SRI International

About: SRI International is a nonprofit organization based out in Menlo Park, California, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Ionosphere & Laser. The organization has 7222 authors who have published 13102 publications receiving 660724 citations. The organization is also known as: Stanford Research Institute & SRI.

Direct-Coupled-Resonator Filters

Abstract: A new analysis is given of direct-coupled-resonator filters that results in excellent response at much greater bandwidths than has previously been possible. The method relies on the fact that the coupling elements can be made into perfect impedance inverters, or "quarter-wave" transformers, by the addition of negative elements in lumped-constant circuits, or of short negative lengths of line in waveguide and transmission-line circuits. Specific design formulas are given for filters constructed of lumped-constant elements, waveguide, and strip or other TEM transmission line, and for pass band response functions of the maximally flat and Tchebycheff types. The formulas include a simple frequency transformation that corrects for the frequency sensitivity of the coupling reactances, and thereby greatly improves the design accuracy for both lumpedconstant and microwave types when the bandwidth is more than a few per cent. Exact response curves computed from typical filter designs are compared to the prototype-function response curves, and it is shown that the design formulas give good results with bandwidths of at least 20 per cent in guide wavelength in the case of waveguide filters, or 20 per cent in frequency for TEM-mode transmission-line and lumped-constant filters.

Salmonella mutagenicity tests: V. Results from the testing of 311 chemicals.

Abstract: 311 chemicals were tested under code, for mutagenicity, in Salmonella typhimurium; 35 of the chemicals were tested more than once in the same or different laboratories. The tests were conducted using a preincubation protocol in the absence of exogenous metabolic activation, and in the presence of liver S-9 from Aroclor-induced male Sprague-Dawley rats and Syrian hamsters. Some of the volatile chemicals were also tested in desiccators. A total of 120 chemicals were mutagenic or weakly mutagenic, 3 were judged questionable, and 172 were non-mutagenic. The remaining 16 chemicals produced different responses in the two or three laboratories in which they were tested. The results and data from these tests are presented.

On-the-fly garbage collection: an exercise in cooperation

Abstract: As an example of cooperation between sequential processes with very little mutual interference despite frequent manipulations of a large shared data space, a technique is developed which allows nearly all of the activity needed for garbage detection and collection to be performed by an additional processor operating concurrently with the processor devoted to the computation proper. Exclusion and synchronization constraints have been kept as weak as could be achieved; the severe complexities engendered by doing so are illustrated.

Neurocircuitry in alcoholism: a substrate of disruption and repair

Abstract: The chronic, excessive consumption of alcohol results in significant modification of selective neural systems of the brain structure, physiology, and function. Quantitative MR structural imaging, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and functional MRI (fMRI), together with neuropsychological challenges, have enabled rigorous in vivo characterization of the results of alcoholism on the brain in the human condition. Neuroimaging has also enabled longitudinal study for the examination of alcoholism’s dynamic course through periods of drinking and sobriety. Controlled studies have revealed compelling evidence for alcohol-related brain structural and functional modification—some longstanding, some transient, and some compensatory. Patterns of circuitry disruption identified through structural and functional MRI studies suggest a central role for degradation of frontocerebellar neuronal nodes and connecting circuitry affecting widespread brain regions and contributing to alcoholism’s salient, enduring, and debilitating cognitive and motor deficits—executive dysfunction, visuospatial impairment, and ataxia.

ChauffeurNet: Learning to Drive by Imitating the Best and Synthesizing the Worst

Abstract: Our goal is to train a policy for autonomous driving via imitation learning that is robust enough to drive a real vehicle. We find that standard behavior cloning is insufficient for handling complex driving scenarios, even when we leverage a perception system for preprocessing the input and a controller for executing the output on the car: 30 million examples are still not enough. We propose exposing the learner to synthesized data in the form of perturbations to the expert's driving, which creates interesting situations such as collisions and/or going off the road. Rather than purely imitating all data, we augment the imitation loss with additional losses that penalize undesirable events and encourage progress -- the perturbations then provide an important signal for these losses and lead to robustness of the learned model. We show that the ChauffeurNet model can handle complex situations in simulation, and present ablation experiments that emphasize the importance of each of our proposed changes and show that the model is responding to the appropriate causal factors. Finally, we demonstrate the model driving a car in the real world.