Cognitive neuroimaging studies typically require fast whole brain image acquisition with maximal sensitivity to small BOLD signal changes. To increase the sensitivity, higher field strengths are ...often employed, since they provide an increased image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). However, as image SNR increases, the relative contribution of physiological noise to the total time series noise will be greater compared to that from thermal noise. At 7T, we studied how the physiological noise contribution can be best reduced for EPI time series acquired at three different spatial resolutions (1.1mm×1.1mm×1.8mm, 2mm×2mm×2mm and 3mm×3mm×3mm). Applying optimal physiological noise correction methods improved temporal SNR (tSNR) and increased the numbers of significantly activated voxels in fMRI visual activation studies for all sets of acquisition parameters. The most dramatic results were achieved for the lowest spatial resolution, an acquisition parameter combination commonly used in cognitive neuroimaging which requires high functional sensitivity and temporal resolution (i.e. 3mm isotropic resolution and whole brain image repetition time of 2s). For this data, physiological noise models based on cardio-respiratory information improved tSNR by approximately 25% in the visual cortex and 35% sub-cortically. When the time series were additionally corrected for the residual effects of head motion after retrospective realignment, the tSNR was increased by around 58% in the visual cortex and 71% sub-cortically, exceeding tSNR ~140. In conclusion, optimal physiological noise correction at 7T increases tSNR significantly, resulting in the highest tSNR per unit time published so far. This tSNR improvement translates into a significant increase in BOLD sensitivity, facilitating the study of even subtle BOLD responses.
► Impact of physiological noise correction on tSNR versus SNR was characterized at 7T. ► tSNR was improved by 50 to 70% using physiological noise correction in task-free EPI. ► The reported results exceed values for tSNR per unit time published so far. ► tSNR improvements translated into more than 10% increase in BOLD activity in fMRI.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
We present a study of the X-ray properties of five Galactic supernova remnants (SNRs)-Kes 17 (G304.6 + 0.1), G311.5-0.3, G346.6-0.2, CTB 37A (G348.5 + 0.1), and G348.5-0.0-that were detected in the ...infrared by Reach et al. in an analysis of data from the Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire (GLIMPSE) that was conducted by the Spitzer Space Telescope. We present and analyze archival ASCA observations of Kes 17, G311.5-0.3, and G346.6-0.2, archival XMM-Newton observations of Kes 17, CTB 37A, and G348.5-0.0, and an archival Chandra observation of CTB 37A. Our study reveals that the four detected SNRs all feature center-filled X-ray morphologies and that the observed emission from these sources is thermal in all cases.
ABSTRACT We have analyzed XMM-Newton, Chandra, and Suzaku observations of three similarly aged, ejecta-dominated supernova remnants (SNRs), Kepler's SNR, Tycho's SNR, and SNR 0509-67.5, to ...investigate the properties of the SN ejecta and the circumstellar medium (CSM). By simply comparing the X-ray spectra, we find that line intensity ratios of iron-group elements (IGEs) to intermediate-mass elements (IMEs) for Kepler's SNR and SNR 0509-67.5 are much higher than those for Tycho's SNR. Given that Tycho's SNR and SNR 0509-67.5 are thought to be the remnants of a typical SN Ia and an overluminous SN Ia, respectively, we argue that Kepler is the product of an overlumious SN Ia. This inference is supported by our spectral modeling, which reveals the IGE and IME masses, respectively, to be and (Kepler's SNR), and (SNR 0509-67.5), and and (Tycho's SNR). We find that the CSM component in Kepler's SNR consists of tenuous diffuse gas (∼0.3 ) present throughout the entire remnant, plus dense knots (∼0.035 ). Since both of them show N overabundance, their origin would be CNO-processed material from the progenitor system. The mass of the diffuse CSM allows us to infer the pre-SN mass-loss rate to be (vw/10 km s−1) yr−1. The dense knots have slow proper motions and relatively small ionization timescales; hence, they were likely located a few parsecs away from the progenitor at the explosion. We thus argue that Kepler's SN was an overluminous (91T-like) event that recently started to interact with the massive CSM. This supports the possible link between 91T-like SNe and "Ia-CSM" SNe.
This Letter reports the discovery of a remarkably hard spectrum source, HESS J1641-463, by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) in the very high energy (VHE) domain. HESS J1641-463 remained ...unnoticed by the usual analysis techniques due to confusion with the bright nearby source HESS J1640-465. It emerged at a significance level of 8.5 standard deviations after restricting the analysis to events with energies above 4 TeV. It shows a moderate flux level of phi(E > 1TeV) = (3.64 +/- 0.44(stat)+/- 0.73(sys)) x 10(-13) cm(-2) s(-1), corresponding to 1.8% of the Crab Nebula flux above the same energy, and a hard spectrum with a photon index of Gamma = 2.07 +/- 0.11(stat)+/- 0.20(sys). It is a point-like source, although an extension up to a Gaussian width of sigma = 3 arcmin cannot be discounted due to uncertainties in the H.E.S.S. point-spread function. The VHE gamma-ray flux of HESS J1641-463 is found to be constant over the observed period when checking time binnings from the year-by-year to the 28 minute exposure timescales. HESS J1641-463 is positionally coincident with the radio supernova remnant SNR G338.5+0.1. No X-ray candidate stands out as a clear association; however, Chandra and XMM-Newton data reveal some potential weak counterparts. Various VHE gamma-ray production scenarios are discussed. If the emission from HESS J1641-463 is produced by cosmic ray protons colliding with the ambient gas, then their spectrum must extend close to 1 PeV. This object may represent a source population contributing significantly to the galactic cosmic ray flux around the knee.
