The ability of cellular membranes to generate electrically-induced mechanical force (EMF) has been demonstrated in many cell types, including cochlear outer hair cells, axons, and some cultured mammalian cells. Models of membrane based EMF generation are based on an interaction between the transmembrane electric field and membrane surface charge. We use a technique that combines optical trapping with voltage clamping to investigate the effects of an electrically charged amphipathic agent on EMF by membrane tethers. Our preliminary results indicate that salicylate, a negatively charged amphipathic agent, which is also known to cause reversible hearing loss and reduce outer hair cell electromotility, reduces EMF in membrane tethers. These measurements provide a basis to better understand the role of membrane charge properties in EMF generation.
A two-step digit-set-restricted modified signed-digit (MSD) adder based on symbolic substitution is presented. In the proposed addition algorithm, carry propagation is avoided by using reference digits to restrict the intermediate MSD carry and sum digits into {,0} and {0,1}, respectively. The algorithm requires only 12 minterms to generate the final results, and no complementarity operations for nonzero outputs are involved, which simplifies the system complexity significantly. An optoelectronic shared content-addressable memory based on an incoherent correlator is used for experimental demonstration.
We have investigated the effect of ionic strength on electrically evoked membrane tether force using optical tweezers. Membrane tethers from cochlear outer hair cells (OHCs) and human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells exhibited mechanical response to applied voltage stimuli over a wide frequency range. The electrically evoked variations in the tether force were probed by an optically-trapped microsphere, the image of which was projected on a quadrant photodiode for dynamic measurement of its displacements. Compared to normal saline (140mM NaCl), low ionic-strength solution (10mM NaCl) blocked the electrically evoked tether force for both OHCs and HEK cells. As the Debye length for membrane bilayer was estimated to increase from approximately 0.75nm to 1.88nm, the internal repulsive pressure of the membrane tethers rose consequently, resulting in the enlargement in the equilibrium tether diameter and the decrease in the tether force.
Information on plasma membrane (PM) and cell wall mechanical properties is important for many biophysical applications, especially for those, which involve cells, undergoing significant mechanical stress (red blood cells, outer hair cells, fibrocytes, etc.). Optical tweezers is frequently used to study PM mechanics, particularly by pulling long PM tethers. One of the limitations on using optical tweezers to study cell wall mechanics is associated with transillumination technique of the trapped object position sensing, which prevents accurate mechanical testing in the proximity to the cell. In this work we use an optical tweezers in conjunction with a position-sensing system, which spectrally separates signals from the trapped fluorescent microsphere and imaging background. We have used this setup to study mechanics of the cell wall and PM separated from the underlying cytoskeleton on human embryonic kidney cells. We measured the force exerted by the cell on the trapped microsphere as a function of the cell wall displacement during the process of tether formation, and as a function of time during the process of tether growth and relaxation. Tethering force - cell wall displacement profiles have shown a behavior, implying that tether formation process starts with elastic deformation of the intact cell wall, followed by the plastic deformations and sliding of the PM over the underlying cytoskeleton, and ends with the local separation of a PM. Tethering force - cell wall displacement profiles have been used to estimate tether formation force, stiffness parameter of the cell wall and the works of tether formation, elastic and plastic deformations of the cell wall, related to the mechanical properties of a composite cell wall and cell wall - plasma membrane association strength. Temporal steady-state and relaxation tethering force profiles have been similar to the ones measured using transillumination position sensing, however average force values have been smaller in our case, due to the methodological differences. Our results demonstrate that measurements of cell wall and PM mechanical properties using optically-trapped fluorescent microspheres presents a versatile technology for studying of the cellular mechanics, especially effective in the proximity of the trapped microsphere to the cell.
An optical tweezers system was used to study the mechanical characteristics of the outer hair cell (OHC) lateral wall by forming plasma membrane tethers. A 2nd order generalized Kelvin model was applied to describe the viscoelastic behavior of OHC membrane tethers. The measured parameters included equilibrium tethering force, (Feq), force relaxation times (τ), stiffness values (κ), and coefficients of friction (μ). An analysis of force relaxation in membrane tethers indicated that the force decay is a biphasic process containing both an elastic and a viscous phase. In general, we observed an overall negative trend in the measured parameters upon application of the cationic amphipath chlorpromazine (CPZ). CPZ was found to cause up to a 40 pN reduction in Feq in OHCs. A statistically significant reduction in relaxation times and coefficients of friction was also observed, suggesting an increase in rate of force decay and a decrease in plasma membrane viscosity.
