The scattering (Mueller) matrices for hexagonal ice plates of various aspect ratios are calculated by the facet tracing method developed earlier. For horizontally oriented plates, the Mueller matrices depending on the incident angle have been obtained. The peculiarities inherent to the scattered light along the parhelic circle have been studied. A generalization of the data for small flatter of these plates relative to the horizontal plane is discussed.
Airborne atmospheric measurement of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) column density was performed using the solar spectroscopic method. The measurement was carried out at different altitudes, from 460 to 700 meters above sea level during a flight in Hong Kong (22.2°N, 114.1°E), the People's Republic of China (PRC). In the territory, the boundary layer height in a sunny day is about 1000 meters. Below the boundary layer, most of the NO2 exists. The airborne solar spectroscopic measurement gives the NO2 vertical profile below the boundary layer. In particular, the solar spectroscopic measurement requires a solar tracking system to collect the direct sunlight. However, in an acceptable small percentage of error in tracking the sun position, it is possible to collect the direct sunlight manually. In this paper, to reduce the complexity of the experimental setup, the sunlight is collected by a portable miniature CCD spectrometer. In the retrieval of NO2 column density, the airborne solar spectrum is normalized to a reference solar spectrum, which is taken at a high altitude (11,230 meters) during another flight in Xinjiang (42.208°N, 83.949°E) province, PRC. The column density retrieval is achieved from the normalized solar spectrum using the differential optical absorption spectroscopy. A ground-based off-axis control experiment is also performed to estimate the error in the slant column density from the airborne measurement.
A new horizontal eye-safe lidar system has been developed for
long-term monitoring of aerosol distribution over an urban area in Macao. The lidar system using a 532 nm micro-pulse laser is made
eye-safe by expanding the beam diameter to 70 mm. The detector used is a fast photon counting photomultiplier tube with a narrow bandwidth interference filter to cut down the sky background. This system is the first lidar system operated in Macao to study the local aerosol distribution. We will discuss the method of data acquisition and inversion algorithm in this paper. Recent results from such a new lidar system together with some high pollution episodes will be presented. Developments and the possibility of using this lidar for CALIPSO ground validation will also be discussed.
Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) column density was studied by solar spectroscopic method. In the retrieval of NO2 column density the Kitt Peak Solar Flux Atlas provides a standard reference of the extraterrestrial solar spectrum. However in order to eliminate the Fraunhofer features from the solar spectrum the ground-level solar spectrum needs to be re-scaled for wavelength correction and resolution matching to the reference Kitt Peak Solar spectrum. The analysis procedure becomes much simplified if both the reference and the ground-level solar spectra are captured by the same instrument. A portable miniature charge-coupled device (CCD) spectrometer was employed to acquire both the reference and ground-level solar spectra. The reference spectrum was captured in Xinjiang (42.107°N 83.750°E), the People's Republic of China during a flight in a plane. The altitude ofthe reference solar spectrum is 11 meters above the sea level. The ground-level solar spectrum was acquired in the campus of City University of Hong Kong (22.336°N, 114.173°E) using a computer-controlled solar tracker. By analyzing the solar spectra obtained at two different locations and altitudes NO2 total column density can be deduced.
One year of continuous measurements of visibility, temperature and relative humidity at the Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok (CLK) are combined with the concentrations of the respirable suspended particulates (RSP) measured in Tung Chung near the Airport to extract annual and seasonal characteristics of the aerosols. The knowledge of aerosol characteristics obtained is used in the development of inversion methods for aerosol extinction retrieval from Lidar data. In this paper, the details fo aerosol characteristics and retrieved aersosol extinction profiles are presented. This additional data product requires no additional hardware to the existing Lidar, but only additional computational research efforts. The knowledge of spatil aerosol distributions during haze episodes will be valuable to aviation meteorologists at Chek Lap Kok. Long term visibility studies using Lidar of this kind will help our understanding of the air pollution problem in a coastal urban city like Hong Kong.
