Agricultural soils of the Animas River watershed after the Gold King Mine spill: An elemental spatiotemporal analysis via portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy.

In August 2015, 11.3 million L of heavy metal-contaminated water spilled into the Animas River from the Gold King Mine (Colorado, USA). National attention focused on water quality and agricultural production in areas affected by the spill.

Discovering latent themes in traffic fatal crash narratives using text mining analytics and network topology.

The proliferation of digital textual archives in the transportation safety domain makes it imperative for the inventions of efficient ways of extracting information from the textual data sources. The present study aims at utilizing crash narratives complemented by crash metadata to discern the prevalence and co-occurrence of themes that contribute to crash incidents. Ten years (2009-2018) of Michigan traffic fatal crash narratives were used as a case study.

Amino Acid Chiral Selection Via Weak Interactions in Stellar Environments: Implications for the Origin of Life.

Magnetochiral phenomena may be responsible for the selection of chiral states of biomolecules in meteoric environments. For example, the Supernova Amino Acid Processing (SNAAP) Model was proposed previously as a possible mode of magnetochiral selection of amino acids by way of the weak interaction in strong magnetic fields. In earlier work, this model was shown to produce an enantiomeric excess (ee) as high as 0.

Bayesian pixel classification using spatially variant finite mixtures and the generalized EM algorithm.

A spatially variant finite mixture model is proposed for pixel labeling and image segmentation. For the case of spatially varying mixtures of Gaussian density functions with unknown means and variances, an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is derived for maximum likelihood estimation of the pixel labels and the parameters of the mixture densities, An a priori density function is formulated for the spatially variant mixture weights. A generalized EM algorithm for maximum a posteriori estimation of the pixel labels based upon these prior densities is derived.

Reduced storage VQ via secondary quantization.

This paper introduces methods for reducing the table storage required for encoding and decoding with unstructured vector quantization (UVQ) or tree-structured vector quantization (TSVQ). Specifically, a low-storage secondary quantizer is used to compress the code vectors (and test vectors) of the primary quantizer. The relative advantages of uniform and nonuniform secondary quantization are investigated.

Comparison of GLR and invariant detectors under structured clutter covariance.

This paper addresses a target detection problem in radar imaging for which the covariance matrix of unknown Gaussian clutter has block diagonal structure. This block diagonal structure is the consequence of a target lying along a boundary between two statistically independent clutter regions. Here, we design adaptive detection algorithms using both the generalized likelihood ratio (GLR) and the invariance principles.

Exact distribution of edge-preserving MAP estimators for linear signal models with Gaussian measurement noise.

We derive the exact statistical distribution of maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimators having edge-preserving nonGaussian priors. Such estimators have been widely advocated for image restoration and reconstruction problems. Previous investigations of these image recovery methods have been primarily empirical; the distribution we derive enables theoretical analysis.

Computing with words.

Computing with words is defined, in this paper, to be a symbolic generalization of fuzzy logic, which admits self-reference. It entails the randomization of declarative knowledge, which yields procedural knowledge. Such randomization can occur at two levels.

Image recovery using partitioned-separable paraboloidal surrogate coordinate ascent algorithms.

Iterative coordinate ascent algorithms have been shown to be useful for image recovery, but are poorly suited to parallel computing due to their sequential nature. This paper presents a new fast converging parallelizable algorithm for image recovery that can be applied to a very broad class of objective functions. This method is based on paraboloidal surrogate functions and a concavity technique.

Two-dimensional temperature estimation using diagnostic ultrasound.

A two-dimensional temperature estimation method was developed based on the detection of shifts in echo location of backscattered ultrasound from a region of tissue undergoing thermal therapy. The echo shifts are due to the combination of the local temperature dependence of speed of sound and thermal expansion in the heated region. A linear relationship between these shifts and the underlying tissue temperature rise is derived from first principles and experimentally validated.

Two-step hybrid virtual array ray (VAR) technique for focusing through the rib cage.

A new methodology for focusing ultrasonic beams noninvasively in the presence of the rib cage is investigated. This investigation is motivated by the need to employ high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) using phased array applicators for the treatment of liver tumors partially shadowed by the rib obstacles. This approach enables us to efficiently perform the ultrasound computational analysis and pattern synthesis in the interior region of the rib cage.

High frequency ultrasound imaging using an active optical detector.

Optical detection of ultrasound has numerous advantages over traditional piezoelectric methods. These systems offer noncontact inspection, rapid scanning capabilities, fine spatial sampling, and large bandwidths. In addition, difficulties associated with conventional ultrasound imaging systems such as cross-talk between elements, electrical connections, and electromechanical resonances are greatly reduced or even eliminated.

Suppression of propagating second harmonic in ultrasound contrast imaging.

Contrast agents, such as bubbles, are used in ultrasound to enhance backscatter from blood. To increase contrast between these agents and tissue, nonlinear methods such as harmonic imaging can be used. Contrast is limited, however, by tissue second harmonic signals.

Efficient parallel adaptive aberration correction.

Previous studies have shown that the parallel adaptive receive compensation algorithm (PARCA) can improve clinical images of the abdomen degraded by aberrations. Corrected images show both improved contrast resolution and overall image quality. However, PARCA is very computationally intensive and, consequently, cannot be easily implemented in real-time.

High-resolution elasticity imaging for tissue engineering.

An elasticity microscope provides high resolution images of tissue elasticity. With this instrument, it may be possible to monitor cell growth and tissue development in tissue engineering. To test this hypothesis, elasticity micrographs were obtained in two model systems commonly used for tissue engineering.

Blood speed imaging with an intraluminal array.

In applications in which Doppler processing is not possible, such as side-looking intravascular imaging systems, decorrelation methods can be used to estimate blood speed. Here, a method is presented measuring relative blood speed using an FIR filter bank to estimate temporal decorrelation rates. It can be implemented in a modern commercially available ultrasound imaging system with no additional hardware.

Thermal dose optimization for ultrasound tissue ablation.

A formal and general thermal dose optimisation method is developed and tested. Prior methods require brute force searches wherein the temperature and dose distributions must be computed at each iteration by solving the bioheat transfer equation (BHTE) numerically. This is extremely time-consuming and can only be used to compare a few prespecified strategies instead of obtaining a more general optimal result.

Heterodyning technique to improve performance of delta-sigma-based beamformers.

Delta-sigma (DeltaSigma) modulators can implement a simpler digital ultrasound beamformer than can traditional architectures based on multi-bit analog-to-digital converters (A/D). The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the DeltaSigma modulators, however, suffers from limited oversampling ratios. To improve the SNR of each channel, a mixing signal heterodynes narrowband signals to lower frequencies where the baseband DeltaSigma modulator performs better.

Delta-sigma oversampled ultrasound beamformer with dynamic delays.

The principles of oversampling are exploited in a simple beamforming architecture using a single bit delta-sigma (DeltaC) analog to digital converter (A/D) on every channel. The high sampling rate required for the single bit A/D provides adequate delay accuracy for high quality beamforming using elementary sample manipulations. Images produced with this beamformer exhibit significant artifacts directly related to dynamic focusing.

Adaptive strain estimation using retrospective processing [medical US elasticity imaging.

Because errors in displacement and strain estimates depend on the magnitude of the induced strain, the strain signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) will be a function of the applied deformation. If deformation is applied at the body surface, it is difficult during data acquisition to select a single surface displacement providing the highest strain SNR throughout the image. By applying continuous deformation and capturing data in real-time, the surface displacement providing the highest strain SNR can be selected retrospectively.

Speckle tracking methods for ultrasonic elasticity imaging using short-time correlation.

In ultrasound elasticity imaging, strain decorrelation is a major source of error in displacements estimated using correlation techniques. This error can be significantly decreased by reducing the correlation kernel. Additional gains in signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) are possible by filtering the correlation functions prior to displacement estimation.

Microassembly techniques for a three-dimensional neural stimulating microelectrode array.

This paper describes microassembly techniques for an out-of-plane three-dimensional microelectrode array for neural stimulating and recording in the central nervous system. An interlocking mechanism has been introduced into the microassembly components to facilitate the process, increase the robustness of the assembled device and improve the yield of the overall system. In-vivo testing has demonstrated full functionality of the microassembled 3D array.

Fabrication of polymer neural probes with sub-cellular features for reduced tissue encapsulation.

Intracortical microelectrodes currently have great potential as a neural prosthesis in patients with neurodegenerative disease or spinal cord injury. In an effort to improve the consistency of neural probe performance, many modifications to probe design are focused on reducing the tissue encapsulation. Since researchers have shown that small polymer fibers (less than 7-microm diameter) induce a small to non-existent encapsulation layer in the rat subcutis, we have proposed a neural probe design with similarly small diameter structures.

Effect of fatigue on muscle elasticity in the human forearm using ultrasound strain imaging.

The etiology of skeletal muscle fatigue is not well understood partly because techniques portraying muscle performance in vivo are limited by either their invasiveness (e.g., needle electrodes) or poor spatial resolution (e.