Image quality and evaluation ability of magnetic resonance imaging techniques for thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy: Dixon fat-suppression technique vs. spectral attenuated inversion recovery

PurposeWe aimed to compare two magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques, Dixon and spectral attenuated inversion recovery (SPAIR) fat-suppression, in terms of image quality and suitability for evaluating thyroid-associated ophthalmopathy (TAO) lesion characteristics.MethodsThis cross-sectional, retrospective study involved 70 patients with TAO (140 eyes) who underwent orbital coronal MRI examinations, including Dixon-transverse relaxation (T2)-weighted imaging (T2WI) and SPAIR-T2WI, between 2020 and 2022. We compared the fat-suppression quality and artifacts, noise (N), signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), signal intensity ratio (SIR) of extraocular muscles (SIR-EOM) and lacrimal glands (SIR-LG), and TAO activity evaluation efficiency.ResultsDixon-T2WI showed a higher frequency of better subjective image quality and suitability for evaluating the characteristics of TAO lesions (65.7% vs. 14.3%) than SPAIR-T2WI. Fat-suppression quality and artifact scores were lower for Dixon-T2WI than for SPAIR-T2WI (p < 0.001). The N, SNR, and CNR values, EOM-SIR, and LG-SIR were higher for orbital coronal Dixon-T2WI than for SPAIR-T2WI (all p < 0.001). Clinical activity scores (CASs) showed positive correlations with SIR. The correlation between EOM-SIR and LG-SIR of orbital coronal Dixon-T2WI with CAS was higher than that of SPAIR-T2WI (0.590 vs. 0.493, all p < 0.001; 0.340 vs. 0.295, all p < 0.01). EOM-SIR and LG-SIR of Dixon-T2WI yielded a higher area under the curve than SPAIR-T2WI for evaluating TAO activity (0.865 vs. 0.760, p < 0.001; 0.695 vs. 0.617, p = 0.017).ConclusionDixon-T2WI yields higher image quality than SPAIR-T2WI. Furthermore, it has a stronger ability to evaluate TAO inflammation than SPAIR, with higher sensitivity and specificity in active TAO staging

Bacterial Profile and Antibiotic Resistance in Patients with Diabetic Foot Ulcer in Guangzhou, Southern China: Focus on the Differences among Different Wagner’s Grades, IDSA/IWGDF Grades, and Ulcer Types

Objective. To understand the bacterial profile and antibiotic resistance patterns in diabetic foot infection (DFI) in different Wagner’s grades, IDSA/IWGDF grades, and different ulcer types in Guangzhou, in order to provide more detailed suggestion to the clinician about the empirical antibiotic choice. Methods. 207 bacteria were collected from 117 DFIs in Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital from Jan.1, 2010, to Dec.31, 2015. The clinical data and microbial information were analyzed. Results. The proportion of Gram-negative bacteria (GNB) was higher than Gram-positive bacteria (GPB) (54.1% versus 45.9%), in which Enterobacteriaceae (73.2%) and Staphylococcus (65.2%) were predominant, respectively. With an increasing of Wagner’s grades and IDSA/IWGDF grades, the proportion of GNB bacterial infection, especially Pseudomonas, was increased. Neuro-ischemic ulcer (N-IFU) was more susceptible to GNB infection. Furthermore, with the aggravation of the wound and infection, the antibiotic resistance rates were obviously increased. GPB isolated in ischemic foot ulcer (IFU) showed more resistance than the N-IFU, while GNB isolates were on the opposite. Conclusions. Different bacterial profiles and antibiotic sensitivity were found in different DFU grades and types. Clinician should try to stay updated in antibiotic resistance pattern of common pathogens in their area. This paper provided them the detailed information in this region

A developmental constraint driven approach to developmental robotic hand-eye coordination

Conference Name:2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2012. Conference Address: Guangzhou, China. Time:December 11, 2012 - December 14, 2012.IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS); South China University of Technology (SCUT); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, HIT; IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMC)Robotic hand-eye coordination plays an important role in dealing with real time environment; and the learning procedure of this skill affects the fundamental framework of robotic cognition. Theories from developmental psychology have motivated the appearance of cognitive developmental robotics; however, several important features within infant developmental procedure have not been introduced into researches on developmental robotics. This paper proposes a new approach to robotic hand-eye coordination by imitating the developmental progress of human infant. The work employs a brain-like neural network system to learn hand-eye coordination. The learning procedure is driven by developmental constraints, the robot starts to learn under fully constrained conditions, when the system becomes saturated, a new constraint is assigned to the robot; the robot needs to learn this new conditions again, until the all contained conditions have been overcome. The work is supported by experimental evaluation, which shows that the new approach is able to drive the robot to own the hand-eye coordination ability autonomously, and the robot also behaves similar developmental progress with human infants'. 漏 2012 IEEE

