Correlation of Hydronephrosis Index to Society of Fetal Urology Hydronephrosis Scale

Purpose. We seek to correlate conventional hydronephrosis (HN) grade and hydronephrosis index (HI). Methods. We examined 1207 hydronephrotic kidneys by ultrasound. HN was classified by Society of Fetal Urology guidelines. HN was then gauged using HI, a reproducible, standardized, and dimensionless measurement of renal area. We then calculated average HI for each HN grade. Results. Comparing HI to standard SFU HN grade, average HI is 89.3 for grade I; average HI is 83.9 for grade II; average HI is 73.0 for grade III; average HI is 54.6 for SFU grade IV. Conclusions. HI correlates well with SFU HN grade. The HI serves as a quantitative measure of HN. HI can be used to track HN over time. Versus conventional grading, HI may be more sensitive in defining severe (grades III and IV) HN, and in indicating resolving, stable, or worsening HN, thus providing more information for clinical decision-making and HN management

Measurement of Electrode Overpotentials for Direct Hydrocarbon Conversion Fuel Cells

Cathodic and anodic overpotentials were measured using current interruption and AC impedance spectroscopy for two separate solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). The fuel cells used yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) as the electrolyte, strontium-doped lanthanum manganite (LSM) as the cathode, and a porous YSZ layer impregnated with copper and ceria as the anode. The Cu/CeO2/YSZ anode is active for the direct conversion of hydrocarbon fuels. Overpotentials measured using both current interruption and impedance spectroscopy for the fuel cell operating at 700ºC on both hydrogen and n-butane fuels are reported. In addition to providing the first electrode overpotential measurements for direct conversion fuel cells with Cu-based anodes the results demonstrate that there may be significant uncertainties in measurements of electrode overpotentials for systems where there is a large difference between the characteristic frequencies of the anode and cathode processes and/or complex electrode kinetics

Dynamics of upper tropospheric stationary wave anomalies induced by ENSO during the northern summer: A GCM study

Ensemble seasonal integrations are carried out with the COLA GCM, with a view to understand the dynamical connection between warm SST anomalies in the equatorial central-eastern Pacific Ocean and the upper level stationary wave anomalies seen during drought years over the Indian summer monsoon region. In addition, experiments with and without orography are performed in order to examine the role of the Himalayas in modulating the El Nino induced stationary wave anomalies over the summer monsoon region. The GCM simulations show a statistically significant weakening of the summer monsoon activity over India in response to the SST forcing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This weakening of the summer monsoon appears to be largely related to modifications of the local Hadley and Walker cells over the summer monsoon region. In addition, it is seen that the anomalous ENSO divergent forcing over the tropical Pacific Ocean can act as a potential source for Rossby wave dispersion. Here one finds the possibility of meridionally propagating Rossby waves, which emanate from the ENSO forcing region, to interact with the subtropical westerlies and generate anomalous highs and lows in the subtropics and extratropics. The quasi-stationary perturbations seen over west Asia, Pakistan and northwest India during drought years, seem to be generated by the above mechanism. An alternate mechanism that could be important for the persistence of the quasi-stationary perturbations seems to be based on the dynamic excitation of middle latitude normal modes which can extract energy from the zonally varying unstable basic flow. It is seen from the GCM simulations, that the Himalayan orography plays a crucial role in anchoring the El Nino induced extratropical westerly troughs far to the west in the high latitude belt. In the absence of orography it is seen that the ENSO induced extra-tropical cyclonic anomalies tend to intrude southward into the monsoon region thereby destroying the regional scale circulations completely. Another effect due to the Himalayas is to generate lee waves on the eastern side of the topographic barrier which encircle the globe in the subtropics and midlatitudes

A customized VGG19 network with concatenation of deep and handcrafted features for brain tumor detection

Brain tumor (BT) is one of the brain abnormalities which arises due to various reasons. The unrecognized and untreated BT will increase the morbidity and mortality rates. The clinical level assessment of BT is normally performed using the bio-imaging technique, and MRI-assisted brain screening is one of the universal techniques. The proposed work aims to develop a deep learning architecture (DLA) to support the automated detection of BT using two-dimensional MRI slices. This work proposes the following DLAs to detect the BT: (i) implementing the pre-trained DLAs, such as AlexNet, VGG16, VGG19, ResNet50 and ResNet101 with the deep-features-based SoftMax classifier; (ii) pre-trained DLAs with deep-features-based classification using decision tree (DT), k nearest neighbor (KNN), SVM-linear and SVM-RBF; and (iii) a customized VGG19 network with serially-fused deep-features and handcrafted-features to improve the BT detection accuracy. The experimental investigation was separately executed using Flair, T2 and T1C modality MRI slices, and a ten-fold cross validation was implemented to substantiate the performance of proposed DLA. The results of this work confirm that the VGG19 with SVM-RBF helped to attain better classification accuracy with Flair (>99%), T2 (>98%), T1C (>97%) and clinical images (>98%)

Aerodinamičan dizajn i analiza motorističke kacige s vizirom protiv odsjaja

The number of motorcycle accidents has increased in the last two decades. Helmet can protect the vehicle riders from severe injuries during road accident to certain extent. To design a functional helmet, it is important to analyse the shape of the helmet and visor portion. Therefore, the attempt has been made to design and analyze new helmet by considering the pressure drag and anti-glare visor. The pressure drag resistance presses the helmet against the neck portion of the rider. The shape of an aerodynamic helmet can reduce the drag pressure. The spherical shape and new aerodynamic shape helmets are designed using Pro-E software. Pressure drag is calculated and comparison is made on the basis of drag pressure.Broj motociklističkih nesreća u posljednja se dva desetljeća povećao. Kaciga u određenoj mjeri može zaštititi motocikliste od teških ozljeda koje je moguće zadobiti tijekom prometne nesreće. Prilikom dizajniranja funkcionalne kacige važno je analizirati oblik kacige i veličinu vizira. Iz tog se razloga pokušalo dizajnirati i analizirati novu kacigu uzimajući u obzir tlak otpora zraka i vizir protiv odsjaja. Tlak otpora zraka pritišće kacigu na vratni dio tijela vozača. Oblik aerodinamične kacige može smanjiti pritisak otpora zraka. Kacige sfernog oblika i novog aerodinamičnog oblika izrađene su pomoću Pro-E software-a. Izračunati su tlakovi otpora zraka za oba oblika kacige i napravljena je usporedba rezultata