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Optical encoding much faster than digital electronic encoding. In optical pseudocolor-encoding apparatus brightness modulation in image from television camera transformed into polarization modulation in LCTV, and then into pseudocolor modulation in image on projection screen. Advantageous for such purposes as thermography, inspection of circuit boards, mammography, and mapping.
Two general information encoding techniques called relative position encoding and pattern similarity association are presented. They are claimed to be a convenient basis for the connectionist implementation of complex, short term information processing of the sort needed in common sense reasoning, semantic/pragmatic interpretation of natural language utterances, and other types of high level cognitive processing. The relationships of the techniques to other connectionist information-structuring methods, and also to methods used in computers, are discussed in detail. The rich inter-relationships of these other connectionist and computer methods are also clarified. The particular, simple forms are discussed that the relative position encoding and pattern similarity association techniques take in the author's own connectionist system, called Conposit, in order to clarify some issues and to provide evidence that the techniques are indeed useful in practice.
Control circuit designed for use with commercially available AHA4610 Reed-Solomon encoder. Needed to select depth of interleaving and to synchronize input and output blocks of data and parity bits with suitable clock signals. Circuit provides synchronizing and control signals for Reed-Solomon encoder. Encoder can operate with asynchronous input and output data streams at rates up to 80 Mb/s. Interleaving depth selectable, and accommodation to input data rate automatic.
Tversky and Schiano (1989) found a systematic bias toward the 45-deg line in memory for the slopes of identical lines when embedded in graphs, but not in maps, suggesting the use of a cognitive reference frame specifically for encoding meaningful graphs. The present experiments explore this issue further using the linear configurations alone as stimuli. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that perception and immediate memory for the slope of a test line within orthogonal 'axes' are predictable from purely structural considerations. In Experiments 3 and 4, subjects were instructed to use a diagonal-reference strategy in viewing the stimuli, which were described as 'graphs' only in Experiment 3. Results for both studies showed the diagonal bias previously found only for graphs. This pattern provides converging evidence for the diagonal as a cognitive reference frame in encoding linear graphs, and demonstrates that even in highly simplified displays, strategic factors can produce encoding biases not predictable solely from stimulus structure alone.
Recent progress in the development of a gravity-sensor-based instrument for determining the elevation angle of DSN antennas is described. The benefits of such a system include the capability to locate the Gravity Referenced Elevation Encoder (GREE) directly on the primary reflector (thus bypassing structural flexure and deformation error sources), anticipated lower maintenance costs compared to the present gimbal encoders, direct replaceability, or supplementation of the present gimbal encoders and the utilization of off-the-shelf components to construct the GREE. This article includes a description of the nominal GREE design. Test results on a laboratory breadboard model are given. Rigid-body dynamics of the GREE are derived and the simulated performance in response to measured antenna vibrations is given.
Two Reed Solomon error correcting encoders are presented. Schematic driven layout tools were used to create the encoder layouts. Special consideration had to be given to the architecture and logic to provide scalability of the encoder designs. Knowledge gained from these projects was used to create a more flexible schematic driven layout system.
N-consecutive-phase encoder (NCPE) is conceptual encoder for generating alphabet of N consecutive full-response continuous-phase-modulation (CPM) signals. Enables use of binary preencoder of higher rate than used with simple continuous-phase encoder (CPE). NCPE makes possible to achieve power efficiencies and bandwidth efficiencies greater than conventional trellis coders with continuous-phase frequency-shift keying (CPFSK).
Several new types of absolute optical encoders of both rotary and linear function are discussed. The means for encoding are complete departures from conventional optical encoders and offer advantages of compact form, immunity to damage-induced dropouts of position information, and about an order of magnitude higher sensitivity over what is commercially available. Rotary versions have sensitivity from 0.02 arcseconds down to 0.003 arcsecond while linear models have sensitivity of 10 nm.
