Prospective ECG-triggered coronary CT angiography: clinical value of noise-based tube current reduction method with iterative reconstruction.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the clinical value of noise-based tube current reduction method with iterative reconstruction for obtaining consistent image quality with dose optimization in prospective electrocardiogram (ECG)-triggered coronary CT angiography (CCTA). MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed a prospective randomized study evaluating 338 patients undergoing CCTA with prospective ECG-triggering. Patients were randomly assigned to fixed tube current with filtered back projection (Group 1, n = 113), noise-based tube current with filtered back projection (Group 2, n = 109) or with iterative reconstruction (Group 3, n = 116). Tube voltage was fixed at 120 kV. Qualitative image quality was rated on a 5-point scale (1 = impaired, to 5 = excellent, with 3-5 defined as diagnostic). Image noise and signal intensity were measured; signal-to-noise ratio was calculated; radiation dose parameters were recorded. Statistical analyses included one-way analysis of variance, chi-square test, Kruskal-Wallis test and multivariable linear regression. RESULTS: Image noise was maintained at the target value of 35HU with small interquartile range for Group 2 (35.00-35.03HU) and Group 3 (34.99-35.02HU), while from 28.73 to 37.87HU for Group 1. All images in the three groups were acceptable for diagnosis. A relative 20% and 51% reduction in effective dose for Group 2 (2.9 mSv) and Group 3 (1.8 mSv) were achieved compared with Group 1 (3.7 mSv). After adjustment for scan characteristics, iterative reconstruction was associated with 26% reduction in effective dose. CONCLUSION: Noise-based tube current reduction method with iterative reconstruction maintains image noise precisely at the desired level and achieves consistent image quality. Meanwhile, effective dose can be reduced by more than 50%

Effects of Adding Brevibacillus laterosporu FAS05 to Feed on the Growth, Disease Resistance, and Immunity of Litopenaeus vannamei

Litopenaeus vannamei is one of the important crustaceans in aquaculture in China. In recent years, the shrimp culture industry has gradually developed into an intensive and high-density model, which can lead to environmental deterioration and large-scale outbreak of diseases. The widespread use of antibiotics has led to the increase of pathogen drug resistance, environmental pollution, and ecological imbalance, resulting in secondary pollution in the water. Probiotics are live microbial additives that promote good health and are environmentally sustainable and safe for use. They are often used as important substitutes for antibiotics. Brevibacillus laterosporu, as a biocontrol probiotic, is commonly used for disease control of crops, animals, and poultry, but its use is rarely reported in aquaculture. A 28-day breeding experiment was carried out with L. vannamei weighing (1.00±0.08) g, to study the effects of adding B. laterosporu FAS05 in the feed on the growth, disease resistance, and immunity of L. vannamei. The experiment was divided into four groups with three replicates in each group, and 50 shrimps in each replicate were fed with the experimental feed supplemented with 0 CFU/g (group C, as the control group), 105 CFU/g (group BL1), 107 CFU/g (group BL2), and 109 CFU/g (group BL3) of B. laterosporu FAS05. B. laterosporu FAS05 was isolated from the aquaculture pond with a low number of Vibrio in summer. The bacterium was added into the basic feed with fish meal, soybean meal, and corn meal as the main protein source, fish oil and phospholipid oil were added as the fat source, wheat flour as the main sugar source, and inorganic salts and vitamins as supplements. L. vannamei was purchased from a prawn farm in Weihai City, Shandong Province. The temperature was 25–28 ℃ and the salinity was 27–30. During the breeding experiment, eight shrimps were randomly selected in each tank every two weeks and their body length, weight, and plumpness were measured. The phagocytic activity assay was modified on the basis of the method reported by Delaporte et al (2003). Fl-1 channel flow cytometry was used to detect and analyze the offset of respiratory burst peak. The blood lymphocytes, serum, and hepatopancreas of shrimp were collected 24 hours after the experiment. The activities of immune related enzymes in hepatopancreas, such as superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), acid phosphatase (ACP), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) levels, and the activities of immune related enzymes in serum, phenol oxidase (PO), and lysozyme (LZM), were determined by kits. The phagocytic activity was measured, and the assay was modified on the basis of Delaporte et al (2003). Fl-1 channel flow cytometry was used to detect and analyze the offset of respiratory burst peak. After the feeding test, a one-week infection test of Vibrio parahaemolyticus was carried out to determine disease resistance. The experimental results were expressed as Mean±SD. One-way ANOVA analysis was conducted for all data using statistical software SPSS 16.0, and significance level was defined as P 0.05), and the body length, body weight, and specific growth rate of shrimps in the BL1 and BL2 groups were significantly higher than those in group C (P 0.05). Compared to that of group C, the phagocytizing rate of shrimp blood cells in the BL1 to BL3 groups increased significantly (P 0.05). The PO of shrimps in the BL2 group was significantly higher than those in other groups (P < 0.05). The ALP and SOD in the BL1 and BL2 groups were significantly higher than those in group C and BL3 (P < 0.05). The above results showed that B. laterosporu FAS05 as a feed additive could promote the growth of shrimp, activate the immune system, improve disease resistance, and inhibit the growth of Vibrio in the surrounding environment. The reference dosage was 105 CFU/g. When the infection is serious, the dosage can be increased to 107 CFU/g to further improve the non-specific immunity of shrimp. The results of this study can provide basic data for the application of B. laterosporu FAS05 in shrimp culture and production

