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Resonance Raman spectroscopy is used for rapid detection of skin BCC cancer. The cross-validated classification accuracy is achieved to be as high as 98% using nonnegative matrix factorization along with support vector machine statistical method. © OSA 2017.

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has not been fixed in the paper. © 2018, The Author(s).

Speckle imaging is a well known method to achieve diffraction-limited (DL) imaging from ground-based telescopes. The traditional observing method for speckle has been to observe a single, unresolved, source per telescope pointing over a relatively small field of view (FOV). The need for large DL surveys of targets with high sky density motivates a desire for simultaneous speckle imaging over large FOVs, however it is currently impractical to attain this by covering the entire focal plane with fast readout detectors. An alternative approach is to connect a relatively small number of detector pixels to multiple interesting targets spanning a large FOV through the use of optical fibers, a technique employed in spectroscopy for decades. However, for imaging we require the use of coherent fiber bundles (CFBs). We discuss various design considerations for coherent fiber speckle imaging with an eye toward a multiplexed system using numerous configurable CFBs, and we test its viability with a prototype instrument that uses a single CFB to transport speckle images from the telescope focal plane to a traditionally designed, fast readout speckle camera. Using this device on University of Virginia's Fan Mountain Observatory 40-inch telescope we have for the first time successfully demonstrated speckle imaging through a CFB, using both optical and NIR detectors. Results are presented of DL speckle imaging of well-known close (including subarcsecond) binary stars resolved with this fiber-fed speckle system and compared to both literature results and traditional speckle imaging taken with the same camera directly, with no intervening CFB. © 2018 SPIE.

Lowell Observatory and Southern Connecticut State University are currently involved in a joint project to determine the stellar multiplicity rates and the fundamental stellar parameters of M dwarf stars using the Differential Speckle Survey Instrument (DSSI) at Lowell's Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT). DSSI observes speckle patterns simultaneously at two separate wavelengths, allowing color measurements of the components of a binary system to be made in a single observation. This paper will describe the initial data gathering process, which began in 2016. Since then, over 1000 stars have been observed. We summarize the analysis on these objects so far, and discuss the relevance of these observations for existing and future space missions such as TESS, JWST, and Gaia. © 2018 SPIE.

The azimuthal anisotropic flow of identified and unidentified charged particles has been systematically studied in Cu+Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV for harmonics n=1-4 in the pseudorapidity range |η|<1. The directed flow in Cu+Au collisions is compared with the rapidity-odd and, for the first time, the rapidity-even components of charged particle directed flow in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV. The slope of the directed flow pseudorapidity dependence in Cu+Au collisions is found to be similar to that in Au+Au collisions, with the intercept shifted toward positive pseudorapidity values, i.e., the Cu-going direction. The mean transverse momentum projected onto the spectator plane (px) in Cu+Au collision also exhibits approximately linear dependence on pseudorapidity with the intercept at about η≈-0.4 (shifted from zero in the Au-going direction), closer to the rapidity of the Cu+Au system center of mass. The observed dependencies find a natural explanation in a picture of the directed flow originating partly due the "tilted source" and partly due to the asymmetry in the initial density distribution. A charge dependence of (px) was also observed in Cu+Au collisions, consistent with an effect of the initial electric field created by charge difference of the spectator protons in two colliding nuclei. The rapidity-even component of directed flow in Au+Au collisions is close to that in Pb+Pb collisions at sNN=2.76 TeV, indicating a similar magnitude of dipolelike fluctuations in the initial-state density distribution. Higher harmonic flow in Cu+Au collisions exhibits similar trends to those observed in Au+Au and Pb+Pb collisions and is qualitatively reproduced by a viscous hydrodynamic model and a multiphase transport model. For all harmonics with n≥2 we observe an approximate scaling of vn with the number of constituent quarks; this scaling works as well in Cu+Au collisions as it does in Au+Au collisions. © 2018 American Physical Society.

