Modulated-ISRJ rejection using online dictionary learning for synthetic aperture radar imagery

In electromagnetic countermeasures circumstances,synthetic aperture radar(SAR)imagery usually suffers from severe quality degradation from modulated interrupt sampling repeater jamming(MISRJ),which usually owes considerable coherence with the SAR transmission waveform together with periodical modulation patterns.This paper develops an MISRJ suppression algorithm for SAR imagery with online dictionary learning.In the algorithm,the jamming modulation temporal properties are exploited with extracting and sorting MISRJ slices using fast-time autocorrelation.Online dictionary learning is followed to separate real signals from jamming slices.Under the learned representation,time-varying MISRJs are suppressed effectively.Both simulated and real-measured SAR data are also used to confirm advantages in suppressing time-varying MISRJs over traditional methods.

Preclinical Verification of Modulated Electro-Hyperthermia —Part I. In Vitro Research

Modulated electro-hyperthermia (mEHT) targets tissue’s natural electric and thermal heterogeneities to heat the cancer cells selectively. The applied 13.56 MHz radiofrequency (RF) is a carrier of the low-frequency modulation. The high-frequency part was chosen to select the malignant lesion using the specialties of the tumor: the higher conductivity and dielectric constant of the tumor than its host. The electric field selects the tumor, and the low-frequency amplitude modulation polarizes and excites the transmembrane proteins of the malignant cells. The dominant absorption of the energy by the microscopic clusters of the membrane rafts acts like nanoparticle heating. Exciting the membrane produces various apoptotic signals. The processes were modeled using silico and phantom experiments, which proved the concept. The preclinical verification was made in vitro and in vivo, and in the end, clinical proofs validated the method. Our objective is to follow all the development steps from the laboratory to the clinics in a trilogy of articles. This present is the first part, which deals with in silico, phantom, and in vitro research.

Voltage-modulated polymer nanopore field-effect transistor for multi-sized nanoparticle detection

Solid-state nanopores offer a range of distinct advantages over biological nanopores,such as structural diversity and greater stability and durability;this makes them highly promising for high-resolution nanoparticle sensing.Biological nanopores can exhibit gating characteristics with stress-responsive switches and can demonstrate specificity toward particular molecules.Drawing inspiration from biological nanopores,this paper introduces a novel polymer nanopore with field-effect characteristics,leveraging a conductive polymer in its construction to showcase intriguing gating behavior.Notably,in this device,the polymer layer serves as the gate,enabling precise control over the source–drain current response inside and outside the pore by simply adjusting the gate voltage.This unique feature allows fine-tuning of the nanopore’s sensitivity to nanoparticles of varying sizes and facilitates its operation in multiple modes.Experimental results reveal that the developed polymer nanopore field-effect transistor demonstrates remarkable selectivity in detecting nanoparticles of various sizes under different applied voltages.The proposed single device demonstrates the exceptional ability to detect multiple types of nanoparticle,showcasing its immense potential for a wide range of applications in biological-particle analysis and medical diagnostics.

Age of Information for Short-Packet Covert Communication with Time Modulated Retrodirective Array

In this paper,the covert age of information(CAoI),which characterizes the timeliness and covertness performance of communication,is first investigated in the short-packet covert communication with time modulated retrodirective array(TMRDA).Specifically,the TMRDA is designed to maximize the antenna gain in the target direction while the side lobe is sufficiently suppressed.On this basis,the covertness constraint and CAoI are derived in closed form.To facilitate the covert transmission design,the transmit power and block-length are jointly optimized to minimize the CAoI,which demonstrates the trade-off between covertness and timelessness.Our results illustrate that there exists an optimal block-length that yields the minimum CAoI,and the presented optimization results can achieve enhanced performance compared with the fixed block-length case.Additionally,we observe that smaller beam pointing error at Bob leads to improvements in CAoI.