An eye-safe, mobile micro-pulse Mie lidar system has been established at City University of Hong Kong since November 2002. The system is a co-axial setup with a diode pumped Nd:YAG laser source of 532nm. Since measurements in public areas are required, the system was designed to be eye-safe by operating at a few micro-Joules pulse energy and high repetition rates (1 to 4 kHz) and the beam diameter was expanded to about 3 inches. Since the lower atmosphere is of interest, a co-axial design setup was adopted for improved near range performance. The receiver is a 235mm diameter Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with a variable iris diaphragm for adjustable field-of-view, allowing for optimal near range or far range measurements. A narrow bandwidth filter (0.3nm) is used to reduce the stron solar radiation. The system is housed in a small van for field measurements at various sites around Hong Kong. Data is inverted using Fernald's method to obtain extinction profiles. Aerosol loading and boundary layer height have been examined at several sites for each season of the year 2003. The boundary layer heights obtained from lidar data measured at City University of Hong Kong are compared with radiosonde data measured at the King's Park meteorological station of the Hong Kong Observatory. In addition, seasonal trends of the maximum mixing height (MMH) measured at City University will be discussed.
A sky radiometer has been operated in Hong Kong since the beginning of 2002. The seven wavelengths intensities were taken at intervals throughout the day. Inversions were made to retrieve the aerosol column volume concentrations of different aerosol radii. In this paper we presented some monthly averaged results of aerosol optical properties such as single scattering albedo, and optical refractive index. Examples of consecutive measures of the column aerosol properties are given to illustrate the change of air masses -- maritime, continental and urban -- over Hong Kong. Monitoring aerosol properties using sky radiometer has been found to be effective and efficient.
This paper discusses the design of a ground based bistatic lidar that will allow the retrieval of the particle size from C1 clouds. Results of all orders of scattering and the Stokes vectors calculated from the PBS Monte Carlo simulation code for specific lidar geometry will be given. From the analysis of the polarization intensities, the extraction of cloud particle size parameters from such bistatic lidar seems feasible.
To develop a new and modern satellite retrieval method to study the severe storm process, satellite remote sensing is combined with nonlinear chaos dynamics. In this paper, the choice of time delay for the phase space reconstruction for nonlinear time series analyses is carried out. The method based on the information generation is employed. A new algorithm for calculations of the mutual information for the choice of time delay for phase space reconstruction for any probability distribution is developed. To confirm the validity of the algorithm proposed, the tests using simulated time series for some famous chaotic attractors and other nonlinear processes are performed. Finally application of the algorithm in the time series of GMS-5 11μm IR channel brightness temperature observations of rainstorm occurred in Wuhan area in China on 21-27 July 1998 is discussed. The results show that the new algorithm proposed is a good tool for the best choice of time delay in time series.
Two issues relevant to the best choice of time delay for phase space reconstruction are further studied by using the time series of GMS-5 11μm IR channel brightness temperature observations of rainstorm processes occurred in Wuhan area in China in July and in August of 1998. Periodic components existing in the satellite signals are investigated, first. The results demonstrate that the periodic components have noticeable influence on the choice of the optimum time delay. A new algorithm - the derivative method - is then developed for the extraction of possible periodic components from the time series. The advantages of this method and its importance are discussed.
Atmospheric concentration measurement of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) pollutant was demonstrated by a new type of differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS) using a spectral scanning device of a visible acousto-optic tunable filter. The measurement requires a stable artificial light source such as a xenon lamp, and the light beam is directed into the environment where the concentration of NO2 is to be monitored. The retrieval of NO2 concentration is then achieved by analyzing the residual light using the DOAS signal processing. In this paper, we present results obtained from this new DOAS system during continuous measurement of atmospheric NO2 concentration in the campus of the City University of Hong Kong. Another DOAS system, using a miniature CCD grating spectrometer, was established as a control experiment. The CCD spectrometer acts as a traditional DOAS system for performance evaluation. Instead of using the NO2 absorption cross section for concentration retrieval, differential absorption area provides an alternative quantity for concentration retrieval. The monitoring results from both of the DOAS systems are compared with the pollutant concentrations reported in a nearby pollutant monitoring station, operated by the Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department.
