum pulse shape can improve the storage efficiency (SE) of light pulses to 78% in cold media based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We obtain a large fractional delay of 74 at 50% SE, which is the best record so far. The measured classical fidelity of the recalled pulse is higher than 90% and nearly independent of the storage time, implying that the optical memory maintains excellent phase coherence. Our results suggest the current result may be readily applied to single-photon quantum states due to quantum nature of the EIT light-matter inference. This study advances the EIT-based quantum memory in practical quantum information applications.

Intermediate photovoltaic system application experiment operational performance report: Volume 5, for Beverly High School, Beverly, Mass.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1982-02-01

Performance data for the month of January, 1982 for a grid connected photovoltaic power supply in Massachusetts are presented. Data include: monthly and daily electrical energy produced; monthly and daily solar energy incident on the array; monthly and daily array efficiency; plots of energy produced as a function of power level, voltage, cell temperature and time of day; power conditioner input, output and efficiency for each of two individual units and for the total power conditioning system; photovoltaic system efficiency; capacity factor; PV system to load and grid to load energies and corresponding dollar values; daily energy supplies to the load by the PV system; daily PV system availability; monthly and hourly insolation; monthly and hourly temperature average; monthly and hourly wind speed; wind direction distribution; average heating and cooling degree days; number of freeze/thaw cycles; and the data acquisition mode and recording interval plot.

40 CFR 63.3930 - What records must I keep?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... record of whether the deviation occurred during a period of startup, shutdown, or malfunction. (2) The records in § 63.6(e)(3)(iii) through (v) related to startup, shutdown, and malfunction. (3) The records... part 51 for a PTE and has a capture efficiency of 100 percent, as specified in § 63.3965(a). (5) For...

40 CFR 63.4930 - What records must I keep?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... record of whether the deviation occurred during a period of startup, shutdown, or malfunction. (2) The records in § 63.6(e)(3)(iii) through (v) related to startup, shutdown, and malfunction. (3) The records... part 51 for a PTE and has a capture efficiency of 100 percent, as specified in § 63.4964(a). (5) For...

Bication lead iodide 2D perovskite component to stabilize inorganic α-CsPbI3 perovskite phase for high-efficiency solar cells

PubMed Central

Zhang, Taiyang; Dar, M. Ibrahim; Li, Ge; Xu, Feng; Guo, Nanjie; Grätzel, Michael; Zhao, Yixin

2017-01-01

Among various all-inorganic halide perovskites exhibiting better stability than organic-inorganic halide perovskites, α-CsPbI3 with the most suitable band gap for tandem solar cell application faces an issue of phase instability under ambient conditions. We discovered that a small amount of two-dimensional (2D) EDAPbI4 perovskite containing the ethylenediamine (EDA) cation stabilizes the α-CsPbI3 to avoid the undesirable formation of the nonperovskite δ phase. Moreover, not only the 2D perovskite of EDAPbI4 facilitate the formation of α-CsPbI3 perovskite films exhibiting high phase stability at room temperature for months and at 100°C for >150 hours but also the α-CsPbI3 perovskite solar cells (PSCs) display highly reproducible efficiency of 11.8%, a record for all-inorganic lead halide PSCs. Therefore, using the bication EDA presents a novel and promising strategy to design all-inorganic lead halide PSCs with high performance and reliability. PMID:28975149

High-Performance Biogas Upgrading Using a Biotrickling Filter and Hydrogenotrophic Methanogens.

PubMed

Dupnock, Trisha L; Deshusses, Marc A

2017-10-01

This research reports the development of a biotrickling filter (BTF) to upgrade biogas, which is achieved by adding H 2 to reduce CO 2 . H 2 and CO 2 (80:20% vol.) were fed to a bench-scale BTF packed with polyurethane foam (PUF) and inoculated with hydrogenotrophic methanogens. Maximum CH 4 production rates recorded were as high as 38 m 3 CH4  m -3 reactor  day -1 , which is 5-30 times faster than earlier reports with other kinds of bioreactors. The high rates were attributed to the efficient mass transfer and high density of methanogens in the BTF. The removal efficiencies for H 2 and CO 2 were 83 and 96%, respectively. 5-Cyano-2,3-ditolyl tetrazolium chloride/DAPI staining revealed that 67% of cells were alive near the gas entrance port, while only 8.3% were alive at the exit. Furthermore, DNA sequencing showed that only 27% of the biomass was composed of Euryarchaeota, the phylum which includes methanogens. These two observations suggest that optimizing the methanogen density and activity could possibly reach even higher biogas upgrading rates.

Holographic Gratings for Optical Processing

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kukhtarev, Nickolai

2002-01-01

Investigation of astronomical objects and tracking of man-made space objects lead to generation of huge amount of information for optical processing. Traditional big-size optical elements (such as optical telescopes) have a tendency for increasing aperture size in order to improve sensitivity. This tendency leads to increasing of weight and costs of optical systems and stimulate search for the new, more adequate technologies. One approach to meet these demands is based on developing of holographic optical elements using new polymeric materials. We have investigated possibility to use new material PQ-PMMA (phenantrenequinone-doped PMMA (Polymethyl Methacrylate)) for fabrication of highly selective optical filters and fast spatial-temporal light modulators. This material was originally developed in Russia and later was tested in CalTech as a candidate material for optical storage. Our theoretical investigation predicts the possibility of realization of fast spatial and temporal light modulation, using volume reflection-type spectral filter. We have developed also model of holographic-grating recording in PQ-PMMA material, based on diffusional amplification. This mechanism of recording allow to receive high diffraction efficiency during recording of reflection-type volume holographic grating (holographic mirror). We also investigated recording of dynamic gratings in the photorefractive crystals LiNbO3 (LN) for space-based spectroscopy and for adaptive correction of aberrations in the telescope's mirrors. We have shown, that specific 'photogalvanic' mechanism of holographic grating recording in LN allow to realize recording of blazed gratings for volume and surface gratings. Possible applications of dynamic gratings in LN for amplification of images, transmitted through an imaging fiber guide was also demonstrated.

A cloud-based framework for large-scale traditional Chinese medical record retrieval.

PubMed

Liu, Lijun; Liu, Li; Fu, Xiaodong; Huang, Qingsong; Zhang, Xianwen; Zhang, Yin

2018-01-01

Electronic medical records are increasingly common in medical practice. The secondary use of medical records has become increasingly important. It relies on the ability to retrieve the complete information about desired patient populations. How to effectively and accurately retrieve relevant medical records from large- scale medical big data is becoming a big challenge. Therefore, we propose an efficient and robust framework based on cloud for large-scale Traditional Chinese Medical Records (TCMRs) retrieval. We propose a parallel index building method and build a distributed search cluster, the former is used to improve the performance of index building, and the latter is used to provide high concurrent online TCMRs retrieval. Then, a real-time multi-indexing model is proposed to ensure the latest relevant TCMRs are indexed and retrieved in real-time, and a semantics-based query expansion method and a multi- factor ranking model are proposed to improve retrieval quality. Third, we implement a template-based visualization method for displaying medical reports. The proposed parallel indexing method and distributed search cluster can improve the performance of index building and provide high concurrent online TCMRs retrieval. The multi-indexing model can ensure the latest relevant TCMRs are indexed and retrieved in real-time. The semantics expansion method and the multi-factor ranking model can enhance retrieval quality. The template-based visualization method can enhance the availability and universality, where the medical reports are displayed via friendly web interface. In conclusion, compared with the current medical record retrieval systems, our system provides some advantages that are useful in improving the secondary use of large-scale traditional Chinese medical records in cloud environment. The proposed system is more easily integrated with existing clinical systems and be used in various scenarios. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Bank Terminals

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1978-01-01

In the photo, employees of the UAB Bank, Knoxville, Tennessee, are using Teller Transaction Terminals manufactured by SCI Systems, Inc., Huntsville, Alabama, an electronics firm which has worked on a number of space projects under contract with NASA. The terminals are part of an advanced, computerized financial transaction system that offers high efficiency in bank operations. The key to the system's efficiency is a "multiplexing" technique developed for NASA's Space Shuttle. Multiplexing is simultaneous transmission of large amounts of data over a single transmission link at very high rates of speed. In the banking application, a small multiplex "data bus" interconnects all the terminals and a central computer which stores information on clients' accounts. The data bus replaces the maze-of wiring that would be needed to connect each terminal separately and it affords greater speed in recording transactions. The SCI system offers banks real-time data management through constant updating of the central computer. For example, a check is immediately cancelled at the teller's terminal and the computer is simultaneously advised of the transaction; under other methods, the check would be cancelled and the transaction recorded at the close of business. Teller checkout at the end of the day, conventionally a time-consuming matter of processing paper, can be accomplished in minutes by calling up a summary of the day's transactions. SCI manufactures other types of terminals for use in the system, such as an administrative terminal that provides an immediate printout of a client's account, and another for printing and recording savings account deposits and withdrawals. SCI systems have been installed in several banks in Tennessee, Arizona, and Oregon and additional installations are scheduled this year.

Study on the performance of eosin-doped poly(vinyl alcohol)/acrylamide photopolymer films for holographic recording using 488-nm wavelength

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rajesh, Chelakkal Sukumaran; Sreeroop, Sasidharan Savithrydevi; Pramitha, Vayalamkuzhi; Joseph, Rani; Sreekumar, Krishnapillai; Kartha, Cheranellore Sudha

2011-12-01

This article reports a study done on eosin-doped poly(vinyl alcohol)/acrylamide films for holographic recording using 488 nm Ar+ laser. Films were fabricated using gravity settling method at room temperature and were stored under normal laboratory conditions. Ar+ laser (488 nm) was used for fringe recording. Characterization was done by real time transmittance measurement, optical absorption studies, and diffraction efficiency measurements. Various holographic parameters such as exposure energy, recording power, spatial frequency, etc., were optimized so as to ensure maximum performance. More than 85% diffraction efficiency was obtained at an exposure energy of 50 mJ/cm2 in the optimized film. Efforts were taken to study the environmental stability of this self-developing polymeric material by looking at its shelf life and storage life. Compatibility for recording transmission hologram was also checked.

Surface relief and refractive index gratings patterned in chalcogenide glasses and studied by off-axis digital holography.

PubMed

Cazac, V; Meshalkin, A; Achimova, E; Abashkin, V; Katkovnik, V; Shevkunov, I; Claus, D; Pedrini, G

2018-01-20

Surface relief gratings and refractive index gratings are formed by direct holographic recording in amorphous chalcogenide nanomultilayer structures As 2 S 3 -Se and thin films As 2 S 3 . The evolution of the grating parameters, such as the modulation of refractive index and relief depth in dependence of the holographic exposure, is investigated. Off-axis digital holographic microscopy is applied for the measurement of the photoinduced phase gratings. For the high-accuracy reconstruction of the wavefront (amplitude and phase) transmitted by the fabricated gratings, we used a computational technique based on the sparse modeling of phase and amplitude. Both topography and refractive index maps of recorded gratings are revealed. Their separated contribution in diffraction efficiency is estimated.

Efficient multi-site two-photon functional imaging of neuronal circuits.

PubMed

Castanares, Michael Lawrence; Gautam, Vini; Drury, Jack; Bachor, Hans; Daria, Vincent R

2016-12-01

Two-photon imaging using high-speed multi-channel detectors is a promising approach for optical recording of cellular membrane dynamics at multiple sites. A main bottleneck of this technique is the limited number of photons captured within a short exposure time (~1ms). Here, we implement temporal gating to improve the two-photon fluorescence yield from holographically projected multiple foci whilst maintaining a biologically safe incident average power. We observed up to 6x improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in Fluorescein and cultured hippocampal neurons showing evoked calcium transients. With improved SNR, we could pave the way to achieving multi-site optical recording of fluorogenic probes with response times in the order of ~1ms.

Efficient multi-site two-photon functional imaging of neuronal circuits

PubMed Central

Castanares, Michael Lawrence; Gautam, Vini; Drury, Jack; Bachor, Hans; Daria, Vincent R.

2016-01-01

Two-photon imaging using high-speed multi-channel detectors is a promising approach for optical recording of cellular membrane dynamics at multiple sites. A main bottleneck of this technique is the limited number of photons captured within a short exposure time (~1ms). Here, we implement temporal gating to improve the two-photon fluorescence yield from holographically projected multiple foci whilst maintaining a biologically safe incident average power. We observed up to 6x improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in Fluorescein and cultured hippocampal neurons showing evoked calcium transients. With improved SNR, we could pave the way to achieving multi-site optical recording of fluorogenic probes with response times in the order of ~1ms. PMID:28018745

A 2.4 GHz ULP reconfigurable asymmetric transceiver for single-chip wireless neural recording IC.

PubMed

Tan, Jun; Liew, Wen-Sin; Heng, Chun-Huat; Lian, Yong

2014-08-01

This paper presents a 2.4 GHz ultra-low-power (ULP) reconfigurable asymmetric transceiver and demonstrates its application in wireless neural recording. Fabricated in 0.13 μm CMOS technology, the transceiver is optimized for sensor-gateway communications within a star-shaped network, and supports both the sensor and gateway operation modes. Binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) modulation with high data rate (DR) of 1 to 8 Mbps is used in the uplink from sensor to gateway, while on-off keying (OOK) modulation with low DR of 100 kbps is adopted in the downlink. A fully integrated Class-E PA with moderate output power has also been proposed and achieves power efficiency of 53%. To minimize area usage, inductor reuse is adopted between PA and LNA, and eliminates the need of lossy T/R switch in the RF signal path. When used as sensor, the transceiver with frequency locked phase-locked loop (PLL) achieves TX (BPSK) power efficiency of 28% @ 0 dBm output power, and RX (OOK) sensitivity of -80 dBm @ 100 kbps while consuming only 780 μW . When configured as gateway, the transceiver achieves sensitivity levels of -92, -84.5, and -77 dBm for 1, 5, and 8 Mbps BPSK, respectively. The transceiver is integrated with an 8-channel neural recording front-end, and neural signals from a rat are captured to verify the system functionality.

An Inductively Powered Scalable 32-Channel Wireless Neural Recording System-on-a-Chip for Neuroscience Applications

PubMed Central

Lee, Seung Bae; Lee, Hyung-Min; Kiani, Mehdi; Jow, Uei-Ming; Ghovanloo, Maysam

2014-01-01

We present an inductively powered 32-channel wireless integrated neural recording (WINeR) system-on-a-chip (SoC) to be ultimately used for one or more small freely behaving animals. The inductive powering is intended to relieve the animals from carrying bulky batteries used in other wireless systems, and enables long recording sessions. The WINeR system uses time-division multiplexing along with a novel power scheduling method that reduces the current in unused low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) to cut the total SoC power consumption. In addition, an on-chip high-efficiency active rectifier with optimized coils help improve the overall system power efficiency, which is controlled in a closed loop to supply stable power to the WINeR regardless of the coil displacements. The WINeR SoC has been implemented in a 0.5-µm standard complementary metal–oxide semiconductor process, measuring 4.9 × 3.3 mm2 and consuming 5.85 mW at ± 1.5 V when 12 out of 32 LNAs are active at any time by power scheduling. Measured input-referred noise for the entire system, including the receiver located at 1.2 m, is 4.95 µVrms in the 1 Hz~10 kHz range when the system is inductively powered with 7-cm separation between aligned coils. PMID:23850753

A study on agent-based secure scheme for electronic medical record system.

PubMed

Chen, Tzer-Long; Chung, Yu-Fang; Lin, Frank Y S

2012-06-01

Patient records, including doctors' diagnoses of diseases, trace of treatments and patients' conditions, nursing actions, and examination results from allied health profession departments, are the most important medical records of patients in medical systems. With patient records, medical staff can instantly understand the entire medical information of a patient so that, according to the patient's conditions, more accurate diagnoses and more appropriate in-depth treatments can be provided. Nevertheless, in such a modern society with booming information technologies, traditional paper-based patient records have faced a lot of problems, such as lack of uniform formats, low data mobility, slow data transfer, illegible handwritings, enormous and insufficient storage space, difficulty of conservation, being easily damaged, and low transferability. To improve such drawbacks, reduce medical costs, and advance medical quality, paper-based patient records are modified into electronic medical records and reformed into electronic patient records. However, since electronic patient records used in various hospitals are diverse and different, in consideration of cost, it is rather difficult to establish a compatible and complete integrated electronic patient records system to unify patient records from heterogeneous systems in hospitals. Moreover, as the booming of the Internet, it is no longer necessary to build an integrated system. Instead, doctors can instantly look up patients' complete information through the Internet access to electronic patient records as well as avoid the above difficulties. Nonetheless, the major problem of accessing to electronic patient records cross-hospital systems exists in the security of transmitting and accessing to the records in case of unauthorized medical personnels intercepting or stealing the information. This study applies the Mobile Agent scheme to cope with the problem. Since a Mobile Agent is a program, which can move among hosts and automatically disperse arithmetic processes, and moves from one host to another in heterogeneous network systems with the characteristics of autonomy and mobility, decreasing network traffic, reducing transfer lag, encapsulating protocol, availability on heterogeneous platforms, fault-tolerance, high flexibility, and personalization. However, since a Mobile Agent contacts and exchanges information with other hosts or agents on the Internet for rapid exchange and access to medical information, the security is threatened. In order to solve the problem, this study proposes a key management scheme based on Lagrange interpolation formulas and hierarchical management structure to make Mobile Agents a more secure and efficient access control scheme for electronic patient record systems when applied to the access of patients' personal electronic patient records cross hospitals. Meanwhile, with the comparison of security and efficacy analyses being the feasibility of validation scheme and the basis of better efficiency, the security of Mobile Agents in the process of operation can be guaranteed, key management efficacy can be advanced, and the security of the Mobile Agent system can be protected.

Telemedicine

MedlinePlus

... making health care delivery easier and more efficient. Electronic medical records are replacing paper charts. Digital devices ... 2016 More on this topic for: Parents Teens Electronic Health Records Talking to Your Child's Doctor How ...

Unravelling Photocarrier Dynamics beyond the Space Charge Region for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

DOE PAGES

Zhang, Wenrui; Yan, Danhua; Appavoo, Kannatassen; ...

2017-04-18

Semiconductor photoelectrodes for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting require efficient carrier generation, separation, and transport at and beyond the space charge region (SCR) formed at the aqueous interface. The trade-off between photon collection and minority carrier delivery governs the photoelectrode design and implies maximum water splitting efficiency at an electrode thickness equivalent to the light absorption depth. Here, using planar ZnO thin films as a model system, we identify the photocarriers beyond the SCR as another significant source to substantially enhance the PEC performance. The high-quality ZnO films synthesized by pulsed laser deposition feature very few deep trap states and supportmore » a long photocarrier lifetime. Combined with photoelectrochemical characterization, ultrafast spectroscopy, and numerical calculations, it is revealed that engineering the exciton concentration gradient by film thickness facilitates the inward diffusion of photocarriers from the neighboring illuminated region to the SCR and, therefore, achieves a record high quantum efficiency over 80% at a thickness far beyond its light absorption depth and the SCR width. Furthermore, these results elucidate the important role of the photocarriers beyond SCR for the PEC process and provide new insight into exploring the full potential for efficient photoelectrode materials with large exciton diffusivity.« less

An Efficient Searchable Encryption Against Keyword Guessing Attacks for Sharable Electronic Medical Records in Cloud-based System.

PubMed

Wu, Yilun; Lu, Xicheng; Su, Jinshu; Chen, Peixin

2016-12-01

Preserving the privacy of electronic medical records (EMRs) is extremely important especially when medical systems adopt cloud services to store patients' electronic medical records. Considering both the privacy and the utilization of EMRs, some medical systems apply searchable encryption to encrypt EMRs and enable authorized users to search over these encrypted records. Since individuals would like to share their EMRs with multiple persons, how to design an efficient searchable encryption for sharable EMRs is still a very challenge work. In this paper, we propose a cost-efficient secure channel free searchable encryption (SCF-PEKS) scheme for sharable EMRs. Comparing with existing SCF-PEKS solutions, our scheme reduces the storage overhead and achieves better computation performance. Moreover, our scheme can guard against keyword guessing attack, which is neglected by most of the existing schemes. Finally, we implement both our scheme and a latest medical-based scheme to evaluate the performance. The evaluation results show that our scheme performs much better performance than the latest one for sharable EMRs.

Privacy preserving index for encrypted electronic medical records.

PubMed

Chen, Yu-Chi; Horng, Gwoboa; Lin, Yi-Jheng; Chen, Kuo-Chang

2013-12-01

With the development of electronic systems, privacy has become an important security issue in real-life. In medical systems, privacy of patients' electronic medical records (EMRs) must be fully protected. However, to combine the efficiency and privacy, privacy preserving index is introduced to preserve the privacy, where the EMR can be efficiently accessed by this patient or specific doctor. In the literature, Goh first proposed a secure index scheme with keyword search over encrypted data based on a well-known primitive, Bloom filter. In this paper, we propose a new privacy preserving index scheme, called position index (P-index), with keyword search over the encrypted data. The proposed index scheme is semantically secure against the adaptive chosen keyword attack, and it also provides flexible space, lower false positive rate, and search privacy. Moreover, it does not rely on pairing, a complicate computation, and thus can search over encrypted electronic medical records from the cloud server efficiently.

The Denis-gruson Six-component Wind-tunnel Balance

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1935-01-01

The 6.C.1 balance is the first fully automatic balance assuring a continuous and simultaneous record of the aerodynamic characteristics of an airfoil in a wind tunnel. Because of the rapidity of the measurements a complete polar (six components) requires only about three minutes of wind, that is to say, of motive power, which is of interest for wind tunnels with high efficiency factors and may lead to the economical design of large size wind tunnels.