Global polarization of Λ hyperons has been measured to be of the order of a few tenths of a percentage in Au+Au collisions at sNN = 200 GeV, with no significant difference between Λ and Λ. These new results reveal the collision energy dependence of the global polarization together with the results previously observed at sNN = 7.7-62.4 GeV and indicate noticeable vorticity of the medium created in noncentral heavy-ion collisions at the highest Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider collision energy. The signal is in rough quantitative agreement with the theoretical predictions from a hydrodynamic model and from a multi-phase transport model. The polarization is larger in more peripheral collisions, and depends weakly on the hyperon's transverse momentum and pseudorapidity ηH within |ηH|<1. An indication of the polarization dependence on the event-by-event charge asymmetry is observed at the 2σ level, suggesting a possible contribution to the polarization from the axial current induced by the initial magnetic field. © 2018 American Physical Society.

The longitudinal spin transfer DLL to Λ and Λ hyperons produced in high-energy polarized proton-proton collisions is expected to be sensitive to the helicity distribution functions of strange quarks and antiquarks of the proton, and to longitudinally polarized fragmentation functions. We report an improved measurement of DLL from data obtained at a center-of-mass energy of s=200 GeV with the STAR detector at RHIC. The data have an approximately twelve times larger figure of merit than prior results and cover |η|<1.2 in pseudorapidity with transverse momenta pT up to 6 GeV/c. In the forward scattering hemisphere at largest pT, the longitudinal spin transfer is found to be DLL=-0.036±0.048(stat)±0.013(sys) for Λ hyperons and DLL=0.032±0.043(stat)±0.013(sys) for Λ antihyperons. The dependences on η and pT are presented and compared with model evaluations. © 2018 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

We report first measurements of e+e- pair production in the mass region 0.4<Mee<2.6 GeV/c2 at low transverse momentum (pT<0.15 GeV/c) in noncentral Au+Au collisions at sNN=200 GeV and U+U collisions at sNN=193 GeV. Significant enhancement factors, expressed as ratios of data over known hadronic contributions, are observed in the 40%-80% centrality of these collisions. The excess yields peak distinctly at low pT with a width (âpT2â ©) between 40 and 60 MeV/c. The absolute cross section of the excess depends weakly on centrality, while those from a theoretical model calculation incorporating an in-medium broadened ρ spectral function and radiation from a quark gluon plasma or hadronic cocktail contributions increase dramatically with an increasing number of participant nucleons. Model calculations of photon-photon interactions generated by the initial projectile and target nuclei describe the observed excess yields but fail to reproduce the pT2 distributions. © 2018 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the »https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/» Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.

The transverse spin transfer from polarized protons to Λ and Λ hyperons is expected to provide sensitivity to the transversity distribution of the nucleon and to the transversely polarized fragmentation functions. We report the first measurement of the transverse spin transfer to Λ and Λ along the polarization direction of the fragmenting quark, DTT, in transversely polarized proton-proton collisions at s=200 GeV with the STAR detector at RHIC. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 18 pb-1 and cover the pseudorapidity range |η|<1.2 and transverse momenta pT up to 8 GeV/c. The dependence on pT and η are presented. The DTT results are found to be comparable with a model prediction and are also consistent with zero within uncertainties. © 2018 authors. Published by the American Physical Society.

Binary star systems where one of the stars is an exoplanet host appear to be more common than expected prior to the Kepler mission. The Kepler mission and subsequent ground-based follow-up work have revealed a number of Kepler Objects of Interest (KOIs) that have nearby stellar companions (within ∼1 arcsec). KOIs with stellar companions and at least one suspected exoplanet were selected for this work. Recent work on these stars has mainly focused on placing the companions on the H-R diagram and inferring if they are likely to be gravitationally bound based on whether their locations are consistent with a common isochrone. However, we have been observing these KOI double stars with speckle imaging over several years and are now in a position to assess whether these systems have components with a common proper motion, and can be seen as physically associated on that basis. We will give sample results of KOI double stars that are in fact common proper motion pairs. We compare our results with estimates of the multiplicity rate of exoplanet hosts from other methods and comment on the use of our data for constraining orbital parameters at this point, particularly the inclination angle. For transit observations, the inclination of the planetary orbit is already known, and the relationship between planetary and stellar orbital planes could have implications for star and planet formation. © 2018 SPIE.

