We experimentally investigate the optical properties of layers of InP, Si, and GaP nanowires, relevant for applications in solar cells. The nanowires are strongly photonic, resulting in a significant coupling mismatch with incident light due to multiple scattering. We identify a design principle for the effective suppression of reflective losses, based on the ratio of the nondiffusive absorptio...

We study in this paper the scaling and statistical properties of the ac conductivity of thin metal-dielectric films in different regions of the loss in metallic components and particularly in the limit of vanishing loss. We model the system by a 2D RL − C network and calculate the effective conductivity by using a real space renormalization group method. It is found that the real conductivity s...

An optical Fourier transform processor converts visibility data at its input to a sky brightness function at its output. Scattered light and spurious terms resulting from the method of encoding the complex visibility function as a real -valued and nonnegative transmittance result in errors in the processor output. In this paper, we discuss the degree to which each of these undesired terms degra...

Investigation of the rotational motion of a fluorescent probe tethered to a protein helps to elucidate the local properties of the solvent and protein near the conjugation site of the probe. In this study, we have developed an instrument for frequency-domain fluorescence (FDF) anisotropy measurements, and studied how the local properties around a protein, actin, can be elucidated from the rotat...

An autoencoder network uses a set of recognition weights to convert an input vector into a code vector. It then uses a set of generative weights to convert the code vector into an approximate reconstruction of the input vector. We derive an objective function for training autoencoders based on the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle. The aim is to minimize the information required to des...

We present a novel non-parametric unsupervised segmentation algorithm based on Region Competition [21]; but implemented within a Level Sets framework [11]. The key novelty of the algorithm is that it can solve N ≥ 2 class segmentation problems using just one embedded surface; this is achieved by controlling the merging and splitting behaviour of the level sets according to a Minimum Description...

The fate of nitrogen (N) in senescing fine roots has broad implications for whole-plant N economies and ecosystem N cycling. Studies to date have generally shown negligible changes in fine root N per unit root mass during senescence. However, unmeasured loss of mobile non-N constituents during senescence could lead to underestimates of fine root N loss. For N fertilized and unfertilized potted ...

The Minimum Description Length (MDL) approach to shape modelling seeks a compact description of a set of shapes in terms of the coordinates of marks on the shapes. It has been shown that the mark positions resulting from this optimisation to a large extent solve the so-called point correspondence problem: How to select points on shapes defined as curves so that the points correspond across a da...

In order to evaluate the effects of different slope lengths (1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 m) and different vegetation coverage ratios (20%, 45%, 60%, and 90%) on the mechanisms of nutrient loss and runoff producing processes, we have conducted 14 simulated rainfall experiments. The results show that N and P loss are decided by the concentration and the runoff volume, but when the amounts of N and P in top...

The principled non-rigid registration of groups of images requires a fully groupwise objective function. We consider the problem as one of finding the optimal dense correspondence between the images in the set, where optimality is defined using the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle, that the transmission of a model of the data, together with the parameters of that model, should be as s...