Asymmetric Spread of SRBSDV between Rice and Corn Plants by the Vector Sogatella furcifera (Hemiptera: Delphacidae).

PubMed

Li, Pei; Li, Fei; Han, Yongqiang; Yang, Lang; Liao, Xiaolan; Hou, Maolin

2016-01-01

Plant viruses are mostly transmitted by sucking insects via their piercing behaviors, which may differ due to host plant species and their developmental stages. We characterized the transmission of a fijivirus, southern rice black-streaked dwarf virus (SRBSDV), by the planthopper vector Sogatella furcifera Horváth (Hemiptera: Delphacidae), between rice and corn plants of varying developmental stages. SRBSDV was transmitted from infected rice to uninfected corn plants as efficiently as its transmission between rice plants, while was acquired by S. furcifera nymphs at a much lower rate from infected corn plants than from infected rice plants. We also recorded a high mortality of S. furcifera nymphs on corn plants. It is evident that young stages of both the virus donor and recipient plants added to the transmission efficiency of SRBSDV from rice to corn plants. Feeding behaviors of the vector recorded by electrical penetration graph showed that phloem sap ingestion, the behavioral event that is linked with plant virus acquisition, was impaired on corn plants, which accounts for the high mortality of and low virus acquisition by S. furcifera nymphs on corn plants. Our results reveal an asymmetric spread of SRBSDV between its two host plants and the underlying behavioral mechanism, which is of significance for assessing SRBSDV transmission risks and field epidemiology, and for developing integrated management approaches for SRBSDV disease.

The impact of interoperability of electronic health records on ambulatory physician practices: a discrete-event simulation study.

PubMed

Zhou, Yuan; Ancker, Jessica S; Upadhye, Mandar; McGeorge, Nicolette M; Guarrera, Theresa K; Hegde, Sudeep; Crane, Peter W; Fairbanks, Rollin J; Bisantz, Ann M; Kaushal, Rainu; Lin, Li

2013-01-01

The effect of health information technology (HIT) on efficiency and workload among clinical and nonclinical staff has been debated, with conflicting evidence about whether electronic health records (EHRs) increase or decrease effort. None of this paper to date, however, examines the effect of interoperability quantitatively using discrete event simulation techniques. To estimate the impact of EHR systems with various levels of interoperability on day-to-day tasks and operations of ambulatory physician offices. Interviews and observations were used to collect workflow data from 12 adult primary and specialty practices. A discrete event simulation model was constructed to represent patient flows and clinical and administrative tasks of physicians and staff members. High levels of EHR interoperability were associated with reduced time spent by providers on four tasks: preparing lab reports, requesting lab orders, prescribing medications, and writing referrals. The implementation of an EHR was associated with less time spent by administrators but more time spent by physicians, compared with time spent at paper-based practices. In addition, the presence of EHRs and of interoperability did not significantly affect the time usage of registered nurses or the total visit time and waiting time of patients. This paper suggests that the impact of using HIT on clinical and nonclinical staff work efficiency varies, however, overall it appears to improve time efficiency more for administrators than for physicians and nurses.

Inter-relationships among alternative definitions of feed efficiency in grazing lactating dairy cows.

PubMed

Hurley, A M; López-Villalobos, N; McParland, S; Kennedy, E; Lewis, E; O'Donovan, M; Burke, J L; Berry, D P

2016-01-01

International interest in feed efficiency, and in particular energy intake and residual energy intake (REI), is intensifying due to a greater global demand for animal-derived protein and energy sources. Feed efficiency is a trait of economic importance, and yet is overlooked in national dairy cow breeding goals. This is due primarily to a lack of accurate data on commercial animals, but also a lack of clarity on the most appropriate definition of the feed intake and utilization complex. The objective of the present study was to derive alternative definitions of energetic efficiency in grazing lactating dairy cows and to quantify the inter-relationships among these alternative definitions. Net energy intake (NEI) from pasture and concentrate intake was estimated up to 8 times per lactation for 2,693 lactations from 1,412 Holstein-Friesian cows. Energy values of feed were based on the French Net Energy system where 1 UFL is the net energy requirements for lactation equivalent of 1kg of air-dry barley. A total of 8,183 individual feed intake measurements were available. Energy balance was defined as the difference between NEI and energy expenditure. Efficiency traits were either ratio-based or residual-based; the latter were derived from least squares regression models. Residual energy intake was defined as NEI minus predicted energy to fulfill the requirements for the various energy sinks. The energy sinks (e.g., NEL, metabolic live weight) and additional contributors to energy kinetics (e.g., live weight loss) combined, explained 59% of the variation in NEI, implying that REI represented 41% of the variance in total NEI. The most efficient 10% of test-day records, as defined by REI (n=709), on average were associated with a 7.59 UFL/d less NEI (average NEI of the entire population was 16.23 UFL/d) than the least efficient 10% of test-day records based on REI (n=709). Additionally, the most efficient 10% of test-day records, as defined by REI, were associated with superior energy conversion efficiency (ECE, i.e., NEL divided by NEI; ECE=0.55) compared with the least efficient 10% of test-day records (ECE=0.33). Moreover, REI was positively correlated with energy balance, implying that more negative REI animals (i.e., deemed more efficient) are expected to be, on average, in greater negative energy balance. Many of the correlations among the 14 defined efficiency traits differed from unity, implying that each trait is measuring a different aspect of efficiency. Copyright © 2016 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An Implantable Wireless Neural Interface System for Simultaneous Recording and Stimulation of Peripheral Nerve with a Single Cuff Electrode.

PubMed

Shon, Ahnsei; Chu, Jun-Uk; Jung, Jiuk; Kim, Hyungmin; Youn, Inchan

2017-12-21

Recently, implantable devices have become widely used in neural prostheses because they eliminate endemic drawbacks of conventional percutaneous neural interface systems. However, there are still several issues to be considered: low-efficiency wireless power transmission; wireless data communication over restricted operating distance with high power consumption; and limited functionality, working either as a neural signal recorder or as a stimulator. To overcome these issues, we suggest a novel implantable wireless neural interface system for simultaneous neural signal recording and stimulation using a single cuff electrode. By using widely available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, an easily reconfigurable implantable wireless neural interface system was implemented into one compact module. The implantable device includes a wireless power consortium (WPC)-compliant power transmission circuit, a medical implant communication service (MICS)-band-based radio link and a cuff-electrode path controller for simultaneous neural signal recording and stimulation. During in vivo experiments with rabbit models, the implantable device successfully recorded and stimulated the tibial and peroneal nerves while communicating with the external device. The proposed system can be modified for various implantable medical devices, especially such as closed-loop control based implantable neural prostheses requiring neural signal recording and stimulation at the same time.

An Implantable Wireless Neural Interface System for Simultaneous Recording and Stimulation of Peripheral Nerve with a Single Cuff Electrode

PubMed Central

Shon, Ahnsei; Chu, Jun-Uk; Jung, Jiuk; Youn, Inchan

2017-01-01

Recently, implantable devices have become widely used in neural prostheses because they eliminate endemic drawbacks of conventional percutaneous neural interface systems. However, there are still several issues to be considered: low-efficiency wireless power transmission; wireless data communication over restricted operating distance with high power consumption; and limited functionality, working either as a neural signal recorder or as a stimulator. To overcome these issues, we suggest a novel implantable wireless neural interface system for simultaneous neural signal recording and stimulation using a single cuff electrode. By using widely available commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components, an easily reconfigurable implantable wireless neural interface system was implemented into one compact module. The implantable device includes a wireless power consortium (WPC)-compliant power transmission circuit, a medical implant communication service (MICS)-band-based radio link and a cuff-electrode path controller for simultaneous neural signal recording and stimulation. During in vivo experiments with rabbit models, the implantable device successfully recorded and stimulated the tibial and peroneal nerves while communicating with the external device. The proposed system can be modified for various implantable medical devices, especially such as closed-loop control based implantable neural prostheses requiring neural signal recording and stimulation at the same time. PMID:29267230

Manuel Johnson's tide record at St. Helena

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cartwright, David E.; Woodworth, Philip L.; Ray, Richard D.

2017-03-01

The astronomer Manuel Johnson, a future President of the Royal Astronomical Society, recorded the ocean tides with his own instrument at St. Helena in 1826-1827, while waiting for an observatory to be built. It is an important record in the history of tidal science, as the only previous measurements at St. Helena had been those made by Nevil Maskelyne in 1761, and there were to be no other systematic measurements until the late 20th century. Johnson's tide gauge, of a curious but unique design, recorded efficiently the height of every tidal high and low water for at least 13 months, in spite of requiring frequent re-setting. These heights compare very reasonably with a modern tidal synthesis based on present-day tide gauge measurements from the same site. Johnson's method of timing is unknown, but his calculations of lunar phases suggest that his tidal measurements were recorded in Local Apparent Time. Unfortunately, the recorded times are found to be seriously and variably lagged by many minutes. Johnson's data have never been fully published, but his manuscripts have been safely archived and are available for inspection at Cambridge University. His data have been converted to computer files as part of this study for the benefit of future researchers.

Qualitative and quantitative evaluation of EHR-integrated mobile patient questionnaires regarding usability and cost-efficiency.

PubMed

Fritz, Fleur; Balhorn, Sebastian; Riek, Markus; Breil, Bernhard; Dugas, Martin

2012-05-01

The objective of this evaluation study is to assess a web-based application, currently available on iPad, to document questionnaires regarding patient reported outcomes such as quality of life. Based on the single source approach, the results of these questionnaires are available in the electronic health record to be used for treatment and research purposes. The assessment focuses on the usability and efficiency of the system. The system usability scale questionnaire with seven additional items was used to rate the usability by the patients. It was formally validated by a Cronbach Alpha test. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients and medical staff. Time and cost measures, based on official tables of costs, were taken through workflow observations. This study was conducted in the department of dermatology at the University Hospital of Münster, Germany from April to June 2011. Using the web-based application questionnaire, results about patient reported outcomes like quality of life are immediately available in the electronic health record and can be used for treatment or research purposes. 118 patients and four staff members participated in the study. The usability score reached 80 from 100 points and patients as well as medical staff stated in the interviews that the usability of the web-based system was high, and they preferred it to the previously used paper-based questionnaires. In the setting of our pilot department the mobile devices amortized their costs after 6.7 months. In general, depending on the professional group who are going to post process the paper-based forms, the earliest break-even point to use mobile questionnaires is at 1737 paper sheets per year. The mobile patient questionnaires, integrated into the electronic health record, were well accepted in our pilot setting with high usability scores from patients and medical staff alike. The system has also proved to be cost-efficient compared to the paper-based workflow, given that a certain number of questionnaires is used per year. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Magnetic field gradient driven self-assembly of superparamagnetic nanoparticles using programmable magnetically-recorded templates

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ye, L.; Qi, B.; Lawton, T. G.; Mefford, O. T.; Rinaldi, C.; Garzon, S.; Crawford, T. M.

2013-03-01

Using the enormous magnetic field gradients (100 MT/m @ z =20 nm) present near the surface of magnetic recording media, we demonstrate the fabrication of diffraction gratings with lines consisting entirely of magnetic nanoparticles assembled from a colloidal fluid onto a disk drive medium, followed by transfer to a flexible and transparent polymer thin film. These nanomanufactured gratings have line spacings programmed with commercial magnetic recording and are inherently concave with radii of curvature controlled by varying the polymer film thickness. The diffracted intensity increases non-monotonically with the length of time the colloidal fluid remains on the disk surface. In addition to comparing longitudinal and perpendicular magnetic recording, a combination of spectral diffraction efficiency measurements, magnetometry, scanning electron microscopy and inductively coupled plasma atomic emmission spectroscopy of these gratings are employed to understand colloidal nanoparticle dynamics in this extreme gradient limit. Such experiments are necessary to optimize nanoparticle assembly and obtain uniform patterned features. This low-cost and sustainable approach to nanomanufacturing could enable low-cost, high-quality diffraction gratings as well as more complex polymer nanocomposite materials assembled with single-nanometer precision.

The impact of using electronic patient records on practices of reading and writing.

PubMed

Laitinen, Heleena; Kaunonen, Marja; Åstedt-Kurki, Paivi

2014-12-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the use of electronic patient records in daily practice. In four wards of a large hospital district in Finland, N = 43 patients' care and activities were observed and analysed in terms of the Grounded Theory method. The findings revealed that using electronic patient records created a particular process of writing and reading. Wireless technology enabled simultaneous patient involvement and point-of-care documentation, additionally supporting real-time reading. Remote and retrospective documentation was distant in terms of both space and time. The remoteness caused double documentation, reduced accuracy and less-efficient use of time. 'Non-reading' practices were witnessed in retrospective reading, causing delays in patient care and increase in workload. Similarly, if documentation was insufficient or non-existent, the consequences were found to be detrimental to the patients. The use of an electronic patient record system has a significant impact on patient care. Therefore, it is crucial to develop wireless technology and interdisciplinary collaboration in order to improve and support high-quality patient care. © The Author(s) 2013.

Silicon oxide nanoparticles doped PQ-PMMA for volume holographic imaging filters.

PubMed

Luo, Yuan; Russo, Juan M; Kostuk, Raymond K; Barbastathis, George

2010-04-15

Holographic imaging filters are required to have high Bragg selectivity, namely, narrow angular and spectral bandwidth, to obtain spatial-spectral information within a three-dimensional object. In this Letter, we present the design of holographic imaging filters formed using silicon oxide nanoparticles (nano-SiO(2)) in phenanthrenquinone-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PQ-PMMA) polymer recording material. This combination offers greater Bragg selectivity and increases the diffraction efficiency of holographic filters. The holographic filters with optimized ratio of nano-SiO(2) in PQ-PMMA can significantly improve the performance of Bragg selectivity and diffraction efficiency by 53% and 16%, respectively. We present experimental results and data analysis demonstrating this technique in use for holographic spatial-spectral imaging filters.

Solar thermophotovoltaic system using nanostructures

DOE PAGES

Ungaro, Craig; Gray, Stephen K.; Gupta, Mool C.

2015-08-20

This paper presents results on a highly efficient experimental solar thermophotovoltaic (STPV) system using simulated solar energy. An overall power conversion efficiency of 6.2% was recorded under solar simulation. This was matched with a thermodynamic model, and the losses within the system, as well as a path forward to mitigate these losses, have been investigated. The system consists of a planar, tungsten absorbing/emitting structure with an anti-reflection layer coated laser-microtextured absorbing surface and single-layer dielectric coated emitting surface. A GaSb PV cell was used to capture the emitted radiation and convert it into electrical energy. This simple structure is bothmore » easy to fabricate and temperature stable, and contains no moving parts or heat exchange fluids.« less

III-V/Si Tandem Cells Utilizing Interdigitated Back Contact Si Cells and Varying Terminal Configurations: Preprint

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

Schnabel, Manuel; Klein, Talysa R.; Jain, Nikhil

Solar cells made from bulk crystalline silicon (c-Si) dominate the market, but laboratory efficiencies have stagnated because the current record efficiency of 26.3% is already very close to the theoretical limit of 29.4% for a single-junction c-Si cell. In order to substantially boost the efficiency of Si solar cells we have been developing stacked III-V/Si tandem cells, recently attaining efficiencies above 32% in four-terminal configuration. In this contribution, we use state-of-the-art III-V cells coupled with equivalent circuit simulations to compare four-terminal (4T) to three- and two-terminal (3T, 2T) operation. Equivalent circuit simulations are used to show that tandem cells canmore » be operated just as efficiently using three terminals as with four terminals. However, care must be taken not to overestimate 3T efficiency, as the two circuits used to extract current interact, and a method is described to accurately determine this efficiency. Experimentally, a 4T GaInP/Si tandem cell utilizing an interdigitated back contact cell is shown, exhibiting a 4T efficiency of 31.5% and a 2T efficiency of 28.1%. In 3T configuration, it is used to verify the finding from simulation that 3T efficiency is overestimated when interactions between the two circuits are neglected. Considering these, a 3T efficiency approaching the 4T efficiency is found, showing that 3T operation is efficient, and an outlook on fully integrated high-efficiency 3T and 2T tandem cells is given.« less

Doped-channel heterojunction structures for millimeter-wave discrete devices and MMICs

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Saunier, P.; Kao, Y. C.; Khatibzadeh, A. M.; Tserng, H. Q.; Bradshaw, K.

1989-01-01

AlGaAs/InGaAs/GaAs-type heterostructures with one or two channels have been used to fabricate both discrete devices and monolithic amplifiers for millimeter-wave operation. The authors report that 0.25-micron x 50-micron discrete devices delivered a power density of 1 W/mm with 2.9-dB gain and 25 percent efficiency at 60 GHz. A 100-micron monolithic single-stage amplifier demonstrated a record 40 percent efficiency at 32 GHz, and a two-stage monolithic amplifier achieved a record 31.3 percent efficiency with 72-mW power and 13-dB gain at 32 GHz.

Plasmonic efficiencies of nanoparticles made of metal nitrides (TiN, ZrN) compared with gold

PubMed Central

Lalisse, Adrien; Tessier, Gilles; Plain, Jérome; Baffou, Guillaume

2016-01-01

Metal nitrides have been proposed to replace noble metals in plasmonics for some specific applications. In particular, while titanium nitride (TiN) and zirconium nitride (ZrN) possess localized plasmon resonances very similar to gold in magnitude and wavelength, they benefit from a much higher sustainability to temperature. For this reason, they are foreseen as ideal candidates for applications in nanoplasmonics that require high material temperature under operation, such as heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) or thermophotovoltaics. This article presents a detailed investigation of the plasmonic properties of TiN and ZrN nanoparticles in comparison with gold nanoparticles, as a function of the nanoparticle morphology. As a main result, metal nitrides are shown to be poor near-field enhancers compared to gold, no matter the nanoparticle morphology and wavelength. The best efficiencies of metal nitrides as compared to gold in term of near-field enhancement are obtained for small and spherical nanoparticles, and they do not exceed 60%. Nanoparticle enlargements or asymmetries are detrimental. These results mitigate the utility of metal nitrides for high-temperature applications such as HAMR, despite their high temperature sustainability. Nevertheless, at resonance, metal nitrides behave as efficient nanosources of heat and could be relevant for applications in thermoplasmonics, where heat generation is not detrimental but desired. PMID:27934890

Plasmonic efficiencies of nanoparticles made of metal nitrides (TiN, ZrN) compared with gold.

PubMed

Lalisse, Adrien; Tessier, Gilles; Plain, Jérome; Baffou, Guillaume

2016-12-09

Metal nitrides have been proposed to replace noble metals in plasmonics for some specific applications. In particular, while titanium nitride (TiN) and zirconium nitride (ZrN) possess localized plasmon resonances very similar to gold in magnitude and wavelength, they benefit from a much higher sustainability to temperature. For this reason, they are foreseen as ideal candidates for applications in nanoplasmonics that require high material temperature under operation, such as heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) or thermophotovoltaics. This article presents a detailed investigation of the plasmonic properties of TiN and ZrN nanoparticles in comparison with gold nanoparticles, as a function of the nanoparticle morphology. As a main result, metal nitrides are shown to be poor near-field enhancers compared to gold, no matter the nanoparticle morphology and wavelength. The best efficiencies of metal nitrides as compared to gold in term of near-field enhancement are obtained for small and spherical nanoparticles, and they do not exceed 60%. Nanoparticle enlargements or asymmetries are detrimental. These results mitigate the utility of metal nitrides for high-temperature applications such as HAMR, despite their high temperature sustainability. Nevertheless, at resonance, metal nitrides behave as efficient nanosources of heat and could be relevant for applications in thermoplasmonics, where heat generation is not detrimental but desired.

Increased x-ray conversion efficiency from ultra high contrast, relativistic laser pulse irradiation of large aspect ratio, vertically aligned nanowires

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hollinger, R. C.; Bargsten, C.; Shlyaptsev, V. N.; Kaymak, V.; Pukhov, A.; Capeluto, M. G.; Wang, Y.; Wang, S.; Rockwood, A.; Curtis, A.; Rocca, J. J.

2016-10-01

Recent experiments at Colorado State University have shown that the effective trapping of clean, Joule-level fs laser pulses of relativistic intensity in arrays of high aspect ratio aligned nanowire creates multi-kev, near solid density, large scale (>4um deep) plasmas. The drastically decreased radiative life time and increased hydrodynamic cooling time from these plasmas increases the x-ray conversion efficiency. We measured a record conversion efficiency of 10% into hv>1KeV photons (2pi steradians), and of 0.3% for hv>6KeV. The experiments used Au and Ni nanowires of 55nm, 80nm and 100nm in diameter with 12% of solid density irradiated by high contrast (>1012) pulses of 60fs FWHM duration from a frequency doubled Ti:Sa laser at intensities of I =5x1019Wcm-2. We also present preliminary results on x-ray emission from Rhodium nanowires in the 19-22KeV range and demonstrate the potential of this picosecond X-ray source in flash radiography. This work was supported by the Fusion Energy Program, Office of Science of the U.S Department of Energy, and by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency Grant HDTRA-1-10-1-0079.

FastMag: Fast micromagnetic simulator for complex magnetic structures (invited)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chang, R.; Li, S.; Lubarda, M. V.; Livshitz, B.; Lomakin, V.

