Hemodynamically balanced congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries with a large ventricular septal defect, and subvalvular pulmonic stenosis: a case report

Background Adults with unoperated congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries are rare but form a distinct group among adults with congenital heart disease. Patients with congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries often have one or more associated cardiac anomalies that dictate the need for, and timing of, surgical intervention in childhood. However, in a proportion of patients, the hemodynamics does not require surgical attention during childhood, and, in some patients, a correct diagnosis is not established until adulthood. Here we report an adult case of unoperated congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries with a large ventricular septal defect and probable pulmonary arterial hypertension. Case presentation Our patient was a 46-year-old Korean man. Transthoracic echocardiography and cardiac catheterization demonstrated hemodynamically balanced ventricles with a non-regurgitant systemic atrioventricular valve, normal pulmonary arterial pressure, and a reasonable difference between the oxygen saturation values of the aorta and pulmonary trunk, even with the presence of a large ventricular septal defect. Further morphological assessments using cardiac computed tomography and three-dimensional modeling/printing of his heart revealed that the mitral valve was straddling over the posteriorly positioned ventricular septal defect, which could explain the functional and anatomical subvalvular pulmonary stenosis and a small amount of shunt flow through the large ventricular septal defect. We interpreted this combination of cardiac defects as able to sustain his stable cardiac function. Thus, we decided to maintain his unoperated status. Conclusion A detailed anatomical understanding based on transthoracic echocardiography, cardiac computed tomography, and three-dimensional printing can justify a decision to not operate in cases of congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries with hemodynamically balanced pulmonary stenosis and a ventricular septal defect, as observed in the present case

Clinical Analysis of Acinic Cell Carcinoma in Parotid Gland

ObjectivesAcinic cell carcinoma (AciCC) is a rarely encountered malignancy in parotid gland. Because AciCC is rare and was recently recognized as the entity of malignancy, AciCC has been difficult to study. We aimed to analyze the diagnosis and treatment experience for this malignancy in our hospital.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed medical records of the 20 patients with AciCC of parotid gland diagnosed from 1990 to 2009. The preoperative computed tomography scan, preoperative fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and intraoperative frozen section results were compared with the final diagnosis. The survival and recurrence were analyzed with the cancer stages and treatment modalities.ResultsThere were 10 males and 10 females, with a mean age of 44.4 years, ranging 8-77 years. The AJCC tumor stage distributions of the patients were 70%, 15%, and 15% for stages I, II, and IV, respectively. The sensitivity of FNAC and intraoperative frozen section was 26.7% and 50.0% respectively. The 10-year survival rate was 90.9% with a mean follow-up of 111 months, ranging 17-251 months. The 10-year disease free survival rate was 74.2% and the mean duration of recurrence from initial surgery was 92.3 months.ConclusionAciCC of the parotid gland is a rare malignancy that has features of less aggressive behavior, and good prognosis. Intraoperative frozen section examination may be helpful in the diagnosis of AciCC of the parotid gland because of the low sensitivity of preoperative computed tomography scan and FNAC. Surgery with adjuvant postoperative radiotherapy is satisfactory for disease control

Efficient searching for grain storage container by combine robot

Partly presented at the 6th International Symposium on Machinery and Mechatronics for Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering ISMAB 2012.In this study, a combine robot was equipped with an autonomous grain container searching function. In order to realize automated grain unloading, the combine robot has to search and identify the grain storage container in an outdoor environment. A planar board was attached to the container. The marker was searched for using a camera mounted on the unloading auger of the combine. An efficient marker searching procedure was proposed on the basis of a numerical analysis of the camera's field of view and was verified experimentally. The results showed that the combine robot efficiently searched for and detected the marker and positioned its spout at the target point over the container to unload the grain

Vision-based uncut crop edge detection for automated guidance of head-feeding combine

This study proposes a vision-based uncut crop edge detection method to be utilized as a part of an automated guidance system for a head-feeding combine harvester, which is widely used in Japan for the harvesting of rice and wheat. The proposed method removes the perspective effects of the acquired images by inverse perspective mapping and recovers the crop rows to their actual parallel states. Then, the uncut crop edges are detected by applying color transformation and the edge detection method. The proposed method has shown outstanding detection performance on the images acquired under various conditions of the paddy field with an average accuracy of 97% and a processing speed of 33 ms per frame

Using multiple sensors to detect uncut crop edges for autonomous guidance systems of head-feeding combine harvesters

This study proposes a method for detection of uncut crop edges using multiple sensors to provide accurate data for the autonomous guidance systems of head-feeding combine harvesters widely used in the paddy fields of Japan for harvesting rice. The proposed method utilizes navigation sensors, such as a real-time kinematic global positioning system (RTK-GPS), GPS compass, and laser range finder (LRF), to generate a three-dimensional map of the terrain to be harvested at a processing speed of 35 ms and obtain the crop height. Furthermore, it can simultaneously detect the uncut crop edges by RANdom SAmple Consensus (RANSAC). The average of the lateral offset value and crop height of the uncut crop edge detected by the proposed method were 0.154 m and 0.537 m, respectively

Does Official Development Assistance Promote Foreign Policy Cooperation from its Recipients? The Case of South Korea

This paper examines whether South Korea's official development assistance (ODA) has promoted foreign policy cooperation from its recipients. To this end, vote congruence between South Korea and its ODA recipients over important issues in the UN General Assembly is analyzed. The results show that, as the size of South Korea's ODA increases, its recipients are likely to vote alongside South Korea on issues important to South Korea, such as nuclear issues, human rights, and resolutions on human rights abuses in North Korea, in the UN General Assembly

Diversified Mutual Learning for Deep Metric Learning

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Channel Selectivity of Satellite Transponders with the Antenna Combined with a Size-Reduced Metallic Waveguide Bandpass Filter Having Thin Metamaterial Resonators

Global and intercontinental networking relies on satellite communication. Its wireless communication system always has antennas and their feed assembly comprising waveguides. This makes the satellite payload heavy and costly. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to effectively reduce the size of a waveguide bandpass filter (BPF). Because the metallic cavities make the conventional waveguide end up with a large geometry, especially for high-order BPFs, very compact waveguide-type resonators having metamaterial zeroth-order resonance (WG-ZOR) are designed on the cross-section of the waveguide and substituted for the cavities. While the cavities are half-wavelength resonators, the WG-ZOR is shorter than one eighth of a wavelength. A substantial reduction in size and weight of the waveguide filter is observed as the resonators are cascaded in series through coupling elements in the X-band much longer than K- or Ka-band. An X-band of 7.25~7.75 GHz is chosen to verify the method as the passband with attenuation of 40 dB at 7.00 GHz and 8.00 GHz as the roll-off in the stopband. The BPF is manufactured using the CNC milling technique. The design is carried out with geometrical parameters, not of the level of 10 μm, but the level of 100 μm, which is good for manufacturers but a big challenge for component designers. The measurement of the manufactured metal waveguide filter reveals that the passband has about ≤1 dB and ≤−15 dB as insertion loss and reflection coefficient and the stopband has ≤−40 dB as attenuation, which are in good agreement with the results of the circuit and simulation. The proposed filter has a length of 3.5 λg as the eighth-order BPF, but the conventional waveguide is 5 λg as the seventh-order BPF for the same area of the cross-section. This metamaterial BPF is combined with a horn antenna. The filter enables the wide-band antenna to distinguish the band of transmission from that of noise suppression. This channel selectivity is obviously observed by the filter integrated antenna test