4,006 research outputs found
CT attenuation analysis of carotid intraplaque hemorrhage
Background and Purpose: Intraplaque hemorrhage is considered a leading parameter of carotid plaque vulnerability. Our purpose was to assess the CT characteristics of intraplaque hemorrhage with histopathologic correlation to identify features that allow for confirming or ruling out the intraplaque hemorrhage. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective study included 91 patients (67 men; median age, 657 years; age range, 41-83 years) who underwent CT angiography and carotid endarterectomy from March 2010 to May 2013. Histopathologic analysis was performed for the tissue characterization and identification of intraplaque hemorrhage. Two observers assessed the plaque's attenuation values by using an ROI (≤1 and ≥2 mm2). Receiver operating characteristic curve, Mann-Whitney, and Wilcoxon analyses were performed. RESULTS: A total of 169 slices were assessed (59 intraplaque hemorrhage, 63 lipid-rich necrotic core, and 47 fibrous); the average values of the intraplaque hemorrhage, lipid-rich necrotic core, and fibrous tissue were 17.475 Hounsfield units (HU) and 18.407 HU, 39.476 HU and 48.048 HU, and 91.66 HU and 93.128 HU, respectively, before and after the administration of contrast medium. The Mann-Whitney test showed a statistically significant difference of HU values both in basal and after the administration of contrast material phase. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed a statistical association between intraplaque hemorrhage and low HU values, and a threshold of 25 HU demonstrated the presence of intraplaque hemorrhage with a sensitivity and specificity of 93.22% and 92.73%, respectively. The Wilcoxon test showed that the attenuation of the plaque before and after administration of contrast material is different (intraplaque hemorrhage, lipid-rich necrotic core, and fibrous tissue had P values of .006, .0001, and .018, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: The results of this preliminary study suggest that CT can be used to identify the presence of intraplaque hemorrhage according to the attenuation. A threshold of 25 HU in the volume acquired after the administration of contrast medium is associated with an optimal sensitivity and specificity. Special care should be given to the correct identification of the ROI
State of the art: iterative CT reconstruction techniques
Owing to recent advances in computing power, iterative reconstruction (IR) algorithms have become a clinically viable option in computed tomographic (CT) imaging. Substantial evidence is accumulating about the advantages of IR algorithms over established analytical methods, such as filtered back projection. IR improves image quality through cyclic image processing. Although all available solutions share the common mechanism of artifact reduction and/or potential for radiation dose savings, chiefly due to image noise suppression, the magnitude of these effects depends on the specific IR algorithm. In the first section of this contribution, the technical bases of IR are briefly reviewed and the currently available algorithms released by the major CT manufacturers are described. In the second part, the current status of their clinical implementation is surveyed. Regardless of the applied IR algorithm, the available evidence attests to the substantial potential of IR algorithms for overcoming traditional limitations in CT imaging
Constraints on the Formation of the Globular Cluster IC 4499 from Multi-Wavelength Photometry
We present new multiband photometry for the Galactic globular cluster IC 4499
extending well past the main sequence turn-off in the U, B, V, R, I, and DDO51
bands. This photometry is used to determine that IC4499 has an age of 12 pm 1
Gyr and a cluster reddening of E(B-V) = 0.22 pm 0.02. Hence, IC 4499 is coeval
with the majority of Galactic GCs, in contrast to suggestions of a younger age.