2011-04-01

A fast micromagnetic simulator (FastMag) for general problems is presented. FastMag solves the Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert equation and can handle multiscale problems with a high computational efficiency. The simulator derives its high performance from efficient methods for evaluating the effective field and from implementations on massively parallel graphics processing unit (GPU) architectures. FastMag discretizes the computational domain into tetrahedral elements and therefore is highly flexible for general problems. The magnetostatic field is computed via the superposition principle for both volume and surface parts of the computational domain. This is accomplished by implementing efficient quadrature rules and analytical integration for overlapping elements in which the integral kernel is singular. Thus, discretized superposition integrals are computed using a nonuniform grid interpolation method, which evaluates the field from N sources at N collocated observers in O(N) operations. This approach allows handling objects of arbitrary shape, allows easily calculating of the field outside the magnetized domains, does not require solving a linear system of equations, and requires little memory. FastMag is implemented on GPUs with ?> GPU-central processing unit speed-ups of 2 orders of magnitude. Simulations are shown of a large array of magnetic dots and a recording head fully discretized down to the exchange length, with over a hundred million tetrahedral elements on an inexpensive desktop computer.

Increased attention but more efficient disengagement: neuroscientific evidence for defensive processing of threatening health information.

PubMed

Kessels, Loes T E; Ruiter, Robert A C; Jansma, Bernadette M

2010-07-01

Previous studies indicate that people respond defensively to threatening health information, especially when the information challenges self-relevant goals. The authors investigated whether reduced acceptance of self-relevant health risk information is already visible in early attention processes, that is, attention disengagement processes. In a randomized, controlled trial with 29 smoking and nonsmoking students, a variant of Posner's cueing task was used in combination with the high-temporal resolution method of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Reaction times and P300 ERP. Smokers showed lower P300 amplitudes in response to high- as opposed to low-threat invalid trials when moving their attention to a target in the opposite visual field, indicating more efficient attention disengagement processes. Furthermore, both smokers and nonsmokers showed increased P300 amplitudes in response to the presentation of high- as opposed to low-threat valid trials, indicating threat-induced attention-capturing processes. Reaction time measures did not support the ERP data, indicating that the ERP measure can be extremely informative to measure low-level attention biases in health communication. The findings provide the first neuroscientific support for the hypothesis that threatening health information causes more efficient disengagement among those for whom the health threat is self-relevant. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Electronic Health Records: An Enhanced Security Paradigm to Preserve Patient's Privacy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Slamanig, Daniel; Stingl, Christian

In recent years, demographic change and increasing treatment costs demand the adoption of more cost efficient, highly qualitative and integrated health care processes. The rapid growth and availability of the Internet facilitate the development of eHealth services and especially of electronic health records (EHRs) which are promising solutions to meet the aforementioned requirements. Considering actual web-based EHR systems, patient-centric and patient moderated approaches are widely deployed. Besides, there is an emerging market of so called personal health record platforms, e.g. Google Health. Both concepts provide a central and web-based access to highly sensitive medical data. Additionally, the fact that these systems may be hosted by not fully trustworthy providers necessitates to thoroughly consider privacy issues. In this paper we define security and privacy objectives that play an important role in context of web-based EHRs. Furthermore, we discuss deployed solutions as well as concepts proposed in the literature with respect to this objectives and point out several weaknesses. Finally, we introduce a system which overcomes the drawbacks of existing solutions by considering an holistic approach to preserve patient's privacy and discuss the applied methods.

10 CFR 431.403 - Maintenance of records.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 3 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Maintenance of records. 431.403 Section 431.403 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ENERGY CONSERVATION ENERGY EFFICIENCY PROGRAM FOR CERTAIN COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT General Provisions § 431.403 Maintenance of records. (a) If you are the manufacturer of any...

Report of the Virginia Traffic Records Feasibility Study Team to the State Traffic Records Committee.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1973-01-01

The purpose of the study was to define the current traffic records system of the Commonwealth so as to identify deficiencies as specifically as possible; to suggest changes to upgrade the system to meet current and projected demands at maximum effici...

A closed-loop compressive-sensing-based neural recording system.

PubMed

Zhang, Jie; Mitra, Srinjoy; Suo, Yuanming; Cheng, Andrew; Xiong, Tao; Michon, Frederic; Welkenhuysen, Marleen; Kloosterman, Fabian; Chin, Peter S; Hsiao, Steven; Tran, Trac D; Yazicioglu, Firat; Etienne-Cummings, Ralph

2015-06-01

This paper describes a low power closed-loop compressive sensing (CS) based neural recording system. This system provides an efficient method to reduce data transmission bandwidth for implantable neural recording devices. By doing so, this technique reduces a majority of system power consumption which is dissipated at data readout interface. The design of the system is scalable and is a viable option for large scale integration of electrodes or recording sites onto a single device. The entire system consists of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) with 4 recording readout channels with CS circuits, a real time off-chip CS recovery block and a recovery quality evaluation block that provides a closed feedback to adaptively adjust compression rate. Since CS performance is strongly signal dependent, the ASIC has been tested in vivo and with standard public neural databases. Implemented using efficient digital circuit, this system is able to achieve >10 times data compression on the entire neural spike band (500-6KHz) while consuming only 0.83uW (0.53 V voltage supply) additional digital power per electrode. When only the spikes are desired, the system is able to further compress the detected spikes by around 16 times. Unlike other similar systems, the characteristic spikes and inter-spike data can both be recovered which guarantes a >95% spike classification success rate. The compression circuit occupied 0.11mm(2)/electrode in a 180nm CMOS process. The complete signal processing circuit consumes <16uW/electrode. Power and area efficiency demonstrated by the system make it an ideal candidate for integration into large recording arrays containing thousands of electrode. Closed-loop recording and reconstruction performance evaluation further improves the robustness of the compression method, thus making the system more practical for long term recording.

Record Dynamics in Ants

PubMed Central

Richardson, Thomas O.; Robinson, Elva J. H.; Christensen, Kim; Jensen, Henrik J.; Franks, Nigel R.; Sendova-Franks, Ana B.

2010-01-01

The success of social animals (including ourselves) can be attributed to efficiencies that arise from a division of labour. Many animal societies have a communal nest which certain individuals must leave to perform external tasks, for example foraging or patrolling. Staying at home to care for young or leaving to find food is one of the most fundamental divisions of labour. It is also often a choice between safety and danger. Here we explore the regulation of departures from ant nests. We consider the extreme situation in which no one returns and show experimentally that exiting decisions seem to be governed by fluctuating record signals and ant-ant interactions. A record signal is a new ‘high water mark’ in the history of a system. An ant exiting the nest only when the record signal reaches a level it has never perceived before could be a very effective mechanism to postpone, until the last possible moment, a potentially fatal decision. We also show that record dynamics may be involved in first exits by individually tagged ants even when their nest mates are allowed to re-enter the nest. So record dynamics may play a role in allocating individuals to tasks, both in emergencies and in everyday life. The dynamics of several complex but purely physical systems are also based on record signals but this is the first time they have been experimentally shown in a biological system. PMID:20300174

Electrical and Optical Performance Characteristics of 0.74-eV p/n InGaAs Monolithic Interconnected Modules

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilt, David M.; Fatemi, Navid S.; Jenkins, Phillip P.; Weizer, Victor G.; Hoffman, Richard W., Jr.; Jain, Raj K.; Murray, Christopher S.; Riley, David R.

1997-01-01

There has been a traditional trade-off in thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion development between system efficiency and power density. This trade-off originates from the use of front surface spectral controls such as selective emitters and various types of filters. A monolithic interconnected module (MIM) structure has been developed which allows for both high power densities and high system efficiencies. The MIM device consists of many individual indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) cells series-connected on a single semi-insulating indium phosphide (InP) substrate. The MIM is exposed to the entire emitter output, thereby maximizing output power density. An infrared (IR) reflector placed on the rear surface of the substrate returns the unused portion of the emitter output spectrum back to the emitter for recycling, thereby providing for high system efficiencies. Initial MIM development has focused on a 1 sq cm device consisting of eight (8) series interconnected cells. MIM devices, produced from 0.74-eV InGaAs, have demonstrated V(sub oc) = 3.2 volts, J(sub sc) = 70 mA/sq cm, and a fill factor of 66% under flashlamp testing. Infrared (IR) reflectance measurements (greater than 2 micron) of these devices indicate a reflectivity of greater than 82%. MIM devices produced from 0.55-eV InGaAs have also been demonstrated. In addition, conventional p/n InGaAs devices with record efficiencies (11.7% AM0) have been demonstrated.

Status of Diffused Junction p(+)n InP Solar Cells for Space Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Faur, Mircea; Faur, Maria; Flood, D. J.; Brinker, D. J.; Goradia, C.; Fatemi, N. S.; Jenkins, P. P.; Wilt, D. M.; Bailey, S.

1994-01-01

Recently, we have succeeded in fabricating diffused junction p(+)n(Cd,S) InP solar cells with measured AMO, 25 C open circuit voltage (V(sub OC)) of 887.6 mV, which, to the best of our knowledge, is higher than previously reported V(sub OC) values for any InP homojunction solar cells. The experiment-based projected achievable efficiency of these cells using LEC grown substrates is 21.3%. The maximum AMO, 25 C efficiency recorded to date on bare cells is, however, only 13.2%. This is because of large external and internal losses due to non-optimized front grid design, antireflection (AR) coating and emitter thickness. This paper summarizes recent advances in the technology of fabrication of p(+)n InP diffused structures and solar cells, resulted from a study undertaken in an effort to increase the cell efficiency. The topics discussed in this paper include advances in: 1) the formation of thin p(+) InP:Cd emitter layers, 2) electroplated front contacts, 3) surface passivation and 4) the design of a new native oxide/AI203/MgF2 three layer AR coating using a chemically-grown P-rich passivating oxide as a first layer. Based on the high radiation resistance and the excellent post-irradiation annealing and recovery demonstrated in the early tests done to date, as well as the projected high efficiency and low-cost high-volume fabricability, these cells show a very good potential for space photovoltaic applications.

InGaAs/InP Monolithic Interconnected Modules (MIM) for Thermophotovoltaic Applications

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Wilt, David M.; Fatemi, Navid S.; Jenkins, Phillip P.; Weizer, Victor G.; Hoffman, Richard W., Jr.; Scheiman, David A.; Murray, Christopher S.; Riley, David R.

2004-01-01

There has been a traditional trade-off in thermophotovoltaic (TPV) energy conversion development between systems efficiency and power density. This trade-off originates from the use of front surface spectral controls such as selective emitters and various types of filters. A monolithic interconnected module (MIM) structure has been developed which allows for both high power densities and high system efficiencies. The MIM device consists of many individual indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) devices series -connected on a single semi-insulating indium phosphide (InP) substrate. The MIMs are exposed to the entire emitter output, thereby maximizing output power density. An infrared (IR) reflector placed on the rear surface of the substrate returns the unused portion of the emitter output spectrum back to the emitter for recycling, thereby providing for high system efficiencies. Initial MIM development has focused on a 1 sq cm device consisting of eight series interconnected cells. MIM devices, produced from 0,74 eV InGAAs, have demonstrated V(sub infinity) = 3.23 volts, J(sub sc) = 70 mA/sq cm and a fill factor of 66% under flashlamp testing. Infrared (IR) reflectance measurement (less than 2 microns) of these devices indicate a reflectivity of less than 82%. MIM devices produced from 0.55 eV InGaAs have also been den=monstrated. In addition, conventional p/n InGaAs devices with record efficiencies (11.7% AM1) have been demonstrated.

Nanocomposite polymeric materials for high density optical storage

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Criante, L.; Castagna, R.; Vita, F.; Lucchetta, D. E.; Simoni, F.

2009-02-01

We report the results of an extended investigation performed on composite polymeric materials with the aim of obtaining compounds suitable for holographic recording. In order to investigate the material properties a characterization of holographic reflection gratings at different writing wavelength (514.5, 457 and 405 nm) has been performed. The volume grating presents high diffraction efficiency (>60%), high sensitivity (>103 cm J-1) and refractive index modulation Δn≈0.01 even for writing wavelength in the blue range. We show that following a strategy of two basic components leading to phase separation during the photopolymerization process, most of the requirements for holographic data storage are achieved. The one that needs further improvement concerns long term mechanical stability.

PCIE interface design for high-speed image storage system based on SSD

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Shiming

2015-02-01

This paper proposes and implements a standard interface of miniaturized high-speed image storage system, which combines PowerPC with FPGA and utilizes PCIE bus as the high speed switching channel. Attached to the PowerPC, mSATA interface SSD(Solid State Drive) realizes RAID3 array storage. At the same time, a high-speed real-time image compression patent IP core also can be embedded in FPGA, which is in the leading domestic level with compression rate and image quality, making that the system can record higher image data rate or achieve longer recording time. The notebook memory card buckle type design is used in the mSATA interface SSD, which make it possible to complete the replacement in 5 seconds just using single hand, thus the total length of repeated recordings is increased. MSI (Message Signaled Interrupts) interruption guarantees the stability and reliability of continuous DMA transmission. Furthermore, only through the gigabit network, the remote display, control and upload to backup function can be realized. According to an optional 25 frame/s or 30 frame/s, upload speeds can be up to more than 84 MB/s. Compared with the existing FLASH array high-speed memory systems, it has higher degree of modularity, better stability and higher efficiency on development, maintenance and upgrading. Its data access rate is up to 300MB/s, realizing the high speed image storage system miniaturization, standardization and modularization, thus it is fit for image acquisition, storage and real-time transmission to server on mobile equipment.

Stereotyped high-frequency oscillations discriminate seizure onset zones and critical functional cortex in focal epilepsy.

PubMed

Liu, Su; Gurses, Candan; Sha, Zhiyi; Quach, Michael M; Sencer, Altay; Bebek, Nerses; Curry, Daniel J; Prabhu, Sujit; Tummala, Sudhakar; Henry, Thomas R; Ince, Nuri F

2018-01-30

High-frequency oscillations in local field potentials recorded with intracranial EEG are putative biomarkers of seizure onset zones in epileptic brain. However, localized 80-500 Hz oscillations can also be recorded from normal and non-epileptic cerebral structures. When defined only by rate or frequency, physiological high-frequency oscillations are indistinguishable from pathological ones, which limit their application in epilepsy presurgical planning. We hypothesized that pathological high-frequency oscillations occur in a repetitive fashion with a similar waveform morphology that specifically indicates seizure onset zones. We investigated the waveform patterns of automatically detected high-frequency oscillations in 13 epilepsy patients and five control subjects, with an average of 73 subdural and intracerebral electrodes recorded per patient. The repetitive oscillatory waveforms were identified by using a pipeline of unsupervised machine learning techniques and were then correlated with independently clinician-defined seizure onset zones. Consistently in all patients, the stereotypical high-frequency oscillations with the highest degree of waveform similarity were localized within the seizure onset zones only, whereas the channels generating high-frequency oscillations embedded in random waveforms were found in the functional regions independent from the epileptogenic locations. The repetitive waveform pattern was more evident in fast ripples compared to ripples, suggesting a potential association between waveform repetition and the underlying pathological network. Our findings provided a new tool for the interpretation of pathological high-frequency oscillations that can be efficiently applied to distinguish seizure onset zones from functionally important sites, which is a critical step towards the translation of these signature events into valid clinical biomarkers.awx374media15721572971001. © The Author(s) (2018). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Diode lasers optimized in brightness for fiber laser pumping

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelemen, M.; Gilly, J.; Friedmann, P.; Hilzensauer, S.; Ogrodowski, L.; Kissel, H.; Biesenbach, J.

2018-02-01

In diode laser applications for fiber laser pumping and fiber-coupled direct diode laser systems high brightness becomes essential in the last years. Fiber coupled modules benefit from continuous improvements of high-power diode lasers on chip level regarding output power, efficiency and beam characteristics resulting in record highbrightness values and increased pump power. To gain high brightness not only output power must be increased, but also near field widths and far field angles have to be below a certain value for higher power levels because brightness is proportional to output power divided by beam quality. While fast axis far fields typically show a current independent behaviour, for broadarea lasers far-fields in the slow axis suffer from a strong current and temperature dependence, limiting the brightness and therefore their use in fibre coupled modules. These limitations can be overcome by carefully optimizing chip temperature, thermal lensing and lateral mode structure by epitaxial and lateral resonator designs and processing. We present our latest results for InGaAs/AlGaAs broad-area single emitters with resonator lengths of 4mm emitting at 976nm and illustrate the improvements in beam quality over the last years. By optimizing the diode laser design a record value of the brightness for broad-area lasers with 4mm resonator length of 126 MW/cm2sr has been demonstrated with a maximum wall-plug efficiency of more than 70%. From these design also pump modules based on 9 mini-bars consisting of 5 emitters each have been realized with 360W pump power.

Establishment of integrated protocols for automated high throughput kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence analyses.

PubMed

Tschiersch, Henning; Junker, Astrid; Meyer, Rhonda C; Altmann, Thomas

2017-01-01

Automated plant phenotyping has been established as a powerful new tool in studying plant growth, development and response to various types of biotic or abiotic stressors. Respective facilities mainly apply non-invasive imaging based methods, which enable the continuous quantification of the dynamics of plant growth and physiology during developmental progression. However, especially for plants of larger size, integrative, automated and high throughput measurements of complex physiological parameters such as photosystem II efficiency determined through kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence analysis remain a challenge. We present the technical installations and the establishment of experimental procedures that allow the integrated high throughput imaging of all commonly determined PSII parameters for small and large plants using kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence imaging systems (FluorCam, PSI) integrated into automated phenotyping facilities (Scanalyzer, LemnaTec). Besides determination of the maximum PSII efficiency, we focused on implementation of high throughput amenable protocols recording PSII operating efficiency (Φ PSII ). Using the presented setup, this parameter is shown to be reproducibly measured in differently sized plants despite the corresponding variation in distance between plants and light source that caused small differences in incident light intensity. Values of Φ PSII obtained with the automated chlorophyll fluorescence imaging setup correlated very well with conventionally determined data using a spot-measuring chlorophyll fluorometer. The established high throughput operating protocols enable the screening of up to 1080 small and 184 large plants per hour, respectively. The application of the implemented high throughput protocols is demonstrated in screening experiments performed with large Arabidopsis and maize populations assessing natural variation in PSII efficiency. The incorporation of imaging systems suitable for kinetic chlorophyll fluorescence analysis leads to a substantial extension of the feature spectrum to be assessed in the presented high throughput automated plant phenotyping platforms, thus enabling the simultaneous assessment of plant architectural and biomass-related traits and their relations to physiological features such as PSII operating efficiency. The implemented high throughput protocols are applicable to a broad spectrum of model and crop plants of different sizes (up to 1.80 m height) and architectures. The deeper understanding of the relation of plant architecture, biomass formation and photosynthetic efficiency has a great potential with respect to crop and yield improvement strategies.

Intracellular recording of action potentials by nanopillar electroporation.

PubMed

Xie, Chong; Lin, Ziliang; Hanson, Lindsey; Cui, Yi; Cui, Bianxiao

2012-02-12

Action potentials have a central role in the nervous system and in many cellular processes, notably those involving ion channels. The accurate measurement of action potentials requires efficient coupling between the cell membrane and the measuring electrodes. Intracellular recording methods such as patch clamping involve measuring the voltage or current across the cell membrane by accessing the cell interior with an electrode, allowing both the amplitude and shape of the action potentials to be recorded faithfully with high signal-to-noise ratios. However, the invasive nature of intracellular methods usually limits the recording time to a few hours, and their complexity makes it difficult to simultaneously record more than a few cells. Extracellular recording methods, such as multielectrode arrays and multitransistor arrays, are non-invasive and allow long-term and multiplexed measurements. However, extracellular recording sacrifices the one-to-one correspondence between the cells and electrodes, and also suffers from significantly reduced signal strength and quality. Extracellular techniques are not, therefore, able to record action potentials with the accuracy needed to explore the properties of ion channels. As a result, the pharmacological screening of ion-channel drugs is usually performed by low-throughput intracellular recording methods. The use of nanowire transistors, nanotube-coupled transistors and micro gold-spine and related electrodes can significantly improve the signal strength of recorded action potentials. Here, we show that vertical nanopillar electrodes can record both the extracellular and intracellular action potentials of cultured cardiomyocytes over a long period of time with excellent signal strength and quality. Moreover, it is possible to repeatedly switch between extracellular and intracellular recording by nanoscale electroporation and resealing processes. Furthermore, vertical nanopillar electrodes can detect subtle changes in action potentials induced by drugs that target ion channels.

Intracellular recording of action potentials by nanopillar electroporation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, Chong; Lin, Ziliang; Hanson, Lindsey; Cui, Yi; Cui, Bianxiao

2012-03-01

Action potentials have a central role in the nervous system and in many cellular processes, notably those involving ion channels. The accurate measurement of action potentials requires efficient coupling between the cell membrane and the measuring electrodes. Intracellular recording methods such as patch clamping involve measuring the voltage or current across the cell membrane by accessing the cell interior with an electrode, allowing both the amplitude and shape of the action potentials to be recorded faithfully with high signal-to-noise ratios. However, the invasive nature of intracellular methods usually limits the recording time to a few hours, and their complexity makes it difficult to simultaneously record more than a few cells. Extracellular recording methods, such as multielectrode arrays and multitransistor arrays, are non-invasive and allow long-term and multiplexed measurements. However, extracellular recording sacrifices the one-to-one correspondence between the cells and electrodes, and also suffers from significantly reduced signal strength and quality. Extracellular techniques are not, therefore, able to record action potentials with the accuracy needed to explore the properties of ion channels. As a result, the pharmacological screening of ion-channel drugs is usually performed by low-throughput intracellular recording methods. The use of nanowire transistors, nanotube-coupled transistors and micro gold-spine and related electrodes can significantly improve the signal strength of recorded action potentials. Here, we show that vertical nanopillar electrodes can record both the extracellular and intracellular action potentials of cultured cardiomyocytes over a long period of time with excellent signal strength and quality. Moreover, it is possible to repeatedly switch between extracellular and intracellular recording by nanoscale electroporation and resealing processes. Furthermore, vertical nanopillar electrodes can detect subtle changes in action potentials induced by drugs that target ion channels.