Topological Structure-Modulated Collagen Carbon as Two-in-One Energy Storage Configuration toward Ultrahigh Power and Energy Density

Efficient energy storage devices with suitable electrode materials,that integrate high power and high energy,are the crucial requisites of the renewable power source,which have unwrapped new possibilities in the sustainable development of energy and the environment.Herein,a facile collagen microstructure modulation strategy is proposed to construct a nitrogen/oxygen dual-doped hierarchically porous carbon fiber with ultrahigh specific surface area(2788 m^(2)g^(-1))and large pore volume(4.56 cm^(3)g^(-1))via local microfibrous breakage/disassembly of natural structured proteins.Combining operando spectroscopy and density functional theory unveil that the dual-heteroatom doping could effectively regulate the electronic structure of carbon atom framework with enhanced electric conductivity and electronegativity as well as decreased diffusion resistance in favor of rapid pseudocapacitive-dominated Li^(+)-storage(353 mAh g^(-1)at 10 A g^(-1)).Theoretical calculations reveal that the tailored micro-/mesoporous structures favor the rapid charge transfer and ion storage,synergistically realizing high capacity and superior rate performance for NPCF-H cathode(75.0 mAh g^(-1)at 30 A g^(-1)).The assembled device with NPCF-H as both anode and cathode achieves extremely high energy density(200 Wh kg^(-1))with maximum power density(42600 W kg^(-1))and ultralong lifespan(80%capacity retention over 10000 cycles).

High-speed directly modulated distributed feedback laser based on detuned loading and photon-photon resonance effect

A monolithic integrated two-section distributed feedback(TS-DFB)semiconductor laser for high-speed direct modulation is proposed and analyzed theoretically.The grating structure of the TS-DFB laser is designed by the reconstructionequivalent-chirp(REC)technique,which can reduce the manufacturing cost and difficulty,and achieve high wavelength controlling accuracy.The detuned loading effect and the photon-photon resonance(PPR)effect are utilized to enhance the modulation bandwidth of the TS-DFB laser,exceeding 37 GHz,while that of the conventional one-section DFB laser is only 16 GHz.When the bit rate of the non-return-to-zero(NRZ)signal reaches 55 Gb/s,a clear eye diagram with large opening can still be obtained.These results show that the proposed method can enhance the modulation bandwidth of DFB laser significantly.

Dosimetric Comparative Analysis of Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy and Intensity-Modulated Radiation Therapy in Cervical Cancer

Objective:To carry out dosimetric comparison between volumetric modulated arc therapy(VMAT)and intensity-modulated radiation therapy(IMRT)in cervical cancer.Methods:50 postoperative cervical cancer patients were included in this study.The patients were admitted for treatment from January 2021 to January 2022.VMAT and IMRT plans were designed for each patient to analyze the dose distribution in the target area of the two treatment techniques.Results:Comparing the monitor unit for single treatment(638.21±116.21 MU)and time of single treatment(143.21±23.14 s)in the observation group and the monitor unit for single treatment(932.14±74.11 MU)and time of single treatment(223.14±17.26 s)in the control group,there was significant difference(P<0.05);there was also significant difference(P<0.05)between the normal tissue(bladder and rectum)of the observation group and that(bladder and rectum)of the control group.Conclusion:VMAT is more effective in cervical cancer,and it has a certain protective effect on normal tissues in patients and can reduce the radiation dose.

Dynamic modulated single-photon routing

The dynamic control of single-photon scattering in a pair of one-dimensional waveguides mediated by a time-modulated atom-cavity system is investigated.Two cases,where the waveguides are coupled symmetrically or asymmetrically to the atom-cavity system,are discussed in detail.The results show that such time-modulated atom-cavity configuration can behave as a dynamical tunable directional single-photon router.The photons with different frequencies can dynamically be routed from the incident waveguide into any ports of the other with a 100%probability via adjusting the modulated amplitude or phases of the time-modulated atom-cavity coupling strengths,associate with the help of the asymmetrical waveguide-cavity couplings.Furthermore,the influence of dissipation on the routing capability is investigated.It is shown that the present single-photon router is robust against the dissipative process of the system,especially the atomic dissipation.These results are expected to be applicable in quantum information processing and design quantum devices with dynamical modulation.