A quantity called the mutual information dimension is proposed based on the concepts of the information theory and fractal theory. The application of the mutual information dimension in the time series of GMS-5 11μm IR channel brightness temperature observations of the severe rainstorm process occurred in Wuhan area in China on 21-27 July 1998 is carried out. Its application in the simulated time series of the attractor of Henon map is also performed. Furthermore, the key characteristics of the mutual information dimension are discussed. The study indicates that the new quantity is suitable for applications in nonlinear time series analysis.
KEYWORDS: Clouds, LIDAR, Signal attenuation, Aerosols, Signal to noise ratio, Transmittance, Mass attenuation coefficient, Meteorology, Data integration, Roads
In studies of the internal boundary layer, it is important to make the lidar both eye-safe and capable of measuring near range extinction to high accuracy. The inversion of data is much more challenging due to the weaker signal from an eye-safe lidar. The method of inversion employed in this paper is the Fernald's method. Because the digitization system is capable of obtaining returns in the time interval of a few seconds, formal statistical analysis and error propagation are introduced in the inversion. Different weighting schemes are used during the averaging of the inversion and the results from scattered cloud data as well as pure aerosol profiles will be discussed. Results from several sites and under different meteorological conditions will be reported.
An eye-safe, mobile micro-pulse Mie Lidar system has recently been integrated. The system is capable of taking slant angle 360 degree horizontal scans of aerosol distributions, as well as vertical boundary-layer profiles in a zenith pointing position. The Lidar is co-axial, and the transmitter is a high repetition rate, diode-pumped micro-joule pulse energy, Nd:YAG 532 nm laser. The receiver is a compact Schmidt-Cassegrain f/6.3 telescope. The whole system can be fitted into a small van for field observations. The main objective in building this Lidar in Hong Kong is for monitoring spatially varying aerosols and vertical distributions within the lower few km of the troposphere. In this paper, the near range corrections from geometric ray tracing are presented together with field data. Representative spatial scans over urban Hong Kong are also given. The new system will be deployed in the very near future to study the correlation between the spatial distribution of aerosols and local traffic conditions. The Lidar design may represent a typical commercial product of the current technology.
For good visibility lidar return signals may be analyzed using the classical lidar equation which describes the single scattering contribution only. Here the range, from which a contribution to the return signal comes, is proportional to the time difference between emission and reception. For dense cloud sensing with a ground-based lidar or for a spaceborne lidar system, the return signal contains also essential contributions from higher orders of multiple scattering. In this case the physical range or the distance along the emitted beam, from which the contribution comes, is no longer proportional to the time elapsed since emission. The elapsed time is only proportional to the photon path-length. Thus making the analysis of the return signal much more difficult. Which part of the return signal comes from what range and, hence, from which type of scatterers? The diffusion process of multiple scattering of light in the atmosphere is non-isotropic and extremely complicated. The key to the solution of the problem is the simulation of multiple scattering lidar returns where the separate orders of scattering are tracked. Such information about the diffusion of the laser beam is needed to give a better understanding of the extend of contribution from the type of scatterers to the return signal. In this paper, we offer such a non-trivial analysis of the diffusion of the laser beam in the cloud modeled by two kinds of atmospheric particles, i.e., aerosols and ice crystals, by using a multi-dimensional contribution distribution for different orders of scattering. This is done by conditioning the probability of return e.g. by the time elapsed, the order of scattering, the distance from the axis of the direction of emission, and the distance of the projection of the point of contribution on this axis to the emitter. This gives a fairly complete information about the diffusion process as it is seen from the receiver.