Efficient Privacy-Aware Record Integration.

PubMed

Kuzu, Mehmet; Kantarcioglu, Murat; Inan, Ali; Bertino, Elisa; Durham, Elizabeth; Malin, Bradley

2013-01-01

The integration of information dispersed among multiple repositories is a crucial step for accurate data analysis in various domains. In support of this goal, it is critical to devise procedures for identifying similar records across distinct data sources. At the same time, to adhere to privacy regulations and policies, such procedures should protect the confidentiality of the individuals to whom the information corresponds. Various private record linkage (PRL) protocols have been proposed to achieve this goal, involving secure multi-party computation (SMC) and similarity preserving data transformation techniques. SMC methods provide secure and accurate solutions to the PRL problem, but are prohibitively expensive in practice, mainly due to excessive computational requirements. Data transformation techniques offer more practical solutions, but incur the cost of information leakage and false matches. In this paper, we introduce a novel model for practical PRL, which 1) affords controlled and limited information leakage, 2) avoids false matches resulting from data transformation. Initially, we partition the data sources into blocks to eliminate comparisons for records that are unlikely to match. Then, to identify matches, we apply an efficient SMC technique between the candidate record pairs. To enable efficiency and privacy, our model leaks a controlled amount of obfuscated data prior to the secure computations. Applied obfuscation relies on differential privacy which provides strong privacy guarantees against adversaries with arbitrary background knowledge. In addition, we illustrate the practical nature of our approach through an empirical analysis with data derived from public voter records.

Validation of a Delirium Risk Assessment Using Electronic Medical Record Information.

PubMed

Rudolph, James L; Doherty, Kelly; Kelly, Brittany; Driver, Jane A; Archambault, Elizabeth

2016-03-01

Identifying patients at risk for delirium allows prompt application of prevention, diagnostic, and treatment strategies; but is rarely done. Once delirium develops, patients are more likely to need posthospitalization skilled care. This study developed an a priori electronic prediction rule using independent risk factors identified in a National Center of Clinical Excellence meta-analysis and validated the ability to predict delirium in 2 cohorts. Retrospective analysis followed by prospective validation. Tertiary VA Hospital in New England. A total of 27,625 medical records of hospitalized patients and 246 prospectively enrolled patients admitted to the hospital. The electronic delirium risk prediction rule was created using data obtained from the patient electronic medical record (EMR). The primary outcome, delirium, was identified 2 ways: (1) from the EMR (retrospective cohort) and (2) clinical assessment on enrollment and daily thereafter (prospective participants). We assessed discrimination of the delirium prediction rule with the C-statistic. Secondary outcomes were length of stay and discharge to rehabilitation. Retrospectively, delirium was identified in 8% of medical records (n = 2343); prospectively, delirium during hospitalization was present in 26% of participants (n = 64). In the retrospective cohort, medical record delirium was identified in 2%, 3%, 11%, and 38% of the low, intermediate, high, and very high-risk groups, respectively (C-statistic = 0.81; 95% confidence interval 0.80-0.82). Prospectively, the electronic prediction rule identified delirium in 15%, 18%, 31%, and 55% of these groups (C-statistic = 0.69; 95% confidence interval 0.61-0.77). Compared with low-risk patients, those at high- or very high delirium risk had increased length of stay (5.7 ± 5.6 vs 3.7 ± 2.7 days; P = .001) and higher rates of discharge to rehabilitation (8.9% vs 20.8%; P = .02). Automatic calculation of delirium risk using an EMR algorithm identifies patients at risk for delirium, which creates a critical opportunity for gaining clinical efficiencies and improving delirium identification, including those needing skilled care. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Estuarine Facies Model Revisited: Conceptual Model of Estuarine Sediment Dynamics During Non-Equilibrium Conditions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elliott, E. A.; Rodriguez, A. B.; McKee, B. A.

2017-12-01

Traditional models of estuarine systems show deposition occurs primarily within the central basin. There, accommodation space is high within the deep central valley, which is below regional wave base and where current energy is presumed to reach a relative minimum, promoting direct deposition of cohesive sediment and minimizing erosion. However, these models often reflect long-term (decadal-millennial) timescales, where accumulation rates are in relative equilibrium with the rate of relative sea-level rise, and lack the resolution to capture shorter term changes in sediment deposition and erosion within the central estuary. This work presents a conceptual model for estuarine sedimentation during non-equilibrium conditions, where high-energy inputs to the system reach a relative maximum in the central basin, resulting in temporary deposition and/or remobilization over sub-annual to annual timescales. As an example, we present a case study of Core Sound, NC, a lagoonal estuarine system where the regional base-level has been reached, and sediment deposition, resuspension and bypassing is largely a result of non-equilibrium, high-energy events. Utilizing a 465 cm-long sediment core from a mini-basin located between Core Sound and the continental shelf, a 40-year sub-annual chronology was developed for the system, with sediment accumulation rates (SAR) interpolated to a monthly basis over the 40-year record. This study links erosional processes in the estuary directly with sediment flux to the continental shelf, taking advantage of the highly efficient sediment trapping capability of the mini-basin. The SAR record indicates high variation in the estuarine sediment supply, with peaks in the SAR record at a recurrence interval of 1 year (+/- 0.25). This record has been compared to historical storm influence for the area. Through this multi-decadal record, sediment flushing events occur at a much more frequent interval than previously thought (i.e. annual rather than decadal timescales). This non-equilibrium estuarine model highlights moderate-energy events that impact the coast at least every year, in addition to high energy less frequent decadal to millennial events for modulating sediment and particulate matter erosion and transport through the estuary and delivery to the continental shelf.

High-power operation of highly reliable narrow stripe pseudomorphic single quantum well lasers emitting at 980 nm

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Larsson, A.; Forouhar, S.; Cody, J.; Lang, R. J.

1990-01-01

Ridge waveguide pseudomorphic InGaAs/GaAs/AlGaAs single-quantum-well lasers exhibiting record high quantum efficiencies and high output power densities (105 mW per facet from a 6 micron wide stripe) at a lasing wavelength of 980 nm are discussed that were fabricated from a graded index separate confinement heterostructure grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Life testing at an output power of 30 mW per uncoated facet reveals a slow gradual degradation during the initial 500 h of operation after which the operating characteristics of the lasers become stable. The emission wavelength, the high output power, and the fundamental lateral mode operation render these lasers suitable for pumping Er3+-doped fiber amplifiers.

Unbiased analysis of geomagnetic data sets and comparison of historical data with paleomagnetic and archeomagnetic records

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Arneitz, Patrick; Egli, Ramon; Leonhardt, Roman

2017-03-01

Reconstructions of the past geomagnetic field provide fundamental constraints for understanding the dynamics of the Earth's interior, as well as serving as basis for magnetostratigraphic and archeomagnetic dating tools. Such reconstructions, when extending over epochs that precede the advent of instrumental measurements, rely exclusively on magnetic records from archeological artifacts, and, further in the past, from rocks and sediments. The most critical component of such indirect records is field intensity because of possible biases introduced by material properties and by laboratory protocols, which do not reproduce exactly the original field recording conditions. Large biases are usually avoided by the use of appropriate checking procedures; however, smaller ones can remain undetected in individual studies and might significantly affect field reconstructions. We introduce a new general approach for analyzing geomagnetic databases in order to investigate the reliability of indirect records. This approach is based on the comparison of historical records with archeomagnetic and volcanic data, considering temporal and spatial mismatches with adequate weighting functions and error estimation. A good overall agreement is found between indirect records and historical measurements, while for several subsets systematic bias is detected (e.g., inclination shallowing of lava records). We also demonstrate that simple approaches to analyzing highly inhomogeneous and internally correlated paleomagnetic data sets can lead to incorrect conclusions about the efficiency of quality checks and corrections. Consistent criteria for selecting and weighting data are presented in this review and can be used to improve current geomagnetic field modeling techniques.

IR sensitive photorefractive polymers, the first updateable holographic three-dimensional display

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tay, Savas

This work presents recent advances in the development of infra-red sensitive photorefractive polymers, and updateable near real-time holographic 3D displays based on photorefractive polymers. Theoretical and experimental techniques used for design, fabrication and characterization of photorefractive polymers are outlined. Materials development and technical advances that made possible the use of photorefractive polymers for infra-red free-space optical communications, and 3D holographic displays are presented. Photorefractive polymers are dynamic holographic materials that allow recording of highly efficient reversible holograms. The longest operation wavelength for a photorefractive polymer before this study has been 950nm, far shorter than 1550nm, the wavelength of choice for optical communications and medical imaging. The polymers shown here were sensitized using two-photon absorption, a third order nonlinear effect, beyond the linear absorption spectrum of organic dyes, and reach 40% diffraction efficiency with a 35ms response time at this wavelength. As a consequence of two-photon absorption sensitization they exhibit non-destructive readout, which is an important advantage for applications that require high signal-to-noise ratios. Holographic 3D displays provide highly realistic images without the need for special eyewear, making them valuable tools for applications that require "situational awareness" such as medical, industrial and military imaging. Current commercially available holographic 3D displays employ photopolymers that lack image updating capability, resulting in their restricted use and high cost per 3D image. The holographic 3D display shown here employs photorefractive polymers with nearly 100% diffraction efficiency and fast writing time, hours of image persistence, rapid erasure and large area, a combination of properties that has not been shown before. The 3D display is based on stereography and utilizes world's largest photorefractive devices (4x4 inch in size). It can be recorded within a few minutes, viewed for several hours without the need for refreshing and can be completely erased and updated with new images when desired, thusly comprising the first updateable holographic 3D display with memory, suitable for practical use.

A simple highly efficient non invasive EMG-based HMI.

PubMed

Vitiello, N; Olcese, U; Oddo, C M; Carpaneto, J; Micera, S; Carrozza, M C; Dario, P

2006-01-01

Muscle activity recorded non-invasively is sufficient to control a mobile robot if it is used in combination with an algorithm for its asynchronous analysis. In this paper, we show that several subjects successfully can control the movements of a robot in a structured environment made up of six rooms by contracting two different muscles using a simple algorithm. After a small training period, subjects were able to control the robot with performances comparable to those achieved manually controlling the robot.

Server-based enterprise collaboration software improves safety and quality in high-volume PET/CT practice.

PubMed

McDonald, James E; Kessler, Marcus M; Hightower, Jeremy L; Henry, Susan D; Deloney, Linda A

2013-12-01

With increasing volumes of complex imaging cases and rising economic pressure on physician staffing, timely reporting will become progressively challenging. Current and planned iterations of PACS and electronic medical record systems do not offer workflow management tools to coordinate delivery of imaging interpretations with the needs of the patient and ordering physician. The adoption of a server-based enterprise collaboration software system by our Division of Nuclear Medicine has significantly improved our efficiency and quality of service.

Computer systems for automatic earthquake detection

USGS Publications Warehouse

Stewart, S.W.

1974-01-01

U.S Geological Survey seismologists in Menlo park, California, are utilizing the speed, reliability, and efficiency of minicomputers to monitor seismograph stations and to automatically detect earthquakes. An earthquake detection computer system, believed to be the only one of its kind in operation, automatically reports about 90 percent of all local earthquakes recorded by a network of over 100 central California seismograph stations. The system also monitors the stations for signs of malfunction or abnormal operation. Before the automatic system was put in operation, all of the earthquakes recorded had to be detected by manually searching the records, a time-consuming process. With the automatic detection system, the stations are efficiently monitored continuously. 

A photoelectric amplifier as a dye detector

USGS Publications Warehouse

Ebel, Wesley J.

1962-01-01

A dye detector, based on a modified photoelectric amplifier, has been planned, built, and tested. It was designed to record automatically the time of arrival of fluorescein dye at predetermined points in a stream system. Laboratory tests and stream trials proved the instrument to be efficient. Small changes in color can be detected in turbid or clear water. The unit has been used successfully for timing intervals of more than 17 hours; significant savings of time and manpower have resulted. Replacement of the clock, included in the original device, with a recording milliammeter increases the efficiency of the unit by contin,!ously recording changes in turbidity. The addition of this component would increase the cost from $75 to approximately $105.

A Low-Voltage Chopper-Stabilized Amplifier for Fetal ECG Monitoring With a 1.41 Power Efficiency Factor.

PubMed

Song, Shuang; Rooijakkers, Michael; Harpe, Pieter; Rabotti, Chiara; Mischi, Massimo; van Roermund, Arthur H M; Cantatore, Eugenio

2015-04-01

This paper presents a low-voltage current-reuse chopper-stabilized frontend amplifier for fetal ECG monitoring. The proposed amplifier allows for individual tuning of the noise in each measurement channel, minimizing the total power consumption while satisfying all application requirements. The low-voltage current reuse topology exploits power optimization in both the current and the voltage domain, exploiting multiple supply voltages (0.3, 0.6 and 1.2 V). The power management circuitry providing the different supplies is optimized for high efficiency (peak charge-pump efficiency = 90%).The low-voltage amplifier together with its power management circuitry is implemented in a standard 0.18 μm CMOS process and characterized experimentally. The amplifier core achieves both good noise efficiency factor (NEF=1.74) and power efficiency factor (PEF=1.05). Experiments show that the amplifier core can provide a noise level of 0.34 μVrms in a 0.7 to 182 Hz band, consuming 1.17 μW power. The amplifier together with its power management circuitry consumes 1.56 μW, achieving a PEF of 1.41. The amplifier is also validated with adult ECG and pre-recorded fetal ECG measurements.

Development of solar concentrators for high-power solar-pumped lasers.

PubMed

Dinh, T H; Ohkubo, T; Yabe, T

2014-04-20

We have developed unique solar concentrators for solar-pumped solid-state lasers to improve both efficiency and laser output power. Natural sunlight is collected by a primary concentrator which is a 2  m×2  m Fresnel lens, and confined by a cone-shaped hybrid concentrator. Such solar power is coupled to a laser rod by a cylinder with coolant surrounding it that is called a liquid light-guide lens (LLGL). Performance of the cylindrical LLGL has been characterized analytically and experimentally. Since a 14 mm diameter LLGL generates efficient and uniform pumping along a Nd:YAG rod that is 6 mm in diameter and 100 mm in length, 120 W cw laser output is achieved with beam quality factor M2 of 137 and overall slope efficiency of 4.3%. The collection efficiency is 30.0  W/m2, which is 1.5 times larger than the previous record. The overall conversion efficiency is more than 3.2%, which can be comparable to a commercial lamp-pumped solid-state laser. The concept of the light-guide lens can be applied for concentrator photovoltaics or other solar energy optics.

Interrelationships between trait anxiety, situational stress and mental effort predict phonological processing efficiency, but not effectiveness.

PubMed

Edwards, Elizabeth J; Edwards, Mark S; Lyvers, Michael

2016-08-01

Attentional control theory (ACT) describes the mechanisms associated with the relationship between anxiety and cognitive performance. We investigated the relationship between cognitive trait anxiety, situational stress and mental effort on phonological performance using a simple (forward-) and complex (backward-) word span task. Ninety undergraduate students participated in the study. Predictor variables were cognitive trait anxiety, indexed using questionnaire scores; situational stress, manipulated using ego threat instructions; and perceived level of mental effort, measured using a visual analogue scale. Criterion variables (a) performance effectiveness (accuracy) and (b) processing efficiency (accuracy divided by response time) were analyzed in separate multiple moderated-regression analyses. The results revealed (a) no relationship between the predictors and performance effectiveness, and (b) a significant 3-way interaction on processing efficiency for both the simple and complex tasks, such that at higher effort, trait anxiety and situational stress did not predict processing efficiency, whereas at lower effort, higher trait anxiety was associated with lower efficiency at high situational stress, but not at low situational stress. Our results were in full support of the assumptions of ACT and implications for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Observer Error when Measuring Safety-Related Behavior: Momentary Time Sampling versus Whole-Interval Recording

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Taylor, Matthew A.; Skourides, Andreas; Alvero, Alicia M.

2012-01-01

Interval recording procedures are used by persons who collect data through observation to estimate the cumulative occurrence and nonoccurrence of behavior/events. Although interval recording procedures can increase the efficiency of observational data collection, they can also induce error from the observer. In the present study, 50 observers were…

Mandatory Use of Electronic Health Records: Overcoming Physician Resistance

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Brown, Viseeta K.

2012-01-01

Literature supports the idea that electronic health records hold tremendous value for the healthcare system in that it increases patient safety, improves the quality of care and provides greater efficiency. The move toward mandatory implementation of electronic health records is a growing concern in the United States health care industry. The…

Electronic Imaging in Admissions, Records & Financial Aid Offices.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Perkins, Helen L.

Over the years, efforts have been made to work more efficiently with the ever increasing number of records and paper documents that cross workers' desks. Filing records on optical disk through electronic imaging is an alternative that many feel is the answer to successful document management. The pioneering efforts in electronic imaging in…

Continuing the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Climate Data Record

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Coddington, O.; Pilewskie, P.; Kopp, G.; Richard, E. C.; Sparn, T.; Woods, T. N.

2017-12-01

Radiative energy from the Sun establishes the basic climate of the Earth's surface and atmosphere and defines the terrestrial environment that supports all life on the planet. External solar variability on a wide range of scales ubiquitously affects the Earth system, and combines with internal forcings, including anthropogenic changes in greenhouse gases and aerosols, and natural modes such as ENSO, and volcanic forcing, to define past, present, and future climates. Understanding these effects requires continuous measurements of total and spectrally resolved solar irradiance that meet the stringent requirements of climate-quality accuracy and stability over time. The current uninterrupted 39-year total solar irradiance (TSI) climate data record is the result of several overlapping instruments flown on different missions. Measurement continuity, required to link successive instruments to the existing data record to discern long-term trends makes this important climate data record susceptible to loss in the event of a gap in measurements. While improvements in future instrument accuracy will reduce the risk of a gap, the 2017 launch of TSIS-1 ensures continuity of the solar irradiance record into the next decade. There are scientific and programmatic motivations for addressing the challenges of maintaining the solar irradiance data record beyond TSIS-1. The science rests on well-founded requirements of establishing a trusted climate observing network that can monitor trends in fundamental climate variables. Programmatically, the long-term monitoring of solar irradiance must be balanced within the broader goals of NASA Earth Science. New concepts for a low-risk, cost efficient observing strategy is a priority. New highly capable small spacecraft, low-cost launch vehicles and a multi-decadal plan to provide overlapping TSI and SSI data records are components of a low risk/high reliability plan with lower annual cost than past implementations. This paper provides the justification for prioritizing solar irradiance observations and plans for extending the record into the next two decades that adheres to the rigors of quantifiable methods for meeting objectives.

Improving Remote Health Monitoring: A Low-Complexity ECG Compression Approach

PubMed Central

Al-Ali, Abdulla; Mohamed, Amr; Ward, Rabab

2018-01-01

Recent advances in mobile technology have created a shift towards using battery-driven devices in remote monitoring settings and smart homes. Clinicians are carrying out diagnostic and screening procedures based on the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals collected remotely for outpatients who need continuous monitoring. High-speed transmission and analysis of large recorded ECG signals are essential, especially with the increased use of battery-powered devices. Exploring low-power alternative compression methodologies that have high efficiency and that enable ECG signal collection, transmission, and analysis in a smart home or remote location is required. Compression algorithms based on adaptive linear predictors and decimation by a factor B/K are evaluated based on compression ratio (CR), percentage root-mean-square difference (PRD), and heartbeat detection accuracy of the reconstructed ECG signal. With two databases (153 subjects), the new algorithm demonstrates the highest compression performance (CR=6 and PRD=1.88) and overall detection accuracy (99.90% sensitivity, 99.56% positive predictivity) over both databases. The proposed algorithm presents an advantage for the real-time transmission of ECG signals using a faster and more efficient method, which meets the growing demand for more efficient remote health monitoring. PMID:29337892

Improving Remote Health Monitoring: A Low-Complexity ECG Compression Approach.

PubMed

Elgendi, Mohamed; Al-Ali, Abdulla; Mohamed, Amr; Ward, Rabab

2018-01-16

Recent advances in mobile technology have created a shift towards using battery-driven devices in remote monitoring settings and smart homes. Clinicians are carrying out diagnostic and screening procedures based on the electrocardiogram (ECG) signals collected remotely for outpatients who need continuous monitoring. High-speed transmission and analysis of large recorded ECG signals are essential, especially with the increased use of battery-powered devices. Exploring low-power alternative compression methodologies that have high efficiency and that enable ECG signal collection, transmission, and analysis in a smart home or remote location is required. Compression algorithms based on adaptive linear predictors and decimation by a factor B / K are evaluated based on compression ratio (CR), percentage root-mean-square difference (PRD), and heartbeat detection accuracy of the reconstructed ECG signal. With two databases (153 subjects), the new algorithm demonstrates the highest compression performance ( CR = 6 and PRD = 1.88 ) and overall detection accuracy (99.90% sensitivity, 99.56% positive predictivity) over both databases. The proposed algorithm presents an advantage for the real-time transmission of ECG signals using a faster and more efficient method, which meets the growing demand for more efficient remote health monitoring.

Anonymizing 1:M microdata with high utility

PubMed Central

Gong, Qiyuan; Luo, Junzhou; Yang, Ming; Ni, Weiwei; Li, Xiao-Bai

2016-01-01

Preserving privacy and utility during data publishing and data mining is essential for individuals, data providers and researchers. However, studies in this area typically assume that one individual has only one record in a dataset, which is unrealistic in many applications. Having multiple records for an individual leads to new privacy leakages. We call such a dataset a 1:M dataset. In this paper, we propose a novel privacy model called (k, l)-diversity that addresses disclosure risks in 1:M data publishing. Based on this model, we develop an efficient algorithm named 1:M-Generalization to preserve privacy and data utility, and compare it with alternative approaches. Extensive experiments on real-world data show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art technique, in terms of data utility and computational cost. PMID:28603388

Dust devil signatures in infrasound records of the International Monitoring System

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lorenz, Ralph D.; Christie, Douglas

2015-03-01

We explore whether dust devils have a recognizable signature in infrasound array records, since several Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty verification stations conducting continuous measurements with microbarometers are in desert areas which see dust devils. The passage of dust devils (and other boundary layer vortices, whether dust laden or not) causes a local temporary drop in pressure: the high-pass time domain filtering in microbarometers results in a "heartbeat" signature, which we observe at the Warramunga station in Australia. We also observe a ~50 min pseudoperiodicity in the occurrence of these signatures and some higher-frequency infrasound. Dust devils do not significantly degrade the treaty verification capability. The pipe arrays for spatial averaging used in infrasound monitoring degrade the detection efficiency of small devils, but the long observation time may allow a useful census of large vortices, and thus, the high-sensitivity infrasonic array data from the monitoring network can be useful in studying columnar vortices in the lower atmosphere.

U2 8 + -intensity record applying a H2 -gas stripper cell

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Barth, Winfried; Adonin, Aleksey; Düllmann, Christoph E.; Heilmann, Manuel; Hollinger, Ralph; Jäger, Egon; Khuyagbaatar, Jadambaa; Krier, Joerg; Scharrer, Paul; Vormann, Hartmut; Yakushev, Alexander

2015-04-01

To meet the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research science requirements higher beam intensity has to be achieved in the present GSI-accelerator complex. For this an advanced upgrade program for the UNILAC is ongoing. Stripping is a key technology for all heavy ion accelerators. For this an extensive research and development program was carried out to optimize for high brilliance heavy ion operation. After upgrade of the supersonic N2 -gas jet (2007), implementation of high current foil stripping (2011) and preliminary investigation of H2 -gas jet operation (2012), recently (2014) a new H2 -gas cell using a pulsed gas regime synchronized with arrival of the beam pulse has been developed. An obviously enhanced stripper gas density as well as a simultaneously reduced gas load for the pumping system result in an increased stripping efficiency, while the beam emittance remains the same. A new record intensity (7.8 emA) for 238U2 8 + beams at 1.4 MeV /u has been achieved applying the pulsed high density H2 stripper target to a high intensity 238U4 + beam from the VARIS ion source with a newly developed extraction system. The experimental results are presented in detail.

High-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells with ferrocene-based electrolytes.

PubMed

Daeneke, Torben; Kwon, Tae-Hyuk; Holmes, Andrew B; Duffy, Noel W; Bach, Udo; Spiccia, Leone

2011-03-01

Dye-sensitized solar cells based on iodide/triiodide (I(-)/I(3)(-)) electrolytes are viable low-cost alternatives to conventional silicon solar cells. However, as well as providing record efficiencies of up to 12.0%, the use of I(-)/I(3)(-) in such solar cells also brings about certain limitations that stem from its corrosive nature and complex two-electron redox chemistry. Alternative redox mediators have been investigated, but these generally fall well short of matching the performance of conventional I(-)/I(3)(-) electrolytes. Here, we report energy conversion efficiencies of 7.5% (simulated sunlight, AM1.5, 1,000 W m(-2)) for dye-sensitized solar cells combining the archetypal ferrocene/ferrocenium (Fc/Fc(+)) single-electron redox couple with a novel metal-free organic donor-acceptor sensitizer (Carbz-PAHTDTT). These Fc/Fc(+)-based devices exceed the efficiency achieved for devices prepared using I(-)/I(3)(-) electrolytes under comparable conditions, revealing the great potential of ferrocene-based electrolytes in future dye-sensitized solar cells applications. This improvement results from a more favourable matching of the redox potential of the ferrocene couple with that of the new donor-acceptor sensitizer.

Efficient Blue Electroluminescence Using Quantum-Confined Two-Dimensional Perovskites.

PubMed

Kumar, Sudhir; Jagielski, Jakub; Yakunin, Sergii; Rice, Peter; Chiu, Yu-Cheng; Wang, Mingchao; Nedelcu, Georgian; Kim, Yeongin; Lin, Shangchao; Santos, Elton J G; Kovalenko, Maksym V; Shih, Chih-Jen

2016-10-03

Solution-processed hybrid organic-inorganic lead halide perovskites are emerging as one of the most promising candidates for low-cost light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, due to a small exciton binding energy, it is not yet possible to achieve an efficient electroluminescence within the blue wavelength region at room temperature, as is necessary for full-spectrum light sources. Here, we demonstrate efficient blue LEDs based on the colloidal, quantum-confined 2D perovskites, with precisely controlled stacking down to one-unit-cell thickness (n = 1). A variety of low-k organic host compounds are used to disperse the 2D perovskites, effectively creating a matrix of the dielectric quantum wells, which significantly boosts the exciton binding energy by the dielectric confinement effect. Through the Förster resonance energy transfer, the excitons down-convert and recombine radiatively in the 2D perovskites. We report room-temperature pure green (n = 7-10), sky blue (n = 5), pure blue (n = 3), and deep blue (n = 1) electroluminescence, with record-high external quantum efficiencies in the green-to-blue wavelength region.

In-band-pumped Ho:KLu(WO4)2 microchip laser with 84% slope efficiency.

PubMed

Loiko, Pavel; Serres, Josep Maria; Mateos, Xavier; Yumashev, Konstantin; Kuleshov, Nikolai; Petrov, Valentin; Griebner, Uwe; Aguiló, Magdalena; Díaz, Francesc

2015-02-01

We report on a continuous-wave Ho:KLu(WO4)2 (KLuW) microchip laser with a record slope efficiency of 84%, the highest value among the holmium inband-pumped lasers, delivering 201 mW output power at 2105 nm. The Ho laser operating at room temperature on the (5)I8→(5)I7 transition is in-band-pumped by a diode-pumped Tm:KLuW microchip laser at 1946 nm. Ho:KLuW laser operation at 2061 and 2079 nm is also demonstrated with a maximum slope efficiency of 79%. The microchip laser generates an almost diffraction-limited output beam with a Gaussian profile and a M2<1.1. The laser performance of the Ng-cut Ho:KLuW crystal is very similar for pump light polarizations ‖Nm and Np. The positive thermal lens plays a key role in the laser mode stabilization and proper mode-matching. The latter, together with the low quantum defect under in-band-pumping (∼0.08), is responsible for the extraordinary high slope efficiency.

Laser diode stack beam shaping for efficient and compact long-range laser illuminator design

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lutz, Y.; Poyet, J. M.

2014-04-01

Laser diode stacks are interesting laser sources for active imaging illuminators. They allow the accumulation of large amounts of energy in multi-pulse mode, which is best suited for long-range image recording. Even when the laser diode stacks are equipped with fast-axis collimation (FAC) and slow-axis collimation (SAC) micro-lenses, their beam parameter products BPP are not compatible with direct use in highly efficient and compact illuminators. This is particularly true when narrow divergences are required such as for long-range applications. A solution to overcome these difficulties is to enhance the poor slow-axis BPP by virtually restacking the laser diode stack. We present a beam shaping and homogenization method that is low-cost and efficient and has low alignment sensitivity. After conducting simulations, we have realized and characterized the illuminator. A compact long-range laser illuminator has been set up with a divergence of 3.5×2.6 mrad and a global efficiency of 81%. Here, a projection lens with a clear aperture of 62 mm and a focal length of 571 mm was used.

A Phosphanthrene Oxide Host with Close Sphere Packing for Ultralow-Voltage-Driven Efficient Blue Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Diodes.

PubMed

Yang, He; Liang, Qianqian; Han, Chunmiao; Zhang, Jing; Xu, Hui

2017-10-01

A phosphanthrene oxide host, 5,10-diphenyl-phosphanthrene 5,10-dioxide (DPDPO 2 A), with intra- and intermolecular hydrogen bonds achieves spheroidal cis-configuration and close sphere packing. DPDPO 2 A realizes effective exciton suppression and excellent and balanced carrier transporting ability, both at the same time, demonstrating favorable photoluminescence quantum yield of 84% from its blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) dye, namely bis[4-(9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine) phenyl]sulfone, doped films and high electron and hole mobility at the level of 10 -4 and 10 -5 cm 2 V -1 s -1 , respectively. DPDPO 2 A endows its blue TADF devices with record-low driving voltages, e.g., turn-on voltage of 2.5 V, and the state-of-the-art efficiencies with maxima of 22.5% for external quantum efficiency and 52.9 lm W -1 for power efficiency, which is the best comprehensive performance to date of ultralow-voltage-driven blue TADF diodes. © 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Worker assessments of organizational practices and psychosocial work environment are associated with musculoskeletal injuries in hospital patient care workers.

PubMed

Reme, Silje Endresen; Shaw, William S; Boden, Leslie I; Tveito, Torill H; O'Day, Elizabeth Tucker; Dennerlein, Jack T; Sorensen, Glorian

2014-07-01

Hospital patient care (PC) workers have high rates of workplace injuries, particularly musculoskeletal injuries. Despite a wide spectrum of documented health hazards, little is known about the association between psychosocial factors at work and OSHA-recordable musculoskeletal injuries. PC-workers (n = 1,572, 79%) completed surveys assessing a number of organizational, psychosocial and psychological variables. Associations between the survey responses and injury records were tested using bivariate and multivariate analyses. A 5% of the PC-workers had at least one OSHA-recordable musculoskeletal injury over the year, and the injuries were significantly associated with: organizational factors (lower people-oriented culture), psychosocial factors (lower supervisor support), and structural factors (job title: being a patient care assistant). The results show support for a multifactorial understanding of musculoskeletal injuries in hospital PC-workers. An increased focus on the various dimensions associated with injury reports, particularly the organizational and psychosocial factors, could contribute to more efficient interventions and programs. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Suspended- and bedload-sediment transport in the Snake and Clearwater rivers in the vicinity of Lewiston, Idaho, August 1976 through July 1978

USGS Publications Warehouse

Jones, Michael L.; Seitz, Harold R.

1979-01-01

correct for sampler efficiency. An analysis of the middle Snake River streamflow record was made during 1977. The streamflow rating for the Snake River near Anatone, Washington, gage was found to be in error at high stages. The streamflow record for water years 1974 and 1975 was revised and published with 1976 water-year data (Water Resources Data for Idaho, Water Year 1976). The revised Snake River near Anatone streamflow rating was used to recompute the sediment-discharge rating curve (fig. 3). This study program is funded by the USACE through a cooperative agreement with the USGS. All field work, laboratory analysis, and compilation of data are being conducted by the USGS. Data collection is scheduled to terminate at the end of the 1979 runoff season. A reanalysis of all data collected since the start of the program will correct all provisional records since 1972, including the 1974, 1975, and 1976 years for the Snake River near Anatone station.

Development and Preliminary Evaluation of a Prototype of a Learning Electronic Medical Record System

PubMed Central

King, Andrew J.; Cooper, Gregory F.; Hochheiser, Harry; Clermont, Gilles; Visweswaran, Shyam

2015-01-01

Electronic medical records (EMRs) are capturing increasing amounts of data per patient. For clinicians to efficiently and accurately understand a patient’s clinical state, better ways are needed to determine when and how to display EMR data. We built a prototype system that records how physicians view EMR data, which we used to train models that predict which EMR data will be relevant in a given patient. We call this approach a Learning EMR (LEMR). A physician used the prototype to review 59 intensive care unit (ICU) patient cases. We used the data-access patterns from these cases to train logistic regression models that, when evaluated, had AUROC values as high as 0.92 and that averaged 0.73, supporting that the approach is promising. A preliminary usability study identified advantages of the system and a few concerns about implementation. Overall, 3 of 4 ICU physicians were enthusiastic about features of the prototype. PMID:26958296

Diffraction efficiency growth of nano-scale holographic recording produced in a corona discharge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bodurov, I.; Yovcheva, T.; Vlaeva, I.; Viraneva, A.; Todorov, R.; Spassov, G.; Sainov, S.

2012-12-01

The nano-scale holographic gratings ware recorded in 29 nm and 56 nm thick As2S3 films. The chalcogenide layers were deposited on a transparent chromium electrode with thickness 10 nm, produced on a glass substrate. Both chromium and chalcogenide films were deposited in one vacuum cycle by e-beam and thermal evaporation, respectively. The diode 532 nm diode laser was used as a light source in the present holographic experiments. The total internal reflection arrangement (Stetson-Nassenstein) was used in holographic recordings. The reference beam was totally reflected from the air-As2S3 boundary surface by an input glass prism. The object beam was normally incident on the recording medium. The corona charging was performed by a needle fixed at the distance of 1 cm from the holographic recording medium by applying a - 5 kV voltage. The diffraction efficiency increased from 9 to 30 times when the corona discharge was applied during the holographic recording, in comparison to the uncharged recording. The possible reason of the observed effect is discussed on the basis of the Franz-Keldysh effect and Moss rule.

Supporting information retrieval from electronic health records: A report of University of Michigan's nine-year experience in developing and using the Electronic Medical Record Search Engine (EMERSE).

PubMed

Hanauer, David A; Mei, Qiaozhu; Law, James; Khanna, Ritu; Zheng, Kai

2015-06-01

This paper describes the University of Michigan's nine-year experience in developing and using a full-text search engine designed to facilitate information retrieval (IR) from narrative documents stored in electronic health records (EHRs). The system, called the Electronic Medical Record Search Engine (EMERSE), functions similar to Google but is equipped with special functionalities for handling challenges unique to retrieving information from medical text. Key features that distinguish EMERSE from general-purpose search engines are discussed, with an emphasis on functions crucial to (1) improving medical IR performance and (2) assuring search quality and results consistency regardless of users' medical background, stage of training, or level of technical expertise. Since its initial deployment, EMERSE has been enthusiastically embraced by clinicians, administrators, and clinical and translational researchers. To date, the system has been used in supporting more than 750 research projects yielding 80 peer-reviewed publications. In several evaluation studies, EMERSE demonstrated very high levels of sensitivity and specificity in addition to greatly improved chart review efficiency. Increased availability of electronic data in healthcare does not automatically warrant increased availability of information. The success of EMERSE at our institution illustrates that free-text EHR search engines can be a valuable tool to help practitioners and researchers retrieve information from EHRs more effectively and efficiently, enabling critical tasks such as patient case synthesis and research data abstraction. EMERSE, available free of charge for academic use, represents a state-of-the-art medical IR tool with proven effectiveness and user acceptance. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

An efficient optical architecture for sparsely connected neural networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Hine, Butler P., III; Downie, John D.; Reid, Max B.

1990-01-01

An architecture for general-purpose optical neural network processor is presented in which the interconnections and weights are formed by directing coherent beams holographically, thereby making use of the space-bandwidth products of the recording medium for sparsely interconnected networks more efficiently that the commonly used vector-matrix multiplier, since all of the hologram area is in use. An investigation is made of the use of computer-generated holograms recorded on such updatable media as thermoplastic materials, in order to define the interconnections and weights of a neural network processor; attention is given to limits on interconnection densities, diffraction efficiencies, and weighing accuracies possible with such an updatable thin film holographic device.

Grouping facilitates avoidance of parasites by fish

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Parasite distribution is often highly heterogeneous, and intensity of infection depends, among other things, on how well hosts can avoid areas with a high concentration of parasites. We studied the role of fish behaviour in avoiding microhabitats with a high infection risk using Oncorhynchus mykiss and cercariae of Diplostomum pseudospathaceum as a model. Spatial distribution of parasites in experimental tanks was highly heterogeneous. We hypothesized that fish in groups are better at recognizing a parasitized area and avoiding it than solitary fish. Methods Number of fish, either solitary or in groups of 5, was recorded in different compartments of a shuttle tank where fish could make a choice between areas with different risk of being infected. Intensity of infection was assessed and compared with the number of fish recorded in the compartment with parasites and level of fish motility. Results Both solitary fish and fish in groups avoided parasitized areas, but fish in groups avoided it more strongly and thus acquired significantly fewer parasites than solitary fish. Prevalence of infection among grouped and solitary fish was 66 and 92 %, respectively, with the mean abundance two times higher in the solitary fish. Between-individual variation in the number of parasites per fish was higher in the “groups” treatment (across all individuals) than in the “solitary” treatment. Avoidance behaviour was more efficient when fish were allowed to explore the experimental arena prior to parasite exposure. High motility of fish was shown to increase the acquisition of D. pseudospathaceum. Conclusion Fish in groups better avoided parasitized habitat, and acquired significantly fewer parasites than solitary fish. We suggest that fish in groups benefit from information about parasites gained from other members of a group. Grouping behaviour may be an efficient mechanism of parasite avoidance, together with individual behaviour and immune responses of fishes. Avoidance of habitats with a high parasite risk can be an important factor contributing to the evolution and maintenance of grouping behaviour in fish. PMID:24499549

Grouping facilitates avoidance of parasites by fish.

PubMed

Mikheev, Victor N; Pasternak, Anna F; Taskinen, Jouni; Valtonen, Tellervo E

2013-10-17

Parasite distribution is often highly heterogeneous, and intensity of infection depends, among other things, on how well hosts can avoid areas with a high concentration of parasites. We studied the role of fish behaviour in avoiding microhabitats with a high infection risk using Oncorhynchus mykiss and cercariae of Diplostomum pseudospathaceum as a model. Spatial distribution of parasites in experimental tanks was highly heterogeneous. We hypothesized that fish in groups are better at recognizing a parasitized area and avoiding it than solitary fish. Number of fish, either solitary or in groups of 5, was recorded in different compartments of a shuttle tank where fish could make a choice between areas with different risk of being infected. Intensity of infection was assessed and compared with the number of fish recorded in the compartment with parasites and level of fish motility. Both solitary fish and fish in groups avoided parasitized areas, but fish in groups avoided it more strongly and thus acquired significantly fewer parasites than solitary fish. Prevalence of infection among grouped and solitary fish was 66 and 92 %, respectively, with the mean abundance two times higher in the solitary fish. Between-individual variation in the number of parasites per fish was higher in the "groups" treatment (across all individuals) than in the "solitary" treatment. Avoidance behaviour was more efficient when fish were allowed to explore the experimental arena prior to parasite exposure. High motility of fish was shown to increase the acquisition of D. pseudospathaceum. Fish in groups better avoided parasitized habitat, and acquired significantly fewer parasites than solitary fish. We suggest that fish in groups benefit from information about parasites gained from other members of a group. Grouping behaviour may be an efficient mechanism of parasite avoidance, together with individual behaviour and immune responses of fishes. Avoidance of habitats with a high parasite risk can be an important factor contributing to the evolution and maintenance of grouping behaviour in fish.

Effects of different analysis techniques and recording duty cycles on passive acoustic monitoring of killer whales.

PubMed

Riera, Amalis; Ford, John K; Ross Chapman, N

2013-09-01

Killer whales in British Columbia are at risk, and little is known about their winter distribution. Passive acoustic monitoring of their year-round habitat is a valuable supplemental method to traditional visual and photographic surveys. However, long-term acoustic studies of odontocetes have some limitations, including the generation of large amounts of data that require highly time-consuming processing. There is a need to develop tools and protocols to maximize the efficiency of such studies. Here, two types of analysis, real-time and long term spectral averages, were compared to assess their performance at detecting killer whale calls in long-term acoustic recordings. In addition, two different duty cycles, 1/3 and 2/3, were tested. Both the use of long term spectral averages and a lower duty cycle resulted in a decrease in call detection and positive pod identification, leading to underestimations of the amount of time the whales were present. The impact of these limitations should be considered in future killer whale acoustic surveys. A compromise between a lower resolution data processing method and a higher duty cycle is suggested for maximum methodological efficiency.

A rapid and efficient in vitro regeneration system for lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.).

PubMed

Armas, Isabel; Pogrebnyak, Natalia; Raskin, Ilya

2017-01-01

Successful biotechnological improvement of crop plants requires a reliable and efficient in vitro regeneration system. Lettuce ( Lactuca sativa L.), one the most important vegetable crops worldwide, is strongly genotype-dependent in terms of regeneration capacity, limiting the potential for biotechnological improvement of cultivars which show recalcitrance under currently available protocols. The effect of different nutrient sources, plant hormone combinations and activated charcoal supplementation on shoot induction efficiency was evaluated on the cultivar 'RSL NFR', which had previously shown poor regeneration efficiency. Multiple shoot organogenesis from cotyledon explants was recorded at the highest frequency and speed on Murashige and Skoog regeneration medium supplemented with 200 mg/l of activated charcoal, 3% sucrose, 10 mg/l benzylaminopurine and 0.5 mg/l naphthaleneacetic acid, which induced shoots through direct regeneration in 90.8 ± 7.9% of explants. High shoot induction efficiency was also observed, albeit not quantified, when using this medium on some other cultivars. This activated charcoal-containing regeneration medium might offer a rapid and efficient option for direct shoot induction in some lettuce genotypes that do not respond well to common lettuce regeneration protocols. This is also the first report of the effect of activated charcoal in lettuce tissue culture.

Material Science for High-Efficiency Photovoltaics: From Advanced Optical Coatings to Cell Design for High-Temperature Applications

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Perl, Emmett Edward

Solar cells based on III-V compound semiconductors are ideally suited to convert solar energy into electricity. The highest efficiency single-junction solar cells are made of gallium arsenide, and have attained an efficiency of 28.8%. Multiple III-V materials can be combined to construct multijunction solar cells, which have reached record efficiencies greater than 45% under concentration. III-V solar cells are also well suited to operate efficiently at elevated temperatures, due in large part to their high material quality. These properties make III-V solar cells an excellent choice for use in concentrator systems. Concentrator photovoltaic systems have attained module efficiencies that exceed 40%, and have the potential to reach the lowest levelized cost of electricity in sunny places like the desert southwest. Hybrid photovoltaic-thermal solar energy systems can utilize high-temperature III-V solar cells to simultaneously achieve dispatchability and a high sunlight-to-electricity efficiency. This dissertation explores material science to advance the state of III-V multijunction solar cells for use in concentrator photovoltaic and hybrid photovoltaic-thermal solar energy systems. The first half of this dissertation describes work on advanced optical designs to improve the efficiency of multijunction solar cells. As multijunction solar cells move to configurations with four or more subcells, they utilize a larger portion of the solar spectrum. Broadband antireflection coatings are essential to realizing efficiency gains for these state-of-the-art cells. A hybrid design consisting of antireflective nanostructures placed on top of multilayer interference-based optical coatings is developed. Antireflection coatings that utilize this hybrid approach yield unparalleled performance, minimizing reflection losses to just 0.2% on sapphire and 0.6% on gallium nitride for 300-1800nm light. Dichroic mirrors are developed for bonded 5-junction solar cells that utilize InGaN as a top junction. These designs maximize reflection of high-energy light for an InGaN top junction while minimizing reflection of low-energy light that would be absorbed by the lower four junctions. Increasing the reflectivity of high-energy photons enables a second pass of light through the InGaN cell, leading to increased absorption and a higher photocurrent. These optical designs enhanced the efficiency of a 2.65eV InGaN solar cell to a value of 3.3% under the AM0 spectrum, the highest reported efficiency for a standalone InGaN solar cell. The second half of the dissertation describes the development of III-V solar cells for high-temperature applications. As the operating temperature of a solar cell is increased, the ideal bandgap of the top junction increases. AlGaInP solar cells with bandgaps ranging from 1.9eV to 2.2eV are developed. A 2.03eV AlGaInP solar cell is demonstrated with a bandgap-voltage offset of 440mV, the lowest of any AlGaInP solar cell reported to date. Single-junction AlGaInP, GaInP, and GaAs solar cells designed for high-temperature operation are characterized up to a temperature of 400°C. The cell properties are compared to an analytical drift-diffusion model, and we find that a fundamental increase in the intrinsic carrier concentration, ni, dominates the temperature dependence of the dark currents, open-circuit voltage, and cell efficiency. These findings provide a valuable guide to the design of any system that requires high-temperature solar cell operation.

Set-membership fault detection under noisy environment with application to the detection of abnormal aircraft control surface positions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

El Houda Thabet, Rihab; Combastel, Christophe; Raïssi, Tarek; Zolghadri, Ali

2015-09-01

The paper develops a set membership detection methodology which is applied to the detection of abnormal positions of aircraft control surfaces. Robust and early detection of such abnormal positions is an important issue for early system reconfiguration and overall optimisation of aircraft design. In order to improve fault sensitivity while ensuring a high level of robustness, the method combines a data-driven characterisation of noise and a model-driven approach based on interval prediction. The efficiency of the proposed methodology is illustrated through simulation results obtained based on data recorded in several flight scenarios of a highly representative aircraft benchmark.

Connecting Earth observation to high-throughput biodiversity data.

PubMed

Bush, Alex; Sollmann, Rahel; Wilting, Andreas; Bohmann, Kristine; Cole, Beth; Balzter, Heiko; Martius, Christopher; Zlinszky, András; Calvignac-Spencer, Sébastien; Cobbold, Christina A; Dawson, Terence P; Emerson, Brent C; Ferrier, Simon; Gilbert, M Thomas P; Herold, Martin; Jones, Laurence; Leendertz, Fabian H; Matthews, Louise; Millington, James D A; Olson, John R; Ovaskainen, Otso; Raffaelli, Dave; Reeve, Richard; Rödel, Mark-Oliver; Rodgers, Torrey W; Snape, Stewart; Visseren-Hamakers, Ingrid; Vogler, Alfried P; White, Piran C L; Wooster, Martin J; Yu, Douglas W

2017-06-22

Understandably, given the fast pace of biodiversity loss, there is much interest in using Earth observation technology to track biodiversity, ecosystem functions and ecosystem services. However, because most biodiversity is invisible to Earth observation, indicators based on Earth observation could be misleading and reduce the effectiveness of nature conservation and even unintentionally decrease conservation effort. We describe an approach that combines automated recording devices, high-throughput DNA sequencing and modern ecological modelling to extract much more of the information available in Earth observation data. This approach is achievable now, offering efficient and near-real-time monitoring of management impacts on biodiversity and its functions and services.

Sun-pumped lasers: revisiting an old problem with nonimaging optics.

PubMed

Cooke, D

1992-12-20

The techniques of nonimaging optics have permitted the production of a world-record intensity of sunlight, 72 W/mm(2), by using a sapphire concentrator. Such an intensity exceeds the intensity of light at the surface of the Sun itself (63 W/mm(2)) by 15% and may have useful applications in pumping lasers, which require high intensities of light to function. The author describes the production of high-intensity sunlight and reports its application in generating over 3 W of laser power from a 72.5-cm-diameter telescope mirror at an efficiency exceeding that typically attained in approaches not involving nonimaging optics.

20 W continuous-wave cladding-pumped Nd-doped fiber laser at 910 nm.

PubMed

Laroche, M; Cadier, B; Gilles, H; Girard, S; Lablonde, L; Robin, T

2013-08-15

We demonstrate a double-clad fiber laser operating at 910 nm with a record power of 20 W. Laser emission on the three-level scheme is enabled by the combination of a small inner cladding-to-core diameter ratio and a high brightness pump source at 808 nm. A laser conversion efficiency as high as 44% was achieved in CW operating regime by using resonant fiber Bragg reflectors at 910 nm that prevent the lasing at the 1060 nm competing wavelength. Furthermore, in a master oscillator power-amplifier scheme, an amplified power of 14.8 W was achieved at 914 nm in the same fiber.

Energy partitioning and thyroid hormone levels during Salmonella enteritidis infections in pullets with high or low residual feed intake.

PubMed

Van Eerden, E; Van Den Brand, H; Heetkamp, M J W; Decuypere, E; Kemp, B

2006-10-01

This experiment was conducted to investigate whether feed efficiency, as measured by residual feed intake as a phenotypic trait, affects energy partitioning in pullets that have received Salmonella inoculation as an immune challenge. In each of 8 trials, energy partitioning was measured during 5 wk in 15-wk-old efficient (R-) and nonefficient (R+) pullets, which were housed per efficiency group in 2 identical climate respiration chambers. After 1 wk of adaptation, the pullets in 4 trials were orally inoculated with 10(8) cfu of Salmonella enteritidis; pullets in the remaining trials were not inoculated and served as controls. Heat production was calculated from continuous recordings of O(2) consumption and CO(2) production. Energy and N partitioning were recorded on a weekly basis. Blood samples for analyses on thyroid hormones were taken at 16, 17, and 19 wk of age. There were no interactions between efficiency type and Salmonella treatment or Salmonella treatment effects in energy partitioning, except for a short-term increase in heat production in inoculated pullets. Nonefficient pullets had higher gross energy and ME intake, higher estimated ME for maintenance, lower ME:gross energy ratio, and higher total heat production and nonactivity-related heat production compared with R- pullets. Triiodothyronine levels in R+ pullets were higher at 16 and 17 wk but were lower at 19 wk of age compared with R- pullets. Thyroxine levels were higher in R- at 16 wk and showed interactions between efficiency type and Salmonella treatment at 17 and 19 wk of age. Body weights and spleen weights did not differ between efficiency groups. Nonefficient pullets had higher heart, liver, and ovary weights and more large yellow follicles than R- pullets. There were no Salmonella effects on body and organ weights. We conclude that R+ pullets have a faster running energy metabolism and that they put more resources into organ development than R- pullets. Inoculation with Salmonella has a short-term effect on nonactivity-related heat production but does not affect energy partitioning, regardless of efficiency type.

Genetic grouping strategies in selection efficiency of composite beef cattle ( × ).

PubMed

Petrini, J; Pertile, S F N; Eler, J P; Ferraz, J B S; Mattos, E C; Figueiredo, L G G; Mourão, G B

2015-02-01

The inclusion of genetic groups in sire evaluation has been widely used to represent genetic differences among animals not accounted for by the absence of parentage data. However, the definition of these groups is still arbitrary, and studies assessing the effects of genetic grouping strategies on the selection efficiency are rare. Therefore, the aim in this study was to compare genetic grouping strategies for animals with unknown parentage in prediction of breeding values (EBV). The total of 179,302 records of weaning weight (WW), 29,825 records of scrotal circumference (SC), and 70,302 records of muscling score (MUSC) from Montana Tropical animals, a Brazilian composite beef cattle population, were used. Genetic grouping strategies involving year of birth, sex of the unknown parent, birth farm, breed composition, and their combinations were evaluated. Estimated breeding values were predicted for each approach simulating a loss of genealogy data. Thereafter, these EBV were compared to those obtained in an analysis involving a real relationship matrix to estimate selection efficiency and correlations between EBV and animal rankings. The analysis model included the fixed effects of contemporary groups and class of the dam age at calving, the covariates of additive and nonadditive genetic effects, and age, and the additive genetic effect of animal as random effects. A second model also included the fixed effects of genetic group. The use of genetic groups resulted in means of selection efficiency and correlation of 70.4 to 97.1% and 0.51 to 0.94 for WW, 85.8 to 98.8% and 0.82 to 0.98 for SC, and 85.1 to 98.6% and 0.74 to 0.97 for MUSC, respectively. High selection efficiencies were observed for year of birth and breed composition strategies. The maximum absolute difference in annual genetic gain estimated through the use of complete genealogy and genetic groups were 0.38 kg for WW, 0.02 cm for SC, and 0.01 for MUSC, with lower differences obtained when year of birth was adopted as a genetic group criterion. Grouping strategy must consider selection decisions and the number of genetic groups formed, in the way that genetic groups represent the genetic differences in population and allow an adequate prediction of EBV.

The Wildcat Corpus of Native- and Foreign-Accented English: Communicative Efficiency across Conversational Dyads with Varying Language Alignment Profiles

PubMed Central

Van Engen, Kristin J.; Baese-Berk, Melissa; Baker, Rachel E.; Choi, Arim; Kim, Midam; Bradlow, Ann R.

2012-01-01

This paper describes the development of the Wildcat Corpus of native- and foreign-accented English, a corpus containing scripted and spontaneous speech recordings from 24 native speakers of American English and 52 non-native speakers of English. The core element of this corpus is a set of spontaneous speech recordings, for which a new method of eliciting dialogue-based, laboratory-quality speech recordings was developed (the Diapix task). Dialogues between two native speakers of English, between two non-native speakers of English (with either shared or different L1s), and between one native and one non-native speaker of English are included and analyzed in terms of general measures of communicative efficiency. The overall finding was that pairs of native talkers were most efficient, followed by mixed native/non-native pairs and non-native pairs with shared L1. Non-native pairs with different L1s were least efficient. These results support the hypothesis that successful speech communication depends both on the alignment of talkers to the target language and on the alignment of talkers to one another in terms of native language background. PMID:21313992

Experiments in Wave Record Analysis.

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-09-01

manipulation of wave records in digital form to produce a power density spectrum (PDS) with great efficiency. The PDS gives a presentation of the...instantaneous surface elevation digital points (the zero level reference). The individual period, Ti, was taken as the time difference between two successive...CONCLUSIONS This thesis presents the results of experiments in the analysis of ocean wave records. For this purpose 19 digitized records obtained from a wave

Combining inhibitor tolerance and D-xylose fermentation in industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae for efficient lignocellulose-based bioethanol production.

PubMed

Demeke, Mekonnen M; Dumortier, Françoise; Li, Yingying; Broeckx, Tom; Foulquié-Moreno, María R; Thevelein, Johan M

2013-08-26

In addition to efficient pentose utilization, high inhibitor tolerance is a key trait required in any organism used for economically viable industrial bioethanol production with lignocellulose biomass. Although recent work has succeeded in establishing efficient xylose fermentation in robust industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, the resulting strains still lacked sufficient inhibitor tolerance for efficient sugar fermentation in lignocellulose hydrolysates. The aim of the present work was to combine high xylose fermentation activity and high inhibitor tolerance in a single industrial yeast strain. We have screened 580 yeast strains for high inhibitor tolerance using undetoxified acid-pretreated spruce hydrolysate and identified a triploid industrial baker's yeast strain as having the highest inhibitor tolerance. From this strain, a mating competent diploid segregant with even higher inhibitor tolerance was obtained. It was crossed with the recently developed D-xylose fermenting diploid industrial strain GS1.11-26, with the Ethanol Red genetic background. Screening of 819 diploid segregants from the tetraploid hybrid resulted in two strains, GSF335 and GSF767, combining high inhibitor tolerance and efficient xylose fermentation. In a parallel approach, meiotic recombination of GS1.11-26 with a haploid segregant of Ethanol Red and screening of 104 segregants resulted in a similar inhibitor tolerant diploid strain, GSE16. The three superior strains exhibited significantly improved tolerance to inhibitors in spruce hydrolysate, higher glucose consumption rates, higher aerobic growth rates and higher maximal ethanol accumulation capacity in very-high gravity fermentation, compared to GS1.11-26. In complex medium, the D-xylose utilization rate by the three superior strains ranged from 0.36 to 0.67 g/g DW/h, which was lower than that of GS1.11-26 (1.10 g/g DW/h). On the other hand, in batch fermentation of undetoxified acid-pretreated spruce hydrolysate, the three superior strains showed comparable D-xylose utilization rates as GS1.11-26, probably because of their higher inhibitor tolerance. They produced up to 23% more ethanol compared to Ethanol Red. We have successfully constructed three superior industrial S. cerevisiae strains that combine efficient D-xylose utilization with high inhibitor tolerance. Since the background strain Ethanol Red has a proven record of successful industrial application, the three new superior strains have strong potential for direct application in industrial bioethanol production.

Combining inhibitor tolerance and D-xylose fermentation in industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae for efficient lignocellulose-based bioethanol production

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background In addition to efficient pentose utilization, high inhibitor tolerance is a key trait required in any organism used for economically viable industrial bioethanol production with lignocellulose biomass. Although recent work has succeeded in establishing efficient xylose fermentation in robust industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, the resulting strains still lacked sufficient inhibitor tolerance for efficient sugar fermentation in lignocellulose hydrolysates. The aim of the present work was to combine high xylose fermentation activity and high inhibitor tolerance in a single industrial yeast strain. Results We have screened 580 yeast strains for high inhibitor tolerance using undetoxified acid-pretreated spruce hydrolysate and identified a triploid industrial baker’s yeast strain as having the highest inhibitor tolerance. From this strain, a mating competent diploid segregant with even higher inhibitor tolerance was obtained. It was crossed with the recently developed D-xylose fermenting diploid industrial strain GS1.11-26, with the Ethanol Red genetic background. Screening of 819 diploid segregants from the tetraploid hybrid resulted in two strains, GSF335 and GSF767, combining high inhibitor tolerance and efficient xylose fermentation. In a parallel approach, meiotic recombination of GS1.11-26 with a haploid segregant of Ethanol Red and screening of 104 segregants resulted in a similar inhibitor tolerant diploid strain, GSE16. The three superior strains exhibited significantly improved tolerance to inhibitors in spruce hydrolysate, higher glucose consumption rates, higher aerobic growth rates and higher maximal ethanol accumulation capacity in very-high gravity fermentation, compared to GS1.11-26. In complex medium, the D-xylose utilization rate by the three superior strains ranged from 0.36 to 0.67 g/g DW/h, which was lower than that of GS1.11-26 (1.10 g/g DW/h). On the other hand, in batch fermentation of undetoxified acid-pretreated spruce hydrolysate, the three superior strains showed comparable D-xylose utilization rates as GS1.11-26, probably because of their higher inhibitor tolerance. They produced up to 23% more ethanol compared to Ethanol Red. Conclusions We have successfully constructed three superior industrial S. cerevisiae strains that combine efficient D-xylose utilization with high inhibitor tolerance. Since the background strain Ethanol Red has a proven record of successful industrial application, the three new superior strains have strong potential for direct application in industrial bioethanol production. PMID:23971950

MATLAB-based automated patch-clamp system for awake behaving mice

PubMed Central

Siegel, Jennifer J.; Taylor, William; Chitwood, Raymond A.; Johnston, Daniel

2015-01-01

Automation has been an important part of biomedical research for decades, and the use of automated and robotic systems is now standard for such tasks as DNA sequencing, microfluidics, and high-throughput screening. Recently, Kodandaramaiah and colleagues (Nat Methods 9: 585–587, 2012) demonstrated, using anesthetized animals, the feasibility of automating blind patch-clamp recordings in vivo. Blind patch is a good target for automation because it is a complex yet highly stereotyped process that revolves around analysis of a single signal (electrode impedance) and movement along a single axis. Here, we introduce an automated system for blind patch-clamp recordings from awake, head-fixed mice running on a wheel. In its design, we were guided by 3 requirements: easy-to-use and easy-to-modify software; seamless integration of behavioral equipment; and efficient use of time. The resulting system employs equipment that is standard for patch recording rigs, moderately priced, or simple to make. It is written entirely in MATLAB, a programming environment that has an enormous user base in the neuroscience community and many available resources for analysis and instrument control. Using this system, we obtained 19 whole cell patch recordings from neurons in the prefrontal cortex of awake mice, aged 8–9 wk. Successful recordings had series resistances that averaged 52 ± 4 MΩ and required 5.7 ± 0.6 attempts to obtain. These numbers are comparable with those of experienced electrophysiologists working manually, and this system, written in a simple and familiar language, will be useful to many cellular electrophysiologists who wish to study awake behaving mice. PMID:26084901

An integrated multichannel neural recording analog front-end ASIC with area-efficient driven right leg circuit.

PubMed

Tao Tang; Wang Ling Goh; Lei Yao; Jia Hao Cheong; Yuan Gao

2017-07-01

This paper describes an integrated multichannel neural recording analog front end (AFE) with a novel area-efficient driven right leg (DRL) circuit to improve the system common mode rejection ratio (CMRR). The proposed AFE consists of an AC-coupled low-noise programmable-gain amplifier, an area-efficient DRL block and a 10-bit SAR ADC. Compared to conventional DRL circuit, the proposed capacitor-less DRL design achieves 90% chip area reduction with enhanced CMRR performance, making it ideal for multichannel biomedical recording applications. The AFE circuit has been designed in a standard 0.18-μm CMOS process. Post-layout simulation results show that the AFE provides two gain settings of 54dB/60dB while consuming 1 μA per channel under a supply voltage of 1 V. The input-referred noise of the AFE integrated from 1 Hz to 10k Hz is only 4 μVrms and the CMRR is 110 dB.

Real-time encoding and compression of neuronal spikes by metal-oxide memristors

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, Isha; Serb, Alexantrou; Khiat, Ali; Zeitler, Ralf; Vassanelli, Stefano; Prodromakis, Themistoklis

2016-09-01

Advanced brain-chip interfaces with numerous recording sites bear great potential for investigation of neuroprosthetic applications. The bottleneck towards achieving an efficient bio-electronic link is the real-time processing of neuronal signals, which imposes excessive requirements on bandwidth, energy and computation capacity. Here we present a unique concept where the intrinsic properties of memristive devices are exploited to compress information on neural spikes in real-time. We demonstrate that the inherent voltage thresholds of metal-oxide memristors can be used for discriminating recorded spiking events from background activity and without resorting to computationally heavy off-line processing. We prove that information on spike amplitude and frequency can be transduced and stored in single devices as non-volatile resistive state transitions. Finally, we show that a memristive device array allows for efficient data compression of signals recorded by a multi-electrode array, demonstrating the technology's potential for building scalable, yet energy-efficient on-node processors for brain-chip interfaces.

Real-time encoding and compression of neuronal spikes by metal-oxide memristors

PubMed Central

Gupta, Isha; Serb, Alexantrou; Khiat, Ali; Zeitler, Ralf; Vassanelli, Stefano; Prodromakis, Themistoklis

2016-01-01

Advanced brain-chip interfaces with numerous recording sites bear great potential for investigation of neuroprosthetic applications. The bottleneck towards achieving an efficient bio-electronic link is the real-time processing of neuronal signals, which imposes excessive requirements on bandwidth, energy and computation capacity. Here we present a unique concept where the intrinsic properties of memristive devices are exploited to compress information on neural spikes in real-time. We demonstrate that the inherent voltage thresholds of metal-oxide memristors can be used for discriminating recorded spiking events from background activity and without resorting to computationally heavy off-line processing. We prove that information on spike amplitude and frequency can be transduced and stored in single devices as non-volatile resistive state transitions. Finally, we show that a memristive device array allows for efficient data compression of signals recorded by a multi-electrode array, demonstrating the technology's potential for building scalable, yet energy-efficient on-node processors for brain-chip interfaces. PMID:27666698

A high-speed, reconfigurable, channel- and time-tagged photon arrival recording system for intensity-interferometry and quantum optics experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Girish, B. S.; Pandey, Deepak; Ramachandran, Hema

2017-08-01

We present a compact, inexpensive multichannel module, APODAS (Avalanche Photodiode Output Data Acquisition System), capable of detecting 0.8 billion photons per second and providing real-time recording on a computer hard-disk, of channel- and time-tagged information of the arrival of upto 0.4 billion photons per second. Built around a Virtex-5 Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) unit, APODAS offers a temporal resolution of 5 nanoseconds with zero deadtime in data acquisition, utilising an efficient scheme for time and channel tagging and employing Gigabit ethernet for the transfer of data. Analysis tools have been developed on a Linux platform for multi-fold coincidence studies and time-delayed intensity interferometry. As illustrative examples, the second-order intensity correlation function ( g 2) of light from two commonly used sources in quantum optics —a coherent laser source and a dilute atomic vapour emitting spontaneously, constituting a thermal source— are presented. With easy reconfigurability and with no restriction on the total record length, APODAS can be readily used for studies over various time scales. This is demonstrated by using APODAS to reveal Rabi oscillations on nanosecond time scales in the emission of ultracold atoms, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, to measure the second-order correlation function on the millisecond time scales from tailored light sources. The efficient and versatile performance of APODAS promises its utility in diverse fields, like quantum optics, quantum communication, nuclear physics, astrophysics and biology.