Aperture shape optimization in intensity-modulated radiation therapy planning

The gradient element of the aperture gradient map is utilized directly to generate the aperture shape without modulation.This process can be likened to choosing the direction of negative gradient descent for the generic aperture shape optimiza-tion.The negative gradient descent direction is more suitable under local conditions and has a slow convergence rate.To overcome these limitations,this study introduced conjugate gradients into aperture shape optimization based on gradient modulation.First,the aperture gradient map of the current beam was obtained for the proposed aperture shape optimiza-tion method,and the gradients of the aperture gradient map were modulated using conjugate gradients to form a modulated gradient map.The aperture shape was generated based on the modulated gradient map.The proposed optimization method does not change the optimal solution of the original optimization problem,but changes the iterative search direction when generating the aperture shape.The performance of the proposed method was verified using cases of head and neck cancer,and prostate cancer.The optimization results indicate that the proposed optimization method better protects the organs at risk and rapidly reduces the objective function value by ensuring a similar dose distribution to the planning target volume.Compared to the contrasting methods,the normal tissue complication probability obtained by the proposed optimization method decreased by up to 4.61%,and the optimization time of the proposed method decreased by 5.26%on average for ten cancer cases.The effectiveness and acceleration of the proposed method were verified through comparative experiments.According to the comparative experiments,the results indicate that the proposed optimization method is more suitable for clinical applications.It is feasible for the aperture shape optimization involving the proposed method.

Simultaneous modulated accelerated radiation therapy for esophageal cancer:A feasibility study

AIM: To establish the feasibility of simultaneous modulated accelerated radiation therapy (SMART) in esophageal cancer (EC).

Dosimetry Comparison between Volumetric Modulated Arc Therapy with RapidArc and Fixed Field Dynamic IMRT for Local-Regionally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

Objective: A dosimetric study was performed to evaluate the performance of volumetric modulated arc radiotherapy with RapidArc on locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: The CT scan data sets of 20 patients of locally advanced NPC were selected randomly. The plans were managed using volumetric modulated arc with RapidArc and fixed nine-field coplanar dynamic intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) for these patients. The dosimetry of the planning target volumes (PTV), the organs at risk (OARs) and the healthy tissue were evaluated. The dose prescription was set to 70 Gy to the primary tumor and 60 Gy to the clinical target volumes (CTV) in 33 fractions. Each fraction applied daily, five fractions per week. The monitor unit (MU) values and the delivery time were scored to evaluate the expected treatment efficiency. Results: Both techniques had reached clinical treatment’s requirement. The mean dose (Dmean), maximum dose (Dmax) and minimum dose (Dmin) in RapidArc and fixed field IMRT for PTV were 68.4±0.6 Gy, 74.8±0.9 Gy and 56.8±1.1 Gy; and 67.6±0.6 Gy, 73.8±0.4 Gy and 57.5±0.6 Gy (P<0.05), respectively. Homogeneity index was 78.85±1.29 in RapidArc and 80.34±0.54 (P<0.05) in IMRT. The conformity index (CI: 95%) was 0.78±0.01 for both techniques (P>0.05). Compared to IMRT, RapidArc allowed a reduction of Dmean to the brain stem, mandible and optic nerves of 14.1% (P<0.05), 5.6% (P<0.05) and 12.2% (P<0.05), respectively. For the healthy tissue and the whole absorbed dose, Dmean of RapidArc was reduced by 3.6% (P<0.05), and 3.7% (P<0.05), respectively. The Dmean to the parotids, the spinal cord and the lens had no statistical difference among them. The mean MU values of RapidArc and IMRT were 550 and 1,379. The mean treatment time of RapidArc and IMRT was 165 s and 447 s. Compared to IMRT, the delivery time and the MU values of RapidArc were reduced by 63% and 60%, respectively. Conclusion: For locally advanced NPC, both RapidArc and IMRT reached the clinic requirement. The target volume coverage was similar for the different techniques. The RapidArc technique showed some improvements in OARs and other tissue sparing while using reduced MUs and delivery time.

Helical tomotherapy and volumetric modulated arc therapy:New therapeutic arms in the breast cancer radiotherapy

