27 research outputs found
MR imaging of intracranial solitary fibrous tumor: a retrospective study of 7 cases
Objective: To investigate the MR imaging diagnostic features of intracranial solitary fibrous tumors (ISFTs).Materials and methods: Seven patients (mean age of 52.9 years; M:F=3:4) with histopathologically proven ISFTs were identified at our institute. Clinical presentations and pathological features were reviewed. MR Imaging findings including signal intensity, gadopentetate dimeglumine enhanced pattern, and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) characterization of the tumors were retrospectively evaluated.Results: Six tumors showed a multi-lobular contour. Five tumors showed heterogeneous signal intensity, and two tumors showed homogeneous signal intensity on T1WI. Low signal intensity linear, curved or interlacing lines were observed within the tumors in all seven cases. Seven tumors demonstrated moderate or strong enhancement, six showed heterogeneous enhancement, and one homogenous enhancement. All tumors showed heterogeneous signal intensity on DWI.A ring–like high signal intensity band distributed around within the tumor was noted in six cases on DWI.Conclusion: Diagnostic evidence for ISFT on MR image includes heterogeneous signal intensity, intense enhancement of T2 signal intensity, low signal intensity lines within the tumor, heterogeneous signal intensity on DWI and a ring-like band around the tumor on DWI.Keywords: Intracranial Solitary Fibrous Tumor, Magnetic resonance imaging, Diffusion-weighted Imaging
MR imaging of intracranial solitary fibrous tumor: a retrospective study of 7 cases
Objective: To investigate the MR imaging diagnostic features of
intracranial solitary fibrous tumors (ISFTs). Materials and methods:
Seven patients (mean age of 52.9 years; M:F=3:4) with
histopathologically proven ISFTs were identified at our institute.
Clinical presentations and pathological features were reviewed. MR
Imaging findings including signal intensity, gadopentetate dimeglumine
enhanced pattern, and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) characterization
of the tumors were retrospectively evaluated. Results: Six tumors
showed a multi-lobular contour. Five tumors showed heterogeneous signal
intensity, and two tumors showed homogeneous signal intensity on T1WI.
Low signal intensity linear, curved or interlacing lines were observed
within the tumors in all seven cases. Seven tumors demonstrated
moderate or strong enhancement, six showed heterogeneous enhancement,
and one homogenous enhancement. All tumors showed heterogeneous signal
intensity on DWI.A ring\u2013like high signal intensity band
distributed around within the tumor was noted in six cases on DWI.
Conclusion: Diagnostic evidence for ISFT on MR image includes
heterogeneous signal intensity, intense enhancement of T2 signal
intensity, low signal intensity lines within the tumor, heterogeneous
signal intensity on DWI and a ring-like band around the tumor on DWI
Miniscalpel-Needle Treatment Is Effective for Work-Related Neck and Shoulder Musculoskeletal Disorders
Background. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are a group of painful disorders of muscles, tendons, and nerves, such as neck and shoulder MSD. This study was designed to use miniscalpel-needle (MSN) technique as an intervention for work-related MSDs. Methods. Thirty-one patients with work-related MSDs and 28 healthy subjects were enrolled as controls in this study. The MSD symptoms of each patient were assessed by visual analog scale (VAS) and neck disability index (NDI). Blood samples were collected from control subjects and MSD patients before and after treatment. Serum levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) were measured using ELISA. Results. Prior to MSN treatment, serum levels of CRP and TNF were significantly higher in the MSD patients than the healthy controls. Serum CRP levels correlated with VAS and NDI scores, and serum TNF levels correlated with NDI scores. Compared to pretreatment, VAS and NDI scores were significantly lower in MSD patients after MSN treatment, while serum CRP and TNF levels were significantly lower compared with the healthy control levels. Conclusions. Our results indicate that MSN may be an effective intervention for work-related MSDs and be associated with lower serum levels of inflammatory biomarkers
PAN: Pulse Ansatz on NISQ Machines
Variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have demonstrated great potentials in
the NISQ era. In the workflow of VQA, the parameters of ansatz are iteratively
updated to approximate the desired quantum states. We have seen various efforts
to draft better ansatz with less gates. In quantum computers, the gate ansatz
will eventually be transformed into control signals such as microwave pulses on
transmons. And the control pulses need elaborate calibration to minimize the
errors such as over-rotation and under-rotation. In the case of VQAs, this
procedure will introduce redundancy, but the variational properties of VQAs can
naturally handle problems of over-rotation and under-rotation by updating the
amplitude and frequency parameters. Therefore, we propose PAN, a native-pulse
ansatz generator framework for VQAs. We generate native-pulse ansatz with
trainable parameters for amplitudes and frequencies. In our proposed PAN, we
are tuning parametric pulses, which are natively supported on NISQ computers.
