The contribution of T2 relaxation time to diffusion MRI quantification and its clinical implications: a hypothesis

Considering liver as the reference, that both fast diffusion (PF) and slow diffusion (Dslow) of the spleen are much underestimated is likely due to the MRI properties of the spleen such as the much longer T2 relaxation time. It is possible that longer T2 relaxation time partially mitigates the signal decay effect of various gradients on diffusion weighted image. This phenomenon will not be limited to the spleen. Most liver tumors have a longer T2 relaxation time than their native normal tissue and this is considered to be associated with oedema. On the other hand, most tumors are measured with lower MRI diffusion (despite being oedematous). The reason why malignant tumors have lower diffusion value [apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and Dslow] are poorly understood but has been proposed to be related to a combination of higher cellularity, tissue disorganization, and increased extracellular space tortuosity. These explanations may be true, but it is also possible to that many tumors have MRI properties similar to the spleen such as longer T2 (relative to the liver) and these MRI properties may also contribute to the lower MRI measured ADC and Dslow . In other words, if we could hypothetically plant a piece of spleen tissue in the liver, MRI would recognize this planted spleen tissue as being similar to a tumor and measure it to have lower diffusion than the liver

An analysis of 1256 cases of sporadic ruptured cerebral aneurysm in a single Chinese institution

Background: To review the epidemiology of sporadic ruptured cerebral aneurysm. Methods: This is a retrospective study of consecutive 1256 Chinese patients between January 2006 and January 2013, who were admitted to the Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, China, for spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage due to a rupture of cerebral artery aneurysm. In 288 males and 478 females, the size of aneurysms was measured by a neuroradiologist on DSA. In 123 males and 184 females, the size of the ruptured aneurysms was not measured. The remaining patients, with 61 males and 122 females, had multiple aneurysms, and the medical record could not reliably determine the specific aneurysm responsible for the rupture. Results: In total there were 784 females and 472 males with a female/male ratio of 1.66. The female/male ratio was down to 0.50 for patients younger than 35 yrs. For both males and females, aneurysm rupture was most common during the age of 50-59 yrs. Ruptured aneurysms were mostly of 2 mm-5 mm in size (47.1%), followed by 5 mm-10 mm (39.7%). Ruptured single cerebral aneurysm occurred in anterior circulation in 95.0% of the cases, with 5.0% occurred in posterior circulation. Ruptured aneurysm most commonly occurred at posterior communicating artery (34.9%) and anterior communicating artery (29.5%). 183 cases (14.6%) had multiple aneurysms. Conclusions: With younger patients, there is a male predominance in our series. Ninety percent of patients have ruptured aneurysms less than 10 mm in size. © 2014 Zhao et al.published_or_final_versio

The vital role of hole-carriers for superconductivity in pressurized black phosphorus

The influence of carrier type on superconductivity has been an important issue for understanding both conventional and unconventional superconductors [1-7]. For elements that superconduct, it is known that hole-carriers govern the superconductivity for transition and main group metals [8-10]. The role of hole-carriers in elements that are not normally conducting but can be converted to superconductors, however, remains unclear due to the lack of experimental data. Here we report the first in-situ high pressure Hall effect measurements on single crystal black phosphorus, measured up to ~ 50 GPa, and find a correlation between the Hall coefficient and the superconducting transition temperature (TC). Our results reveal that hole-carriers play a vital role in developing superconductivity and enhancing TC. Importantly, we also find a Lifshitz transition in the high-pressure cubic phase at ~17.2GPa, which uncovers the origin of a puzzling valley in the superconducting TC-pressure phase diagram. These results offer insight into the role of hole-carriers in developing superconductivity in simple semiconducting solids under pressure.Comment: 9 pages anf 3 figure

Quantum theory of electronic double-slit diffraction

The phenomena of electron, neutron, atomic and molecular diffraction have been studied by many experiments, and these experiments are explained by some theoretical works. In this paper, we study electronic double-slit diffraction with quantum mechanical approach. We can obtain the results: (1) When the slit width $a$ is in the range of $3\lambda\sim 50\lambda$ we can obtain the obvious diffraction patterns. (2) when the ratio of $\frac{d+a}{a}=n (n=1, 2, 3,\cdot\cdot\cdot)$, order $2n, 3n, 4n,\cdot\cdot\cdot$ are missing in diffraction pattern. (3)When the ratio of $\frac{d+a}{a}\neq n (n=1, 2, 3,\cdot\cdot\cdot)$, there isn't missing order in diffraction pattern. (4) We also find a new quantum mechanics effect that the slit thickness $c$ has a large affect to the electronic diffraction patterns. We think all the predictions in our work can be tested by the electronic double-slit diffraction experiment.Comment: 9pages, 14figure

Dirac Equation at Finite Temperature

In this paper, we propose finite temperature Dirac equation, which can describe the quantum systems in an arbitrary temperature for a relativistic particle of spin-1/2. When the temperature T=0, it become Dirac equation. With the equation, we can study the relativistic quantum systems in an arbitrary temperature.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1005.2751, arXiv:hep-ph/0004125, arXiv:hep-ph/0005272 by other author

The volume of trade-induced cross-border freight transportation has doubled and led to 1.14 gigatons CO₂ emissions in 2015

International freight transport associated with global trade generates significant CO2 emissions, which are expected to increase with further globalization. The reduction of these emissions will require international and interregional collaboration. However, which trading partners are responsible for freight transport carbon footprints throughout global value chains remains unclear. Here we link bilateral trade flows of export volume to a multi-regional input-output model to measure CO2 emissions of international freight transport from 1995 to 2015. We find that in 2015, international freight transport generated 1.14 gigatons of CO2, representing 16% of the total emissions associated with international supply chains. Primary contributors were Asia (39%), the European Union (21%) and the United States (13%). During 1995–2015, the cross-border freight transport volume more than doubled due to rapidly growing consumption and transportation of heavier intermediate goods. Our findings provide the information necessary to design targeted mitigation policies for international freight transport

Monitoring Urban Forests from Auto-Generated Segmentation Maps

We present and evaluate a weakly-supervised methodology to quantify the spatio-temporal distribution of urban forests based on remotely sensed data with close-to-zero human interaction. Successfully training machine learning models for semantic segmentation typically depends on the availability of high-quality labels. We evaluate the benefit of high-resolution, three-dimensional point cloud data (LiDAR) as source of noisy labels in order to train models for the localization of trees in orthophotos. As proof of concept we sense Hurricane Sandy's impact on urban forests in Coney Island, New York City (NYC) and reference it to less impacted urban space in Brooklyn, NYC