AIM To analyse clinical and dosimetric results of helical tomotherapy(HT) and volumetric modulated arc therapy(VMAT) in complex adjuvant breast and nodes irradiation.METHODS Seventy-three patients were included(31 HT and 42 VMAT). Dose were 63.8 Gy(HT) and 63.2 Gy(VMAT) in the tumour bed, 52.2 Gy in the breast, 50.4 Gy in supraclavicular nodes(SCN) and internal mammary chain(IMC) with HT and 52.2 Gy and 49.3 Gy in IMC and SCN with VMAT in 29 fractions. Margins to particle tracking velocimetry were greater in the VMAT cohort(7 mm vs 5 mm).RESULTS For the HT cohort, the coverage of clinical target volumes was as follows: Tumour bed: 99.4% ± 2.4%; breast: 98.4% ± 4.3%; SCN: 99.5% ± 1.2%; IMC:96.5% ± 13.9%. For the VMAT cohort, the coverage was as follows: Tumour bed: 99.7% ± 0.5%, breast: 99.3% ± 0.7%; SCN: 99.6% ± 1.4%; IMC: 99.3% ± 3%. For ipsilateral lung, Dmean and V20 were 13.6 ± 1.2 Gy, 21.1% ± 5%(HT) and 13.6 ± 1.4 Gy, 20.1% ± 3.2%(VMAT). Dmean and V30 of the heart were 7.4 ± 1.4 Gy, 1% ± 1%(HT) and 10.3 ± 4.2 Gy, 2.5% ± 3.9%(VMAT). For controlateral breast Dmean was 3.6 ± 0.2 Gy(HT) and 4.6 ± 0.9 Gy(VMAT). Acute skin toxicity grade 3 was 5% in the two cohorts.CONCLUSION HT and VMAT in complex adjuvant breast irradiation allow a good coverage of target volumes with an acceptable acute tolerance. A longer follow-up is needed to assess the impact of low doses to healthy tissues.

On approximating multifractal traffic burstiness with Markov modulated Poisson processes

We investigate the approximating capability of Markov modulated Poisson processes (MMPP) for modeling multifractal Internet traffic. The choice of MMPP is motivated by its ability to capture the variability and correlation in moderate time scales while being analytically tractable. Important statistics of traffic burstiness are described and a customized moment-based fitting procedure of MMPP to traffic traces is presented. Our methodology of doing this is to examine whether the MMPP can be used to predict the performance of a queue to which MMPP sample paths and measured traffic traces are fed for comparison respectively, in addition to the goodness-of-fit test of MMPP. Numerical results and simulations show that the fitted MMPP can approximate multifractal traffic quite well, i.e. accurately predict the queueing performance.

Clinical role of ^(18)F-FDG PET/CT-based simultaneous modulated accelerated radiotherapy treatment planning for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objective The aim of this study was to compare the long-term local control, overall survival, and late toxicities of positron emission tomography/computed tomography （PET/CT）-guided dose escalation radio- therapy versus conventional radiotherapy in the concurrent chemoradiotherapy treatment of locally ad- vanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma （NPC）. Methods Atotal of 48 patients with stage IIl-IVa NPC were recruited and randomly administered PET/CT- guided dose escalation chemoradiotherapy （group A） or conventional chemoradiotherapy （group B）. The dose-escalation radiotherapy was performed using the simultaneous modulated accelerated radiotherapy technique at prescribed doses of 77 gray （Gy） in 32 fractions （f） to the gross target volume （GTV）： planning target volume （PTV） 1 received 64 Gy/32 f, while PTV2 received 54.4 Gy/32 f. Patients in group B received uniform-dose intensity-modulated radiotherapy, PTV1 received 70 Gy/35 f and PTV2 received 58 Gy/29 f. Concurrent chemotherapy consisted of cisplatin [20 mg/m2 intravenous （IV） on days 1-4] and docetaxel （75 mg/m2 IV on days 1 and 8） administered during treatment weeks 1 and 4. All patients received 2-4 cycles of adjuvant chemotherapy of the same dose and drug regimen. Results The use of fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose （18F-FDG） PET/CT significantly reduced the treat- ment volume delineation of the GTV in 83.3% （20/24） of patients. The 5-year local recurrence-free survival rates of the two groups were 100% and 79.2%, respectively （P = 0.019）. The 5-year disease free survival （DFS） rates were 95.8% and 75.0%, respectively （P = 0.018）. The 5-year local progression-free survival and DFS rates were significantly different. The 5-year overall survival （OS） rates were 95.8% and 79.2%, re- spectively. Differences in OS improvement were insignificant （P = 0.079）. Late toxicities were similar in the two groups. The most common late toxicities of the two arms were grade 1-2 skin dystrophy, xerostomia, subcutaneous fibrosis, and hearing loss. There were no cases of grade 4 late toxicity. Conclusion The use of 18F-FDG PET/CT-guided dose escalation radiotherapy is well tolerated and can reduce local recurrence rates for patients with locally advanced NPC compared to conventional chemora- diotherapy.

STRUCTURE AND MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF Fe/Pd COMPOSITIONALLY MODULATED FILMS

Metal Fe/Pd compositionally modulated films(CMFs) were prepared by vapour depo- sition from two sources onto glass substrate under vacuum.The modulation and crystal structures of the films were examined by X-ray diffraction.The magnetic properties were determined by vibrating sample magnetometer.The Pd layers in the Fe/Pd CMFs are of fcc structure,and the Fe layer structure transits from bcc into amorphous,state with decreasing thickness of Fe layer.The dependence of specific saturation magnetization on thickness of Fe layers has also been discussed.

