Learned Local Attention Maps for Synthesising Vessel Segmentations

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is an imaging modality for visualising blood vessels. It is useful for several diagnostic applications and for assessing the risk of adverse events such as haemorrhagic stroke (resulting from the rupture of aneurysms in blood vessels). However, MRAs are not acquired routinely, hence, an approach to synthesise blood vessel segmentations from more routinely acquired MR contrasts such as T1 and T2, would be useful. We present an encoder-decoder model for synthesising segmentations of the main cerebral arteries in the circle of Willis (CoW) from only T2 MRI. We propose a two-phase multi-objective learning approach, which captures both global and local features. It uses learned local attention maps generated by dilating the segmentation labels, which forces the network to only extract information from the T2 MRI relevant to synthesising the CoW. Our synthetic vessel segmentations generated from only T2 MRI achieved a mean Dice score of $0.79 \pm 0.03$ in testing, compared to state-of-the-art segmentation networks such as transformer U-Net ($0.71 \pm 0.04$) and nnU-net($0.68 \pm 0.05$), while using only a fraction of the parameters. The main qualitative difference between our synthetic vessel segmentations and the comparative models was in the sharper resolution of the CoW vessel segments, especially in the posterior circulation

Implementation of Fictitious Crack Model Using Contact Finite Element Method for the Crack Propagation in Concrete under Cyclic Load

The mixed freedom finite element method proposed for contact problems was extended to simulate the fracture mechanics of concrete using the fictitious crack model. Pairs of contact points were set along the potential developing path of the crack. The displacement of structure was chosen as the basic variable, and the nodal contact force in contact region under local coordinate system was selected as the iteration variable to confine the nonlinear iteration process in the potential contact surface which is more numerically efficient. The contact forces and the opening of the crack were obtained explicitly enabling the softening constitutive relation for the concrete to be introduced conveniently by the fictitious crack model. According to the states of the load and the crack, the constitutive relation of concrete under cyclic load is characterized by six contact states with each contact state denoting its own displacement-stress relation. In this paper, the basic idea of the mixed freedom finite element method as well as the constitutive relation of concrete under cyclic load is presented. A numerical method was proposed to simulate crack propagation process in concrete. The accuracy and capability of the proposed method were verified by a numerical example against experiment data

Single Spring Joint Element Based on the Mixed Coordinate System

As a FEM for reinforced concrete bond-slip problems, one important feature of the typical double spring joint element method is the selection of the normal stiffness, which may cause the mutual embedding problem and bring challenges to the calculation. In this paper, a novel single spring joint element method based on the mixed coordinate system is proposed to simulate the interaction of two materials. Instead of choosing the normal stiffness arbitrarily, the proposed method makes DOFs of two materials in the normal direction equal to ensure deformation compatibility. And its solid elements for the concrete are solved in global coordinate system, while the beam elements for the steel bar are solved in local coordinate system. In addition, the proposed method can also be applied to RC structures with irregular arrangements of steel bars. Numerical examples demonstrate the validity and accuracy of the proposed approach. Furthermore, the bond model is applied to RC beams with the description of the damage process

Novel carbon trading mode based on automated market maker

The climate issue has attracted attention all over the world. Building and developing the carbon trading market is an important measure for countries to realize low-carbon transition. However， as a new kind of market， the carbon trading market faces the problems of insufficient data trust and liquidity. Firstly， traditional trading modes， such as order book， inquiry， and auction modes are analyzed， pointing out that they cannot solve the problem of insufficient liquidity. Then， by drawing on the concept of virtual energy currency， carbon assets are digitized through blockchain to solve the problem of trust in carbon assets and trading platforms. After that， a carbon trading mode based on automated market maker is proposed to increase the liquidity of the market. Finally， a carbon trading prototype system based on automated market maker is developed and the effectiveness of the proposed mode is analyzed by case studies