SDR Helix Antenna Deployment Experiment (SHADE) on board BEXUS

In the field of space travel, space communications has always presented a slew of obstacles and hurdles that must be overcome in order to complete a successful mission. Space limits inside a satellite or spaceship, vast distances between satellites and ground stations, and a phenomenon known as "Faraday Rotation" in the ionosphere are only a few of the most typical issues. Satellite antennas must be small, compact, efficient, and circularly polarized as a result of the aforementioned issues. The helix antenna is an excellent answer for all of the requirements. In this work we develop a deployment and pointing mechanism of a helix antenna operated with software defined radio algorithms. The features of helix antennas are exceptional, and they are especially suitable for satellite communication. Three coaxial cylinders, two stepper motors, one pulley, and one thread make up a deployment-pointing mechanism. The mechanism deploys the antenna along its longitudinal axis and turns it horizontally towards the ground station. During the flight, the antenna is deployed and retracted. Under different positioning situations, the GPS, an altimeter, and a compass calculate the gondola's position in order to rotate the antenna towards the Ground Station and close the communication link. The antenna's rotation mechanism is triggered by the integrated attitude determination and control system algorithms in order to correct the pointing and orientation towards the Ground Station. The antenna uses software defined radio algorithms to achieve weight and volume reductions while maintaining high efficiency and reconfigurability. The experiment includes a high-definition camera that provides real-time information on the antenna's orientation and condition. SHADE's flight on the BEXUS 28/29 balloon resulted in effective deployment and transmission, as well as the ability to receive and decode transmitted packets. The rotating mechanism met the pointing requirements, and all of the sensor's data was correctly saved to our system. Throughout the trip, there were no signs of thermal ris

Parastomal Gallbladder Herniation as an Incidental Preoperative Computed Tomography Finding

A 65-year-old woman with a long surgical history was referred to our hospital’s Colorectal Unit for ileostomy management. The patient retained an ileostomy for almost a decade after a series of complicated operations she had undergone, which had several side effects such as electrolyte imbalances, high output, weight loss, and a parastomal hernia. Our hospital’s colorectal surgeon proposed to replace the ileostomy with a permanent sigmoidostomy and asked for an imaging evaluation of the parastomal hernia content before the surgery. A computed tomography of the abdomen was performed using our Computed Tomography Department’s 64-detector row CT scanner after oral administration of contrast media, without intravenous contrast media injection due to allergy. Concerning the parastomal ileostomal hernia, besides small bowel loops with intraluminal gastrografin, inside the parastomal hernial sac, there also was an almost rounded cystic lesion. Absence of the gallbladder at its typical position and no record of cholecystectomy raised suspicion for gallbladder projection inside the sac. Our suspicion was confirmed during the surgery. Nonexisting acute cholecystitis allowed easy reduction of the gallbladder along with the small bowel loops inside the peritoneal cavity, without proceeding to cholecystectomy at the same time. Finally, ileostomy was annulated and an end colostomy was established. Four days after the surgery, the patient was discharged from the hospital and was happy to live an almost normal life thereafter

Gray matter and white matter changes in non-demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients with or without cognitive impairment: A combined voxel-based morphometry and tract-based spatial statistics whole-brain analysis

The phenotypic heterogeneity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) implies that patients show structural changes within but also beyond the motor cortex and corticospinal tract and furthermore outside the frontal lobes, even if frank dementia is not detected. The aim of the present study was to investigate both gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) changes in non-demented amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients with or without cognitive impairment (ALS-motor and ALS-plus, respectively). Nineteen ALS-motor, 31 ALS-plus and 25 healthy controls (HC) underwent 3D-T1-weighted and 30-directional diffusion-weighted imaging on a 3 T MRI scanner. Voxel-based morphometry and tract-based spatial-statistics analysis were performed to examine GM volume (GMV) changes and WM differences in fractional anisotropy (FA), axial and radial diffusivity (AD, RD, respectively). Compared to HC, ALS-motor patients showed decreased GMV in frontal and cerebellar areas and increased GMV in right supplementary motor area, while ALS-plus patients showed diffuse GMV reduction in primary motor cortex bilaterally, frontotemporal areas, cerebellum and basal ganglia. ALS-motor patients had increased GMV in left precuneus compared to ALS-plus patients. We also found decreased FA and increased RD in the corticospinal tract bilaterally, the corpus callosum and extra-motor tracts in ALS-motor patients, and decreased FA and increased AD and RD in motor and several WM tracts in ALS-plus patients, compared to HC. Multimodal neuroimaging confirms motor and extra-motor GM and WM abnormalities in non-demented cognitively-impaired ALS patients (ALS-plus) and identifies early extra-motor brain pathology in ALS patients without cognitive impairment (ALS-motor)