Outer hair cells contribute an active mechanical feedback to the vibrations of the cochlear structures resulting in the high sensitivity and frequency selectivity of normal hearing. We have designed and implemented a novel experimental setup that combines optical tweezers with patch-clamp apparatus to investigate the electromechanical properties of cellular plasma membranes. A micron-size bead trapped by the optical tweezers is brought in contact with the membrane of a voltage-clamped cell, and subsequently moved away to form a plasma membrane tether. Bead displacement during tether elongation is monitored by a quadrant photodetector to obtain time-resolved measurements of the tethering force. Salient information associated with the mechanical properties of the membrane tether can thus be obtained. Tethers can be pulled from the cell membrane at different holding potentials, and the tether force response can be measured while changing transmembrane potential. Experimental results from outer hair cells and human embryonic kidney cells are presented.
For efficient optoelectronic implementation of parallel algorithms, a novel two-step digit-set-restricted modified signed-digit (MSD) arithmetic based on content-addressable-memory is presented. With the introduction of the reference digits, carry propagation is avoided by restricting digit sets of the intermediate carry and sum into {-1,0} and {0,1}, respectively. In our new algorithm, without using the complement property for the nonzero outputs, only 12 minterms for all the outputs are required. More significantly, since no complement operation is involved, the optical system needs no additional reflecting unit and mask. An incoherent correlator based optoelectronic shared-content-addressable-memory processor is used to perform the arithmetic operations. A proof-of-the-principle experiment is demonstrated.
We have proposed an improved regularized phase-tracking (RPT) technique for unwrapping two-dimensional principal phase maps. Simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is applied to RPT technique for finding the global optimum values. Further, the size of the neighborhood selected for plane approximation at each pixel is adjustable according to local noise quantity. In the area of low noise, the size of neighborhood is small to improve processing speed. On the contrary, a neighborhood with large size is selected to enhance the noise-reduced ability in the high-noisy area. Numerical simulation proves that this technique is highly robust to noise and experimental results show the feasibility of this technique.
We present herewith a phase unwrapping technique by estimation of regions containing 2π phase jumps based on their phase-distribution features. The more the neighbors around a pixel have phase values near π and -π, and the smaller the number difference between the neighbors near π and -π, the more possibly the pixel locates near a phase jump. The pixels with high possibility forms the phase-jump regions, which can then be eliminated by compensating the pixels with a multiply of 2π to minimize the phase difference between them and their neighbors. After removing phase jumps, one can utilize ordinary filtering operations to postprocess the noisy unwrapped phase map. Computer simulation and experimental results from the surface profile measurements of a transparent plate are presented.
In this paper a generalized look-ahead logic algorithm for number conversion from signed-digit to its complement representation is developed. By properly encoding the signed digits, all the operations are performed by binary logic, and unified logical expressions can be obtained for conversion from modified-signed-digit (MSD) to 2's complement, trinary signed-digit (TSD) to 3's complement, and quaternary signed-digit (QSD) to 4's complement. For optical implementation, a parallel logical array module using electron-trapping device is employed, which is suitable for realizing complex logic functions in the form of sum-of-product. The proposed algorithm and architecture are compatible with a general-purpose optoelectronic computing system.
We have found that the optical power of a laser diode does not change with the injected light intensity that is modulated when its injection current is at some specified values. The amplitude of optical power change of the LD varies periodically with the increase of the injection current. It is made clear through the theoretical analysis that these phenomena are caused by gain compression and interband carrier absorption of the LD that depend on the longitudinal mode competition, bandgap-shrinkage effects, thermal conduction, and so on. Our experimental results make it get easy to eliminate optical power change of LDs. We only need to choose a proper value of the injection current.
