Monitoring and preventing numerical oscillations in 3D simulations with coupled Monte Carlo codes

Previous studies have reported that different schemes for coupling Monte Carlo (MC) neutron transport with burnup and thermal hydraulic feedbacks may potentially be numerically unstable. This issue can be resolved by application of implicit methods, such as the stochastic implicit mid-point (SIMP) methods. In order to assure numerical stability, the new methods do require additional computational effort. The instability issue however, is problem-dependent and does not necessarily occur in all cases. Therefore, blind application of the unconditionally stable coupling schemes, and thus incurring extra computational costs, may not always be necessary. In this paper, we attempt to develop an intelligent diagnostic mechanism, which will monitor numerical stability of the calculations and, if necessary, switch from simple and fast coupling scheme to more computationally expensive but unconditionally stable one. To illustrate this diagnostic mechanism, we performed a coupled burnup and TH analysis of a single BWR fuel assembly. The results indicate that the developed algorithm can be easily implemented in any MC based code for monitoring of numerical instabilities. The proposed monitoring method has negligible impact on the calculation time even for realistic 3D multi-region full core calculations. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stable multiplication gain in GaN p-i-n avalanche photodiodes with large device area

Visible-blind p-i-n avalanche photodiodes (APDs) were fabricated with high-quality GaN epilayers deposited on c-plane sapphire substrates by metal-organic chemical vapour deposition. Due to low dislocation density and a sophisticated device fabrication process, the dark current was as small as similar to 0.05 nA under reverse bias up to 20V for devices with a large diameter of 200 mu m, which was among the largest device area for GaN-based p-i-n APDs yet reported. When the reverse bias exceeded 38V the dark current increased sharply, exhibiting a bulk avalanche field-dominated stable breakdown without microplasma formation or sidewall breakdown. With ultraviolet illumination (360 nm) an avalanche multiplication gain of 57 was achieved.

Application of ICA in on-line verification of the phase difference of the current sensor

The performance of the current sensor in power equipment may become worse affected by the environment. In this paper, based on ICA, we propose a method for on-line verification of the phase difference of the current sensor. However, not all source components are mutually independent in our application. In order to get an exact result, we have proposed a relative likelihood index to choose an optimal result from different runs. The index is based on the maximum likelihood evaluation theory and the independent subspace analysis. The feasibility of our method has been confirmed by experimental results.

Subretinal implantable micro photodetector array

A subretinal implant device, Micro Photo Diode Array, which can partly imitate the function of photoreceptor cells, was presented. Process to fabricate the MPDA and characteristics of the MPDA in vivo were described.

Neuro-Stimulus Chip with Photodiodes Array for Sub-retinal Implants

A prototype neuro-stimulus chip for sub-retinal implants in blind patients affected by Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) or Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP) is presented in this paper. This retinal prosthetic chip was designed to replace the degenerated photoreceptor cells, and in order to stimulate directly the remaining healthy layers of retinal neurons. The current stimulus circuits are monolithic integrated with photodiodes (PD) array, which can convert the illumination on the eyes into bi-phasic electrical pulses. In addition, a novel charge cancellation circuit is used to discharge the electrodes for medical safty. The prototype chip is designed and fabricated in HJTC 0.18 mu m N-well CMOS 1P6M Mix-signal process, with a +/- 2.5 V dual voltage power supply.

Vertical PIN ultraviolet photodetectors based on 4H-SiC homoepilayers

Vertical PIN ultraviolet photodetectors based on 4H-SiC homoepilayers are presented. The growth of the 4H-SiC homoepilayers was carried out in a LPCVD system. The size of the active area of the photodetector was 300 x 300 mu m(2). The dark and illuminated I-V characteristics were measured at reverse biases from 0 V to 30 V at room temperature. The illuminated current was at least two orders of magnitude higher than the dark current at a bias of below 12 V. The photoresponse was measured from 200 nm to 400 nm at different reverse biases and the peak values of the photo response were located at 3 10 nm. The calculated spectral detectivity D* was shown to be higher than 10(13) cmHz(1/2)/W from 260 to 360 nm with a peak value of 5.9 x 10(13) cmHz(1/2) /W at 310 nm. The peak value of the photoresponse was hundreds of times higher than the response at 400 nm, which showed the device had good visible blind performance. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

A novel image restoration approach based on point location in high-dimensional space geometry

The goal of image restoration is to restore the original clear image from the existing blurred image without distortion as possible. A novel approach based on point location in high-dimensional space geometry method is proposed, which is quite different from the thought ways of existing traditional image restoration approaches. It is based on the high-dimensional space geometry method, which derives from the fact of the Principle of Homology-Continuity (PHC). Begin with the original blurred image, we get two further blurred images. Through the regressive deducing curve fitted by these three images, the first iterative deblured image could be obtained. This iterative "blurring-debluring-blurring" process is performed till reach the deblured image. Experiments have proved the availability of the proposed approach and achieved not only common image restoration but also blind image restoration which represents the majority of real problems.

Application of ICA in on-line verification of the phase difference of the current sensor

The performance of the current sensor in power equipment may become worse affected by the environment. In this paper, based on ICA, we propose a method for on-line verification of the phase difference of the current sensor. However, not all source components are mutually independent in our application. In order to get an exact result, we have proposed a relative likelihood index to choose an optimal result from different runs. The index is based on the maximum likelihood evaluation theory and the independent subspace analysis. The feasibility of our method has been confirmed by experimental results.

基于弱信号检测理论的离散小波变换域数字水印盲检测算法

水印检测是数字水印技术的一个关键步骤,但是目前所提出的绝大多数水印检测算法既不具备赖以支撑的理论基础,其检测性能也不是优化的.利用数字水印的不可感知特性,应用弱信号检测理论进行水印检测的研究.首先从图像小波变换系数的统计特性出发,利用广义高斯分布(GGD)来建立小波细节子带系数的统计分布模型;然后针对水印嵌入强度未知的情况,将水印检测问题转化为非高斯噪声中具有未知参数的确定性信号的检测,在弱信号条件下提出一种离散小波变换(DWT)域图像水印的优化盲检测算法.检测性能分析表明,该检测算法能够实现恒虚警率水印检测.实验结果验证了检测性能理论分析的有效性和实际性能的优越性.

Color to Gray: Visual Cue Preservation

Both commercial and scientific applications often need to transform color images into gray-scale images, e. g., to reduce the publication cost in printing color images or to help color blind people see visual cues of color images. However, conventional color to gray algorithms are not ready for practical applications because they encounter the following problems: 1) Visual cues are not well defined so it is unclear how to preserve important cues in the transformed gray-scale images; 2) some algorithms have extremely high time cost for computation; and 3) some require human-computer interactions to have a reasonable transformation. To solve or at least reduce these problems, we propose a new algorithm based on a probabilistic graphical model with the assumption that the image is defined over a Markov random field. Thus, color to gray procedure can be regarded as a labeling process to preserve the newly well-defined visual cues of a color image in the transformed gray-scale image. Visual cues are measurements that can be extracted from a color image by a perceiver. They indicate the state of some properties of the image that the perceiver is interested in perceiving. Different people may perceive different cues from the same color image and three cues are defined in this paper, namely, color spatial consistency, image structure information, and color channel perception priority. We cast color to gray as a visual cue preservation procedure based on a probabilistic graphical model and optimize the model based on an integral minimization problem. We apply the new algorithm to both natural color images and artificial pictures, and demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms representative conventional algorithms in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. In addition, it requires no human-computer interactions.

Blood-gas properties of plateau zokor (Myospalax baileyi)

Plateau zokor (Myospalax baileyi) is one of the blind subterranean mole rats that spend their life solely underground in scaled burrows. It is one of the special species of the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. In their burrows, oxygen is low and carbon dioxide is high and their contents fluctuate with the change of seasons, soil types, rain and depth of burrows. However, plateau zokors show successful adaptation to that extreme environment. In this study, their adapting mechanisms to the hypoxic hypercapnic environment were analyzed through the comparison of their blood-gas properties with that of pikas (Ochotona curzniae) and Sprague-Dawley rats. The results indicated that plateau zokors had higher red blood corpuscle counts (8.11 +/- 0.59 (10(12)/L)) and hemoglobin concentrations (147 +/- 9.85 g/L), but hematocrit (45.9 +/- 3.29%) and mean corpuscular volume (56.67 +/- 2.57 fL) were lower than the other rodents. Their arterial blood and venous blood pH were 7.46 +/- 0.07 and 7.27 +/- 0.07. Oxygen pressure in arterial blood of plateau zokors was about 1.5 times higher than that of pikas and rats, and it was 0.36 and 0.26 times in their venous blood. Partial pressure for carbon dioxide in arterial and venous blood of plateau zokors was 1.5-fold and 2.0-fold higher, respectively, than in rats and pikas. Oxygen saturation of plateau zokors was 5.7 and 9.3 times lower in venous blood than that of pikas and rats, respectively. As result, the difference of oxygen saturation in arterial blood to venous blood was 2- and 4.5-fold higher in plateau zokors as that of pikas and rats, respectively. In conclusion, plateau zokors had a high tolerance to pH changes in tissues, together with strong capabilities to obtain oxygen from their hypoxic-hypercapnic environment. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier Inc.

AFM扫描图像重构算法的改进

针对原子力显微镜(AFM)纳米成像中存在的失真问题,研究了通过探针建模实现AFM扫描图像重构方法.目前探针盲建模算法在重构AFM图像时存在较大误差,因此提出基于探针模型预估计的AFM扫描图像重构方法.该方法采用分区探针针尖建模,并通过基于该探针模型的反卷积运算实现AFM扫描图像重构,获得比较接近真实形貌的AFM扫描图像.文中介绍了算法的具体步骤,通过仿真和实验结果证明,该方法能够有效降低AFM图像重构时引入的误差,得到的图像更能反映样品表面真实的形貌。

基于精确探针模型的AFM图像重构研究

原子力显微镜技术已在纳米成像中得到了普遍应用。但实验表明,AFM图像在水平方向分辨率较低,其中探针针尖形貌是影响扫描图像分辨率的关键因素之一。为了提高AFM扫描图像的分辨率,改善成像质量,一种可行的方法是通过建立探针模型后,重构扫描图像。在已有的探针建模方法中,普遍采用盲建模算法。针对目前盲建模算法中降噪阈值难以优化问题,提出了一种降噪阈值最优估计新方法。该方法可以使盲建模算法更准确地建立扫描方向上的探针形貌轮廓,进而完成3D探针模型。通过应用AFM探针扫描多空铝和标准栅格实验,介绍了探针针尖形貌精确建模的方法。然后使用数学形态学的腐蚀运算对标准栅格的AFM成像进行了重构,验证了上述方法的有效性。实验结果证明,重构后的图像中降低了探针针尖形貌的失真影响,可以显著改善扫描探针显微镜成像的水平分辨率。

高密度聚乙烯塑料压力管道热板焊接头应力分布有限元分析

基于热粘弹性积分型本构关系,考虑材料性能依赖于温度变化及相变潜热的影响,利用AN SYS热-力耦合及载荷步功能模拟结晶型高密度聚乙烯(HDPE)塑料压力管道热板焊接过程,并对焊接接头的应力分布进行有限元分析,得到了环向、轴向以及径向瞬态应力分布的基本规律。采用盲孔法和锯切法测量焊后残余应力,实测结果与数值分析基本符合