In hands-free communications, including mobile phones, teleconferencing, and video conferencing, the ultimate aim is to obtain a noise-free signal. The adaptive filters that utilize the LMS ...adaptation algorithm are the best suited for speech signal de-noising among the existing speech signal enhancement techniques. LMS adaptive filter is preferred due to its low computational complexity and robustness, but it fails to simultaneously achieve a faster convergence speed and minimum steady-state MSE. This work introduces a novel cascaded adaptive filter structure for speech signal de-noising wherein the objective is to estimate the noise-free signal with high accuracy. The proposed optimal variable stage cascaded adaptive filter model utilizes a variable stage cascaded adaptive filter structure to estimate the noise-free signal, which is then employed to recover the clean signal with high accuracy. The proposed filter model is tested for reducing the noise from a normal speech signal taken from the NOIZEUS database and an impaired speech signal of Parkinson’s Disease affected patients taken from the MDVR-KCL dataset. The signals are corrupted by various stationary and non-stationary noise signals of different input SNR levels. The noisy signal is used to test the performance of the proposed optimal filter model. The signal de-noising performance of the proposed filter is evaluated in MSE, SNR, and ANR. The results have shown that the proposed filter model provides remarkable performance and an output SNR of 10–15 dB higher than the existing cascaded filter structures. Further, the proposed filter model employs LMS adaptive algorithm, offering a cost-effective and straightforward hardware implementation of ANC with improved accuracy.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Measuring the quality of noisy speech signals has been an increasingly important problem in the field of speech processing as more and more speech-communication and human-machine-interface systems ...are deployed in practical applications. In this paper, we study four widely used classical performance measures: signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR), short-time objective intelligibility (STOI), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ). Through analyzing these performance measures under the same framework and identifying the relationship between their core parameters, we convert these measures into the corresponding equivalent SNRs. This conversion enables not only some new insights into different quality measures but also a way to combine these measures into a new metric. In the derivation of the equivalent SNRs, we introduce the widely used masking technique into the computation of correlation coefficients, which is subsequently used to analyze STOI. Furthermore, we propose an attention method to compute the core parameters of PESQ, and also an empirical formula to project the equivalent SNRs into PESQ scores. Experiments are carried out and the results justifies the properties of the derived quality measures.
•We reveal the relationship of the four well-known speech quality measures, which are originally defined in different domain from different perspective.•We propose a global SNR which can reflect the quality of the speech signal from the perspective of SNR, SDR, STOI, and the PESQ.•We propose a masked correlation coefficient, which can be seen as a generalization of the Pearson correlation coefficient.•We build the relationship between the SNR and the PESQ, propose a formula which can covert one to the other.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
We report measurements of proper motion, radial velocity, and elemental composition for 14 compact X-ray-bright knots in Kepler's supernova remnant (SNR) using archival Chandra data. The knots with ...the highest speed show both large proper motions ( ∼ 0 11-0 14 yr−1) and high radial velocities (v ∼ 8700-10,020 km s−1). For these knots the estimated space velocities (9100 km s−1 v3D 10,400 km s−1) are similar to the typical Si velocity seen in supernovae (SNe) Ia near maximum light. High-speed ejecta knots appear only in specific locations and are morphologically and kinematically distinct from the rest of the ejecta. The proper motions of five knots extrapolate back over the age of Kepler's SNR to a consistent central position. This new kinematic center agrees well with previous determinations, but is less subject to systematic errors and denotes a location about which several prominent structures in the remnant display a high degree of symmetry. These five knots are expanding at close to the free expansion rate (expansion indices of 0.75 m 1.0), which we argue indicates either that they were formed in the explosion with a high density contrast (more than 100 times the ambient density) or that they have propagated through regions of relatively low density (nH < 0.1 cm−3) in the ambient medium. X-ray spectral analysis shows that the undecelerated knots have high Si and S abundances, a lower Fe abundance, and very low O abundance, pointing to an origin in the partial Si-burning zone, which occurs in the outer layer of the exploding white dwarf for models of SNe Ia. Other knots show lower speeds and expansion indices consistent with decelerated ejecta knots or features in the ambient medium overrun by the forward shock. Our new accurate location for the explosion site has well-defined positional uncertainties, allowing for a great reduction in the area to be searched for faint surviving donor stars under non-traditional single-degenerate SNe Ia scenarios; because of the lack of bright stars in the search area the traditional scenario remains ruled out.