Flow chart of patient inclusion. CCTA: Coronary CT Angiography; FBP: Filtered Back Projection; IR: Iterative Reconstruction; HR: Heart Rate.

<p>Flow chart of patient inclusion. CCTA: Coronary CT Angiography; FBP: Filtered Back Projection; IR: Iterative Reconstruction; HR: Heart Rate.</p

Patient and scan characteristics.

<p>Note: Data are mean±standard deviation (SD), median with interquartile range (IQR) and percentage with raw data in parentheses.</p>*<p>Heart rate is mean heart rate during scanning.</p

Patient and scan characteristics associated with effective dose^*.

<p>Note: CI: confidence interval; NA: not applicable.</p>*<p>Patient and scan characteristics associated with radiation dose are presented as % change of the effective dose (mSv).</p

[<b>12</b>]<b>.</b> Noise-based tube current modulation formulas regarding SD_TB and mA_CCTA^*.

<p>Note: SD_TB: timing bolus noise; mA_CCTA: tube current of CCTA; 95% CI: 95% confidence interval.</p>*<p>With the noise-based tube current reduction method, the required mA_CCTA to obtain desired image noise level (35HU) for CCTA image can be obtained from SD_TB on test bolus image. SD_TB are median with interquartile range (IQR).</p

Image quality and radiation exposure.

<p>Note: CTDIvol: volume CT dose index; DLP: dose-length product.</p><p>Data are mean±standard deviation (SD), median with interquartile range (IQR) in parentheses.</p

Examples of different image quality scores.

<p>Representative examples for different image quality scores. The examples show curved multiplanar reformations of left descending arteries of different patients. (a) impaired image quality, (b) reduced image quality, (c) adequate image quality, (d) good image quality, (e) excellent image quality.</p

Logic in China and Chinese Logic: The Arrival and (Re-)Discovery of Logic in China

The present chapter sketches the adoption of logic in late nineteenth and early twentieth century China. Addressing both conceptual and institutional aspects of this process, it contextualizes the raising interest in the discipline among Qing scholars and Republican intellectuals. Arranged largely chronologically, it delineates the successive periods in the reception of major works of and intellectual trends in the field. It introduces the most influential scholars promoting a public discourse on logic in the final years of the empire, but also the ever more professional agents who participated in the ensuing establishment of a modern institutional framework for studies in logic like universities, departments of logic, academic societies, journals etc. While at the beginning, these people were mostly no trained logicians, progress in the establishment of academic logic in the 1930s provided the conditions for the formation of the first Chinese specialists in the field who were often internationally trained and soon to engage in cutting-edge research. In some contrast, academic discourse on logic well into the 1930s was dominated by exaggerated social and political expectations, not least due to the successive influence on intellectuals of inductionist scientism in the first decades of the twentieth century, of an inflated pragmatist notion of logic in the 1920s, and of an overly simplistic “antiformalist” notion of logic propagated by (vulgar-)Marxist historical dialecticians in the 1930s. The arrival of scientific logic also went in tandem with a renewed interest in studies in the traditional Buddhist “science of reasons” (yinming, hetuvidyā, “Buddhist logic”) and spurred the search for contributions to the field of logic in the record of inherited Chinese literature, a development which soon led to the common acceptance of the existence of genuinely Chinese traditions of logic. It is eventually a peculiarity of the Chinese reception of logic that since around 1920, less than two decades after the first modern translations of textbooks on traditional syllogistics, the visit of Bertrand Russell – one of the fathers of mathematical logic – fueled the spread of this new approach to logic which has eventually changed its face for good. Designed as a historical survey, this chapter is a general account on the major contributions to the field by Chinese scholars of the time and has to forego detailed discussions