A mobile volume scanning Mie Lidar has been integrated to take slant angle scan of aerosol distribution over 120 degree within 10 minutes. The Lidar system is a bi-axial design with operating wavelength of 532nm. The receiver is a compact Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. Since the system is designed to be compact and lightweight, it could be readily fitted into a small van for field observations. This system has been deployed to study the correlation between the spatial distribution of aerosols over the urban area in Hong Kong and the conditions of local traffic congestion. The scans covered approximately a range from 1 to 4 km. From the data obtained, spatial variations were clearly observed, and the location of enhanced aerosol density correlated with areas of high traffic congestion very well. From the data, a vertical dispersion model can be verified. With the time series analysis of the distributions, one would be able to compute the time scale of the dispersion. With routine observations, the cause of aerosol variations can be better understood in the future. Thus it would lead to good suggestions in improvement of the air pollution problem in an urban city with dense population. Other potential studies that can be carried from this Lidar include the aerosol variations over a sea-land system and the internal boundary height over a complex terrain.
A high resolution computer-controlled CCD image capturing system is developed by using a 12 bits 1024 by 1024 pixels CCD camera and motorized RGB filters to grasp an image with color depth up to 36 bits. The filters distinguish the major components of color and collect them separately while the CCD camera maintains the spatial resolution and detector filling factor. The color separation can be done optically rather than electronically. The operation is simply by placing the capturing objects like color photos, slides and even x-ray transparencies under the camera system, the necessary parameters such as integration time, mixing level and light intensity are automatically adjusted by an on-line expert system. This greatly reduces the restrictions of the capturing species. This unique approach can save considerable time for adjusting the quality of image, give much more flexibility of manipulating captured object even if it is a 3D object with minimal setup fixers. In addition, cross sectional dimension of a 3D capturing object can be analyzed by adapting a fiber optic ring light source. It is particularly useful in non-contact metrology of a 3D structure. The digitized information can be stored in an easily transferable format. Users can also perform a special LUT mapping automatically or manually. Applications of the system include medical images archiving, printing quality control, 3D machine vision, and etc.
A computer-adapted fiber-optic temperature sensing system has been developed which aims to study both the theoretical aspect of fiber temperature sensing and the experimental aspect of such system. The system consists of a laser source, a fiber sensing element, an electronic fringes counting device, and an on-line personal computer. The temperature measurement is achieved by the conventional double beam fringe counting method with optical path length changes in the sensing beam due to the fiber expansion. The system can automatically measure the temperature changes in a sensing fiber arm which provides an insight of the heat generation and dissipation of the measured system. Unlike the conventional measuring devices such as thermocouples or solid state temperature sensors, the fiber sensor can easily be wrapped and shaped to fit the surface of the measuring object or even inside a molded plastic parts such as a computer case, which gives much more flexibility and applicability to the analysis of heat generation and dissipation in the operation of these machine parts. The reference beam is being set up on a temperature controlled optical bench to facilitate high sensitivity and high temperature resolution. The measuring beam has a motorized beam selection device for multiple fiber beam measurement. The project has been demonstrated in the laboratory and the system sensitivity and resolution are found to be as high as 0.01 degree Celsius. It is expected the system will find its application in many design studies which require thermal budgeting.
KEYWORDS: Brain, 3D modeling, Tumors, Computed tomography, Image filtering, Neuroimaging, 3D image processing, Magnetic resonance imaging, Systems modeling, Surgery
A specially designed expert system is in development for neurosurgical treatment planning. The knowledge base contains knowledge and experiences on neurosurgical treatment planning from neurosurgeon consultants, who also determine the risks of different regions in human brains. When completed, the system can simulate the decision making process of neurosurgeons to determine the safest probing path for operation. The Computed Tomography (CT) or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan images for each patient are grabbed as the input. The system also allows neurosurgeons to include for any particular patient the additional information, such as how the tumor affects its neighboring functional regions, which is also important for calculating the safest probing path. It can then consider all the relevant information and find the most suitable probing path on the patient's brain. A 3D brain model is constructed for each set of the CT/MRI scan images and is displayed real-time together with the possible probing paths found. The precise risk value of each path is shown as a number between 0 and 1, together with its possible damages in text. Neurosurgeons can view more than one possible path simultaneously, and make the final decision on the selected path for operation.