Purpose
To improve whole‐brain SNR at 7 Tesla, a novel 32‐element hybrid human head array coil was developed, constructed, and tested.
Methods
Our general design strategy is based on 2 major ideas: ...Firstly, following suggestions of previous works based on the ultimate intrinsic SNR theory, we combined loops and dipoles for improvement of SNR near the head center. Secondly, we minimized the total number of array elements by using a hybrid combination of transceive (TxRx) and receive (Rx) elements. The new hybrid array consisted of 8 folded‐end TxRx‐dipole antennas and 3 rows of 24 Rx‐loops all placed in a single layer on the surface of a tight‐fit helmet.
Results
The developed array significantly improved SNR in vivo both near the center (∼20%) and at the periphery (∼20% to 80%) in comparison to a common commercial array coil with 8 transmit (Tx) and 32 Rx‐elements. Whereas 24 loops alone delivered central SNR very similar to that of the commercial coil, the addition of complementary dipole structures provided further improvement. The new array also provided ∼15% higher Tx efficiency and better longitudinal coverage than that of the commercial array.
Conclusion
The developed array coil demonstrated advantages in combining complementary TxRx and Rx resonant structures, that is, TxRx‐dipoles and Rx‐loops all placed in a single layer at the same distance to the head. This strategy improved both SNR and Tx‐performance, as well as simplified the total head coil design, making it more robust.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Using the first full annual cycle of Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CyGNSS) observations, we investigated the limitations and capabilities of CyGNSS observations for soil moisture (SM) ...estimates (0–5 cm). A relative signal‐to‐noise ratio (rSNR) value from a CyGNSS‐derived delay‐Doppler map is introduced to improve the temporal resolution of SM derived from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) data. We then evaluated the CyGNSS‐derived rSNR using ground‐based SM measurements and the triple collocation method with SMAP and modeled SM products. We found that CyGNSS can provide useful SM estimates over moderately vegetated regions (correlation coefficient of the individual data: 0.77) but shows degraded performance over arid and densely vegetated regions (correlation coefficient of the individual data: 0.68 and 0.67). However, when rSNR data is combined with SM data from SMAP, daily SM estimates can be achieved. These results show that synergistic use of CyGNSS observations can improve on SM estimates from current satellite systems.
Plain Language Summary
Accurate climate forecasting affects our daily lives. Large‐scale farmers depend on weather forecasts to decide when to plant their crops. Bad timing can impact the whole years' harvest and thus the farmers' livelihoods. Even more importantly, people who live in floodplains and hurricane zones trust their lives to accurate weather forecasts. For these reasons and more, hydrologists need up‐to‐date knowledge of Earth's climate systems. And one of the most important sources of data may surprise you. The amount of moisture in just the first 8 mm of topsoil affects all of Earth's climate systems. Currently, National Aeronautics and Space Administration keeps track of soil moisture levels with a satellite called Soil Moisture Active Passive. However, it only provides soil moisture data every 2–3 days. We believe that we can do better, and we believe that we can do it with preexisting satellite systems. In 2017, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched eight microsatellites, called Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CyGNSS), to predict cyclone paths. We have found that while the CyGNSS satellites are predicting cyclone paths, they can simultaneously measure changes in soil moisture around 5 times per day. Augmenting the Soil Moisture Active Passive data with CyGNSS would give us detailed prediction of weather changes in near‐real time, protecting livelihoods and lives.
Key Points
CyGNSS‐derived signal‐to‐noise ratio data were utilized for soil moisture estimation
CyGNSS data can fill the gap of missing spatial and temporal values in existing satellite‐based soil moisture retrieval systems
By combining CyGNSS and SMAP data sets, reliable daily soil moisture estimates from space can be achieved
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract This study proposes a deep neural network (DNN) and long-short-term memory (LSTM) nonlinear compensators method for direct current (DC)-biased optical orthogonal frequency division ...multiplexing (DCO-OFDM) in indoor visible light communication (VLC) conventional to handle the nonlinearity and retrieve the high-fidelity signals, and compared in terms of performance and complexity. Unlike the data training after fast Fourier transform in existing deep neural network schemes, this study proposes a scheme that uses the time domain waveform data output by photodiodes for direct equalization. The OFDM signal at the receiving end is equalized, which can mitigate hybrid linear and nonlinear impairments and save spectrum resources without requiring the pilots’ assistance. Compared with conventional receivers based on different guide frequencies and existing DL-based reception methods, the proposed adaptive receiver approach yields better bit error rate performance at different signal-to-noise ratios. This research reveals the extreme sensitivity of the LSTM’s performance to system SNR. LSTM outperforms DNN in high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations, but at low SNR, even with high complexity, LSTM falls short of DNN’s performance.
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