A centre-triggered magnesium fuelled cathodic arc thruster uses sublimation to deliver a record high specific impulse

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Neumann, Patrick R. C.; Bilek, Marcela; McKenzie, David R.

2016-08-01

The cathodic arc is a high current, low voltage discharge that operates in vacuum and provides a stream of highly ionised plasma from a solid conducting cathode. The high ion velocities, together with the high ionisation fraction and the quasineutrality of the exhaust stream, make the cathodic arc an attractive plasma source for spacecraft propulsion applications. The specific impulse of the cathodic arc thruster is substantially increased when the emission of neutral species is reduced. Here, we demonstrate a reduction of neutral emission by exploiting sublimation in cathode spots and enhanced ionisation of the plasma in short, high-current pulses. This, combined with the enhanced directionality due to the efficient erosion profiles created by centre-triggering, substantially increases the specific impulse. We present experimentally measured specific impulses and jet power efficiencies for titanium and magnesium fuels. Our Mg fuelled source provides the highest reported specific impulse for a gridless ion thruster and is competitive with all flight rated ion thrusters. We present a model based on cathode sublimation and melting at the cathodic arc spot explaining the outstanding performance of the Mg fuelled source. A further significant advantage of an Mg-fuelled thruster is the abundance of Mg in asteroidal material and in space junk, providing an opportunity for utilising these resources in space.

Optimization of Monocrystalline MgxCd1-xTe/MgyCd1-yTe Double-Heterostructure Solar Cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Becker, Jacob J.

Polycrystalline CdS/CdTe solar cells continue to dominate the thin-film photovoltaics industry with an achieved record efficiency of over 22% demonstrated by First Solar, yet monocrystalline CdTe devices have received considerably less attention over the years. Monocrystalline CdTe double-heterostructure solar cells show great promise with respect to addressing the problem of low Voc with the passing of the 1 V benchmark. Rapid progress has been made in driving the efficiency in these devices ever closer to the record presently held by polycrystalline thin-films. This achievement is primarily due to the utilization of a remote p-n heterojunction in which the heavily doped contact materials, which are so problematic in terms of increasing non-radiative recombination inside the absorber, are moved outside of the CdTe double heterostructure with two MgyCd1-yTe barrier layers to provide confinement and passivation at the CdTe surfaces. Using this design, the pursuit and demonstration of efficiencies beyond 20% in CdTe solar cells is reported through the study and optimization of the structure barriers, contacts layers, and optical design. Further development of a wider bandgap MgxCd1-xTe solar cell based on the same design is included with the intention of applying this knowledge to the development of a tandem solar cell constructed on a silicon subcell. The exploration of different hole-contact materials--ZnTe, CuZnS, and a-Si:H--and their optimization is presented throughout the work. Devices utilizing a-Si:H hole contacts exhibit open-circuit voltages of up to 1.11 V, a maximum total-area efficiency of 18.5% measured under AM1.5G, and an active-area efficiency of 20.3% for CdTe absorber based devices. The achievement of voltages beyond 1.1V while still maintaining relatively high fill factors with no rollover, either before or after open-circuit, is a promising indicator that this approach can result in devices surpassing the 22% record set by polycrystalline designs. MgxCd1-xTe absorber based devices have been demonstrated with open-circuit voltages of up to 1.176 V and a maximum active-area efficiency of 11.2%. A discussion of the various loss mechanisms present within these devices, both optical and electrical, concludes with the presentation of a series of potential design changes meant to address these issues.

Water treatment plants assessment at Talkha power plant.

PubMed

El-Sebaie, Olfat D; Abd El-Kerim, Ghazy E; Ramadan, Mohamed H; Abd El-Atey, Magda M; Taha, Sahr Ahmed

2002-01-01

Talkha power plant is the only power plant located in El-Mansoura. It generates electricity using two different methods by steam turbine and gas turbine. Both plants drew water from River Nile (208 m3 /h). The Nile raw water passes through different treatment processes to be suitable for drinking and operational uses. At Talkha power plant, there are two purification plants used for drinking water supply (100 m3/h) and for water demineralization supply (108 m3/h). This study aimed at studying the efficiency of the water purification plants. For drinking water purification plant, the annual River Nile water characterized by slightly alkaline pH (7.4-8), high annual mean values of turbidity (10.06 NTU), Standard Plate Count (SPC) (313.3 CFU/1 ml), total coliform (2717/100 ml), fecal coliform (0-2400/100 ml), and total algae (3 x 10(4) org/I). The dominant group of algae all over the study period was green algae. The blue green algae was abundant in Summer and Autumn seasons. The pH range, and the annual mean values of turbidity, TDS, total hardness, sulfates, chlorides, nitrates, nitrites, fluoride, and residual chlorine for purified water were in compliance with Egyptian drinking water standards. All the SPC recorded values with an annual mean value of 10.13 CFU/1 ml indicated that chlorine dose and contact time were not enough to kill the bacteria. However, they were in compliance with Egyptian decree (should not exceed 50 CFU/1 ml). Although the removal efficiency of the plant for total coliform and blue green algae was high (98.5% and 99.2%, respectively), the limits of the obtained results with an annual mean values of 40/100 ml and 15.6 org/l were not in compliance with the Egyptian decree (should be free from total coliform, fecal coliform and blue green algae). For water demineralization treatment plant, the raw water was characterized by slightly alkaline pH. The annual mean values of conductivity, turbidity, and TDS were 354.6 microS/cm, 10.84 NTU, and 214.6 mg/I, respectively. There was an increase in the results of conductivity, turbidity, total hardness, and TDS in carbon filter effluent which was attributed to the desorption of adsorbed ions on the carbon media. The removal efficiencies of turbidity, total hardness, and TDS indicated the high efficiency of the cationic filter. The annual removal efficiencies of conductivity, turbidity, chloride, and TDS proved the efficiency of the anionic filter for removing the dissolved and suspended ions. All of the recorded values of the pH, conductivity, turbidity, chlorides, hardness, and TDS of the mixed bed effluent indicated that the water at this stage was of high quality for boiler feed. The study recommended adjustment of coagulant and residual chlorine doses as well as contact time, and continuous monitoring and maintenance of the different units.

Recent and emerging applications of holographic photopolymers and nanocomposites

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Naydenova, Izabela; Kotakonda, Pavani; Jallapuram, Raghavendra; Babeva, Tsvetanka; Mintova, S.; Bade, Denis; Martin, Suzanne; Toal, Vincent

2010-11-01

Sensing applications of holograms may be based on effects such as change in the spacing of the recorded fringes in a holographic diffraction grating in the presence of an analyte so that the direction of the diffracted laser light changes, or, in the case of a white light reflection grating, the wavelength of the diffracted light changes. An example is a reflection grating which swells in the presence of atmospheric moisture to indicate relative humidity by a change is the colour of the diffracted light. These devices make use of the photopolymer's ability to absorb moisture. In a more versatile approach one can add inorganic nanoparticles to the photopolymer composition. These nanoparticles have refractive indices that are different from that of the bulk photopolymer. During the holographic recording of diffraction gratings, the polymerisation and accompanying diffusion processes cause redistribution of the nanoparticles enhancing the holographic diffraction efficiency. Zeolite nanoparticles have the form of hollow cages enabling them to trap analyte molecules of appropriate sizes. The refractive index of the nanoparticle-analyte combination is normally different from that of the nanoparticles alone and this alters the refractive index modulation of the recorded grating, leading to a change in diffraction efficiency and hence of the strength of the diffracted light signal. Yet another approach makes use of a principle which we call dye deposition holography. The analyte is labelled using a dye which acts as a photosensitiser for the polymerisation process. When the analyte labeled is deposited on a layer containing the other photopolymer components photopolymerisation can take place. If the illumination is in the form of an interference pattern, a diffraction grating is formed, in the region where dye has been deposited. In this way the formation of a holographic diffraction grating itself becomes a sensing action with the potential for extremely high signal to noise ratio. The method also allows fabrication of photonic devices by direct writing, using photosensitising dye, of structures such as Fresnel zone plate lenses and waveguides onto the photopolymer layer followed by exposure to spatially uniform light. Our work on HDS is concerned with enhancing the diffraction efficiency of user selected very weak diffraction gratings by illumination with a single beam at the Bragg angle. Light in the illuminating beam is coupled into the diffracted beam and the two interfere to enhance the grating strength. In this way grating diffraction efficiency can be raised above a threshold so that a binary zero can be changed to binary one. A large number of identical weak holographic gratings may be multiplexed into the recording medium at the manufacturing stage, for user selection at the data recording stage. In this way consumer HDS systems could be made much more simply and cheaply than at present.

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

Badgett, W.

The CDF Collider Detector at Fermilab ceased data collection on September 30, 2011 after over twenty-five years of operation. We review the performance of the CDF Run II data acquisition systems over the last ten of these years while recording nearly 10 inverse femtobarns of proton-antiproton collisions with a high degree of efficiency - exceeding 83%. Technology choices in the online control and configuration systems and front-end embedded processing have impacted the efficiency and quality of the data accumulated by CDF, and have had to perform over a large range of instantaneous luminosity values and trigger rates. We identify significantmore » sources of problems and successes. In particular, we present our experience computing and acquiring data in a radiation environment, and attempt to correlate system technical faults with radiation dose rate and technology choices.« less

High Performance Tandem Perovskite/Polymer Solar Cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Yao; Bag, Monojit; Page, Zachariah; Renna, Lawrence; Kim, Paul; Choi, Jaewon; Emrick, Todd; Venkataraman, D.; Russell, Thomas

Combining perovskites with other inorganic materials, such as copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) or silicon, is enabling significant improvement in solar cell device performance. Here, we demonstrate a highly efficient hybrid tandem solar cell fabricated through a facile solution deposition approach to give a perovskite front sub-cell and a polymer:fullerene blend back sub-cell. This methodology eliminates the adverse effects of thermal annealing during perovskite fabrication on polymer solar cells. The record tandem solar cell efficiency of 15.96% is 40% greater than the corresponding perovskite-based single junction device and 65% greater than the polymer-based single junction device, while mitigating deleterious hysteresis effects often associated with perovskite solar cells. The hybrid tandem devices demonstrate the synergistic effects arising from the combination of perovskite and polymer-based materials for solar cells. This work was supported by the Department of Energy-supported Energy Frontier Research Center at the University of Massachusetts (DE-SC0001087). The authors acknowledge the W.M. Keck Electron Microscopy.

Highly efficient solar vapour generation via hierarchically nanostructured gels.

PubMed

Zhao, Fei; Zhou, Xingyi; Shi, Ye; Qian, Xin; Alexander, Megan; Zhao, Xinpeng; Mendez, Samantha; Yang, Ronggui; Qu, Liangti; Yu, Guihua

2018-04-02

Solar vapour generation is an efficient way of harvesting solar energy for the purification of polluted or saline water. However, water evaporation suffers from either inefficient utilization of solar energy or relies on complex and expensive light-concentration accessories. Here, we demonstrate a hierarchically nanostructured gel (HNG) based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polypyrrole (PPy) that serves as an independent solar vapour generator. The converted energy can be utilized in situ to power the vaporization of water contained in the molecular meshes of the PVA network, where water evaporation is facilitated by the skeleton of the hydrogel. A floating HNG sample evaporated water with a record high rate of 3.2 kg m -2  h -1 via 94% solar energy from 1 sun irradiation, and 18-23 litres of water per square metre of HNG was delivered daily when purifying brine water. These values were achievable due to the reduced latent heat of water evaporation in the molecular mesh under natural sunlight.

Highly efficient solar vapour generation via hierarchically nanostructured gels

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhao, Fei; Zhou, Xingyi; Shi, Ye; Qian, Xin; Alexander, Megan; Zhao, Xinpeng; Mendez, Samantha; Yang, Ronggui; Qu, Liangti; Yu, Guihua

2018-06-01

Solar vapour generation is an efficient way of harvesting solar energy for the purification of polluted or saline water. However, water evaporation suffers from either inefficient utilization of solar energy or relies on complex and expensive light-concentration accessories. Here, we demonstrate a hierarchically nanostructured gel (HNG) based on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polypyrrole (PPy) that serves as an independent solar vapour generator. The converted energy can be utilized in situ to power the vaporization of water contained in the molecular meshes of the PVA network, where water evaporation is facilitated by the skeleton of the hydrogel. A floating HNG sample evaporated water with a record high rate of 3.2 kg m-2 h-1 via 94% solar energy from 1 sun irradiation, and 18-23 litres of water per square metre of HNG was delivered daily when purifying brine water. These values were achievable due to the reduced latent heat of water evaporation in the molecular mesh under natural sunlight.

High-Performance CuInS 2 Quantum Dot Laminated Glass Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Windows

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

Bergren, Matthew R.; Makarov, Nikolay S.; Ramasamy, Karthik

Building-integrated sunlight harvesting utilizing laminated glass luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) is proposed. By incorporating high quantum yield (>90%), NIR-emitting CuInS2/ZnS quantum dots into the polymer interlayer between two sheets of low-iron float glass, a record optical efficiency of 8.1% is demonstrated for a 10 cm x 10 cm device that transmits ~44% visible light. After completing prototypes by attaching silicon solar cells along the perimeter of the device, the electrical power conversion efficiency was certified at 2.2% with a black background and at 2.9% using a reflective substrate. This 'drop-in' LSC solution is particularly attractive because it fits within themore » existing glazing industry value chain with only modest changes to typical glazing products. Performance modeling predicts >1 GWh annual electricity production for a typical urban skyscraper in most major U.S. cities, enabling significant energy cost savings and potentially 'net-zero' buildings.« less

shiftNMFk 1.1: Robust Nonnegative matrix factorization with kmeans clustering and signal shift, for allocation of unknown physical sources, toy version for open sourcing with publications

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

Alexandrov, Boian S.; Lliev, Filip L.; Stanev, Valentin G.

This code is a toy (short) version of CODE-2016-83. From a general perspective, the code represents an unsupervised adaptive machine learning algorithm that allows efficient and high performance de-mixing and feature extraction of a multitude of non-negative signals mixed and recorded by a network of uncorrelated sensor arrays. The code identifies the number of the mixed original signals and their locations. Further, the code also allows deciphering of signals that have been delayed in regards to the mixing process in each sensor. This code is high customizable and it can be efficiently used for a fast macro-analyses of data. Themore » code is applicable to a plethora of distinct problems: chemical decomposition, pressure transient decomposition, unknown sources/signal allocation, EM signal decomposition. An additional procedure for allocation of the unknown sources is incorporated in the code.« less

Printed assemblies of GaAs photoelectrodes with decoupled optical and reactive interfaces for unassisted solar water splitting

DOE PAGES

Kang, Dongseok; Young, James L.; Lim, Haneol; ...

2017-03-27

Despite their excellent photophysical properties and record-high solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency, the high cost and limited stability of III-V compound semiconductors prohibit their practical application in solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here in this paper we present a strategy for III-V photocatalysis that can circumvent these difficulties via printed assemblies of epitaxially grown compound semiconductors. A thin film stack of GaAs-based epitaxial materials is released from the growth wafer and printed onto a non-native transparent substrate to form an integrated photocatalytic electrode for solar hydrogen generation. The heterogeneously integrated electrode configuration together with specialized epitaxial design serve to decouple the material interfacesmore » for illumination and electrocatalysis. Subsequently, this allows independent control and optimization of light absorption, carrier transport, charge transfer, and material stability. Using this approach, we construct a series-connected wireless tandem system of GaAs photoelectrodes and demonstrate 13.1% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of unassisted-mode water splitting.« less

Holographic storage of three-dimensional image and data using photopolymer and polymer dispersed liquid crystal films

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gao, Hong-Yue; Liu, Pan; Zeng, Chao; Yao, Qiu-Xiang; Zheng, Zhiqiang; Liu, Jicheng; Zheng, Huadong; Yu, Ying-Jie; Zeng, Zhen-Xiang; Sun, Tao

2016-09-01

We present holographic storage of three-dimensional (3D) images and data in a photopolymer film without any applied electric field. Its absorption and diffraction efficiency are measured, and reflective analog hologram of real object and image of digital information are recorded in the films. The photopolymer is compared with polymer dispersed liquid crystals as holographic materials. Besides holographic diffraction efficiency of the former is little lower than that of the latter, this work demonstrates that the photopolymer is more suitable for analog hologram and big data permanent storage because of its high definition and no need of high voltage electric field. Therefore, our study proposes a potential holographic storage material to apply in large size static 3D holographic displays, including analog hologram displays, digital hologram prints, and holographic disks. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11474194, 11004037, and 61101176) and the Natural Science Foundation of Shanghai, China (Grant No. 14ZR1415500).

Anticorrosion efficiency of ultrasonically deposited silica coatings on titanium

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ertaş, Fatma Sinem; Kaş, Recep; Mikó, Annamária; Birer, Özgür

2013-07-01

We utilized high intensity ultrasound to prepare coatings of silica and organically modified silica composed of multiple layers of densely packed nanoparticles. Ultrasound was used to collide nanoparticles onto an activated titanium surface with high speed. Large areas could be homogeneously coated by this method. These coatings were characterized by spectroscopy and microscopy methods and the anticorrosion efficiency in NaCl solution was evaluated by electrochemical measurements. The results indicated that the composite coatings provided good quality barrier layer on bare titanium and decreased the anodic corrosion rate. It was found that increase in the organic content of the coating shifted the passivation potential towards more positive direction. The comparison of the impedance results recorded at the corrosion potential pointed out that in each case a good quality barrier layer was formed on the titanium surface. The outstanding corrosion resistance of the composite coatings with only ~200 nm thickness shows that ultrasound assisted deposition can be a competitive method to obtain corrosion protective layers.

Printed assemblies of GaAs photoelectrodes with decoupled optical and reactive interfaces for unassisted solar water splitting

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kang, Dongseok; Young, James L.; Lim, Haneol; Klein, Walter E.; Chen, Huandong; Xi, Yuzhou; Gai, Boju; Deutsch, Todd G.; Yoon, Jongseung

2017-03-01

Despite their excellent photophysical properties and record-high solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency, the high cost and limited stability of III-V compound semiconductors prohibit their practical application in solar-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting. Here we present a strategy for III-V photocatalysis that can circumvent these difficulties via printed assemblies of epitaxially grown compound semiconductors. A thin film stack of GaAs-based epitaxial materials is released from the growth wafer and printed onto a non-native transparent substrate to form an integrated photocatalytic electrode for solar hydrogen generation. The heterogeneously integrated electrode configuration together with specialized epitaxial design serve to decouple the material interfaces for illumination and electrocatalysis. Subsequently, this allows independent control and optimization of light absorption, carrier transport, charge transfer, and material stability. Using this approach, we construct a series-connected wireless tandem system of GaAs photoelectrodes and demonstrate 13.1% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of unassisted-mode water splitting.

Highly efficient entanglement swapping and teleportation at telecom wavelength

PubMed Central

Jin, Rui-Bo; Takeoka, Masahiro; Takagi, Utako; Shimizu, Ryosuke; Sasaki, Masahide

2015-01-01

Entanglement swapping at telecom wavelengths is at the heart of quantum networking in optical fiber infrastructures. Although entanglement swapping has been demonstrated experimentally so far using various types of entangled photon sources both in near-infrared and telecom wavelength regions, the rate of swapping operation has been too low to be applied to practical quantum protocols, due to limited efficiency of entangled photon sources and photon detectors. Here we demonstrate drastic improvement of the efficiency at telecom wavelength by using two ultra-bright entangled photon sources and four highly efficient superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. We have attained a four-fold coincidence count rate of 108 counts per second, which is three orders higher than the previous experiments at telecom wavelengths. A raw (net) visibility in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the two independent entangled sources was 73.3 ± 1.0% (85.1 ± 0.8%). We performed the teleportation and entanglement swapping, and obtained a fidelity of 76.3% in the swapping test. Our results on the coincidence count rates are comparable with the ones ever recorded in teleportation/swapping and multi-photon entanglement generation experiments at around 800 nm wavelengths. Our setup opens the way to practical implementation of device-independent quantum key distribution and its distance extension by the entanglement swapping as well as multi-photon entangled state generation in telecom band infrastructures with both space and fiber links. PMID:25791212

Highly efficient entanglement swapping and teleportation at telecom wavelength.

PubMed

Jin, Rui-Bo; Takeoka, Masahiro; Takagi, Utako; Shimizu, Ryosuke; Sasaki, Masahide

2015-03-20

Entanglement swapping at telecom wavelengths is at the heart of quantum networking in optical fiber infrastructures. Although entanglement swapping has been demonstrated experimentally so far using various types of entangled photon sources both in near-infrared and telecom wavelength regions, the rate of swapping operation has been too low to be applied to practical quantum protocols, due to limited efficiency of entangled photon sources and photon detectors. Here we demonstrate drastic improvement of the efficiency at telecom wavelength by using two ultra-bright entangled photon sources and four highly efficient superconducting nanowire single photon detectors. We have attained a four-fold coincidence count rate of 108 counts per second, which is three orders higher than the previous experiments at telecom wavelengths. A raw (net) visibility in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference between the two independent entangled sources was 73.3 ± 1.0% (85.1 ± 0.8%). We performed the teleportation and entanglement swapping, and obtained a fidelity of 76.3% in the swapping test. Our results on the coincidence count rates are comparable with the ones ever recorded in teleportation/swapping and multi-photon entanglement generation experiments at around 800 nm wavelengths. Our setup opens the way to practical implementation of device-independent quantum key distribution and its distance extension by the entanglement swapping as well as multi-photon entangled state generation in telecom band infrastructures with both space and fiber links.

