Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging spectrometer AVIS: Design, characterization and calibration

The Airborne Visible/Infrared imaging Spectrometer AVIS is a hyperspectral imager designed for environmental monitoring purposes. The sensor, which was constructed entirely from commercially available components, has been successfully deployed during several experiments between 1999 and 2007. We describe the instrument design and present the results of laboratory characterization and calibration of the system's second generation, AVIS-2, which is currently being operated. The processing of the data is described and examples of remote sensing reflectance data are presented

A new land cover map for the Mekong: Southeast Asia’s largest transboundary river basin

The transboundary Mekong basin, including territorial parts of China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, is endowed with a rich natural resource base. The rapid socio-economic development of the region, however, substantially increases pressure on its natural resources that are increasingly subject of over-exploitation and environmental degradation. Some of the main environmental problems facing the region are common or transboundary issues that only can be addressed by transboundary approaches based on consistent and regional comparable information on the state of the environment at basin scale. In this context, a regional specific land cover map, the MEKONG LC2010 product, was produced for the entire Mekong Basin, utilising information from the MODIS sensor aboard the platforms Aqua and Terra

Induction chemotherapy in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma: Clinical outcomes and patterns of care

Abstract The role of induction chemotherapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) remains controversial. The primary aim of this study was to use the National Cancer Database to evaluate the patterns of care of induction chemotherapy in NPC and its impact on overall survival (OS). Patients with NPC from 2004 to 2014 were obtained from the NCDB. Patients were considered to have received induction chemotherapy if it was started ≥43 days before the start of RT and concurrent CRT if chemotherapy started within 21 days after the start of RT. Propensity score matching was used to control for selection bias. Cox proportional hazards model was used to determine significant predictors of OS. Logistic regression model was used to determine predictors of the use of induction chemotherapy. Significance was defined as a P value <.05. A total of 4857 patients were identified: 4041 patients (87.2%) received concurrent CRT and 816 patients (16.8%) received induction chemotherapy. The use of induction therapy remained stable between 2004 and 2014. Younger patients and those with higher T‐ and N‐stage had a higher likelihood of being treated with induction chemotherapy. The 5‐year OS in patients treated with induction chemotherapy and CRT was 66.3% vs 69.1%, respectively (P = .25). There was no difference in OS when these two groups were analyzed after propensity score matching. No differences in OS existed between these treatment groups in patients with T3‐T4N1 or TanyN2‐3 disease (P = .76). Propensity score matching also did not reveal any difference in OS in patients with T3‐T4N1 or TanyN2‐3 disease. The use of induction chemotherapy has remained stable in the last decade. In this study of patients with NPC, induction chemotherapy was not associated with improved OS compared to CRT alone

Towards a New Science of a Clinical Data Intelligence

In this paper we define Clinical Data Intelligence as the analysis of data generated in the clinical routine with the goal of improving patient care. We define a science of a Clinical Data Intelligence as a data analysis that permits the derivation of scientific, i.e., generalizable and reliable results. We argue that a science of a Clinical Data Intelligence is sensible in the context of a Big Data analysis, i.e., with data from many patients and with complete patient information. We discuss that Clinical Data Intelligence requires the joint efforts of knowledge engineering, information extraction (from textual and other unstructured data), and statistics and statistical machine learning. We describe some of our main results as conjectures and relate them to a recently funded research project involving two major German university hospitals.Comment: NIPS 2013 Workshop: Machine Learning for Clinical Data Analysis and Healthcare, 201

Single shot cathode transverse momentum imaging in high brightness photoinjectors

In state of the art photoinjector electron sources, thermal emittance from photoemission dominates the final injector emittance. Therefore, low thermal emittance cathode developments and diagnostics are very important. Conventional thermal emittance measurements for the high gradient gun are time-consuming and thus thermal emittance is not measured as frequently as quantum efficiency during the lifetime of photocathodes, although both are important properties for the photoinjector optimizations. In this paper, a single shot measurement of photoemission transverse momentum, i.e., thermal emittance per rms laser spot size, is proposed for photocathode rf guns. By tuning the gun solenoid focusing, the electrons' transverse momenta at the cathode are imaged to a downstream screen, which enables a single shot measurement of both the rms value and the detailed spectra of the photoelectrons' transverse momenta. Both simulations and proof of principle experiments are reported

Multilayer perceptron neural networks model for meteosat second generation SEVIRI daytime cloud masking

A multilayer perceptron neural network cloud mask for Meteosat Second Generation SEVIRI (Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager) images is introduced and evaluated. The model is trained for cloud detection on MSG SEVIRI daytime data. It consists of a multi-layer perceptron with one hidden sigmoid layer, trained with the error back-propagation algorithm. The model is fed by six bands of MSG data (0.6, 0.8, 1.6, 3.9, 6.2 and 10.8 μm) with 10 hidden nodes. The multiple-layer perceptrons lead to a cloud detection accuracy of 88.96%, when trained to map two predefined values that classify cloud and clear sky. The network was further evaluated using sixty MSG images taken at different dates. The network detected not only bright thick clouds but also thin or less bright clouds. The analysis demonstrated the feasibility of using machine learning models of cloud detection in MSG SEVIRI imagery

Studies on charge production from Cs2Te photocathodes in the PITZ L-band normal conducting radio frequency photo injector