Clinical Study on Simultaneous Modulated Accelerated Radiotherapy and Concurrent Chemotherapy for Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical efficacy and toxicities of simultaneous modulated accelerated radiotherapy （SMART） and concurrent chemotherapy for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma. METHODS Eightyseven patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma received SMART from April 2002 to September 2006. According to the UICC staging system, 30 patients were diagnosed as stage IIb, 42 patients stage III, 13 patients stage IVa and 2 patients stage IVb. The intensitymodulated radiotherapy was delivered with the ＂step and shoot＂ SMART technique with the prescribed dose of 66-76 Gy （2.2-2.4 Gy/day） to the gross tumor volume （GTV） and positive neck lymph nodes （GTVLN）, with 60 Gy （2.0 Gy/day） to the highrisk clinical target volume （CTV1）, encompassing the area around the nasopharynx and the upper neck, and with 54 Gy （1.8 Gy/day） to the lowrisk clinical target volume （CTV2）, including the lower neck and supraclavicular area. Among all the patients, 31 received 2 cycles of SMART concurrently with 5 fluorouracil （5-Fu） and cisplatin （the FP group） and 56 received 2 cycles of concurrent cisplatin. All the patients received 3 to 4 cycles of adjuvant combination chemotherapy of cisplatin and 5fluorouracil starting from the 1st month after completion of SMART. RESULTS With a median follow up of 59 months （ranging from 19 to 85 months）, the 1, 2 and 3year overall survival rates were 100%, 94.6% and 91.3% respectively. Acute mucositis and pharyngitis were more frequently observed in the FP group than in the cisplatin group. CONCLUSION SMART technique provides an excellent opportunity to spare normal tissue and is probably more biologically effective. Combination of single cisplatin was more tolerable.

Volumetric-modulated arc therapy vs c-IMRT in esophageal cancer:A treatment planning comparison

AIM： To compare the volumetric-modulated arc ther- apy （VMAT） plans with conventional sliding window intensity-modulated radiotherapy （c-IMRT） plans in esophageal cancer （EC）. METHODS： Twenty patients with EC were selected, including 5 cases located in the cervical, the upper, the middle and the lower thorax, respectively. Five plans were generated with the eclipse planning sys- tem： three using c-IMRT with 5 fields （5F）, 7 fields （7F） and 9 fields （gF）, and two using VMAT with a single arc （1A） and double arcs （2A）. The treatment plans were designed to deliver a dose of 60 Gy to the plan-ning target volume （PTV） with the same constrains in a 2.0 Gy daily fraction, 5 d a week. Plans were normal- ized to 95% of the PTV that received 100% of the pre- scribed dose. We examined the dose-volume histogram parameters of PTV and the organs at risk （OAR） such as lungs, spinal cord and heart. Monitor units （MU） and normal tissue complication probability （NTCP） of OAR were also reported. RESULTS： Both c-IMRT and VMAT plans resulted in abundant dose coverage of PTV for EC of different Io- cations. The dose conformity to PTV was improved as the number of field in c-IMRT or rotating arc in VMAT was increased. The doses to PTV and OAR in VMAT plans were not statistically different in comparison with c-IMRT plans, with the following exceptions： in cervical and upper thoracic EC, the conformity index （CI） was higher in VMAT （1A 0.78 and 2A 0.8） than in c-IMRT （5F 0.62, 7F 0.66 and 9F 0.73） and homogeneity was slightly better in c-IMRT （7F 1.09 and 9F 1.07） than in VMAT （1A 1,1 and 2A 1.09）, Lung V30 was lower in VMAT （1A 12.52 and 2A 12.29） than in c-IMRT （7F 14.35 and 9F 14.81）. The humeral head doses were significantly increased in VMAT as against c-IMRT. In the middle and lower thoracic EC, CI in VMAT （1A 0.76 and 2A 0.74） was higher than in c-IMRT （5F 0.63 Gy and 7F 0.67 Gy）, and homogeneity was almost similar between VMAT and c-IMRT. V20 （2A 21.49 Gy vs 7F 24.59 Gy and 9F 24.16 Gy） and V30 （2A 9.73 Gy vs 5F 12.61 Gy, 7F 11.5 Gy and 9F 11.37 Gy） of lungs in VMAT were lower than in c-IMRT, but low doses to lungs （V5 and Vl0） were increased. V30 （1A 48.12 Gy vs 5F 59.2 Gy, 7F 58.59 Gy and 9F 57.2 Gy）, V40 and V50 of heart in VMAT was lower than in c-IMRT. MUs in VMAT plans were significantly reduced in comparison with c-IMRT, maximum doses to the spinal cord and mean doses of lungs were similar between the two techniques. NTCP of spinal cord was 0 for all cases. NTCP of lungs and heart in VMAT were lower than in c-IMRT. The advantage of VMAT plan was enhanced by doubling the arc. CONCLUSION： Compared with c-IMRT, VMAT, especial- ly the 2A, slightly improves the OAR dose sparing, such as lungs and heart, and reduces NTCP and MU with a better PTV coverage.

Surface Modification With Zinc and Zn-Ni Alloy Compositionally Modulated Multilayer Coatings

Zinc and Zn-Ni alloy compositionally modulated multilayer （CMM） coatings were electrodeposited on to a steel substrate by the successive deposition of zinc and Zn-Ni alloy sublayers from dual baths. The coated samples were evaluated in terms of the surface appearance, surface and cross-sectional morphologies, as well as corrosion resistance. The microstructural characteristics that were examined using the field emission gun scanning electron microscopy （FEGSEM） confirmed the layered structure, grain refinement of the zinc and Zn-Ni alloy CMM coatings, and revealed the existence of microcracks caused by the internal stress in the thick Zn-Ni alloy sublayers. The corrosion resistance that was evaluated by means of the salt spray test shows that the zinc and Zn-Ni alloy CMM coatings were more corrosion-resistant than the monolithic coatings of zinc or Zn-Ni alloy of the same thickness. The possible reasons for the better protective performance of Zn-Ni/Zn CMM coatings were given on the basis of the analysis on the micrographic features of zinc and Zn-Ni alloy CMM eoatings after the corrosion test. A probable corrosion mechanism of zinc and Zn-Ni alloy CMM coatings was also proposed.

On Multi-Timescale Variability of Temperature in China in Modulated Annual Cycle Reference Frame

The traditional anomaly （TA） reference frame and its corresponding anomaly for a given data span changes with the extension of data length. In this study, the modulated annual cycle （MAC）, instead of the widely used climatological mean annual cycle, is used as an alternative reference frame for computing climate anomalies to study the multi-timescale variability of surface air temperature （SAT） in China based on homogenized daily data from 1952 to 2004. The Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition （EEMD） method is used to separate daily SAT into a high frequency component, a MAC component, an interannual component, and a decadal-to-trend component. The results show that the EEMD method can reflect historical events reasonably well, indicating its adaptive and temporally local characteristics. It is shown that MAC is a temporally local reference frame and will not be altered over a particular time span by an exten-sion of data length, thereby making it easier for physical interpretation. In the MAC reference frame, the low frequency component is found more suitable for studying the interannual to longer timescale variability （ILV） than a 13-month window running mean, which does not exclude the annual cycle. It is also better than other traditional versions （annual or summer or winter mean） of ILV, which contains a portion of the annual cycle. The analysis reveals that the variability of the annual cycle could be as large as the magnitude of interannual variability. The possible physical causes of different timescale variability of SAT in China are further discussed.

Efficient design method of non-uniform cosine modulated filter bank for digital hearing aids

To promote the performance of the traditional multichannel filter bank which leads to speech quality degradation,an efficient design method of the non-uniform cosine modulated filter bank（CMFB） based on the audiogram for digital hearing aids is proposed. First, a low-pass prototype filter is designed by the linear iterative algorithm. Secondly,the uniform CMFB is achieved on the basis of the principle formulas. Then, the adjacent channels of a uniform filter bank which have low or gradual slopes are merged according to the trend of audiogram of the hearing impaired person. Finally,the corresponding non-uniform CMFB is obtained. Simulation results show that the signal processed by the proposed filter bank is similar to the original signal in a time-domain waveform and spectrogram without significant distortion or difference. The speech quality results show that the personal evaluation of speech quality（PESQ） of non-uniform CMFB is 35% higher than that of the traditional design, and the hearing-aid speech quality index（HASQI） increases by about 40%.