Performance analysis and material dependence of micro holographic optical elements as couplers for fiber optic communication

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ambadiyil, Sajan; Prasannan, G.; Sathyan, Jithesh; Ajith Kumar, P. T.

2005-01-01

Holographic Optical Elements (HOEs) are gaining much importance and finding newer and better applications in areas of optical fiber communication and optical information processing systems. In contrast to conventional HOEs, optical communication and information systems require smaller and efficient elements of desired characteristics and transfer functions. Such Micro Holographic Optical Elements (MHOEs) can either be an HOE, recorded with two narrow beams of laser light or a segment cut from a larger HOE (SHOEs), and recorded in the conventional manner. In this study, micro holographic couplers, having specific focusing and diffraction characteristics were recorded in different holographic recording media such as silver halide and dichromated gelatin. Wavelength response of the elements was tested at 633 nm and 442 nm. Variation in diffraction efficiency/coupling factor, and insertion loss of the elements were studied. The paper reports in detail about the above results and related design considerations.

From field notes to data portal - An operational QA/QC framework for tower networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sturtevant, C.; Hackley, S.; Meehan, T.; Roberti, J. A.; Holling, G.; Bonarrigo, S.

2016-12-01

Quality assurance and control (QA/QC) is one of the most important yet challenging aspects of producing research-quality data. This is especially so for environmental sensor networks collecting numerous high-frequency measurement streams at distributed sites. Here, the quality issues are multi-faceted, including sensor malfunctions, unmet theoretical assumptions, and measurement interference from the natural environment. To complicate matters, there are often multiple personnel managing different sites or different steps in the data flow. For large, centrally managed sensor networks such as NEON, the separation of field and processing duties is in the extreme. Tower networks such as Ameriflux, ICOS, and NEON continue to grow in size and sophistication, yet tools for robust, efficient, scalable QA/QC have lagged. Quality control remains a largely manual process relying on visual inspection of the data. In addition, notes of observed measurement interference or visible problems are often recorded on paper without an explicit pathway to data flagging during processing. As such, an increase in network size requires a near-proportional increase in personnel devoted to QA/QC, quickly stressing the human resources available. There is a need for a scalable, operational QA/QC framework that combines the efficiency and standardization of automated tests with the power and flexibility of visual checks, and includes an efficient communication pathway from field personnel to data processors to end users. Here we propose such a framework and an accompanying set of tools in development, including a mobile application template for recording tower maintenance and an R/shiny application for efficiently monitoring and synthesizing data quality issues. This framework seeks to incorporate lessons learned from the Ameriflux community and provide tools to aid continued network advancements.

Efficiency of Different Sampling Tools for Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Collections in Malaysian Streams

PubMed Central

Ghani, Wan Mohd Hafezul Wan Abdul; Rawi, Che Salmah Md; Hamid, Suhaila Abd; Al-Shami, Salman Abdo

2016-01-01

This study analyses the sampling performance of three benthic sampling tools commonly used to collect freshwater macroinvertebrates. Efficiency of qualitative D-frame and square aquatic nets were compared to a quantitative Surber sampler in tropical Malaysian streams. The abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrates collected using each tool evaluated along with their relative variations (RVs). Each tool was used to sample macroinvertebrates from three streams draining different areas: a vegetable farm, a tea plantation and a forest reserve. High macroinvertebrate diversities were recorded using the square net and Surber sampler at the forested stream site; however, very low species abundance was recorded by the Surber sampler. Relatively large variations in the Surber sampler collections (RVs of 36% and 28%) were observed for the vegetable farm and tea plantation streams, respectively. Of the three sampling methods, the square net was the most efficient, collecting a greater diversity of macroinvertebrate taxa and a greater number of specimens (i.e., abundance) overall, particularly from the vegetable farm and the tea plantation streams (RV<25%). Fewer square net sample passes (<8 samples) were sufficient to perform a biological assessment of water quality, but each sample required a slightly longer processing time (±20 min) compared with those gathered via the other samplers. In conclusion, all three apparatuses were suitable for macroinvertebrate collection in Malaysian streams and gathered assemblages that resulted in the determination of similar biological water quality classes using the Family Biotic Index (FBI) and the Biological Monitoring Working Party (BMWP). However, despite a slightly longer processing time, the square net was more efficient (lowest RV) at collecting samples and more suitable for the collection of macroinvertebrates from deep, fast flowing, wadeable streams with coarse substrates. PMID:27019685

The “Resus:Station”: The use of clinical simulations in a randomised crossover study to evaluate a novel resuscitation trolley☆

PubMed Central

Walker, Susanna T.; Brett, Stephen J.; McKay, Anthony; Aggarwal, Rajesh; Vincent, Charles

2012-01-01

Background and aim Inadequately designed equipment has been implicated in poor efficiency and critical incidents associated with resuscitation. A novel resuscitation trolley (Resus:Station) was designed and evaluated for impact on team efficiency, user opinion, and teamwork, compared with the standard trolley, in simulated cardiac arrest scenarios. Methods Fifteen experienced cardiac arrest teams were recruited (45 participants). Teams performed recorded resuscitation simulations using new and conventional trolleys, with order of use randomised. After each simulation, efficiency (“time to drugs”, un-locatable equipment, unnecessary drawer opening) and team performance (OSCAR) were assessed from the video recordings and participants were asked to complete questionnaires scoring various aspects of the trolley on a Likert scale. Results Time to locate the drugs was significantly faster (p = 0.001) when using the Resus:Station (mean 5.19 s (SD 3.34)) than when using the standard trolley (26.81 s (SD16.05)). There were no reports of missing equipment when using the Resus:Station. However, during four of the fifteen study sessions using the standard trolley participants were unable to find equipment, with an average of 6.75 unnecessary drawer openings per simulation. User feedback results clearly indicated a highly significant preference for the newly designed Resus:Station for all aspects. Teams performed equally well for all dimensions of team performance using both trolleys, despite it being their first exposure to the Resus:Station. Conclusion We conclude that in this simulated environment, the new design of trolley is safe to use, and has the potential to improve efficiency at a resuscitation attempt. PMID:22796405

3D-hierarchical MoSe2 nanoarchitecture as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Binjie; Chen, Yuanfu; Qi, Fei; Wang, Xinqiang; Zhang, Wanli; Li, Yanrong; Li, Xuesong

2017-06-01

Clean hydrogen split from water by hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is significant for sustainability, environmental emissions, and energy security. So far, it is still a big challenge to develop highly efficient noble metal-free electrocatalysts with comparable HER efficiency to platinum-based catalysts, which are mainly hindered by the intrinsic electrocatalytic property and particularly the reasonable nanostructure design of the electrocatalyst. Here we report a newly-designed three-dimensional hierarchical MoSe2 nanoarchitecture (3D-MoSe2) with outstanding HER performance. The 3D-MoSe2 is grown by chemical vapor deposition method with using perylene-3, 4, 9, 10-tetracarboxylic acid tetrapotassium salt as a seeding promoter. The as-grown 3D-MoSe2 nanoarchitecture is highly crystalline and constructed with curly few-layered vertical nanosheets onto the horizontal layer, which has much larger (~12 times) electrochemically active area and much smaller (only 2%) charge transfer resistance compared to conventional horizontal MoSe2 layer. With these advantages, the Tafel slope of 3D-MoSe2 can be as small as 47.3 mV/dev, which is the smallest record ever reported for pure MoSe2, even for pure two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides (2D-TMDs) catalysts. Furthermore, when 3D-MoSe2 is grown on the multiwall carbon nanotube film, its Tafel slope can be further reduced down to 32.5 mV/dec, which is close to the theoretical limit (29 mV/dec) of HER, and comparable to platinum-based electrocatalysts, making it promising as a highly efficient electrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution.

Detrimental Effects of “Stretch” Goals in Specialty Substance Use Disorder Treatment Organizations

PubMed Central

Lemoine, G. James; Blum, Terry C.; Roman, Paul M.

2016-01-01

Background “Stretch” goals, a rarely examined concept that represents seemingly impossible, highly ambitious organizational goals ostensibly established to fill performance gaps and motivate employees, are examined within a sample of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment centers in the United States in terms of their prevalence and effects on organizational behavior. Stretch goals are defined as “seemingly impossible” goals intended to motivate employees to achieve high performance. In light of the high level of environmental change and unpredictability faced by SUD treatment centers in recent decades, we theorize that stretch goals would be both common and often detrimental (in terms of capacity utilization rate and efficiency) in these settings. Methods In a longitudinal analysis of data from leaders of a representative U. S. national sample of 219 SUD treatment centers characterized by entrepreneurial management structures, we examined the prevalence of stretch goals and their impact on key outcome variables of capacity utilization rate and efficiency. Results Widespread adoption of stretch goals was found, with 43% of our sample falling within the stretch category. Stretch goals had a negative main effect on capacity utilization rate as compared to less ambitious challenging goals. Stretch and prior performance interacted to further predict capacity utilization rate, whereas stretch and slack resource availability interacted to predict center efficiency. Discussion Although stretch goals are frequently used in the SUD treatment industry, we find them mostly detrimental to performance. Stretch goals may enhance the efficiency of treatment centers with prior limited resource availability, but they are negatively associated with capacity utilization, especially in centers with a record of already strong performance. Despite the high prevalence of such goals and positive values centered on aspirational behavior, these results strongly suggest caution in such goal setting in SUD treatment centers. PMID:26976811

[Ecological management model of agriculture-pasture ecotone based on the theory of energy and material flow--a case study in Houshan dryland area of Inner Mongolia].

PubMed

Fan, Jinlong; Pan, Zhihua; Zhao, Ju; Zheng, Dawei; Tuo, Debao; Zhao, Peiyi

2004-04-01

The degradation of ecological environment in the agriculture-pasture ecotone in northern China has been paid more attentions. Based on our many years' research and under the guide of energy and material flow theory, this paper put forward an ecological management model, with a hill as the basic cell and according to the natural, social and economic characters of Houshan dryland farming area inside the north agriculture-pasture ecotone. The input and output of three models, i.e., the traditional along-slope-tillage model, the artificial grassland model and the ecological management model, were observed and recorded in detail in 1999. Energy and material flow analysis based on field test showed that compared with traditional model, ecological management model could increase solar use efficiency by 8.3%, energy output by 8.7%, energy conversion efficiency by 19.4%, N output by 26.5%, N conversion efficiency by 57.1%, P output by 12.1%, P conversion efficiency by 45.0%, and water use efficiency by 17.7%. Among the models, artificial grassland model had the lowest solar use efficiency, energy output and energy conversion efficiency; while the ecological management model had the most outputs and benefits, was the best model with high economic effect, and increased economic benefits by 16.1%, compared with the traditional model.

The 128-channel fully differential digital integrated neural recording and stimulation interface.

PubMed

Shahrokhi, Farzaneh; Abdelhalim, Karim; Serletis, Demitre; Carlen, Peter L; Genov, Roman

2010-06-01

We present a fully differential 128-channel integrated neural interface. It consists of an array of 8 X 16 low-power low-noise signal-recording and generation circuits for electrical neural activity monitoring and stimulation, respectively. The recording channel has two stages of signal amplification and conditioning with and a fully differential 8-b column-parallel successive approximation (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The total measured power consumption of each recording channel, including the SAR ADC, is 15.5 ¿W. The measured input-referred noise is 6.08 ¿ Vrms over a 5-kHz bandwidth, resulting in a noise efficiency factor of 5.6. The stimulation channel performs monophasic or biphasic voltage-mode stimulation, with a maximum stimulation current of 5 mA and a quiescent power dissipation of 51.5 ¿W. The design is implemented in 0.35-¿m complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology with the channel pitch of 200 ¿m for a total die size of 3.4 mm × 2.5 mm and a total power consumption of 9.33 mW. The neural interface was validated in in vitro recording of a low-Mg(2+)/high-K(+) epileptic seizure model in an intact hippocampus of a mouse.

Evaluation of the efficiency of the photo Fenton disinfection of natural drinking water source during the rainy season in the Sahelian region.

PubMed

Ndounla, J; Pulgarin, C

2014-09-15

The photo-disinfection of water from two different wells (W1, pH: 4.6-5.1 ± 0.02) and (W2 pH: 5.6-5.7 ± 0.02) was carried out during the rainy season at Ouagadougou-Burkina Faso, West Africa. The weather variation during the rainy season significantly affects the photo-disinfection processes (solar disinfection and photo-Fenton). The dilution of the water by rainwater highly affected the chemical composition of the wells' water used in this study; very low iron contents Compared to the ones recorded during the dry season were recorded in all water samples. Both photo-disinfection processes were used to treat 25 L of water in a compound parabolic collector (CPC). None of them have shown the total inactivation of both wild enteric bacteria strains (total coliforms/E. coli and Salmonella spp.) involved in the treatment. However, the total coliforms/E. coli strains were totally inactivated during the exposure under most of the photo-Fenton treatment. Also, the remaining strains, especially those of Salmonella spp. were achieved during the subsequent 24h of dark storage under the action of the Fenton process. Under uniquely solar radiation, total inactivation was recorded only in the total coliforms/E. coli strains. The impact of the available irradiance on the efficiency of the photo-Fenton disinfection of natural water was highlighted during the exposure under high intermittent solar radiation. The impact of the HCO3(-) concentration of both wells' water on the evolution of the pH during the photo-disinfection was recorded. Drastic decrease was noticed after the initial fast increase in presence of low HCO3(-) concentration while a steady state was observed after the increase in presence of higher concentration. The redox activities of the nitrogen components of the water during both photo-disinfection processes have led to increased concentration of nitrite in all the cases and variations were noticed in that of nitrate and ammonia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

TECHNICAL NOTE: The development of a PZT-based microdrive for neural signal recording

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Park, Sangkyu; Yoon, Euisung; Lee, Sukchan; Shin, Hee-sup; Park, Hyunjun; Kim, Byungkyu; Kim, Daesoo; Park, Jongoh; Park, Sukho

2008-04-01

A hand-controlled microdrive has been used to obtain neural signals from rodents such as rats and mice. However, it places severe physical stress on the rodents during its manipulation, and this stress leads to alertness in the mice and low efficiency in obtaining neural signals from the mice. To overcome this issue, we developed a novel microdrive, which allows one to adjust the electrodes by a piezoelectric device (PZT) with high precision. Its mass is light enough to install on the mouse's head. The proposed microdrive has three H-type PZT actuators and their guiding structure. The operation principle of the microdrive is based on the well known inchworm mechanism. When the three PZT actuators are synchronized, linear motion of the electrode is produced along the guiding structure. The electrodes used for the recording of the neural signals from neuron cells were fixed at one of the PZT actuators. Our proposed microdrive has an accuracy of about 400 nm and a long stroke of about 5 mm. In response to formalin-induced pain, single unit activities are robustly measured at the thalamus with electrodes whose vertical depth is adjusted by the microdrive under urethane anesthesia. In addition, the microdrive was efficient in detecting neural signals from mice that were moving freely. Thus, the present study suggests that the PZT-based microdrive could be an alternative for the efficient detection of neural signals from mice during behavioral states without any stress to the mice.

Evaluating the impact of water supply strategies on p-xylene biodegradation performance in an organic media-based biofilter.

PubMed

Gallastegui, G; Muñoz, R; Barona, A; Ibarra-Berastegi, G; Rojo, N; Elías, A

2011-01-30

The influence of water irrigation on both the long-term and short-term performance of p-xylene biodegradation under several organic loading scenarios was investigated using an organic packing material composed of pelletised sawdust and pig manure. Process operation in a modular biofilter, using no external water supply other than the moisture from the saturated inlet air stream, showed poor p-xylene abatement efficiencies (≈33 ± 7%), while sustained irrigation every 25 days rendered a high removal efficiency (RE) for a critical loading rate of 120 g m(-3)h(-1). Periodic profiles of removal efficiency, temperature and moisture content were recorded throughout the biofilter column subsequent to each biofilter irrigation. Hence, higher p-xylene biodegradation rates were always initially recorded in the upper module, which resulted in a subsequent increase in temperature and a decrease in moisture content. This decrease in the moisture content in the upper module resulted in a higher removal rate in the middle module, while the moisture level in the lower module steadily increased as a result of water condensation. Based on these results, mass balance calculations performed using measured bed temperatures and relatively humidity values were successfully used to account for water balances in the biofilter over time. Finally, the absence of bed compaction after 550 days of continuous operation confirmed the suitability of this organic material for biofiltration processes. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A new algorithm to reduce noise in microscopy images implemented with a simple program in python.

PubMed

Papini, Alessio

2012-03-01

All microscopical images contain noise, increasing when (e.g., transmission electron microscope or light microscope) approaching the resolution limit. Many methods are available to reduce noise. One of the most commonly used is image averaging. We propose here to use the mode of pixel values. Simple Python programs process a given number of images, recorded consecutively from the same subject. The programs calculate the mode of the pixel values in a given position (a, b). The result is a new image containing in (a, b) the mode of the values. Therefore, the final pixel value corresponds to that read in at least two of the pixels in position (a, b). The application of the program on a set of images obtained by applying salt and pepper noise and GIMP hurl noise with 10-90% standard deviation showed that the mode performs better than averaging with three-eight images. The data suggest that the mode would be more efficient (in the sense of a lower number of recorded images to process to reduce noise below a given limit) for lower number of total noisy pixels and high standard deviation (as impulse noise and salt and pepper noise), while averaging would be more efficient when the number of varying pixels is high, and the standard deviation is low, as in many cases of Gaussian noise affected images. The two methods may be used serially. Copyright © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Evaluation of the efficiency of heat and moisture exchangers during paediatric anaesthesia.

PubMed

Luchetti, M; Pigna, A; Gentili, A; Marraro, G

1999-01-01

This study evaluates the efficiency of heat and moisture exchangers (HMEs) in allowing adequate humidification and warming during anaesthesia in children. Eighteen paediatric patients undergoing anaesthesia were divided into two groups: group A ten patients: infants up to 10 kg-->Hygrobaby HME; group B 8 patients: children above 10 kg-->Hygroboy HME. The following parameters were evaluated: body temperature (bT), room temperature (rT), fresh gas temperature, HME warm-up time, inspired and expired gases temperature and humidity, conserving efficiency, and duration of anaesthesia. Gas temperatures were recorded by means of a recorder fitted with four thermal probes. Humidity values were mathematically derived. The correlation between efficiency and rT, bT, and fresh gas temperature was computed. In both groups the inspired gases temperatures were below 30 degrees C. Inspired absolute humidity was never more than 28 mgH2O.l(-1). The conserving efficiency was good (0.93 in both groups). A positive correlation was found between efficiency and fresh gas temperature. HMEs did not meet the minimum standards for humidity and heating during anaesthesia in children, although their conserving efficiency was found to be satisfactory.

Solar upconversion with plasmon-enhanced bimolecular complexes

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

Dionne, Jennifer

2017-04-14

Upconversion of sub-bandgap photons is a promising approach to exceed the Shockley-Queisser limit in solar technologies. However, due to the low quantum efficiencies and narrow absorption bandwidths of upconverters, existing systems have only led to fractional percent improvements in photovoltaic devices (~0.01%). In this project, we aimed to develop an efficient upconverting material that could improve cell efficiencies by at least one absolute percent. To achieve this goal, we first used thermodynamic calculations to determine cell efficiencies with realistic upconverting materials. Then, we designed, synthesized, and characterized nanoantennas that promise >100x enhancement in both the upconverter absorption cross-section and emissivemore » radiative rate. Concurrently, we optimized the upconverer by designing new ionic and molecular complexes that promise efficient solid-state upconversion. Lastly, with Bosch, we simulated record-efficiency semi-transparent cells that will allow for ready incorporation of our upconverting materials. While we were not successful in designing record efficiency upconverters during our three years of funding, we gained significant insight into the existing limitations of upconverters and how to best address these challenges. Ongoing work is aimed at addressing these limitations, to make upconversion a cost-competitive solar technology in future years.« less

Guidelines for the Collection, Maintenance & Dissemination of Pupil Records. Report of a Conference on the Ethical & Legal Aspects of School Record Keeping. (Sterling Forest, New York, May 25-28, 1969).

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Russell Sage Foundation, New York, NY.

Modern technology has given us the ability to record, store, retrieve, and disseminate large volumes of data. Though technically efficient, such a procedure can be misused and thus constitute an invasion of privacy. Most school systems maintain extensive student records, but few have systematic policies regarding dissemination of such information.…

Computationally Efficient Clustering of Audio-Visual Meeting Data

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hung, Hayley; Friedland, Gerald; Yeo, Chuohao

This chapter presents novel computationally efficient algorithms to extract semantically meaningful acoustic and visual events related to each of the participants in a group discussion using the example of business meeting recordings. The recording setup involves relatively few audio-visual sensors, comprising a limited number of cameras and microphones. We first demonstrate computationally efficient algorithms that can identify who spoke and when, a problem in speech processing known as speaker diarization. We also extract visual activity features efficiently from MPEG4 video by taking advantage of the processing that was already done for video compression. Then, we present a method of associating the audio-visual data together so that the content of each participant can be managed individually. The methods presented in this article can be used as a principal component that enables many higher-level semantic analysis tasks needed in search, retrieval, and navigation.