Search Results (161)

We theoretically investigate high-order harmonic generation from ethylbenzene (C₈H₁₀), toluene (C₇H₈), and benzene (C₆H₆) molecules driven by a circularly polarized laser field using time-dependent density functional theory. By comparing the harmonic spectra of these structurally related molecules, we find that ethylbenzene, which features a larger molecular size due to the ethyl group, exhibits a higher harmonic cutoff and stronger harmonic intensity than toluene and benzene. Time-resolved electron density distributions, together with the probability current density analysis, indicate that under long-wavelength conditions (e.g., 1200 nm), the ethyl group in ethylbenzene and the methyl group in toluene significantly enhance the probability of ionized electrons from neighboring nuclei colliding with nearby nuclei, thereby leading to stronger harmonic emission, with ethylbenzene > toluene > benzene. In contrast, under short-wavelength conditions (e.g., 200 nm), the harmonic intensities of the three molecules show little difference, and the effects of the ethyl and methyl groups on the harmonic yield can be neglected. The influence of laser intensity and wavelength on high-order harmonic generation is further analyzed, confirming the robustness of the structural enhancement effect. Additionally, we study the harmonic ellipticity of ethylbenzene under different carrier-envelope phases, and find that while circularly polarized harmonics can be obtained, their spectral continuity is insufficient for synthesizing isolated circularly polarized attosecond pulses. This limitation is attributed to the broken ring symmetry caused by the ethyl substitution. Our findings offer insight into the relationship between molecular structure and harmonic response in strong-field physics, and provide a pathway for designing efficient circularly polarized attosecond pulse sources. Full article

Intravascular aspiration thrombectomy catheters are widely used to treat stroke, pulmonary embolism, and deep venous thrombosis. However, their performance is frequently compromised by clot material becoming lodged within the catheter tip. To address this, we develop a novel ultrasound-enhanced aspiration catheter approach that generates cavitation within the tip to mechanically degrade clots, with a view to facilitate extraction. The design employs hollow cylindrical transducers that produce inwardly propagating cylindrical waves to generate sufficiently high pressures to perform histotripsy. This study investigates the feasibility of self-sensing cavitation detection by analyzing voltage signals across the transducer during treatment. Experiments were conducted for two transmit pulse lengths at varying driving voltages with water or clot in the lumen. Cavitation clouds within the lumen were assessed using 40 MHz ultrasound imaging. Changes in the signal envelope during the pulse body and ringdown phases occurred above the cavitation threshold, the latter being associated with more rapid wave damping in the presence of bubble clouds within the lumen. In the frequency domain, voltage-dependent cavitation signals—subharmonics, ultra-harmonics, and broadband—emerged alongside transmit pulses. This work demonstrates a highly sensitive, sensor-free method for detecting cavitation within the lumen, enabling feedback control to further improve histotripsy-assisted aspiration. Full article

Obtaining the echo of individual fish is an important prerequisite for fisheries acoustic applications, such as in situ measurement of fish target strength and assessment of fish abundance using the counting method. It is also the foundation for evaluating the growth status of farmed fish and managing aquaculture risks. The density of farmed fish populations is typically higher, and such high-density aquaculture further increases the difficulty of obtaining individual fish echoes in practical applications. Building upon previous research and considering the behavioral characteristics of fish in aquaculture settings, this study conducted performance simulations, live fish experiments in simulated aquaculture cages, and comparative evaluations of three individual fish broadband echo detection methods based on a broadband signal system: the amplitude pulse width method (APM) based on echo envelopes, the peak detection and time delay estimation method (PDM), and the peak time delay combined with instantaneous frequency method (PDIM). This study assumed a dorsolateral fish orientation, which limits its research scope and applicability. The results showed that the PDIM achieved a detection accuracy of 78.34% and a false recognition rate of 1.32%. The APM based on echo envelopes was insensitive to individual fish echoes and had lower recognition accuracy. The PDM exhibited better individual fish echo capture capabilities, while the PDIM demonstrated superior overlapping echo rejection capabilities. Full article

