The laser light intensity modulated by the FBG subjected to the

The laser light intensity modulated by the FBG subjected to the sound pressure is detected by a fast photodiode.Indeed, in the transmission mode and by working on the edge of the grating spectrum, the transmitted optical power Pt is directly related to the sound pressure according to the following expression:Pt(t)=Pi[T0+?T?��0?��0?pP(t)](3)where Pi is the incident optical power, T0 is the transmission value at FWHM, ?T/?��0 and ?��0/?p represent the edge slope of the grating spectral response and the wavelength sensitivity to the pressure, respectively. Yet, in order to achieve the maximum sensitivity and dynamic range, the laser wavelength should be set in correspondence of the full width at half maximum (FWHM), on either the longer or shorter wavelength side of the spectrum curve.

It is seen from Equation 3 that the ac component of the transmitted light power is proportional to the sound pressure experienced by the FBG. Thus, the detection of the light with a photodiode provides an electrical output directly proportional to the acoustic field in the water. From the resulting temporal waveform, the amplitude, the frequency and the phase of the field can easily be measured after a proper calibration procedure.The experimental set-up is shown in Figure 1. Field trials have been carried out in a professional tank at the Whitehead Alenia Sistemi Subacquei’s laboratory. The tank size was 11 �� 5 m, and its depth was 7 m. The sensor’s symmetry axis was orthogonally to the direction of propagation of the acoustic wave. A piezoelectric hydrophone has been used as reference.

A computer-controlled scanning stage that allows independent translations in X, Y and Z directions and rotations about the vertical axis is used to place the optical fiber hydrophone.Figure 1.Lateral view of the experimental set-up.4.?Results and DiscussionIn this section, we report a series of measurements carried out to evaluate the sensitivity, the linearity and the resolution of the FBG-based hydrophone coated with materials of different geometrical and acousto-mechanical properties and to compare Dacomitinib the obtained performances with a reference PZT hydrophone.The first comparison is between two hydrophones with the FBGs (one characterized by a central wavelength of 1,554.20 nm and a FWHM of 0.5 nm and the other by a central wavelength of 1,547.6 nm and a FWHM of 0.45 nm) embedded in a material of cylindrical geometry with diameter of 4 mm and length of 25 mm exhibiting an elastic modulus of ~100 MPa and in a material (the Damival 13650) of spherical geometry with diameter of 4.4 cm (exhibiting elastic modulus lower than 100 Mpa and acoustic impedance that matches that of water), respectively (see Figure 2).Figure 2.

The fatigue life of components is generally determined from low

The fatigue life of components is generally determined from low cyclic fatigue tests at large strain amplitudes and high cyclic fatigue tests at low strain amplitudes. To accurately predict the fatigue life, it is critical to measure the strain in push-pull fatigue tests, especially under the large strain amplitude that induces significant plastic deformation. However, the conventional thin-film strain gauge cannot take large cyclic strain amplitudes; and the extensometer, though capable of taking large strain amplitudes, is relatively large in size, unsuitable for the measurements at boundary of dissimilar materials or for localized strain measurements.

Fiber optic sensors, particularly Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) have become increasingly popular in the last decade due to their wide dynamic range, immunity to electromagnetic interference and their multiplexing capability.

FBG sensors, inscribed on an optic fiber of 125 ��m in diameter, can be made as short as 2 to 5 mm in length and have been used recently in localized strain measurements, such as on a flip-chip ball grid array that was not accessible for conventional strain gauges [2]. Despite the success of FBGs in strain sensing and structural health monitoring, there are few reports on their applications in fatigue tests of materials, especially in large cyclic strain amplitude tests. When a FBG fiber is bonded to a substrate with epoxy, the substrate strain is transferred to the fiber Dacomitinib sensor by the shear stress of the epoxy.