Native fluorescence spectra play important roles in cancer detection. It is widely acknowledged that the emission spectrum of a tissue is a superposition of spectra of various salient fluorophores. However, component quantification is essentially an ill-posed problem. To address this problem, the native fluorescence spectra of normal human very low (LNCap), moderately metastatic (DU-145), and advanced metastatic (PC-3) cell lines were studied by the selected wavelength of 300 nm to investigate the key fluorescent molecules such as tryptophan, collagen and NADH. The native fluorescence spectra of cancer cell lines at different risk levels were analyzed using various machine learning algorithms for feature detection and develop criteria to separate the three types of cells. Principal component analysis (PCA), nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF), and partial least squares fitting were used separately to reduce dimension, extract features and detect biomolecular alterations reflected in the spectra. The scores corresponding to the basis spectra were used for classification. A linear support vector machine (SVM) was used to classify the spectra of the cells with different metastatic ability. In detection of signals coming from tryptophan and NADH with observed data corrupted by noise and inference, a sufficient statistic can be obtained based on the basis spectra retrieved using nonnegative matrix factorization. This work shows changes of relative contents of tryptophan and NADH obtained from native fluorescence spectroscopy may present potential criteria for detecting cancer cell lines of different metastatic ability. © 2018 SPIE.

The Quad-camera Wavefront-sensing Six-channel Speckle Interferometer (QWSSI) is a new speckle imaging instrument available on the 4.3-m Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT). QWSSI is built to efficiently make use of collected photons and available detector area. The instrument images on a single Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD) at four wavelengths in the optical (577, 658, 808, and 880nm) with 40nm bandpasses. Longward of 1μm, two imaging wavelengths in the NIR are collected at 1150 and 1570nm on two InGaAs cameras with 50nm bandpasses. All remaining non-imaging visible light is then sent into a wavefront EMCCD. All cameras are operated synchronously via concurrent triggering from a timing module. With the simultaneous wavefront sensing, QWSSI characterizes atmospheric aberrations in the wavefront for each speckle frame. This results in additional data that can be utilized during post-processing, enabling advanced techniques such as Multi-Frame Blind Deconvolution. The design philosophy was optimized for an inexpensive, rapid build; virtually all parts were commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS), and custom parts were fabricated or 3D printed on-site. QWSSI's unique build and capabilities represent a new frontier in civilian high-resolution speckle imaging. © COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

The Southern Connecticut Stellar Interferometer (SCSI) is an intensity interferometer that is designed to use correlated photon arrival times to determine the geometry of stars. Originally a low-cost, two-telescope instrument that used a 1-pixel single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) detector at the focal plane of each telescope to record photon events, it is now being upgraded to include a third telescope. This will allow for the simultaneous detection of the photon correlation at three baselines, and thus the ability to map out the two-dimensional geometry of the source much more efficiently than with the two-telescope arrangement. Recent papers in the literature suggest that it may be possible to derive phase information in the Fourier domain from such triple correlations for the brightest stars, potentially giving SCSI an imaging capability. Prior to investigating this possibility, steps must be taken to maximize the observing efficiency of the SCSI. We present here our latest efforts in achieving better pointing, tracking, and collimation with our telescopes, and we discuss our first modeling results of the three-telescope situation in order to understand under what conditions the upgraded SCSI could retrieve imaging information. © COPYRIGHT SPIE. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

ZnO and Fe-doped ZnO nanoparticles were analyzed in ethanol solution and dry powder form using fluorescence spectroscopy. Near-band-edge emission (NBE) and defect emission (DE) peaks were studied. A blue-shift was observed with the NBE emission peak. © OSA 2019. The Author(s).

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are a viable product for many different markets. One specific area of promise is the use of CNTs in supercapacitors. The CNT synthesis is a two-step process with the first being the formation of a thin film layer. The thin film substrate is created by means of the Thermal Evaporation Physical Vapor Deposition (TPVD) process. After the thin film substrate is deposited, the CNTs are grown in a Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) growth chamber. Analysis of the thin film substrate and CNTs is performed primarily using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results show the inclusion of ultrapure water in the CVD process contributed to the success of CNT growth. Multiple prong CNT grow is seen for CVDs trails of silver thin film layer deposited on silicon substrates. The silver nanoparticle had a large diameter with an acute contact angle. The single prong growth indicates the iron nanoparticles formed an obtuse contact angle due to the amorphic surface of alumina substrate. The focus of this project is to explore and investigate different materials and conditions for optimal CNT synthesis in the hopes of creating a uniform forest of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes. © 2019 World Scientific Publishing Company.