START is a new automation system invented for nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment. A laser scanner system capable of non-contact digitization of 3D surface is used to digitize the contours of the patient's face, shoulder and special landmark reference features of the patient. These features are stored in the computer in 3D digitized format. The digitized facial features with traced landmark reference features are used for fabrication of a true sized wood-particle laminates mould by a computer numerical controlled milling system. A Cobex mask is formed on this mould by using vacuum forming technique. With an image analysis and computer aided design system, the X-ray film with treatment window marked is traced automatically and converted to match the prescanned 3D information. A computer controlled 6-axis robot can precisely mark out the required areas on the Cobex cast for treatment. Finally, the patient receives radiotherapy treatment with the Cobex case as a positioning registration device. The new system will replace the manual procedure with better patient comfort, higher efficiency and enhanced accuracy.
Accurate identification of cloud type is an important aspect of weather forecasting. One of the primary applications of the remotely sensed cloud cover data is to provide synoptic cloud cover information over extensive data-sparse regions; particularly the oceans and deserts. In southeast Asia, information on cloud cover data is obtained from the infrared and visible channels by Geostationary Meteorological Satellite. These imageries contain data of clouds. By extracting the textural features embedded in the images, information on cloud types can be derived and mapped spatially. An artificial neural network is used as a classifier to identify different cloud types through comprehensive training cycles. The architecture of the network used in the present study is multilayered with feedforward and backpropagation. The study makes use of a classification scheme based on the SYNOP code of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The average cloud classification accuracy obtained in this study is 40%.
In this paper we have used the method of finite element analysis to study some candidate composite materials - carbon fiber reinforced epoxy and glass fiber reinforced epoxy. These composites may have real applications in the design of the optical support structures of very large telescopes where stringent thermomechanical stability are much needed. The lightweight property of these materials allow one to build very stiff members for the optical support to withstand the structural deflections due to wind vibration and gravity. We have run finite element models of these composites using ABAQUS on a VAX VMS computer. Simple beams with rectangular crosssections were computed for the composites with structural steel as a comparison. The static properties of these beams were studied.
A microcomputer-based image processing system is used to digitize and process serial sections of CT/MRI scan and reconstruct three-dimensional images of brain structures and brain lesions. The images grabbed also serve as templates and different vital regions with different risk values are also traced out for 3D reconstruction. A knowledge-based system employing rule-based programming has been built to help identifying brain lesions and to help planning trajectory for operations. The volumes of the lesions are also automatically determined. Such system is very useful for medical skills archival, tumor size monitoring, survival and outcome forecasting, and consistent neurosurgical planning.
KEYWORDS: Image processing, 3D image processing, Image enhancement, Image analysis, Photography, Image compression, 3D image reconstruction, 3D modeling, Image storage, Data archive systems
A microcomputer-based image processing system is integrated to do three-dimensional reconstruction of serial sections of brain CT/MRI scans from photographic films. The brain scans are taken with a stereotactic registration frame mounted on the patient''s head as reference, thus enabling quantitative 3D reconstruction to sub-mm accuracy. The software includes digitization, data compression, data archiving, image processing, pattern recognition, features retrieval and 3D reconstruction. With manual driven interactive 3D graphics, the system enables neurosurgeons and medical physicists to do interactive diagnostics, analysis and treatment planning. The system put together in this way satisfies both low cost and high efficiency requirements in the Far East medical environment.
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