Tall-pier girder bridges with fluid viscous dampers (FVDs) are widely used in earthquake-prone mountainous areas. However, the influence of higher-order modes and near-field earthquakes on tall piers has rarely been studied. Based on an asymmetric tall-pier girder bridge, a finite element model is established, and the parameters of FVDs are optimized using SAP2000. The higher-order mode effects on tall piers are explored by proportionally reducing the pier heights. The pulse effects of near-field earthquakes on FVD mitigation and higher-order modes are analyzed. The optimal FVDs can coordinate the force distribution among tall piers, effectively reducing displacement responses and internal forces. Due to higher-order modes, the internal force envelopes of tall piers exhibit concave-convex distributions. As pier heights decrease, the internal force envelopes gradually become linear, implying reduced higher-order mode effects. Long-period pulse-like motions produce the maximum seismic responses because the slender tall-pier bridge is sensitive to high spectral accelerations in medium-to-long periods. The higher-order modes are more easily excited by near-field motions with large spectral values in the high-frequency range. Overall, FVDs can simultaneously reduce the seismic responses of tall piers and diminish the influence of higher-order modes. Full article

This study develops a novel transverse steel damper (TSD) to enhance the seismic performance of tall-pier girder bridges, featuring superior lateral strength and energy dissipation capacity. The TSD’s design and arrangement are presented, with its hysteretic behavior simulated in ABAQUS. Key parameters (yield strength: 3000 kN; initial gap: 100 mm; post-yield stiffness ratio: 15%) are optimized through seismic analysis under near-fault ground motions, incorporating pulse characteristic investigations. The optimized TSD effectively reduces bearing displacements and results in smaller pier top displacements and internal forces compared to the bridge with fixed bearings. Due to the higher-order mode effects, there is no direct correlation between top displacements and bottom internal forces. As pier height decreases, the S-shaped shear force and bending moment envelopes gradually become linear, reflecting the reduced influence of these modes. Medium- to long-period pulse-like motions amplify seismic responses due to resonance (pulse period ≈ fundamental period) or susceptibility to large low-frequency spectral values. Higher-order mode effects on bending moments and shear forces intensify under prominent high-frequency components. However, the main velocity pulse typically masks the influence of high-order modes by the overwhelming seismic responses due to large spectral values at medium to long periods. Full article

This paper presents a methodology for extracting and simulating arterial pulse waveform signals from Fabry–Perot interferometric measurements, emphasizing a practical approach for noninvasive cardiovascular assessment. A key novelty of this work is the presentation of a complete Python-based processing pipeline, which is made publicly available as open-source code on GitHub (git version 2.39.5). To the authors’ knowledge, no such repository for demodulating these specific interferometric signals to obtain a raw arterial pulse waveform previously existed. The proposed system utilizes accessible Python-based preprocessing steps, including outlier removal, Butterworth high-pass filtering, and min–max normalization, designed for robust signal quality even in settings with common physiological artifacts. Key features such as the rate of change, the Hilbert transform of the rate of change (envelope), and detected extrema guide the signal reconstruction, offering a computationally efficient pathway to reveal its periodic and phase-dependent dynamics. Visual analyses highlight amplitude variations and residual noise sources, primarily attributed to sensor bandwidth limitations and interpolation methods, considerations critical for real-world deployment. Despite these practical challenges, the reconstructed arterial pulse waveform signals provide valuable insights into arterial motion, with the methodology’s performance validated on measurements from three subjects against synchronized ECG recordings. This demonstrates the viability of Fabry–Perot sensors as a potentially cost-effective and readily implementable tool for noninvasive cardiovascular diagnostics. The results underscore the importance of precise yet practical signal processing techniques and pave the way for further improvements in interferometric sensing, bio-signal analysis, and their translation into clinical practice. Full article

To address the challenges of extracting rolling bearing degradation information and the insufficient performance of conventional convolutional networks, this paper proposes a rolling bearing degradation state identification method based on the improved monopulse feature extraction and a one-dimensional dilated residual convolutional neural network (1D-DRCNN). First, the fault pulse envelope waveform features are extracted through phase scanning and synchronous averaging, and a two-stage grid search strategy is employed to achieve FCC calibration. Subsequently, a 1D-DRCNN model is constructed to identify rolling bearing degradation states under different working conditions. The experimental study collects the vibration signals of nine degradation states, including the different sizes of inner and outer ring local faults as well as normal conditions, to comparatively analyze the proposed method’s rapid calibration capability and feature extraction quality. Furthermore, t-SNE visualization is utilized to analyze the network response to bearing degradation features. Finally, the degradation state identification performance across different network architectures is compared in pattern recognition experiments. The results show that the proposed improved feature extraction method significantly reduces the iterative calibration computational burden while effectively extracting local fault degradation information and overcoming complex working condition influence. The established 1D-DRCNN model integrates the advantages of dilated convolution and residual connections and can deeply mine sensitive features and accurately identify different bearing degradation states. The overall recognition accuracy can reach 97.33%. Full article