Due to the limited contact area between the circular fiber and flat substrate and the shear modulus of the epoxy, a large substrate strain often causes the Drug_discovery fiber to slip, rendering the FBG strain reading to be less than the true substrate strain. Using FBGs inscribed on circular fibers, significant chirp in the reflective peaks of the FBG spectra could occur, as shown in Figure 1, when the sample was fatigued for 100 cycles at a strain amplitude of ��5,000 �̦�. This problem has severely limited the applications of FBG sensors in mechanical tests involving large strain amplitudes. The FBG chirp or reflective peak split is mainly due to the uneven slippage between the FBG and the substrate at large strain amplitudes. Reference [3] analyzed in detail the effects of geometric parameters of the adhesive on the substrate strain transfer to FBG, however only at low strain levels. Typically the FBG sensor is used when the strain variation is less than 3,000 �̦� [4].

ort of their finding, both C1ql and BAI3 are highly and specifica

ort of their finding, both C1ql and BAI3 are highly and specifically expressed in brain and are enriched in neurons. Based on these findings our current data suggest that the loss of PGRN may increase the expression of miR 922, miR 548b 5p and miR 548c 5p through unknown mechanisms, leading to a decrease in the levels of BAI3, an essential protein for synapse biology. Conclusions Overall, our studies support a novel role for miRNAs in FTLD TDP due to PGRN dysfunction and emphasize the value of combined miRNA and mRNA analyses. Future experiments in cell and animal models are needed to further evaluate the clinical potential of the miRNAs and gene targets identified in this study. The recent progress in human trials for miRNA based therapeutics in non CNS related disorders offers hope for new alter natives for the treatment of dementias, including FTLD.

Methods Brain samples For the miRNA array experiment, post mortem midfron tal cortex tissue was isolated from a collection of 40 FTLD TDP patients selected from the Mayo Clinic Jack sonville brain bank. All samples were obtained with appropriate informed consent with ethical commit tee approval. FTLD patients included the following pathologic classifications, FTLD TDP type 1 without PGRN mutations, FTLD TDP type 2, FTLD TDP type 3 and FTLD TDP type 1 with PGRN mutations. Total RNA quantification was performed using a NanoDrop ND 1000 spectrophotometer. RNA quality was evaluated by the Agi lent RNA 6000 Nano Kit and only samples with an RNA integrity value greater than 5 were included in this study.

Mean RINs in frontal cortex were PGRN, PGRN type 1, FTLD TDP type 2, and FTLD TDP type 3. Mean RINs in cerebellums were PGRN, PGRN type 1, FTLD TDP type 2, and FTLD TDP type 3. Cerebellar tissue of sufficient quality Brefeldin_A for miRNA expression analyses was also available for 31 of these FTLD TDP patients. For the miRNA expression analyses in cerebellum, 9 additional FTLD TDP patients were obtained from the MCJ brain bank. Importantly, all PGRN mutations included in this study were clear pathogenic loss of function mutations, leading to haploinsufficiency. Demographic and neuro pathologic information on all patients included in this study are summarized in Table 1. miRNA array analyses For mature miRNA expression profiling, real time RT PCR was performed using TaqMan Human MicroRNA Low Density Arrays Version 2.

0 which contain 667 unique assays specific to human mature miRNAs in a two card format. Total RNA was isolated from human frontal cortical tissue using the miRVana PARIS kit from Ambion. Total RNA was reverse transcribed to cDNA for mature miRNAs using Megaplex RT Primers in 7. 5 uls of final reaction volume. Subse quently, 2. 5 uls of cDNA was pre amplified in a 25 ul final volume with PreAmp Master Mix and Megaplex PreAmp Primers using standard conditions according to manufacturers instructions. Preamplified cDNA was diluted in 0. 1�� Tris EDTA, applied to miRNA real time array plates and mature miRNA e

e serially diluted and plated on 5% horse blood agar plates and t

e serially diluted and plated on 5% horse blood agar plates and then incubated anaerobically at 37 C for 10 days. Colony forming units of invasive P. gingivalis in cells were then enumerated. Silencing of Rab5 gene Ca9 22 cells were transfected with 100 pmol siRNA spe cific for Rab5 or control siRNA using Lipofectamine 2000 reagent, as described by the manufacturer. Then, e pres sion of Rab5 in the cells was e amined by Western blotting using a monoclonal antibody to Rab5. Ne t, Rab5 siRNA transfected Ca9 22 cells were incubated with P. gingivalis ATCC 33277 for 1 h. Viable P. gingivalis in the cells was determined as described above. Immunostaining Treated Ca9 22 cells were fi ed with 4% formaldehyde for 10 min. Nonspecific binding of antibodies was blocked by incubation with 5% sheep serum in 10 mM Tris pH 7.