The density profile of the cluster is observed to not flatten out to at least
r~800 arcsec, implying that either the tidal radius of this cluster is larger
than previously estimated, or that IC 4499 is surrounded by a halo. Unlike the
situation in some other, more massive, globular clusters, no anomalous color
spreads in the UV are detected among the red giant branch stars. The small
uncertainties in our photometry should allow the detection of such signatures
apparently associated with variations of light elements within the cluster,
suggesting that IC 4499 consists of a single stellar population.Comment: accepted to MNRA
Experimental Procedure for the Metrological Characterization of Time-of-Flight Cameras for Human Body 3D Measurements
Time-of-flight cameras are widely adopted in a variety of indoor applications ranging from industrial object measurement to human activity recognition. However, the available products may differ in terms of the quality of the acquired point cloud, and the datasheet provided by the constructors may not be enough to guide researchers in the choice of the perfect device for their application. Hence, this work details the experimental procedure to assess time-of-flight cameras' error sources that should be considered when designing an application involving time-of-flight technology, such as the bias correction and the temperature influence on the point cloud stability. This is the first step towards a standardization of the metrological characterization procedure that could ensure the robustness and comparability of the results among tests and different devices. The procedure was conducted on Kinect Azure, Basler Blaze 101, and Basler ToF 640 cameras. Moreover, we compared the devices in the task of 3D reconstruction following a procedure involving the measure of both an object and a human upper-body-shaped mannequin. The experiment highlighted that, despite the results of the previously conducted metrological characterization, some devices showed evident difficulties in reconstructing the target objects. Thus, we proved that performing a rigorous evaluation procedure similar to the one proposed in this paper is always necessary when choosing the right device
Monte Carlo-based 3D surface point cloud volume estimation by exploding local cubes faces
This article proposes a state-of-the-art algorithm for estimating the 3D volume enclosed in a surface point cloud via a modified extension of the Monte Carlo integration approach. The algorithm consists of a pre-processing of the surface point cloud, a sequential generation of points managed by an affiliation criterion, and the final computation of the volume. The pre-processing phase allows a spatial reorientation of the original point cloud, the evaluation of the homogeneity of its points distribution, and its enclosure inside a rectangular parallelepiped of known volume. The affiliation criterion using the explosion of cube faces is the core of the algorithm, handles the sequential generation of points, and proposes the effective extension of the traditional Monte Carlo method by introducing its applicability to the discrete domains. Finally, the final computation estimates the volume as a function of the total amount of generated points, the portion enclosed within the surface point cloud, and the parallelepiped volume. The developed method proves to be accurate with surface point clouds of both convex and concave solids reporting an average percentage error of less than 7 %. It also shows considerable versatility in handling clouds with sparse, homogeneous, and sometimes even missing points distributions. A performance analysis is presented by testing the algorithm on both surface point clouds obtained from meshes of virtual objects as well as from real objects reconstructed using reverse engineering techniques
New transcriptional-based insights into the pathogenesis of desmoplastic small round cell tumors (DSRCTs).
To gain new insights into desmoplastic small round cell tumors (DSRCTs) by means of gene expression profiling (GEP). Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded surgical specimens obtained from seven pretreated DSRCT patients were interrogated using GEP complemented by immunohistochemistry, a cancer stem cell array, and miRNA in situ hybridisation, including the combined chimera modules miRNA-200/ZEB1 and miRNA-34/SLUG. The chimera modules divided the cases into three classes that respectively recapitulated the traits of mesenchymal epithelial reverse transition (MErT), epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT), and hybrid/partial EMT. This indicates a close correlation between the reprogramming governed by EMT regulators and DSRCT biology, which was further confirmed by miRNA-21 and is consistent with the broad morphological spectrum of DSRCTs. Starting from the miRNA-200/ZEB1 axis, we also found that DSRCTs carry a signature of immunological ignorance that is not responsive to PD--L1 blockade. Evidence that the up-regulation of miRNA-200 and E-cadherin, and quite a high level of miRNA-21 expression segregate with the MErT supports the idea that, in addition to the hybrid/partial state, MErT is also enriched in stemness: the androgen-positive cases, whose stemness traits were confirmed by stem cell arrays, all fell into these two classes. Our findings also confirmed that tumoral cell PDGFRA expression correlates with desmoplasia, and demonstrated the co-expression of PDGFRA and ISLR/Meflin, another marker of pluripotency. Despite the limited number of cases, these findings provide unexpectedly relevant information concerning the pathogenesis of DSRCTs, and prove the validity of miRNA-based chimera circuit modelling in the clinico-pathological setting
The ACS LCID project IV: detection of the RGB bump in isolated galaxies of the Local Group
We report the detection and analysis of the red giant branch luminosity
function bump in a sample of isolated dwarf galaxies in the Local Group. We
have designed a new analysis approach comparing the observed color-magnitude
diagrams with theoretical best-fit color-magnitude diagrams derived from
precise estimates of the star formation histories of each galaxy. This analysis
is based on studying the difference between the V-magnitude of the RGB bump and
the horizontal branch at the level of the RR Lyrae instability strip
(Delta_vhbb) and we discuss here a technique for reliably measuring this
quantity in complex stellar systems. By using this approach, we find that the
difference between the observed and predicted values of Delta_vhbb is +0.13 +/-
0.14 mag. This is smaller, by about a factor of two, than the well-known
discrepancy between theory and observation at low metallicity commonly derived
for Galactic globular clusters. This result is confirmed by a comparison
between the adopted theoretical framework and empirical estimates of the
Delta_vhbb parameter for both a large database of Galactic globular clusters
and for four other dSph galaxies for which this estimate is available in the
literature. We also investigate the strength of the red giant branch bump
feature (R_bump), and find very good agreement between the observed and
theoretically predicted R_bump values. This agreement supports the reliability
of the evolutionary lifetimes predicted by theoretical models of the evolution
of low-mass stars.Comment: Accepted for publication on Ap
On the absolute age of the Globular Cluster M92
We present precise and deep optical photometry of the globular M92. Data were
collected in three different photometric systems: Sloan Digital Sky Survey
(g',r',i',z'; MegaCam@CFHT), Johnson-Kron-Cousins (B, V, I; various
ground-based telescopes) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Vegamag (F475W,
F555W, F814W; Hubble Space Telescope). Special attention was given to the
photometric calibration, and the precision of the ground-based data is
generally better than 0.01 mag. We computed a new set of {\alpha}-enhanced
evolutionary models accounting for the gravitational settling of heavy elements
at fixed chemical composition ([{\alpha}/Fe]=+0.3, [Fe/H]=-2.32 dex, Y=0.248).
