Eve, the Apple, and Eugene O'Neill: the Development of O'Neill's Concept of Women

It is the purpose of this paper to outline the development of O'Neill's characterization of women from the loving, submissive Mother in the early plays to the Mother turned Destroyer in the later plays. This is accomplished through a chronological examination of the women characters in eight of O'Neill's major plays--Beyond the Horizon, The Staw, Anna Christie, Welded, Desire Under the Elms, The Great God Brown, Strange Interlude, and Mourning Becomes Electra

TRIPLEX ULTRASONOGRAPHIC ASSESSMENT OF CERVICAL LYMPH NODES

Detection of lymph nodes (LNs) involvement by various pathological processes has great therapeutic and prognostic implications. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness and accuracy of triplex sonography (gray scale, color mapping and spectral Doppler) in differentiating benign from malignant cervical LNs. We used triplex sonography to evaluate 120 LNs in 50 patients. The gray scale features which were considered included LNs margin, nodal shape (length/width ratio) and echotexture. Vascular patterns and arterial resistive index (RI) of the LNs were assessed by color mapping and spectral Doppler. Finally sonographic findings were compared with pathologic results. There was significant difference between benign and malignant LNs in shape, echotexture, RI and vascular pattern. Study results showed that malignant LNs, especially metastatic nodes, are accompanied with significantly high RI, rounded shape, heterogenous echotexture and peripheral vascularity. Among these sonographic findings, nodal shape (L/W ratio) and RI were more accurate for differentiating benign from malignant LNs. LNs with ill-defined margin were all metastatic. In this study triplex sonographic findings had relatively high accuracy in differentiating benign from malignant cervical LNs, however, because of some overlapping in triplex sonographic appearances of benign and malignant nodes, this modality may not have definite diagnostic value

Common Locations of Lower Limbs Arterial Stenosis and Occlusion With Digital Subtraction Angiography :A Report of 100 Cases

Background: Occlusive disease of lower extremity arteries are so common and cause severe stenosis or complete local obstruction in arteries as it need treatment. The treatment could be surgery or interventional procedures like angioplasty or implant of stent. Sometimes such treatments are impossible because of severity or location of complication and cause amputation.The purpose of this study is an assessment about more common locations of arterial obstruction in lower extremities which is necessary for treatment planning and prediction for efficient supplements. Methods: In this descriptive study from 2000 until 2005, 100 patients with occlusive disease of lower extremity arteries who underwent angiography in medical imaging center of Imam Khomeini hospital in Tehran had been studied according to location of arterial obstructions. In the point of view of homodynamic conditions, obstructions over 70% consider important, so all of these patients had arterial obstruction over 70% up to 100%. Results: Our findings show that the most common locations of arterial obstruction in lower extremity are superficial femoral artery (47%), arteries of leg (21%) and iliac arteries (19%). Conclusion: This study can show appropriate assessment of the most common locations of arterial obstruction in lower extremity to predict supplements that may be needed for treatment of these patients

Assessment of noise reduction in ultrasound images of common carotid and brachial arteries

The present study assessed the use of filters for noise reduction in ultrasound images of the common carotid artery (CCA) and brachial artery using intima-media thickness, which is a safe and non-invasive technique for determining subclinical atherosclerosis and cardiovascular risk. A new combined speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD) filter for noise reduction is then proposed. Ultrasonic examination of both arteries was performed on 30 men (aged 40 ± 5 years). The programme was designed using MATLAB software to extract consecutive images in bit map format from the audio video interleaves. An additional programme was designed in MATLAB to apply the region of interest (ROI) to the thickness of the intima-media of the posterior walls of the arteries. Block-matching techniques were used to estimate arterial motion from ultrasound images of the B-mode CCA and brachial artery. Different noise reduction filters and Canny edge detection were carried out separately in the ROI. The programme measured mean square error (MSE) and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). The results demonstrated that the new combined SRAD filter with Canny edge detection identified the lowest value for MSE and the highest value for PSNR in 90 consecutive frames (~3 cardiac cycles). The results indicate that MSE and PSNR were better detected by the proposed combined SRAD filter with Canny edge detection than did several commonly used filters with Canny detection for speckle suppression and preservation detail in carotid and brachial arteries ultrasound images. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology