Predictive performance of ultrasonography-based radiomics for axillary lymph node metastasis in the preoperative evaluation of breast cancer

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the predictive performance of ultrasonography (US)-based radiomics for axillary lymph node metastasis and to compare it with that of a clinicopathologic model. Methods: A total of 496 patients (mean age, 52.5 +/- 10.9 years) who underwent breast cancer surgery between January 2014 and December 2014 were included in this study. Among them, 306 patients who underwent surgery between January 2014 and August 2014 were enrolled as a training cohort, and 190 patients who underwent surgery between September 2014 and December 2014 were enrolled as a validation cohort. To predict axillary lymph node metastasis in breast cancer, we developed a preoperative clinicopathologic model using multivariable logistic regression and constructed a radiomics model using 23 radiomic features selected via least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression. Results: In the training cohort, the areas under the curve (AUC) were 0.760, 0.812, and 0.858 for the clinicopathologic, radiomics, and combined models, respectively. In the validation cohort, the AUCs were 0.708, 0.831, and 0.810, respectively. The combined model showed significantly better diagnostic performance than the clinicopathologic model. Conclusion: A radiomics model based on the US features of primary breast cancers showed additional value when combined with a clinicopathologic model to predict axillary lymph node metastasis.11Nsciescopu

Gypsum-Dependent Effect of NaCl on Strength Enhancement of CaO-Activated Slag Binders

This study explores the combined effect of NaCl and gypsum on the strength of the CaO-activated ground-granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) binder system. In the CaO-activated GGBFS system, the incorporation of NaCl without gypsum did not improve the strength of the system. However, with the presence of gypsum, the use of NaCl yielded significantly greater strength than the use of either gypsum or NaCl alone. The presence of NaCl largely increases the solubility of gypsum in a solution, leading to a higher concentration of sulfate ions, which is essential for generating more and faster formations of ettringite in a fresh mixture of paste. The significant strength enhancement of gypsum was likely due to the accelerated and increased formation of ettringite, accompanied by more efficient filling of pores in the system

Microstructure analysis and physical characterization of the ground granulated blast furnace slag binder and copper slag aggregate