Fiber connectors are key passive components widely used in today's optical communications. In this paper, a Carre-algorithm-based phase-shifting profilometer is used to measure the endface of a fiber connector. With the aid of the reconstructed three-dimensional topographical information of the surface, we can obtain some of its physical parameters.
A novel optoelectronic quotient-selected modified signed- digit division technique is proposed. The division method generates one quotient digit per iteration involving only one shift operation, one quotient selection operation and one addition/subtraction operation. The quotient digit can be selected by observing three most significant digits of the partial remainder independent of the divisor. Two algorithms based on truth-table look-up and binary logic operations have been derived. For optoelectronic implementation, an efficient shared content-addressable memory based architecture as well as compact logic array processor based architecture with an electron-trapping device is proposed. Performance evaluation of the proposed optoelectronic quotient-selected division shows that it is faster than the previously reported convergence division approach. Finally, proof-of-principle experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
In the laser diode interferometer with a photothermal wavelength modulation which is used for optical fine measurement, intensity fluctuations of light source cause measurement errors through the fluctuations decrease greatly as compared with the injection current modulation of wavelength. In this paper, we investigated the effect of photothermal modulation parameters of wavelength on the intensity fluctuations of light source. Choosing appropriate photothermal-modulation parameters, we measured microdisplacements of object with a high measurement accuracy.
A compact two-step modified-signed-digit arithmetic-logic array processor is proposed. When the reference digits are programmed, both addition and subtraction can be performed by the same binary operations regardless of the sign of the input digits. The optical implementation and experimental demonstration using an electron-trapping device are shown. Each digit is encoded by a single pixel, and no polarization is included. Any combinatorial logic can be easily performed without optoelectronic and electro-optic conversions of the intermediate results. The system is compact, general- purpose, simple to align and has a high signal-to-noise ratio.
In this paper, we presented a scheme for complex-valued modular multiplication based on digital partitioning technique. The module (-2)N-1 is introduced for its simple arithmetic. Both of the operands joining in the complex number multiplication are treated as two N-bit real numbers. Because of its advantage in expressing number, the negabinary number system is adopted. The subtraction in complex number multiplication is converted to addition operation by weighting shifting. Although the direct result takes the looks of a serial of residues, we proposed an algorithm for reconstructing the complex-valued multiplication produce by studying the product decomposing rules. The algorithm can be implemented in parallel manner, we studied the optical implementation based on an incoherent optical correlator and some electronic devices as auxiliary for reconstructing the product. Both the advantage and the disadvantage are analyzed. And the comparison with other optical complex-valued multiplication algorithms is also presented.
The modified signed-digit (MSD) number system offers parallel arithmetic operations because of its redundancy property. For exploiting the high parallelism of the MSD representation, MSD form and 2's complement binary form have to be converted to and from each other. In this paper, an efficient lookahead-mode conversion algorithm is introduced. The operation can be performed in parallel by binary logic and is thus suitable for optical implementation. The optical system utilizing a single electronic trapping device is suggested to realize the required operations. By programming the illumination of data arrays, any complex logic operations of multiple variables can be performed easily. The main hardware can be stacked to construct a compact optoelectronic processor of versatile functions. A proof-of- the-principle experiment is demonstrated.
We present, for the first time to our knowledge, a gray-level image recording method in photorefractive volume memory, in which the image to be recorded is illuminated periodically by a pulse while the reference beam interacts the medium continuously until the steady state is reached. By adjusting the duty cycle of the exposure of the image in recording, high fidelity can be maintained in image reconstruction for pixels of different gray-scale intensities. Furthermore, due to multiple beam coupling the weak input image can be greatly enhanced without the loss of fidelity.
A two-step carry-free negabinary signed-digit (NSD) addition/subtraction algorithm and the fast conversion algorithm from NSD to negabinary in the carry-look-ahead mode have been investigated. All the arithmetic operations can be performed with binary logic. By programming the binary reference bits, addition and subtraction can be realized in parallel with the same binary logic functions. Correspondingly, a compact general-purpose optoelectronic arithmetic-logic array system using electron trapping device is suggested. Various complex logic functions can be performed by programming the illumination of the data arrays without additional temporal latency of the intermediate results. Experimental results will be presented.
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