Preliminary Evaluation of the Sural Nerve Using 22-MHz Ultrasound: A New Approach for Evaluation of Diabetic Cutaneous Neuropathy

Background: The application of 22-MHz high-frequency ultrasound allows for visualization of the inner part of the sural nerve. The aim of this study was to evaluate the morphological changes of sural nerves in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus using ultrasound. Materials and Methods: The thickness/width (T/W) ratio, the cross-sectional area (CSA) of the sural nerves and the maximum thickness (MT) of the nerve fascicles were measured in 100 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 50 healthy volunteers using 22-MHz ultrasound. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to determine the optimal cut-off values as well as the sensitivities and specificities. All parameters were significantly different between the subject and control groups. The ROC curves demonstrated that the MT was the most predictive of diabetic cutaneous neuropathy, with an optimal cut-off value of 0.365 mm that yielded a sensitivity of 90.3 % and a specificity of 87.7%. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that 22-MHz ultrasound may be a valuable tool for evaluating diabeti

Group-Based Channel Access Scheme for a V2I Communication System using Smart Antenna

We propose a vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication system that utilizes a smart antenna technology to increase service coverage and system throughput. During contention-based channel access, a collision occurs when more than one vehicle selects the same minislot to transmit an access signal to an infrastructure. To solve this problem, we propose a group-based channel access scheme. Numerical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed scheme can help to reduce the number of collisions that occur during channel access. © 2011 IEEE.