Maize (Zea mays) roots respond to a variety of environmental stimuli which are perceived by a specialized group of cells, the root cap. We are studying the transduction of extracellular signals by roots, particularly the role of protein kinases. Protein phosphorylation by kinases is an important step in many eukaryotic signal transduction pathways. As a first phase of this research we have isolated a cDNA encoding a maize protein similar to fungal and animal protein kinases known to be involved in the transduction of extracellular signals. The deduced sequence of this cDNA encodes a polypeptide containing amino acids corresponding to 33 out of 34 invariant or nearly invariant sequence features characteristic of protein kinase catalytic domains. The maize cDNA gene product is more closely related to the branch of serine/threonine protein kinase catalytic domains composed of the cyclic-nucleotide- and calcium-phospholipid-dependent subfamilies than to other protein kinases. Sequence identity is 35% or more between the deduced maize polypeptide and all members of this branch. The high structural similarity strongly suggests that catalytic activity of the encoded maize protein kinase may be regulated by second messengers, like that of all members of this branch whose regulation has been characterized. Northern hybridization with the maize cDNA clone shows a single 2400 base transcript at roughly similar levels in maize coleoptiles, root meristems, and the zone of root elongation, but the transcript is less abundant in mature leaves. In situ hybridization confirms the presence of the transcript in all regions of primary maize root tissue.
This invention presents a two-dimensional absolute optical encoder and a method for determining position of an object in accordance with information from the encoder. The encoder of the present invention comprises a scale having a pattern being predetermined to indicate an absolute location on the scale, means for illuminating the scale, means for forming an image of the pattern; and detector means for outputting signals derived from the portion of the image of the pattern which lies within a field of view of the detector means, the field of view defining an image reference coordinate system, and analyzing means, receiving the signals from the detector means, for determining the absolute location of the object. There are two types of scale patterns presented in this invention: grid type and starfield type.
The present invention presents an optical encoder with increased conversion rates. Improvement in the conversion rate is a result of combining changes in the pattern recognition encoder's scale pattern with an image sensor readout technique which takes full advantage of those changes, and lends itself to operation by modern, high-speed, ultra-compact microprocessors and digital signal processors (DSP) or field programmable gate array (FPGA) logic elements which can process encoder scale images at the highest speeds. Through these improvements, all three components of conversion time (reciprocal conversion rate)--namely exposure time, image readout time, and image processing time--are minimized.
An improved encoder alignment system is disclosed which provides an indication of the extent of misalignment and a measure of the rate at which the misalignment may be changing. The invention is adapted for use with a conventional encoder which provides a digital coarse word having at least significant bit and a digital fine word having a least significant bit and a most significant bit. The invention generates the exclusive or of the least significant bit of the coarse digital signal and the least significant bit of the fine digital signal to provide a first signal. The invention then generates the exclusive or of the first signal and the complement of the most significant bit of the fine digital signal to provide an output signal which represents the misalignment of the encoder.
A method of constructing certain low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes by use of relatively simple loop-free coding modules has been developed. The subclasses of LDPC codes to which the method applies includes accumulate-repeat-accumulate (ARA) codes, accumulate-repeat-check-accumulate codes, and the codes described in Accumulate-Repeat-Accumulate-Accumulate Codes (NPO-41305), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 31, No. 9 (September 2007), page 90. All of the affected codes can be characterized as serial/parallel (hybrid) concatenations of such relatively simple modules as accumulators, repetition codes, differentiators, and punctured single-parity check codes. These are error-correcting codes suitable for use in a variety of wireless data-communication systems that include noisy channels. These codes can also be characterized as hybrid turbolike codes that have projected graph or protograph representations (for example see figure); these characteristics make it possible to design high-speed iterative decoders that utilize belief-propagation algorithms. The present method comprises two related submethods for constructing LDPC codes from simple loop-free modules with circulant permutations. The first submethod is an iterative encoding method based on the erasure-decoding algorithm. The computations required by this method are well organized because they involve a parity-check matrix having a block-circulant structure. The second submethod involves the use of block-circulant generator matrices. The encoders of this method are very similar to those of recursive convolutional codes. Some encoders according to this second submethod have been implemented in a small field-programmable gate array that operates at a speed of 100 megasymbols per second. By use of density evolution (a computational- simulation technique for analyzing performances of LDPC codes), it has been shown through some examples that as the block size goes to infinity, low iterative decoding thresholds close to channel capacity limits can be achieved for the codes of the type in question having low maximum variable node degrees. The decoding thresholds in these examples are lower than those of the best-known unstructured irregular LDPC codes constrained to have the same maximum node degrees. Furthermore, the present method enables the construction of codes of any desired rate with thresholds that stay uniformly close to their respective channel capacity thresholds.
A programmable pulse-position-modulation (PPM) encoder has been designed for use in testing an optical communication link. The encoder includes a programmable state machine and an electronic code book that can be updated to accommodate different PPM coding schemes. The encoder includes a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) that is programmed to step through the stored state machine and code book and that drives a custom high-speed serializer circuit board that is capable of generating subnanosecond pulses. The stored state machine and code book can be updated by means of a simple text interface through the serial port of a personal computer.
Improved optoelectronic patternrecognition encoders that measure rotary and linear 1-dimensional positions at conversion rates (numbers of readings per unit time) exceeding 20 kHz have been invented. Heretofore, optoelectronic pattern-recognition absoluteposition encoders have been limited to conversion rates <15 Hz -- too low for emerging industrial applications in which conversion rates ranging from 1 kHz to as much as 100 kHz are required. The high conversion rates of the improved encoders are made possible, in part, by use of vertically compressible or binnable (as described below) scale patterns in combination with modified readout sequences of the image sensors [charge-coupled devices (CCDs)] used to read the scale patterns. The modified readout sequences and the processing of the images thus read out are amenable to implementation by use of modern, high-speed, ultra-compact microprocessors and digital signal processors or field-programmable gate arrays. This combination of improvements makes it possible to greatly increase conversion rates through substantial reductions in all three components of conversion time: exposure time, image-readout time, and image-processing time.
The JWST Optical Telescope Element Simulator (OSIM) is a configurable, cryogenic, optical stimulus for high fidelity ground characterization and calibration of JWST's flight instruments. OSIM and its associated Beam Image Analyzer (BIA) contain several ultra-precise, cryogenic mechanisms that enable OSIM to project point sources into the instruments according to the same optical prescription as the flight telescope images stars - correct in focal surface position and chief ray angle. OSIM's and BIA's fifteen axes of mechanisms navigate according to redundant, cryogenic, absolute, optical encoders - 32 in all operating at or below 100 K. OSIM's encoder subsystem, the engineering challenges met in its development, and the encoders' sub-micron and sub-arcsecond performance are discussed.
This study examined the improvement of microscopy segmentation accuracy by transfer learning from a large dataset of microscopy images called MicroNet. Many neural network encoder architectures, including VGG, Inception, and ResNet, were trained on over 100,000 labelled microscopy images from 54 classes. These pre-trained encoders were then embedded into multiple segmentation architectures including U-Net and DeepLabV3+ to evaluate segmentation performance on newly created benchmark microscopy datasets. Compared to ImageNet pre-training, models pre-trained on MicroNet generalized better to out-of-distribution micrographs taken under different imaging and sample conditions and were more accurate with less training data. When training with only a single Ni-superalloy image, pre-training on MicroNet produced a 72.2 percent reduction in relative segmentation error. These results suggest that transfer learning from large in-domain datasets generate models with learned feature representations that are more useful for downstream tasks and will likely improve any microscopy image analysis technique that can leverage pre-trained encoders.
This study examined the improvement of microscopy segmentation intersection over union accuracy by transfer learning from a large dataset of microscopy images called MicroNet. Many neural network encoder architectures were trained on over 100,000 labeled microscopy images from 54 material classes. These pre-trained encoders were then embedded into multiple segmentation architectures including UNet and DeepLabV3+ to evaluate segmentation performance on created benchmark microscopy datasets. Compared to ImageNet pre-training, models pre-trained on MicroNet generalized better to out-of-distribution micrographs taken under different imaging and sample conditions and were more accurate with less training data. When training with only a single Ni-superalloy image, pre-training on MicroNet produced a 72.2% reduction in relative intersection over union error. These results suggest that transfer learning from large in-domain datasets generate models with learned feature representations that are more useful for downstream tasks and will likely improve any microscopy image analysis technique that can leverage pre-trained encoders.