Highly Efficient Synthesis of Graphene Nanocomposites

Graphene consists of a monolayer of sp² bonded carbon atoms and has attracted considerable interest over recent years due to its extreme mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties. Graphene nanocomposites have naturally begun to be studied to capitalize upon these properties. A range of complex chemical and physical processing methods have been devised that achieve isolated graphene sheets that attempt to prevent aggregation. Here we demonstrate that the simple casting of a polymer solution containing dispersed graphene oxide, followed by thermal reduction, can produce well-isolated monolayer reduced-graphene oxide. The presence of single layer reduced-graphene oxide is quantitatively demonstrated through transmission electron microscopy and selected area electron diffraction studies and the reduction is verified by thermogravimetric, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, infrared spectrum, and electrical conductivity studies. These findings provide a simple, environmentally benign and commercially viable process to produce reduced-graphene oxide reinforced polymers without complex manufacturing, dispersion or reduction processes

A human-like learning approach to developmental robotic reaching

Conference Name:2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics, ROBIO 2013. Conference Address: Shenzhen, China. Time:December 12, 2013 - December 14, 2013.This paper presents a human-like approach for robot to obtain reaching ability autonomously in three-dimensional environment. The essential elements of the approach are inspired by current findings in neural science research and developmental psychology. By imitating the mechanism of the infant realizing the body induction, the robot system realizes the automatic separation of the mechanical arm and the external environment. We propose a simulated retina visual structure to compress images and improve the robot efficiency. After separating the arm from the external environment, the robot establishes the model of the mechanical arm, and uses the 'Minimal Resource Allocation Neural Network' to implement the robot's learning system. A developmental constraint implemented mechanism is applied to the robot system, so that, the robot adapts to the environment and completes the tasks in dynamic environment step by step. The experiments and simulations demonstrate that the robotic system, by imitating the process of the human development, gradually obtains the reaching ability. ? 2013 IEEE

Integration of brain-like computational structure and infant behaviorial pattern for robotic hand-eye coordination

Conference Name:2012 12th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision, ICARCV 2012. Conference Address: Guangzhou, China. Time:December 5, 2012 - December 7, 2012.Robotic hand-eye coordination plays an important role in dealing with real time environment; and the learning procedure of this skill affects the fundamental framework of robotic cognition. This paper introduces a novel developmental approach to hand-eye coordination in an autonomous robotic system. Existing work employs neural network models to map visual perception to hand. In the approach, a computational structure and a cross-modal link mechanism are applied to simulate brain cortices; and a movement pattern inspired by infant behaviors is designed to help robot learn to build its hand-eye coordination. This work is supported by experimental evaluation, which shows that the learning algorithm provides a fast and incremental learning of behavioral competence. 漏 2012 IEEE

Comparison between the induced membrane technique and distraction osteogenesis in treating segmental bone defects: An experimental study in a rat model.

Previous studies have suggested that treatment plans for segmental bone defects (SBDs) are affected by the bone defect sizes. If the selected treatment was not the most appropriate, it would not contribute to bone healing, but increase complications. The induced membrane technique (IM) and distraction osteogenesis (DO) have been proved to be effective in treating SBDs. However, the differences between the two in therapeutic effects on SBDs with different sizes are still unclear. Thus, we aimed to observe the effects of IM and DO on different sizes of SBDs and to further determine what method is more appropriate for what defect size. Rat models of 4-, 6-and 8-mm mid-diaphyseal defects using IM and DO techniques were established. X-rays, micro-CT, histological and immunohistochemical examinations were performed to assess bone repair. Faster bone formation rate, shorter treatment duration, higher expressions of OPN and OCN and higher parameters of bone properties including bone mineral density (BMD), bone volume/total tissue volume (BV/TV), mineral apposition rate (MAR) and mineral surface/bone surface (MS/BS) were found in 4-mm SBDs treated with DO than in those with IM treatment. However, the results were reversed and IM outperformed DO in bone repair capacity for 8-mm SBDs, while no significant difference emerges in the case of 6-mm SBDs. This study suggests that the therapeutic effects of IM and DO may be subjected to sizes of bone defects and the best treatment size of defects is different between the two. For small-sized SBDs, DO may be more suitable and efficient than IM, but IM has advantages over DO for over-sized SBDs, while DO and IM show similar bone repair capability in moderate-sized SBDs, which would offer a new insight into how to choose DO and IM for SBDs in clinical practice and provide references for further clinical research