TiO2 nanotubes with ultrathin walls for enhanced water splitting

We demonstrate, for the first time, the synthesis of titania nanotubes with ultrathin (3–5 nm) wall thickness. As revealed by the incident photon-to-current collection efficiency (IPCE) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements, the ultrathin walls, less than the charge carrier diffusion length, were essential to ensure fast and efficient charge carrier collection.Qatar National Research Fund, a member of Qatar Foundation NPRP Grant no. 6-569-1-11

Vessel segmentation for automatic registration of untracked laparoscopic ultrasound to CT of the liver

PURPOSE: Registration of Laparoscopic Ultrasound (LUS) to a pre-operative scan such as Computed Tomography (CT) using blood vessel information has been proposed as a method to enable image-guidance for laparoscopic liver resection. Currently, there are solutions for this problem that can potentially enable clinical translation by bypassing the need for a manual initialisation and tracking information. However, no reliable framework for the segmentation of vessels in 2D untracked LUS images has been presented. METHODS: We propose the use of 2D UNet for the segmentation of liver vessels in 2D LUS images. We integrate these results in a previously developed registration method, and show the feasibility of a fully automatic initialisation to the LUS to CT registration problem without a tracking device. RESULTS: We validate our segmentation using LUS data from 6 patients. We test multiple models by placing patient datasets into different combinations of training, testing and hold-out, and obtain mean Dice scores ranging from 0.543 to 0.706. Using these segmentations, we obtain registration accuracies between 6.3 and 16.6 mm in 50% of cases. CONCLUSIONS: We demonstrate the first instance of deep learning (DL) for the segmentation of liver vessels in LUS. Our results show the feasibility of UNet in detecting multiple vessel instances in 2D LUS images, and potentially automating a LUS to CT registration pipeline

A Catalog of Very Isolated Galaxies from the SDSS Data Release 1

We present a new catalog of isolated galaxies obtained through an automated systematic search. These 2980 isolated galaxies were found in approximately 2099 sq deg of sky in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 1 (SDSS DR1) photometry. The selection algorithm, implementing a variation on the criteria developed by Karachentseva in 1973, proved to be very efficient and fast. This catalog will be useful for studies of the general galaxy characteristics. Here we report on our results.Comment: 67 pages, which includes 14 figures. Accepted for publication by A

Circonstances des pullulations de Tetranychus urticae Koch (Tetranychidae, Acari) en verger d'agrumes

T. urticae est l'un des gros ravageurs actuellement recensés sur diverses cultures et plantes spontanées. Le travail, centré autour d'observations conduites en verger d'agrumes, présente la genèse des pullulations du tétranyque. Les facteurs climatiques, le rôle des mauvaises herbes dans l'approvisionnement des arbres en individus sont analysés. Il ressort de l'agencement de l'ensemble des observations conduites, l'importance décisive des interactions qui s'exercent entre clémentinier et strate herbacée. Le suivi des populations de T. urticae à des fins de phytoprotection doit nécessairement tenir compte de la charge en individus de ces composantes du système verger.Swarminr circumBtances of Tetranychus urticae Koch (Tetranychidae, Acan) in Citrus orchardsTetranychus urticae Koch is one of the most important, actually recorder, pest on various crops and spontaneous plants. Based on observation done in Citrus orchards, this work present the genesis of the mite swarming in nature. The effect of climatic factors and weds on Citrus trees infestation were analyzed. The interaction between clementine trees and herbaceous stratum was determined in this infestation. Thesurvey of the Twospotted spider mite pullulation on weeds should be considered in any control programme