> Dumb TVs sold today have serious image and sound quality tradeoffs, simply because companies don’t make dumb versions of their high-end models. On the image side, you can expect lower resolutions, sizes, and brightness levels and poorer viewing angles. You also won’t find premium panel technologies like OLED. If you want premium image quality or sound, you’re better off using a smart TV offline. Dumb TVs also usually have shorter (one-year) warranties.
Amazing that this can be achieved at such a low cost. The DVD optical pickup is truly a marvel of engineering, incorporating fairly complicated optics into such a small space. The focusing lens additionally has a electromagnetically controlled suspension system for adjusting the focus, so in theory you should be able to achieve z positioning of the microspheres as well. It would be great if the red dvd laser could be filtered out and the microscopic fluctuations of the trapped particle could be imaged with the camera to estimate the trap stiffness.
A similar optical pickup made of optical components from newport or thorlabs would run you a few thousand dollars, whereas these dvd optical pickups can be had for $10-20.
Here is another great paper (and accompanying youtube video) that shows optical trapping, atomic force microscopy, and even imaging with a dvd optical pickup.
what about computational methods? i have always wondered how stacking many short exposures without tracking compares to deconvolution of a single long exposure. it seems that there is software able to do this by taking into account both motion blur and the PSF of the imaging system:
The problem is that the noise can swamp the signal. Another example of this would be doing astrophotography during the day. The sun doesn't block anything, it just makes the sky glow with "noise". Theoretically it has exactly as much signal from space as it does at night, but because the sun adds so much noise it's completely lost.
> "because the sun adds so much noise it's completely lost."
Do you mean that it would be conceptually possible to image planets or even deep-sky objects during the day with incredibly efficient denoising software? (I am a noob in astronomy)
I would be, yes. As early as the 1950’s, several avionics companies made daylight-capable star trackers (for jam-resistant long-distance airplane navigation) using chopper techniques. Those trackers were mostly mechanical, except for electronics to demodulate the star signal from the single pixel sensor.
I suspect diffusion models can shine at denoising single shot deep sky images. Will be attempting when I find bandwidth. I do a lot of deep sky landscape photography (IG: @dheeranet) and I want to do them in one go instead of stacking ground (untracked) and sky (tracked) separately.
this paper came out a few years ago using super resolution fluorescence and dna origami to track unwinding of dna by single helicase enzymes! its not an easy technique but it is doable with the right equipment (the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry was for super resolution microscopy)
One important distinction is to understand that VA ECMO is more often used as mechanical circulatory support in cases of severe heart failure leading to cardiogenic shock. Used alone or in conjunction with other mechanical devices (balloon pumps or impella pumps) it can augment cardiac output to provide sufficient perfusion and oxygenation of your organs and distal extremities.
VV ECMO, on the other hand, is used purely for gas exchange (O2 and CO2) due to respiratory failure. Much of the debate in the critical care community is centered around which circumstances and patients derive the most benefit from initiation of VV ECMO. The best studied use case, is in the setting of acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is defined by very specific criteria (bilateral noncardiogenic pulmonary edema with ratio of arterial oxygenation partial pressure to fraction of inspired oxygen less than 300 mmHg). The EOLIA trial published in NEJM in 2018 looked at early initiation of VV ECMO in patients with severe ARDS [1]. It demonstrated no mortality benefit of ECMO, however many say that the study was not appropriately powered as the assumptions used to design the study were from 2008 when mortality from ARDS was much higher. Re-analysis of the data from the EOLIA trial using bayesian methods suggests that there might actually some benefit to early initiation of ECMO [2]
Hackaday has featured a couple of projects featuring the ps3 optical pickup unit. The author of one of the projects breaks out the 40-pin ribbon cable and is able to drive it with some simple circuitry
Heres a decent open source? stage that i adapted for one of my projects in the past. Resolution is 1 micron laterally. If i remember correctly they address several issues including stepper motor backlash and micro-stepping. Cost can be well below the $1000 they quote depending on the parts you choose, or e.g. if you do only two axis (xy) stage instead of three (xyz)
I built this stage already (XY with a separate stepper-based Z-stage). I agree, the cost is low, but I found endless problems with the motor to micrometer coupling. Specifically, the torque on the shaft changes quickly during rotation and that led to non-equal spaced steps. My guess is that the shafts I'm using are inferior to the ones they use, but honestly I can't tell (it's hard for me to justify spending $100+ for a cable if I don't know if it;'s going to work). Or, they have a different geometry for the cables.
Since then I've also tried another approach, using a GT2 belt, but the belt deflects significantly at the extent of stage range (50mm). My next attempt is going to be to fix the steppers to the stage itself so that they move witth the stage.
Was the phosphorescent dye inhaled? What was the physical process responsible for the phase lag? Would love to read more about your device if you ever published your results!
I really enjoy using Julia too but I have also been disappointed with how the updates have played out. Just a few weeks ago I rolled back my installation from v1.2 to the LTS version because of silly errors in the plotting package not allowing me to plot.
Otherwise it really is a pleasure to use, and I have found that the LTS install has zero compatibility issues thus far.
Glad to hear that the LTS version did not have an issue.
I hope you did file an issue with the Plots package. The reason is that we generally like to make sure that regressions like these are not language level regressions. Sometimes package use undocumented internals - but we generally chase each and every single one of these.