Recently, terahertz (THz) radar has been widely researched for its high-resolution in space target imaging. Due to the high rendezvous speed and the short wavelength of THz radar, the traditional stop-and-go model, along with its supporting algorithms, is not applicable. Therefore, a method that jointly compensates the intra- and inter- pulse errors of space targets’ echo is proposed. The algorithm includes the following steps: firstly, a coarse estimation of targets’ translational velocity at part of pulses is conducted through Fractional Fourier transform (FrFT). Then, the improved least square fitting (ILSF) is employed to parameterize the velocity–time dependency of the target. Furthermore, the concept of synthetic waveform entropy (SWE) of a one-dimensional range profile is put forward as the accuracy metric of envelope alignment. Finally, with SWE serving as the fitness function, the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) algorithm is used to search for optimal estimated translation parameters. After several iterations, a fine-grained estimation of target motion parameters is achieved, while simultaneously accomplishing precise joint compensation for intra-pulse and inter-pulse errors. The validity of the proposed method is verified by numerical simulation, electromagnetic calculation data, and field-measured data. Full article

The growing demand for high-speed and high-capacity wireless communication has intensified the need for compact, wideband, and efficient MIMO antenna systems, particularly for 5G mid-band and UWB applications. This article presents a miniaturized dual and quad port MIMO antenna design optimized for 5G mid-band (n77/n78/n79/n96/n102) and Ultra-Wideband (UWB) applications without employing any decoupling structures between the radiating elements. The 2-port configuration features two closely spaced symmetric monopole elements (spacing < λ_max/2), promoting efficient use of space without degrading performance. An FR4 substrate (εr = 4.4) is used for fabrication with a compact size of 30 × 41 × 1.6 mm³. This layout is extended orthogonally and symmetrically to form a compact quad-port variant with dimensions of 60 × 41 × 1.6 mm³. Both designs offer a broad operational bandwidth from 2.6 GHz to 10.8 GHz (8.2 GHz), retaining return loss (S_XX) below −10 dB and strong isolation (S_XY < −20 dB at high frequencies, <−15 dB at low frequencies). The proposed MIMO antennas demonstrate strong performance and excellent diversity characteristics. The two-port antenna achieves an average envelope correlation coefficient (ECC) of 0.00204, diversity gain (DG) of 9.98 dB, and a mean effective gain difference (MEG_ij) of 0.3 dB, with a total active reflection coefficient (TARC) below −10 dB and signal delay variation under 0.25 ns, ensuring minimal pulse distortion. Similarly, the four-port design reports an average ECC of 0.01432, DG of 9.65 dB, MEG_ij difference below 0.3 dB, and TARC below −10 dB, confirming robust diversity and MIMO performance across both configurations. Full article

Envelope modeling is an efficient way to obtain the large-signal amplitude and phase dynamics of fast-varying sinusoidal signals required for, e.g., resonant frequency tracking or energy transfer rate regulation in power converters. In addition, the method eliminates fast-varying parameters from the model so that the simulation time and memory requirements are reduced. This paper reveals the envelope-modeling process of a capacitor-powered resonant inverter feeding a time-varying series RLC load, often employed in pulsed-power applications. Such an arrangement is nontrivial since the system does not reach a steady state within a single pulse duration. Furthermore, model order reduction is carried out without performing linearization due to large variations in the expected operation point. As a result, a reduced-order nonlinear envelope model is derived and validated by simulations. Both the proposed modeling method and the derived model aim to simplify the challenging task of feedback controller design. Full article

In modern electronic reconnaissance systems, digital receivers play an important role in receiving a variety of complex signals, in which signal-to-time extraction is a key issue, but traditional methods often rely on the signal envelope, which is easily affected by the value of the threshold setting and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the signal. In fact, the pulse envelope front has a large derivative, which leads the envelope differentiation to show sharp peaks. In this paper, a time of arrival (TOA) extraction method based on first-order envelope differentiation of the signal is proposed. The method realizes the normalized extraction of different modulated signals by estimating the location where the sharp peaks appear, and it is not easily affected by the threshold setting. The processing flow of the digital receiver is as follows: the signal is first processed by digital channelization, and, after channelization, it passes through the signal detection module; then, after envelope differentiation, the useful signal is filtered out according to the result, and, finally, the pulse descriptor word consisting of the pulse arrival time, pulse width, signal frequency, and signal amplitude is formed, which is convenient for the subsequent processing. The experimental results verify the effectiveness and reliability of the signal arrival time extraction method. Full article

Rolling bearing vibration signals contain rich fault feature information. However, their periodic pulse feature is often interfered with by strong background noise, which reduces the feature recognition ability of fault diagnosis strategies. Therefore, accurately extracting periodic pulse information under strong background noise is a key challenge in rolling bearing fault diagnosis. To address this, a fault feature extraction strategy combining wavelet overlapping group shrinkage (WOGS) and extended enveloped hierarchical multiscale-weighted permutation entropy (EEHMWPE) is proposed. First, wavelet decomposition is applied to decompose original vibration signals into wavelet coefficients, with WOGS adaptively adjusting the shrinkage level based on energy relationships to effectively suppress noise. Next, for the denoised signal, EEHMWPE extracts periodic pulse features by integrating envelope analysis, weighting, and extended statistical features. Envelope processing enhances fault-induced impulses, the weighting scheme highlights dominant fault patterns, and extended statistical features further improve the class separability between normal and fault signals. Finally, the strategy was validated on the bearing test bench, CWRU, and HUST datasets, all of which achieved over 99% accuracy with superior feature recognition. Full article

Arterial hypertension is one of the most important public health problems, especially in developed countries. The quality and calibration of blood pressure (BP) equipment used for non-invasive blood pressure (NIBP) measurement are essential to obtain accurate data that support correct medical diagnostics. This paper includes the hardware and software description of a flexible, low-cost and algorithm-independent calibrator prototype that can be used for the static and dynamic calibration of automated blood pressure measuring devices (ABPMDs). In the context of this paper, the meaning of calibrator flexibility is mainly related to its ability to adapt or change easily in response to different situations in terms of the calibration of ABPMDs that can use a variety of calibration settings without the need to use specific oscillometric curves from different ABPMD manufacturers. The hardware part of the calibrator includes mainly an electro-pneumatic regulator, used to generate dynamic pressure signals with arbitrary waveforms, amplitudes and frequencies, a pressure sensor, remotely connected through a pneumatic tube to the blood pressure (BP) cuff, a blood pressure release valve and analog conditioning circuits, plus the A/D converter. The software part of the calibrator, mainly developed in LabVIEW 20, enables the simulation of oscillometric pressure pulses with different envelope profiles and the implementation of the main algorithms that are typically used to evaluate systolic, diastolic and mean arterial pressure values. Simulation and experimental results that were obtained validate the theoretical expectations and show a very acceptable level of accuracy and performance of the presented NIBP calibrator prototype. The prototype calibration results were also validated using a certified NIBP calibrator that is frequently used in clinical environments. Full article

In any rock engineering project, the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) is one of the most relevant parameters to be determined as it is used for a variety of purposes. Traditionally, the UCS of a rock sample is obtained by carrying out a uniaxial test on a rock core. The UCS can also be estimated indirectly by correlating it with different parameters such as the pulse velocity (V_p), Schmidt hammer rebound number (R_n), effective porosity (n_e), total porosity (n_t), dry density (γ_d), point load index (I_s50), shear wave velocity (V_s), Brazilian tensile strength (BTS), slake durability index (SDI), or by using an artificial neural network (ANN). This paper presents a comparative study for an additional approach to determine the UCS, namely by converting triaxial test results to the UCS. This research has been conducted to encourage further utilisation of laboratory test results obtained from triaxial tests. Triaxial tests are normally performed to determine the intact rock strength envelope. By further utilisation of triaxial test data to estimate the UCS, the database of the UCS can be enriched for rock engineering projects. The method can also be used in cases of limited samples or when samples are too challenged for carrying out a USC test. The research showed that the UCS derived by this method is more direct and more accurate than many empirical methods. Furthermore, the test procedure described herein (carrying out the UCS and triaxial tests on the same sample) can be used to evaluate the accuracy of the calculated UCS. It is important to bear in mind that the scope of this study is not to develop a new method or replace the traditional uniaxial compression test with the method presented in this paper. The purpose and intention is to document that the test results obtained from triaxial testing can be utilised to also provide values of UCS from the same samples. Full article

A diode-pumped Q-switched mode-locked Nd:YVO₄ laser via a positive cascaded second-order Kerr lens using periodically poled MgO:SLT at 1064 nm was reported. Q-switched mode-locking performances, including pulse duration, output power, and bandwidth, were studied under different pump conditions. Under 28 W quasi-CW (QCW) diode pump peak power, the measured mode-locked pulse train, Q-switched repetition rate, and Q-switched pulse duration were 18 ps, 300 kHz, and 50 ns, respectively. The highest peak power of a single pulse near the maximum of the Q-switched envelope was greater than 150 kW. Full article