Presented method for fringe pattern enhancement has been designed for processing and analyzing low quality fringe patterns. It uses a modified fast and adaptive bidimensional empirical mode decomposition (FABEMD) for the extraction of bidimensional intrinsic mode functions (BIMFs) from an interferogram. Fringe pattern is then selectively reconstructed (SR) taking the regions of selected BIMFs w...

An actin fringe structure in the subapex plays an important role in pollen tube tip growth. However, the precise mechanism by which the actin fringe is generated and maintained remains largely unknown. Here, we cloned a 2606-bp full-length cDNA encoding a deduced 77-kD fimbrin-like protein from lily (Lilium longiflorum), named FIMBRIN1 (FIM1). Ll-FIM1 was preferentially expressed in pollen and ...

Transport-related Fringe Benefits: Implications for Commuting and Relocation Fringe benefits of various kinds have become an essential element of modern labour market mechanisms. Firms offer transport-related fringe benefits such as transport subsidies (company cars, travel and parking subsidies) and relocation subsidies to job applicants. The spatial implications of these fringe benefits have ...

Rapid urbanization has caused many environmental problems, such as the heat island effect, intensifying air pollution, pollution from runoff, loss of wildlife habitat, etc. Accurate evaluations of these problems demand an accurate delineation of the spatial extent of the urban fringe. Conceptual and analytical ambiguity of the urban fringe and a general lack of consensus among researchers have ...

In this paper novel approaches based on anisotropic coupled diffusion equations are presented to do filter and binarization for ESPI fringes. An advantageous characteristic associated with the proposed technique is that diffusion takes place mainly along the direction of the edge. Therefore, the proposed anisotropic coupled diffusion filter method can avoid blur of the fringe edge and protect t...

In traditional interference lithography, interference fringes are typically phase locked to a stationary substrate using analog homodyne photodiode signals that are fed back to control a phase-shifting device such as an electro-optic modulator or a piezoelectrically transduced mirror. Commercially available fringe-locking systems based on this approach often achieve stability of the interferenc...

The spatial orientation of the fringe has been demonstrated to be a key point in the reliable phase demodulation from a single n-dimensional fringe pattern regardless of the frequency spectrum of the signal. The recently introduced general n-dimensional quadrature transform (GQT) makes explicit the importance of the fringe orientation in the demodulation process. The GQT is a quadrature operato...

Thermally induced stresses play a very important role in controlling the structural reliability of microchip packages. In order to evaluate the magnitude of the warpage of measured objects caused by such stresses, the shadow moiré technique was suggested, where how the moiré fringes are extracted is the key feature. In this work, an improved filtering algorithm based on a nonlinear diffusion eq...

The paper discusses the institutional reforms for rural electrification (RE) in Thailand and Bangladesh and analyses the impacts of private sector participation in electricity generation and tariff reforms on the poor in Thailand. RE program in Thailand, initiated in 1977, increased electricity access by rural households from 7% in early 70s to 97% by 2000. In Bangladesh the RE program, initiat...

Socioeconomic trends and developments within the U.S. healthcare system have challenged rural hospitals' ability to maintain adequate operating margins and offer needed services. However, some hospitals have fared better in this negative environment than have others. To clarify factors that distinguish the most viable rural Catholic hospitals from the least viable, our study identified a group ...