6, 150 mM NaCl, and 0. 05% Tween20 for 1 h, and then the cells were incubated overnight at 4 C with a primary antibody in TBS T. After washing with buffer A 6 times, the cells were treated with a secondary antibody in buffer A for 1 h. Cells were then observed by a confocal laser scanning microscope. Cilengitide Some Ca9 22 cells were transfected with vectors containing genes of GFP alone, GFP Rab5, and GFP Rab5. To clarify whether P. gingi valis cells are in the epithelial cells, a z series with 0. 5 um intervals was scanned and images of the z and y z planes were reconstructed with the orthogonal section tool. Western blotting TNF treated and non treated Ca9 22 cells and THP 1 cells were lysed in SDS PAGE sample buffer, separated by SDS PAGE, and transferred onto Immobilon P Transfer Membranes.

The membranes were blocked with PVDF Blocking Reagent for Can Get Signal in TBS T for 1 h at room temperature and then incubated with antibodies to TNFRI, TNFRII, Rab5 and ICAM 1 overnight at 4 C. After washing 3 times with TBS T, the membranes were incubated with horseradish pero idase conjugated anti rabbit or mouse IgG antibodies in Can Get Signal Immunoreaction Enhancer Solution. The membranes were washed 3 times with TBS T and then immunoreactive bands were visualized using ECL Western Blotting detection reagents or Immuno Star LD. The membranes were stripped and probed with anti B actin antibodies as a loading control. GST R5BD pull down assay The GST R5BD pull down assay was based on the method described by Liu et al.

Ca9 22 cells were transfected with GFP Rab5 using Lipofectamine 2000 reagent, as described by the manufacturer. The trans fectants were pretreated with MAP kinase inhibitors, in cluding a p38 inhibitor, JNK inhibitor, and ERK inhibitor, or with an NF ��B inhibitor at 37 C for 1 h followed by stimulating with 10 ng ml TNF for 3 h. Thereafter, cell e tracts were prepared in lysis buffer con taining 25 mM HEPES pH 7. 4, 100 mM NaCl, 5 mM MgCl2, 0. 1% Nonidet P 40, 2% glycerol, 1 mM dithio threitol, and protease inhibitors. The cell lysates were centrifuged at 13,000 g for 10 min at 4 C, and then the supernatants were incubated with 20 ul of G

However, scientists have proved that more stations and more satel

However, scientists have proved that more stations and more satellites are needed for models of higher spatial and temporal resolution [17]. Therefore, BDS consisting five Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO), five Inclined Geosynchronous Orbit (IGSO) and four Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites now and another 23 additional MEO satellites expected by 2020 [1,2] will provide a huge number of observations and ensure significant improvements to current GNSS meteorology. Thus, in this contribution we concentrate on retrieving tropospheric delays from BDS observations.There are two data processing modes for estimating ZTD from GNSS observations: PPP mode and network mode. In the PPP mode, precise satellite orbits and clocks must be available and are fixed as known in the processing, so that data can be processed station-by-station.

This strategy is very computationally efficient and can be performed for any number of stations. In the network mode, a number of stations are processed together where satellite clocks are estimated as additional parameters or cancelled by forming differential observations between stations. Although the network mode is really time-consuming compared to the PPP mode, precise satellite clocks are not required as a pre-condition. It is already confirmed with a large set of GPS data that the two processing schemes provide ZTD results of similar quality [12].In this study, a test network comprising six stations equipped with GPS- and BDS-capable dual-frequency receivers is deployed in Hebei Province with an inter-station distance of about 100 km.

GPS and BDS data from this network are processed independently in both network and PPP mode to estimate ZTDs. The BDS-derived estimates are validated by comparing with that of GPS. The assessment shows that the bias and standard deviation (STD) of the ZTD differences are 2 mm and 5 to 6 mm, respectively, which is similar to the differences of GPS ZTD derived from different software packages [12].2.?Tracking NetworksIn order to carry out PPP for BDS observations of a local or regional network, precise orbit and clock products must be computed in advance. By the way, for network solutions, precise orbits are also needed to get rid of the broadcast orbit errors. Therefore, a global network is required for precise orbit determination and clock estimation.

