Level set snake algorithms on the fetal heart

The fetal heart has very thin intra-chamber walls which are often not resolved by ultrasound scanners and may drop out as a result of imaging. In order to measure blood volumes from all chambers in isolation, deformable model approaches were used to segment the chambers and fill in the missing structural information. Three level set algorithms in the fetal cardiac segmentation literature (two without and, one with the use of a shape prior) were applied to real ultrasound data. The shape prior term was extracted from the shape prior level set and incorporated into the amorphous snakes for a fairer comparison. To our knowledge this is the first time these existing fetal cardiac non shape based segmentation algoridims have been modified for shape awareness in this way. © 2007 IEEE.</p

Automatic segmentation of low resolution fetal cardiac data using snakes with shape priors

This paper presents a level set deformable model to segment all four chambers of the fet al. heart simultaneously. We show its results in 2D on 53 images taken from only 8 datasets. Due to our lack of sufficient data we built only a mean template from the training data instead of a full Active Shape Model. Using rigid registration the template was registered to unseen images and the snakes were guided by individual chamber priors as they evolved in unison to segment missing cardiac structures in the presence of high noise. Using a leave one out approach most of the segmentation errors are within 3 pixels of manually traced contours.</p

Indole trimers with antibacterial activity against Gram-positive organisms produced using combinatorial biocatalysis.

The I100V isoform of toluene-4-monooxygenase was used to catalyze the oxidative polymerization of anthranil and various indoles under mildly acidic conditions, favoring the production of trimers. Compounds produced in sufficient yield were purified and tested for their ability to inhibit the growth of B. anthracis, E. faecalis, L. monocytogenes, S. aureus, and in some cases, F. tularensis. 15 of the compounds displayed promising antibacterial activity (MIC < 5 µg/ml) against one or more of the strains tested, with the best MIC values being <0.8 µg/ml. All of these compounds had good selectivity, showing minimal cytotoxicity towards HepG2 cells. The structure was solved for six of the compounds that could be crystallized, revealing that minimally two classes of indole based trimers were produced. One compound class produced was a group of substituted derivatives of the natural product 2,2-bis(3-indolyl) indoxyl. The other group of compounds identified was classified as tryptanthrin-like compounds, all having multi-ring pendant groups attached at position 11 of tryptanthrin. One compound of particular interest, SAB-J85, had a structure that suggests that any compound, with a ring structure that can be activated by an oxygenase, might serve as a substrate for combinatorial biocatalysis

Level set segmentation of the fetal heart

Segmentation of the fetal heart can facilitate the 3D assessment of the cardiac function and structure. Ultrasound acquisition typically results in drop-out artifacts of the chamber walls. This paper presents a level set deformable model to simultaneously segment all four cardiac chambers using region based information. The segmented boundaries are automatically penalized from intersecting at walls with signal dropout. Root mean square errors of the perpendicular distances between the algorithm's delineation and manual tracings are within 7 pixels (<2mm) in 2D and under 3 voxels (<4.5mm) in 3D. The ejection fraction was determined from the 3D dataset. Future work will include further testing on additional datasets and validation on a phantom. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.</p

Suppl. material for JIFF 23524588-20230007 - Dietary application of <em>Hermetia illucens</em> larvae meal negatively affected the fillet quality and fatty acid metabolism of pearl gentian grouper

Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) (BSF) is an insect that can be fed with food waste, and its larval meal is now studied as a feed ingredient to reduce the use of fish meal. However, adding BSF into the feed of pearl gentian grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus ♀ × Epinephelus lanceolatus ♂) did not give good results. Higher levels of BSF substitution caused disorders of fatty acid metabolism, leads to fatty liver, and caused oxidative damage in the liver. Also, higher levels of BSF substitution reduced percentage of thick myofibers and significantly affected 40 of metabolites, including dodecanoic acid, D-lyxose, D-aspartic acid, and glutathione in the muscle, which did no positive effect on the improvement of fish meat. Therefore, BSF may require further processing, such as degreasing, in order to be better used. </p

The Deep and Transient Universe in the SVOM Era: New Challenges and Opportunities - Scientific prospects of the SVOM mission

To take advantage of the astrophysical potential of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs), Chinese and French astrophysicists have engaged the SVOM mission (Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor). Major advances in GRB studies resulting from the synergy between space and ground observations, the SVOM mission implements space and ground instrumentation. The scientific objectives of the mission put a special emphasis on two categories of GRBs: very distant GRBs at z$>$5 which constitute exceptional cosmological probes, and faint/soft nearby GRBs which allow probing the nature of the progenitors and the physics at work in the explosion. These goals have a major impact on the design of the mission: the on-board hard X-ray imager is sensitive down to 4 keV and computes on line image and rate triggers, and the follow-up telescopes on the ground are sensitive in the NIR. At the beginning of the next decade, SVOM will be the main provider of GRB positions and spectral parameters on very short time scale. The SVOM instruments will operate simultaneously with a wide range of powerful astronomical devices. This rare instrumental conjunction, combined with the relevance of the scientific topics connected with GRB studies, warrants a remarkable scientific return for SVOM. In addition, the SVOM instrumentation, primarily designed for GRB studies, composes a unique multi-wavelength observatory with rapid slew capability that will find multiple applications for the whole astronomy community beyond the specific objectives linked to GRBs. This report lists the scientific themes that will benefit from observations made with SVOM, whether they are specific GRB topics, or more generally all the issues that can take advantage of the multi-wavelength capabilities of SVOM