The isochrones -- assuming the same true distance modulus ({\mu}=14.74 mag),
the same reddening (E(B-V)=0.025+-0.010 mag), and the same reddening law --
account for the stellar distribution along the main sequence and the red giant
branch in different Color-Magnitude Diagrams (i',g'-i' ; i',g'-r' ; i',g'-z' ;
I,B-I ; F814W,F475W-F814W). The same outcome applies to the comparison between
the predicted Zero-Age-Horizontal-Branch (ZAHB) and the HB stars. We also found
a cluster age of 11 +/- 1.5 Gyr, in good agreement with previous estimates. The
error budget accounts for uncertainties in the input physics and the
photometry. To test the possible occurrence of CNO-enhanced stars, we also
computed two sets of {\alpha}- and CNO-enhanced (by a factor of three) models
both at fixed total metallicity ([M/H]=-2.10 dex) and at fixed iron abundance.
We found that the isochrones based on the former set give the same cluster age
(11 +/- 1.5 Gyr) as the canonical {\alpha}-enhanced isochrones. The isochrones
based on the latter set also give a similar cluster age (10 +/- 1.5 Gyr). These
indings support previous results concerning the weak sensitivity of cluster
isochrones to CNO-enhanced chemical mixtures.Comment: This paper makes use of data obtained from the Isaac Newton Group
Archive which is maintained as part of the CASU Astronomical Data Centre at
the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. This research used the facilities of
the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre operated by the National Research Council
of Canada with the support of the Canadian Space Agenc
Valoración global del corazón en el paciente con transplante cardiaco mediante tomografía computarizada de doble fuente
In routine clinical practice surveillance of heart
transplant recipients is usually performed using echocardiography
and conventional coronary angiography. The
latter permits diagnosis and follow-up of coronary allograft
vasculopathy. However, this procedure is invasive
and is not free of complications. Conventional multislice
computed tomography (MSCT) has been shown to be a
useful non-invasive tool for ruling out coronary artery
disease and evaluating cardiac function. However, due
to its limited temporal resolution betablocker administration
is required, and its usefulness in certain patient
populations with restricted response to this medication,
such as heart transplant recipients, may therefore be
limited. Dual-source CT (DSCT) allows evaluation of the
coronary arteries in all individuals independent of their
heart rate. In the case presented here, we demonstrate
that DSCT may be useful for evaluating cardiac function
and ruling out coronary allograft vasculopathy in heart
transplant recipients
Solar neutrino detection in a large volume double-phase liquid argon experiment
Precision measurements of solar neutrinos emitted by specific nuclear
reaction chains in the Sun are of great interest for developing an improved
understanding of star formation and evolution. Given the expected neutrino
fluxes and known detection reactions, such measurements require detectors
capable of collecting neutrino-electron scattering data in exposures on the
order of 1 ktonne yr, with good energy resolution and extremely low background.
Two-phase liquid argon time projection chambers (LAr TPCs) are under
development for direct Dark Matter WIMP searches, which possess very large
sensitive mass, high scintillation light yield, good energy resolution, and
good spatial resolution in all three cartesian directions. While enabling Dark
Matter searches with sensitivity extending to the "neutrino floor" (given by
the rate of nuclear recoil events from solar neutrino coherent scattering),
such detectors could also enable precision measurements of solar neutrino
fluxes using the neutrino-electron elastic scattering events. Modeling results
are presented for the cosmogenic and radiogenic backgrounds affecting solar
neutrino detection in a 300 tonne (100 tonne fiducial) LAr TPC operating at
LNGS depth (3,800 meters of water equivalent). The results show that such a
detector could measure the CNO neutrino rate with ~15% precision, and
significantly improve the precision of the 7Be and pep neutrino rates compared
to the currently available results from the Borexino organic liquid
scintillator detector.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, 6 table
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