The BeiDou Experimental Test Service (BETS) network with BDS and GPS capacity has been deployed for scientific Batimastat purposes by the GNSS research center at Wuhan University and is now extending to a global tracking network. Since March 2011, 14 stations have already been deployed in China and its neighboring regions. Among these, nine stations are located inside the territory of China and five overseas. The stations in China are BJF1 in Beijing, CENT in Wuhan, CHDU in Chengdu, HRBN in Harbin, HKTU in Hong Kong, NTSC and XIAN in Xi’an city, SHAO in Shanghai, and LASA in Tibet.

Helimote [6] is an energy harvesting system with a single storage

Helimote [6] is an energy harvesting system with a single storage for buffering solar energy Built on a Mica2 mote, Helimote recharges two AA Ni-MH batteries, and it can learn its energy availability and usage via an energy-monitoring component. Jiang et al. [7] designed Prometheus, a hybrid energy storage system for solar energy. Based on Telos mote, Prometheus can be powered by the supercapacitors, called the primary energy buffer, or by the rechargeable Li-ion battery, called the secondary energy buffer. If the primary buffer energy is less than some threshold, the mote falls back to the secondary buffer until the primary one recharges fully again. Similar to Prometheus, AmbiMax [8] uses the hybrid energy storage. However, AmbiMax tracks the maximum power point automatically, without the control of MCU.

Like our system, EverLast [9] is a supercapacitor-driven sensor mote and does not use any battery. EverLast uses a PFM (Pulse Frequency Modulation) controller and a PFM regulator to harvest the solar energy. To track the maximum power point, EverLast integrates a complex charging circuit. Besides outdoor solar energy, vibration, indoor light, thermal and wind energy sources have been studied to drive sensor motes [10,11]. The work in [12] gives a survey abo
Visual inspection has traditionally played a critical role in quality management of the construction process and damage detection in structures subjected to various loadings [1,2]. However, because structures have become increasingly complex (e.g.

, high-rise and irregular designs), visual inspections are becoming increasingly time consuming and labor intensive and suffer from expensive and subjective evaluations; these aspects represent critical problems in the application of this method to real structures. Because visual inspection is restricted to post-event assessments, immediate damage detection and safety evaluations of structures are nearly impossible.For AV-951 these reasons, structural health monitoring (SHM) based on sensor technology has received considerable attention and has successfully replaced traditional visual inspection [3�C6]. The SHM of buildings, which is based on a wired sensor network, was initially conducted for simple civil structures. The development of monitoring systems enabled a real-time response evaluation of a structure.

However, the high installation cost of the cable that connects the sensor to the server and maintenance and management challenges remain unresolved issues.For these reasons, Straser [7] attempted to solve the problems of existing wire-based monitoring systems by proving the effectiveness of the wireless sensor network (WSN) in an actual building. The WSN system (WSNS) significantly decreased the installation cost of a wired sensor network, and thus, the high-nodal density of sensor networsks was realized, which enabled local damage detection.

Internet of Things Architecture (I
Author Contributions: Mat

Internet of Things Architecture (I
Author Contributions: Mateusz Komorkiewicz �� idea and design of OFHS hardware modules, design space exploration, final hardware system design and verification.Tomasz Kryjak �� preparing the previous works survey and tables, idea and design of pre-, post-filtering and reliability check modules, pointing out the improvements resulting in modified version.Marek Gorgon �� conception of FPGA pipelined processing system, evaluation of experiment with scientific trends, efficiency evaluation with GOPS, W, GOPS/W measures.* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: lp.ude.hga@eikromok; Tel.: +48-12-617-3486; Fax: +48-12-634-1568.Author information ? Article notes ? Copyright and License information ?Received December 13, 2013; Revised January 20, 2014; Accepted January 23, 2014.

Copyright ? 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).AbstractThis article presents an efficient hardware implementation of the Horn-Schunck algorithm that can be used in an embedded optical flow sensor. An architecture is proposed, that realises the iterative Horn-Schunck algorithm in a pipelined manner. This modification allows to achieve data throughput of 175 MPixels/s and makes processing of Full HD video stream (1, 920 �� 1, 080 @ 60 fps) possible. The structure of the optical flow module as well as pre- and post-filtering blocks and a flow reliability computation unit is described in details.

Three versions of optical flow modules, with different numerical precision, working frequency and obtained results accuracy are proposed. The errors caused by switching from floating- to fixed-point computations are also evaluated. The described architecture was tested on popular sequences from an optical flow dataset of the Middlebury University. It achieves state-of-the-art results among hardware implementations of single scale methods. The designed fixed-point architecture achieves performance of 418 GOPS with power efficiency of 34 GOPS/W. The proposed floating-point module achieves 103 GFLOPS, with power efficiency of 24 GFLOPS/W. Moreover, a 100 times speedup compared to a modern CPU with SIMD support is reported.

A complete, working vision system realized on Xilinx VC707 evaluation board is also presented. It is able to compute optical flow for Full HD video stream received from an HDMI camera in real-time. The obtained results Drug_discovery prove that FPGA devices are an ideal platform for embedded vision systems.Keywords: FPGA, optical flow, Horn-Schunck, real-time systems, image processing, smart camera1.?IntroductionNowadays a continuous increase of vision sensors importance can be observed both in commercial and industrial applications.

On-line distance estimation: During the RSSI-D estimation procedu

On-line distance estimation: During the RSSI-D estimation procedure, the RSSI value is measured by a wireless sensor node (e.g., CC2530 WSN node), and we can estimate the communication distance using uncertain data clustering.In the on-line distance estimation module, considering different levels of uncertainty in RSSI values, we adopt RSSI-D estimation methods using both hard and soft uncertain data clustering methods to improve the estimation accuracy.The contributions of this paper are as follows:(1)We propose DEUDC, a RSSI-based communication estimation method, which uses a mapping strategy and an uncertain data clustering method. Unlike sample-based mapping in RADAR [17] and ARIADNE [18] systems, we resort to distribution-based mapping to overcome the uncertainty in RSSI readings.

(2)To address the uncertainty in RSSI values, we adopt interval data and statistical information to represent the RSSI distribution characteristic of each distance. In comparison to sample-based mapping, by exploiting distribution-based statistics, our approach can potentially obtain greater improvement in estimation accuracy and efficiency.(3)We propose an RSSI-D estimation method in which uncertain data soft and hard clustering algorithms are implemented in order to obtain better estimation accuracy with respect to different levels of uncertainty in RSSI.(4)We have evaluated DEUDC using real data sets from representative wireless environment. Experimental results show that DEUDC out-performs state-of-art estimation methods.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows: we present related work in Section 2; Section 3 introduces the uncertain data expression, including related definitions and the distance computation method used to handle interval data; Section 4 describes the RSSI-D estimation method using uncertain data clustering and its implementation; we evaluate the performance of this RSSI-D estimation method in Section 5; Section 6 concludes the paper.2.?Related WorksRSSI provides an inexpensive and practical way [19] of estimating communication distances during the operation of range-based localization systems or other range-based service systems used for wireless communications. Many uncertain factors exist during the measurement of RSSI [17], and the uncertainty in RSSI values leads to very low accuracy when estimating communication distances.

For the RSSI-based communication distance estimation problem, many studies have been performed to improve the estimation accuracy. These studies Entinostat can be divided into two categories: those dedicated to model-based methods, and those dedicated to mapping-based methods.2.1. Model-Based Estimation MethodsShang et al. adopted empirical models of radio propagation to estimate communication distance [20]. However, the estimation accuracy of this method is sensitive to many uncertain factors. Li et al.

0~1 7 [��m] band For example, a spectrometer at the visible ban

0~1.7 [��m] band. For example, a spectrometer at the visible band may cost more than $2,000, while one at 1.55 [��m] may cost ten times higher [6].In spatial fringe formation, the scanning of the OPD of the processing interferometer is achieved by the use of a charge-coupled-device (CCD) array in order to detect the spatial interference fringes formed in the so-called ��electronically-scanned�� arrangement [7]. Reference [7, 3] used a Michelson interferometer with one of its two mirrors being slightly tilted to form the spatially distributed interference fringes. Computer simulations of reference [3] showed that the misidentification rate of central fringe was almost ��zero�� and the resolution of 1/400 fringe was obtained at 26 [dB] SNR.

