Interference Induced Asymmetric Transmission Through A Monolayer of Anisotropic Chiral Metamolecules

We show that asymmetric transmission for linear polarizations can be easily achieved by a monolayer of anisotropic chiral metamolecules through the constructive and destructive interferences between the contributions from anisotropy and chirality. Our analysis is based on the interaction of electromagnetic waves with the constituent electric and magnetic dipoles of the metamaterials, and an effective medium formulation. In addition, asymmetric transmission in amplitude can be effectively controlled by the interference between spectrally detuned resonances. Our findings shed light on the design of metamaterials for achieving strong asymmetric transmission.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure

Localized Linear Discriminant Analysis

Despite its age, the Linear Discriminant Analysis performs well even in situations where the underlying premises like normally distributed data with constant covariance matrices over all classes are not met. It is, however, a global technique that does not regard the nature of an individual observation to be classified. By weighting each training observation according to its distance to the observation of interest, a global classifier can be transformed into an observation specific approach. So far, this has been done for logistic discrimination. By using LDA instead, the computation of the local classifier is much simpler. Moreover, it is ready for applications in multi-class situations. --classification,local models,LDA

Vom integrativen Ansatz zum lernenden Konzept: Evaluation im Projekt "Schule interaktiv"

Im Projektfokus steht der Beitrag, den neue Medien zur Ausgestaltung einer so genannten neuen Lehr-Lernkultur leisten. Hierbei nehmen die Lernförderung und die Entwicklung von Medienkompetenz der Schüler/innen sowie die Stärkung medienpädagogischer Kompetenz der Lehrer/innen eine zentrale Rolle ein. Partner im Projekt «Schule interaktiv» sind vier weiterführende Schulen (eine Mittelschule, zwei Gymnasien und eine integrierte Gesamtschule) in den Bundesländern Sachsen, Hessen und Nordrhein-Westfalen, die Deutsche Telekom Stiftung und der Arbeitsbereich Bildung und Technik am Institut für Allgemeine Pädagogik und Berufspädagogik der TU Darmstadt. «Schule interaktiv» versteht sich als Schulentwicklungsprojekt und zielt auf eine Veränderung des Regelunterrichts in allen Fächern und Klassenstufen. Angesprochen ist die ganze Schule, die ausdrücklich Spielraum hat, ihren eigenen Weg zu beschreiten

On the existence of arrested transcriptional machinery in late stages of avian erythropoiesis

No abstract availabl

A Treatment for Menorrhagia and Irregular Menstruation: Free Flowing Cryo-fluid Endometrial Ablation

Menorrhagia (abnormally heavy and prolonged menstrual period) is a condition suffered by many women; these women have menstrual flow greater than 80 mL per cycle compared to the average 30 mL for normal cycles. The area of the uterus responsible for menorrhagia is the regenerative basal layer of the endometrium (inner uterine layer). In order to relieve menorrhagia, the endometrium needs to be destroyed through the basal layer. This project looks to address issues which patients face with current standard menorrhagia treatments, such as invasiveness, intense pain, or incomplete treatment of the uterine wall, by developing a superior remedy. The plan is to develop a free flowing cryo-fluid treatment technology to selectively freeze and destroy the endometrium down to the basal layer. A key driver of a cryo-based system is that the anesthetic properties of cold should make the treatment less painful than currently practiced thermal ablations and reduce the need for radical hysterectomy as a menorrhagia treatment. The approach to complete the design is a multi-step process beginning with identification of a model system to represent the female uterus. The design team is working with OB/GYN staff at the VCU Medical Center to mold a model out of Perma-Gel, a synthetic ballistics gel, which will represent the smooth muscle wall of the uterus. The cryogenic fluid will be circulated inside our model, while monitoring temperatures of various locations inside the uterus and at different penetration depths and flow rates inside the model. These are the process variables required to be known for an accurate estimate of cell death in the system. The end goal is a proof of the concept using a model system that will lead to further research and exploration into a cost efficient, relatively painless procedure that can be performed in a doctor’s office rather than a hospital/surgical setting.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1010/thumbnail.jp

The influence of expertise on brain activation of the action observation network during anticipation of tennis and volleyball serves

In many daily activities, and especially in sport, it is necessary to predict the effects of others' actions in order to initiate appropriate responses. Recently, researchers have suggested that the action-observation network (AON) including the cerebellum plays an essential role during such anticipation, particularly in sport expert performers. In the present study, we examined the influence of task-specific expertise on the AON by investigating differences between two expert groups trained in different sports while anticipating action effects. Altogether, 15 tennis and 16 volleyball experts anticipated the direction of observed tennis and volleyball serves while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The expert group in each sport acted as novice controls in the other sport with which they had only little experience. When contrasting anticipation in both expertise conditions with the corresponding untrained sport, a stronger activation of AON areas (SPL, SMA), and particularly of cerebellar structures, was observed. Furthermore, the neural activation within the cerebellum and the SPL was linearly correlated with participant's anticipation performance, irrespective of the specific expertise. For the SPL, this relationship also holds when an expert performs a domain-specific anticipation task. Notably, the stronger activation of the cerebellum as well as of the SMA and the SPL in the expertise conditions suggests that experts rely on their more fine-tuned perceptual-motor representations that have improved during years of training when anticipating the effects of others' actions in their preferred sport. The association of activation within the SPL and the cerebellum with the task achievement suggests that these areas are the predominant brain sites involved in fast motor predictions. The SPL reflects the processing of domain-specific contextual information and the cerebellum the usage of a predictive internal model to solve the anticipation task. © 2014 Balser, Lorey, Pilgramm, Naumann, Kindermann, Stark, Zentgraf, Williams and Munzert