Department of Urban and Environmental Engineering (Urban Infrastructure Engineering)Concrete is most widely used material after water by mankind due to its high mechanical properties, ease of construction, excellent durability. However, there were two environmental issues concerned for using concrete: the use of concrete (1) requires massive amounts of carbon dioxide which is emitted during the production of cement and (2) cause the depletion of natural resources such as natural gravel and natural sand. Slag is an industrial by product generated from the metallic ores and types of slag are classified as the type of ores, ferrous and non-ferrous slag. A typical ferrous slag and non-ferrous slag is ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and copper slag that are both widely used in the construction field. However, as the world production of GGBFS and copper slag are 260-330 Mt and 68.7 Mt annually, wider practical use of the by product is required. To solve the natural pollution resulted from using concrete and increase the recycling rate of the industrial by product, developing sustainable and eco-friendly construction material with excellent physical performance is required. Thus, the goal of the study is to investigate the microstructure and physical properties of construction materials using GGBFS and copper slag. To verify the multifunctional properties (i.e., compressive strength, whiteness index, gamma ray shielding capability) of the construction material in this study, compressive strength, spectrophotometer, experimental gamma ray shielding test, and theoretical gamma ray shielding simulation using Phy-X were performed. To support the physical properties of the sample and investigate the microstructural property of it, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), particle size distribution analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), and toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy were conducted. The contents of first study are investigating strength enhancement of CaO-activated GGBFS with gypsum and sodium chloride to develop GGBFS cementless binders using mixing water with high concentrations of chloride. To increase solubilities of calcium oxide and gypsum, small portions of sodium chloride are replaced to the GGBFS. The small portions of sodium chloride greatly increased the compressive strength of CaO-activated GGBFS binder with gypsum at 7 and 28 days. The strength gain was mostly occurred before 7 days. However, there were no effect of strength improvement of adding sodium chloride on the GGBFS binder without gypsum. In the XRD and TG result, addition of sodium chloride increased the ettringite formation in the CaO-activated GGBFS with gypsum binder. The increase of formation of ettringite might be resulted from the presence of gypsum which increases the solubility of gypsum. In the MIP result, the use of NaCl reduced capillary pores of the CaO-activated GGBFS when the gypsum was present at 7 days of curing. At 28 days, although the difference in pore size distribution mostly disappeared between CaO-activated GGBFS binders with and without adding sodium chloride when the gypsum was present, the GGBFS sample with sodium chloride still showed slightly smaller overall pore sizes than that of the GGBFS sample without gypsum. The pore size refinement through adding sodium chloride also might be resulted from the more formation of ettringite compared to the case of CaO activated GGBFS with gypsum but without adding sodium chloride. The contents of second study are developing white GGBFS binder using TiO2. Two types of TiO2 (i.e., anatase vs. rutile) and activations (i.e., CaO vs. NaOH activation) were chosen to see the effects on surface colors of hardened GGBFS samples. White cement was hydrated to compare the strength and surface color of the GGBFS samples. The GGBFS and activators were set as basic cementless binder, and CaCl2 and TiO2 were used as additives in the basic cementless binder. In the compressive strength result, 4 wt% of anatase and rutile did not make any obvious difference in strength, whereas 16 wt% of rutile and anatase decreased compressive strength which might be resulted from decrease of strength resource. In the XRD results, hydrocalumite, C-S-H/C-A-S-H, calcium hydroxide, and ettringite were formed in the CaO-activated GGBFS and C-S-H/C-A-S-H, hydrotalcite like phase, and U-phase were produced. Due to significantly high chemical stability of TiO2, the addition of TiO2 did not produce a new reaction product regardless of TiO2 type and activator type. According to the measured CIE (International Commission on illumination) whiteness value, all the NaOH-activated GGBFS samples were not near white/white as all the measured WI (Whiteness index) value appeared with ???!??? mark, whereas all the CaO-activated GGBFS were near white/white. With the progress of curing days, CaO-activated GGBFS become more reddish which might be related to the blue-green coloration of hardened GGBFS. At a given addition of TiO2, CaO activation always exhibited higher lightness and yellowness than those observed for NaOH activation. Also, regardless of the quantities of added TiO2, CaO activation produced a reddish tint, whereas NaOH activation made a greenish tint. Thus, the type of activator likely exhibits a greater effect on L*, a*, and b* than the type and quantity of TiO2. With the increase of TiO2 addition, WI and L* value of the CaO-activated GGBFS consistently increased. At the given quantity of TiO2, rutile reduced more degree of a* and b* value of the CaO-activated GGBFS samples compared to the anatase. As getting higher L* value and lower degree of tint values (a* and b*) were required for getting a higher degree of whiteness, the rutile has more advantageous effect on the whiteness index of the CaO-activated GGBFS compared to anatase. The contents of last study are developing eco-friendly cement mortar using copper slag as an aggregate. The copper slag is used with replacement of silica sand. As the copper slag is added to the cement mortar, the flowability of the mortar consistently increased. The increase in the flowability through adding copper slag was mainly attributed to the smaller water absorption property of copper slag compared to that of silica sand. In the compressive strength results, the use of copper slag significantly increased the strength and no further strength increase was not observed when the copper slags used were over 60 wt%. The clear evidence that explains the strength increase using copper slag was not provided yet. In the gamma ray shielding test, the experimental and theoretical linear attenuation coefficients of the mortar samples at 0.662 and 1.25 MeV were in good agreement. The linear attenuation coefficient of the cement mortar sample with 100 wt% of copper slag added had 30 to 31% higher than that of the cement mortar sample with 100 wt% of silica sand. In the low photon energy region, higher mass attenuation coefficient values were achieved in the cement mortar compared to the mass attenuation coefficients in the other energy regions. In the intermediate photon energy region, the mass attenuation coefficient values were similar between the cement mortar samples added with 100 wt% of copper slag and the samples added with 100 wt% of silica sand. In the high photon energy region, the mass attenuation coefficients of the cement mortar increased slightly and became nearly constant as the photon energy was increased. Except the intermediate energy region, the mass attenuation coefficients of the cement mortar added with 100 wt% of copper slag were higher than that of the cement mortar added with 100 wt% of silica sand. The variation of the mass attenuation coefficient depending on the energy could be resulted from the variation of the cross-section dependence on the atomic number (Z). As the cement mortar with 100 wt% of copper slag added had lower values of half value layer (HVL), tenth value layer (TVL), and mean free path (MFP) than the HVL, TVL, and MFP of cement mortar with 100 wt% of silica sand, use of copper slag had more advantageous effect on shielding gamma ray in all photon energy levels compared to use of silica sand. Also, the effective atomic numbers (Zeff) of cement mortar with 100 wt% of copper slag were higher than that of cement mortar with 100 wt% of silica sand in the whole energy ranges of gamma ray. Thus, using copper slag in producing cement mortars should be more advantageous than using silica sands for shielding gamma ray which might be due to high contents of Fe in the copper slag, which was a heavy element usually abundant in other heavy weight aggregates (i.e., hematite, magnetite). In the trial cement brick test according to Korean standard (KS) F 4004, cement brick using 100 wt% of copper slag satisfied all the required properties for the first class brick. Also, it was found that the measured toxic elements of the cement sample using 100 wt% copper slag were significantly much lower than the TCLP criteria of toxic elements.ope