This paper discusses the behavior of electron bunch charge produced in an L-band normal conducting radio frequency cavity (RF gun) from Cs2Te photocathodes illuminated with ps-long UV laser pulses when the laser transverse distribution consists of a flat-top core with Gaussian-like decaying halo. The produced charge shows a linear dependence at low laser pulse energies as expected in the quantum efficiency limited emission regime, while its dependence on laser pulse energy is observed to be much weaker for higher values, due to space charge limited emission. However, direct plug-in of experimental parameters into the space charge tracking code ASTRA yields lower output charge in the space charge limited regime compared to measured values. The rate of increase of the produced charge at high laser pulse energies close to the space charge limited emission regime seems to be proportional to the amount of halo present in the radial laser profile since the charge from the core has saturated already. By utilizing core + halo particle distributions based on measured radial laser profiles, ASTRA simulations and semi-analytical emission models reproduce the behavior of the measured charge for a wide range of RF gun and laser operational parameters within the measurement uncertainties.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, 2 table

The Effect of Carbon Taxes on Directed Technological Innovation: A Case Study of Sweden

A carbon tax is widely seen as an effective climate policy instrument for discouraging the emission of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. According to the economic theory of the Porter hypothesis, a carbon tax can induce directed technological change toward innovation in clean technologies. Nevertheless, empirical research on the effects of a carbon tax on clean innovation, especially concerning recent periods, is sparse. This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach, in the form of the synthetic control method, to estimate the effect of carbon taxes on climate change mitigating technologies. I conduct a case study of the introduction of the carbon tax in 1990/1991 in Sweden and its effect on clean technology in the transportation sector. Sweden is chosen as it was the first country, next to Finland, to implement a carbon tax, and that at a significant price. I find that the introduction of the carbon tax in 1990/1991 has a positive effect with an economically meaningful magnitude on driving innovation in climate change mitigating technologies. The significant and strong effect of the carbon tax on clean innovation can provide important policy insights for other governments, which did not yet introduce a carbon tax or did not do so at an insignificant rate.Keywords: carbon taxation; clean technology innovation; Sweden; synthetic control method; transportation sectorA carbon tax is widely seen as an effective climate policy instrument for discouraging the emission of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. According to the economic theory of the Porter hypothesis, a carbon tax can induce directed technological change toward innovation in clean technologies. Nevertheless, empirical research on the effects of a carbon tax on clean innovation, especially concerning recent periods, is sparse. This paper uses a quasi-experimental approach, in the form of the synthetic control method, to estimate the effect of carbon taxes on climate change mitigating technologies. I conduct a case study of the introduction of the carbon tax in 1990/1991 in Sweden and its effect on clean technology in the transportation sector. Sweden is chosen as it was the first country, next to Finland, to implement a carbon tax, and that at a significant price. I find that the introduction of the carbon tax in 1990/1991 has a positive effect with an economically meaningful magnitude on driving innovation in climate change mitigating technologies. The significant and strong effect of the carbon tax on clean innovation can provide important policy insights for other governments, which did not yet introduce a carbon tax or did not do so at an insignificant rate.Keywords: carbon taxation; clean technology innovation; Sweden; synthetic control method; transportation secto

Empirical comparison of high gradient achievement for different metals in DC and pulsed mode

For the SwissFEL project, an advanced high gradient low emittance gun is under development. Reliable operation with an electric field, preferably above 125 MV/m at a 4 mm gap, in the presence of an UV laser beam, has to be achieved in a diode configuration in order to minimize the emittance dilution due to space charge effects. In the first phase, a DC breakdown test stand was used to test different metals with different preparation methods at voltages up to 100 kV. In addition high gradient stability tests were also carried out over several days in order to prove reliable spark-free operation with a minimum dark current. In the second phase, electrodes with selected materials were installed in the 250 ns FWHM, 500 kV electron gun and tested for high gradient breakdown and for quantum efficiency using an ultra-violet laser.Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. Follow up from FEL 2008 conference (Geyongju Korea 2008) New Title in JVST A (2010) : Vacuum breakdown limit and quantum efficiency obtained for various technical metals using DC and pulsed voltage source

Clinical aspects of Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser syndrome: recommendations for clinical diagnosis and staging

BACKGROUND: The Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuester-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome is a malformation of the female genitals (occurring in one in 4000 female live births) as a result of interrupted embryonic development of the Müllerian (paramesonephric) ducts. This retrospective study examined the issue of associated malformations, subtyping, and the frequency distribution of subtypes in MRKH syndrome. METHODS: Fifty-three MRKH patients were investigated using a newly developed standardized questionnaire. Together with the results of clinical and diagnostic examinations, the patients were classified into the three recognized subtypes [typical, atypical and MURCS (Müllerian duct aplasia, renal aplasia, and cervicothoracic somite dysplasia)]. RESULTS: The typical form was diagnosed in 25 patients (47%), the atypical form in 11 patients (21%), and the most marked form—the MURCS type—in 17 patients (32%). Associated malformations were notably frequent among the patients. Malformations of the renal system were the most frequent type of accompanying malformation, with 23 different malformations in 19 patients, followed by 18 different skeletal changes in 15 patients. CONCLUSIONS: In accordance with the literature, this study shows that associated malformations are present in more than a third of cases. Therefore, new basic guidelines for standard diagnostic classification involving patients with suspected MRKH are presente