Asymmetries around the visual field: From retina to cortex to behavior

Visual performance varies around the visual field. It is best near the fovea compared to the periphery, and at iso-eccentric locations it is best on the horizontal, intermediate on the lower, and poorest on the upper meridian. The fovea-to-periphery performance decline is linked to the decreases in cone density, retinal ganglion cell (RGC) density, and V1 cortical magnification factor (CMF) as eccentricity increases. The origins of polar angle asymmetries are not well understood. Optical quality and cone density vary across the retina, but recent computational modeling has shown that these factors can only account for a small percentage of behavior. Here, we investigate how visual processing beyond the cone photon absorptions contributes to polar angle asymmetries in performance. First, we quantify the extent of asymmetries in cone density, midget RGC density, and V1 CMF. We find that both polar angle asymmetries and eccentricity gradients increase from cones to mRGCs, and from mRGCs to cortex. Second, we extend our previously published computational observer model to quantify the contribution of phototransduction by the cones and spatial filtering by mRGCs to behavioral asymmetries. Starting with photons emitted by a visual display, the model simulates the effect of human optics, cone isomerizations, phototransduction, and mRGC spatial filtering. The model performs a forced choice orientation discrimination task on mRGC responses using a linear support vector machine classifier. The model shows that asymmetries in a decision maker’s performance across polar angle are greater when assessing the photocurrents than when assessing isomerizations and are greater still when assessing mRGC signals. Nonetheless, the polar angle asymmetries of the mRGC outputs are still considerably smaller than those observed from human performance. We conclude that cone isomerizations, phototransduction, and the spatial filtering properties of mRGCs contribute to polar angle performance differences, but that a full account of these differences will entail additional contribution from cortical representations.

Relativistic Effects for a Hydrogen Rydberg Atom in a High-Frequency Laser Field: Analytical Results

Previously published analytical results for the effects of a high-frequency laser field on hydrogen Rydberg atoms demonstrated that the unperturbed elliptical orbit of the Rydberg electron, generally is engaged simultaneously in the precession of the orbital plane about the direction of the laser field and in the precession within the orbital plane. These results were obtained while disregarding relativistic effects. In the present paper, we analyze the relativistic effect for hydrogenic Rydberg atoms or ions in a high-frequency linearly- or circularly-polarized laser field, the effect being an additional precession of the electron orbit in its own plane. For the linearly-polarized laser field, the general case, where the electron orbit is not perpendicular to the direction of the laser field, we showed that the precession of the electron orbit within its plane can vanish at some critical polar angle θc of the orbital plane. We calculated analytically the dependence of the critical angle on the angular momentum of the electron and on the parameters of the laser field. Finally, for the particular situation, where the electron orbit is perpendicular to the direction of the laser field, we demonstrated that the relativistic precession and the precession due to the laser field occur in the opposite directions. As a result, the combined effect of these two kinds of the precession is smaller than the absolute value of each of them. We showed that by varying the ratio of the laser field strength F to the square of the laser field frequency ω, one can control the precession frequency of the electron orbit and even make the precession vanish, so that the elliptical orbit of the electron would become stationary. This is a counterintuitive result.

A Contra-Rotating Open Rotor Noise Reduction Methodology by Using Anhedral Blade Tip

In this paper, a novel Contra-Rotating Open Rotor (CROR) noise reduction methodology based upon the anhedral blade tip applied to the front blade is developed. Results indicate that anhedral blade tip can provide noise reduction over 60 deg. polar angle range in both upstream and downstream areas at takeoff condition. The noise reduction becomes more significant as the lean angle of anhedral blade tip increases, and the maximum noise reduction is over 4 dB. Further analysis shows that anhedral blade tip decreases the strength and size of blade tip vortex shed from the front blade, and reduces its interaction with the rear rotor, which decreases the fluctuation of loading acting on the rear rotor and its loading noise. Furthermore, the anhedral blade tip does not have strong effect on the aerodynamic performance of CROR at cruise.

Production Mechanism of the Charmed Baryon Λc+

As the lightest charmed baryon, precision measurement of the pair production cross section of provides unprecedented experimental information for the investigation of baryon production mechanism. In addition, the extraction of the polar angle distributions of the outgoing in the annihilation of the electron–positron help to determine its electromagnetic form factors, which is currently the unique key to access the internal structure of the baryons. In this article, the measurement of process via the initial state radiation technique at Belle detector and direct electron–positron annihilation at BESIII with discrete center-of-mass energies near threshold are briefly reviewed. In addition, the electromagnetic form factor ratios of measured by BESIII are also investigated. A few theoretical models that parameterize the center-of-mass energy dependence of the cross section and electromagnetic form factors of baryon are introduced and the contributions of data to them are discussed.

MODELING OF OSCILLATORY AND ROTARY TRAJECTORIES OF ELECTRONS IN GRADIENT MAGNETIC FIELD MAGNETRON GUN

The motion of electrons in cylindrical magnetic field with variable strength along the axis is considered. The formation of a beam with energy of 55 keV in the longitudinal direction during its transport in solenoidal magnetic field with large gradient has been studied. The bifurcation regimes of the dynamics of particles during their move-ment along the transport axis both forward to the target and back to the cathode region are considered. The operat-ing modes of the gun are obtained, in which the particle experiences the "bottleneck" effect and returns to the cath-ode region. It is shown that for given electron energy and fixed magnetic field, the parameter that determines the reflection of the particle is the polar angle of entry with respect to the axis of the cylindrical magnetic field. The re-sults of numerical simulation on the motion of the electron flow are presented.

Solar Tracker and Wind Guide Designs to Improve the Energy Conversion in a Hybrid Energy Harvester System

This study focused on improving the energy conversion of hybrid solar panels and a wind turbine system. The improvement was produced by enhancing the system with a solar tracker and a wind guide. A microcontroller operated the single-axis solar tracker based on a solar elevation database at -6.91N, 107.61E. The wind guide was an Omni Directional Guide Vane (ODGV), designed to support the drag-type Savonius turbine. The ODGV’s inside and outside diameters were 540 mm and 1000 mm, respectively. The wind guide had a 30° polar angle between fins and produced a torque of 0.128 Nm at a wind speed of 4 m/s. The solar tracker increased the system performance by 47% and the wind guide by 166%.

Scatterometry Measurements With Scattered Light Imaging Enable New Insights Into the Nerve Fiber Architecture of the Brain

The correct reconstruction of individual (crossing) nerve fibers is a prerequisite when constructing a detailed network model of the brain. The recently developed technique Scattered Light Imaging (SLI) allows the reconstruction of crossing nerve fiber pathways in whole brain tissue samples with micrometer resolution: the individual fiber orientations are determined by illuminating unstained histological brain sections from different directions, measuring the transmitted scattered light under normal incidence, and studying the light intensity profiles of each pixel in the resulting image series. So far, SLI measurements were performed with a fixed polar angle of illumination and a small number of illumination directions, providing only an estimate of the nerve fiber directions and limited information about the underlying tissue structure. Here, we use a display with individually controllable light-emitting diodes to measure the full distribution of scattered light behind the sample (scattering pattern) for each image pixel at once, enabling scatterometry measurements of whole brain tissue samples. We compare our results to coherent Fourier scatterometry (raster-scanning the sample with a non-focused laser beam) and previous SLI measurements with fixed polar angle of illumination, using sections from a vervet monkey brain and human optic tracts. Finally, we present SLI scatterometry measurements of a human brain section with 3 μm in-plane resolution, demonstrating that the technique is a powerful approach to gain new insights into the nerve fiber architecture of the human brain.

Cross Product and Partitioned Filtering-Based Graham Convex Hull for Buoy Drifting Area Demarcating

An improved Graham scan convex hull algorithm is designed using the convex hull region shrinkage algorithm and the sample selection decision algorithm. In the sorting of Graham scan convex hull algorithm, the cross-multiplication method is used instead of the operation of finding the polar angle, which avoids the high computational complexity of finding the inverse trigonometric function. When the polar angles are the same, that is, the two points are collinear, the points close to each other are deleted directly. Select the maximal horizontal ordinate point, minimal horizontal ordinate point, maximal longitudinal coordinate point, and minimal longitudinal coordinate point. Connect these points and obtain lines. The whole plane is divided into different regions. The points that are not on the convex hull are deleted, and the redundant points are removed. This can speed up the calculation of approximate convex hull boundary and shorten the time of convex hull calculation. The proposed algorithm is used for buoy drifting area demarcating. The offsets of the geometric center of the high-frequency position point and the distance from geometric center of high-frequency position of buoy to sinking stone are calculated. The experimental results show that the new algorithm can effectively accelerate the convex hull calculation. We use the convex hull process to compute the area of the drifting buoy position and discover that the drift area of the port hand buoy is similar. The drift area of the port hand buoys is similar. The drift area of the port hand buoy is greater than that of the port hand buoy.

Determination of the characteristic magnetic pre-sheath length at divertor surfaces using micro-engineered targets on DiMES at DIII-D

The magnetic pre-sheath (MPS) width, L MPS, is a critical parameter to define the sheath potential, which controls the ion trajectory of low-Z species (D, T, He, and C), as well as the prompt re-deposition of high-Z species. To determine L MPS, we fabricated micro-trenches (30×30×4 µm) via focused ion beam (FIB) milling on a silicon surface and exposed them to L-mode deuterium plasmas in DIII-D via the Divertor Material Evaluation System (DiMES) removable sample exposure probe. The areal distribution of impurity depositions, mainly consisting of carbon, was measured by energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) to reveal the deuterium ion shadowing effect on the trench floors. The carbon deposition profiles showed that the erosion was maximized for the azimuthal direction of φ = -40° (referenced to the toroidal magnetic field direction) as well as the polar angle of θ = 80°. A Monte Carlo equation-of-motion model, based on a collisionless MPS, was used to calculate the azimuthal and polar deuterium ion angle distributions (IADs) for a range of L MPS = k × ρ i, where ρ i is the ion gyro radius and k = 0.5-4. Then, gross erosion profiles were calculated by a Monte Carlo micro-patterning and roughness (MPR) code for ion sputtering using as input the calculated azimuthal and polar IADs for each value of k. Good agreement with the experimental C deposition profiles was obtained for the case k = 2.5-3.5. This result is consistent with a previous kinetic modeling prediction of k ~ 3, as well as previous analytical investigations that predicted the L MPS to be several ion gyro radii. A validation of theoretical sheath models supports its applicability to ITER and pilot plant divertors to successfully predict plasma-materials interactions.

Linking individual differences in human V1 to perception around the visual field

A central question in neuroscience is how the organization of cortical maps relates to perception, for which human primary visual cortex (V1) is an ideal model system. V1 nonuniformly samples the retinal image, with greater cortical magnification (surface area per degree of visual field) at the fovea than periphery, and at the horizontal than vertical meridian. Moreover, the size and organization of V1 differs greatly across individuals. Here, we used fMRI and psychophysics in the same individuals to quantify individual differences in V1 cortical magnification and perceptual contrast sensitivity at the four polar angle meridians. Across individuals, the overall size of V1 and localized cortical magnification both positively correlated with contrast sensitivity. Moreover, increases in cortical magnification and contrast sensitivity at the horizontal compared to the vertical meridian were strongly correlated. These data reveal a tight link between cortical anatomy and visual perception at the level of individual observer and stimulus location.