Function-Oriented Networking and On-Demand Routing System in Network Using Ant Colony Optimization Algorithm

In this paper, we proposed and developed Function-Oriented Networking (FON), a platform for network users. It has a different philosophy as opposed to technologies for network managers of Software-Defined Networking technology, OpenFlow. It is a technology that can immediately reflect the demands of the network users in the network, unlike the existing OpenFlow and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), which do not reflect directly the needs of the network users. It allows the network user to determine the policy of the direct network, so it can be applied more precisely than the policy applied by the network manager. This is expected to increase the satisfaction of the service users when the network users try to provide new services. We developed FON function that performs on-demand routing for Low-Delay Required service. We analyzed the characteristics of the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) algorithm and found that the algorithm is suitable for low-delay required services. It was also the first in the world to implement the routing software using ACO Algorithm in the real Ethernet network. In order to improve the routing performance, several algorithms of the ACO Algorithm have been developed to enable faster path search-routing and path recovery. The relationship between the network performance index and the ACO routing parameters is derived, and the results are compared and analyzed. Through this, it was possible to develop the ACO algorithm

Mitigating self-desiccation of cement composites via cellulose microfibers: Evidence of the microscopic behavior

Water-saturated cellulose microfibers (CMFs) incorporated into fresh cement composites can mitigate microcracking induced by self-desiccation during drying. To understand the mechanism underlying the water supply via CMFs to the pore systems, this study utilized a nonlinear impact resonance acoustic spectroscopy (NIRAS) technique. The hysteresis nonlinearity parameter (????) from the NIRAS was used to quantify the microstructural changes in three different specimens (0, 0.3, and 1% dosage of CMFs). Computed tomography (CT) tests and mass tracking were conducted to obtain more insights into the mitigation of self-desiccation. The results show a remarkable reduction in ??, confirming the mitigation of microcracking formation over time. Furthermore, the trend of ?? was consistent with the pore size distribution estimated by the CT test, which provides quantitative evidence to support the mitigation of self-desiccation promoted by CMFs. We envision that these findings can be used as guidelines for enhancing the durability of cement composites facilitated by CMFs

Enhancing the durability performance of thermally damaged concrete with ground-granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash

This study investigates the effectiveness of ground-granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash in improving the durability of concrete specimens subjected to thermal damage. Multiple techniques, including nonlinear impact resonance acoustic spectroscopy (NIRAS), compressive strength, X-ray diffraction, and thermogravimetry, are employed to capture the physical and chemical phenomena resulting from a temperature elevation of 200, 400, 600, and 800 ???C. The experimental results demonstrated that replacing cement with fly ash (20 wt%) and GGBFS (40 wt%) yields significant mitigation of microcracking development, highlighting their potential as agents for enhancing concrete durability under high-temperature exposure. Notably, the hysteresis nonlinearity parameter (??) measured using NIRAS exhibits a high sensitivity for detecting the transition from micro to macroscale defects, and the trend of ?? sufficiently coincides with the results of the mineralogical analyses, confirming the evaporation of free water, dehydration of calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H), and decomposition of calcium hydroxide (CH)

The temperature-dependent action of sugar in the retardation and strength improvement of Ca(OH)2-Na2CO3-activated fly ash systems through calcium complexation

This study reports the temperature-dependent strength improvement and retardation in Ca(OH)2-Na2CO3-activated fly ash binders with sugar. Without sugar, the system exhibited rapid stiffening due to the calcite formation. The addition of sugar clearly removed the false set; however, at room temperature, it retarded strength development because the calcium complexation of sugar inhibits the dissolved calcium ions from participating in calcite and C-S-H formation. However, at 90 ??C, the use of sugar significantly improved the compressive strength by increasing the (1) degree of dissolution of fly ash and Ca(OH)2, (2) C-S-H formation, and (3) reduction of overall pore size and volume

Proposed specific heat capacity model for a concrete wall containing phase change material (PCM) under field experiment conditions

This study compares (1) the specific heat capacity (CP) model obtained from the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurement, (2) the conventional CP model using the step function and normal distribution function, and (3) the newly proposed CP model using the non-central F-distribution function. The CP models were implemented into the numerical conductive heat transfer model for the PCM-containing Portland cement (PC) concrete wall. Except for the heat capacity of PCM, other experimental data such as density, thermal conductivity, heat flux, or inner temperature profiles were obtained from the previous studies to build the numerical model. Through the validation process, the CP model using the non-central F-distribution function was selected as the best model, including the thermal properties of PCM. The proposed model was applied to the parametric study to investigate the best thermal efficiency, such as thermal comfort and diurnal temperature difference when applying PCM to PC concrete walls