Experiments in reference [7] have demonstrated a repeatability of 0.

02K within a 1K temperature range and the repeatability of 0.6K within a 100K temperature range for absolute temperature measurement. One of the main difficulties with the use of these configurations is the so-called spatial ��mis-overlapping ‘ of the beams, i.e. the cross-section of one beam cannot be exactly overlapped on that of the other [7]. As a result, the effective scanning range of the system will be reduced over what may otherwise be achieved.In temporal fringe formation, the adjustment of the OPD of the processing interferometer may be achieved by the use of sophisticated methods such as a piezoelectric transducer (PZT) to produce a ��mechanically-scanned�� interferometer [8] and OPD of the processing interferometer is scanned to match to that of the sensing interferometer.

Since the measurement is achieved by the comparison of the values of the OPDs of the two interferometers, this technique is immune to wavelength and power fluctuation induced noise. This technique also yields a high resolution Carfilzomib and a large dynamic range [9]. Reference Drug_discovery [10] showed that the fringe visibility out of white light sensor system, comprised of a sensing FFPI operating in the reflective mode and a reference FFPI operating in the transmissive mode, depends on the sensor (absolute) temperature. One drawback, however, is that fringe visibility is varying along the envelope of interferogram and fringe visibility gets reduced towards the outer region of interferogram.

This can limit the temperature range of operation, and thus be a drawback in some applications. Reference [11] proposed a white light interferometer using a bulk Michelson interferometer and two FFPIs (sensing FFPI and reference FFPI) and reported that 0.0025 fringe (0.013 K) of accuracy and dynamic range of room temperature to 1073K were obtained.

SIFT has also been applied in Photogrammetry, in close-range app

SIFT has also been applied in Photogrammetry, in close-range applications, for 3D modelling of small objects [20] and for spatio-temporal feature tracking analysis [21]. Moreover, SIFT has also been applied in remote sensing [22-23], in the registration of LIDAR intensity data and aerial images [24], in the co-registration of synthetic aperture radar interferometry data [25] and in real-time mapping applications from UAV [26]. Several methods similar to the SIFT operator method have been developed in order to overcome its high computational cost; however, faster implementations (PCA [27], SURF [28], etc.) reduce the point location accuracy.Although many papers and much research about feature detectors have been carried out within the CV community, detailed studies concerning the accuracy of the SIFT operator have never been performed in the Photogrammetry field.

Some articles which compare feature detectors can already be found in literature: Mikolajczyk [5-29] has analysed the performances of affine-invariant and scale invariant region detectors and Schmid [30] has evaluated the performances of interest point detectors. These papers evaluate the feature extractors in terms of the number of extracted points and repeatability and show that the SIFT detector supply more stable results than the other ones. However, the determination of the localization accuracy has only been performed on terrestrial images.Accuracy is the most important criterion for the evaluation of a good photogrammetric process.

For this reason, the main goal of researchers in photogrammetry is to assess the accuracy that feature points and region operators can reach in the automatic feature extraction and matching phases of the photogrammetric process. Remondino [31] has carried out tests on six regions and interest point detectors. He has compared the Batimastat results obtained from a quantitative analysis that was based on the relative orientation between image pairs. The test results, highlighted optimal performances of the region detectors (in particular SIFT) as far as the number of points extracted is concerned, even though the accuracy was not as high as that of the interest operator ones. Furthermore, the author showed that the accuracy of SIFT can be improved using the Least Square Matching (LSM) algorithm [32]. However, only a SIFT demo-version was dealt with in this paper and only terrestrial images were considered.

The performance analyses performed in the previous researches on the SIFT technique have dealt with the geometric and the illumination conditions of the image acquisition, but they did not consider the dynamic range of the image or the texture distribution. In [18] the importance of contrast thresholds of the SIFT in relation to the number of extracted points has been underlined.