Considering that parameter-shift rules do not hold for native-pulse ansatz, we
need to deploy non-gradient optimizers. To constrain the number of parameters
sent to the optimizer, we adopt a progressive way to generate our native-pulse
ansatz. Experiments are conducted on both simulators and quantum devices to
validate our methods. When adopted on NISQ machines, PAN obtained improved the
performance with decreased latency by an average of 86%. PAN is able to achieve
99.336% and 96.482% accuracy for VQE tasks on H2 and HeH+ respectively, even
with considerable noises in NISQ machines.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure
Towards Advantages of Parameterized Quantum Pulses
The advantages of quantum pulses over quantum gates have attracted increasing
attention from researchers. Quantum pulses offer benefits such as flexibility,
high fidelity, scalability, and real-time tuning. However, while there are
established workflows and processes to evaluate the performance of quantum
gates, there has been limited research on profiling parameterized pulses and
providing guidance for pulse circuit design. To address this gap, our study
proposes a set of design spaces for parameterized pulses, evaluating these
pulses based on metrics such as expressivity, entanglement capability, and
effective parameter dimension. Using these design spaces, we demonstrate the
advantages of parameterized pulses over gate circuits in the aspect of duration
and performance at the same time thus enabling high-performance quantum
computing. Our proposed design space for parameterized pulse circuits has shown
promising results in quantum chemistry benchmarks.Comment: 11 Figures, 4 Table
RobustState: Boosting Fidelity of Quantum State Preparation via Noise-Aware Variational Training
Quantum state preparation, a crucial subroutine in quantum computing,
involves generating a target quantum state from initialized qubits. Arbitrary
state preparation algorithms can be broadly categorized into arithmetic
decomposition (AD) and variational quantum state preparation (VQSP). AD employs
a predefined procedure to decompose the target state into a series of gates,
whereas VQSP iteratively tunes ansatz parameters to approximate target state.
VQSP is particularly apt for Noisy-Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) machines
due to its shorter circuits. However, achieving noise-robust parameter
optimization still remains challenging.
We present RobustState, a novel VQSP training methodology that combines high
robustness with high training efficiency. The core idea involves utilizing
measurement outcomes from real machines to perform back-propagation through
classical simulators, thus incorporating real quantum noise into gradient
calculations. RobustState serves as a versatile, plug-and-play technique
applicable for training parameters from scratch or fine-tuning existing
parameters to enhance fidelity on target machines. It is adaptable to various
ansatzes at both gate and pulse levels and can even benefit other variational
algorithms, such as variational unitary synthesis.
Comprehensive evaluation of RobustState on state preparation tasks for 4
distinct quantum algorithms using 10 real quantum machines demonstrates a
coherent error reduction of up to 7.1 and state fidelity improvement
of up to 96\% and 81\% for 4-Q and 5-Q states, respectively. On average,
RobustState improves fidelity by 50\% and 72\% for 4-Q and 5-Q states compared
to baseline approaches.Comment: Accepted to FASTML @ ICCAD 2023. 14 pages, 20 figure
Whole-genome sequencing of <em>Oryza brachyantha</em> reveals mechanisms underlying <em>Oryza</em> genome evolution
The wild species of the genus Oryza contain a largely untapped reservoir of agronomically important genes for rice improvement. Here we report the 261-Mb de novo assembled genome sequence of Oryza brachyantha. Low activity of long-terminal repeat retrotransposons and massive internal deletions of ancient long-terminal repeat elements lead to the compact genome of Oryza brachyantha. We model 32,038 protein-coding genes in the Oryza brachyantha genome, of which only 70% are located in collinear positions in comparison with the rice genome. Analysing breakpoints of non-collinear genes suggests that double-strand break repair through non-homologous end joining has an important role in gene movement and erosion of collinearity in the Oryza genomes. Transition of euchromatin to heterochromatin in the rice genome is accompanied by segmental and tandem duplications, further expanded by transposable element insertions. The high-quality reference genome sequence of Oryza brachyantha provides an important resource for functional and evolutionary studies in the genus Oryza
Miniscalpel-Needle versus Steroid Injection for Plantar Fasciitis: A Randomized Controlled Trial with a 12-Month Follow-Up
Plantar fasciitis is the most common cause of heel pain in adults. A novel alternative medical instrument, the miniscalpel-needle (MSN), which is based on an acupuncture needle, has been recently developed in China. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the MSN release treatment versus that of traditional steroid injection for plantar fasciitis. Patients with plantar fasciitis were randomly assigned to 2 groups and followed up for 12 months, with 29 receiving MSN treatment and 25 receiving steroid injection treatment. The results showed that visual analog scale scores for morning pain, active pain, and overall heel pain all were decreased significantly in the MSN group from 1 to 12 months after treatment. In contrast, treatment with steroid injection showed a significant effect only at the 1-month follow-up but not at 6 or 12 months after treatment. Moreover, the MSN group achieved more rapid and sustained improvements than the steroid group throughout the duration of this study. No severe side effects were observed with MSN treatment. Our data suggest that the MSN release treatment is safe and has a significant benefit for plantar fasciitis compared to steroid injection
The complete chloroplast genome of Pluchea pteropoda Hemsl, a mangrove associate plant
Pluchea pteropoda Hemsl is a mangrove associate plant of Asteraceae with medicinal properties such as anti-inflammation and fever-relieving. Here, our study presented the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of Pluchea pteropoda Hemsl. The cp genome of P. pteropoda was 152,300 bp in length, including a large single copy (LSC) region of 84,127 bp, a small single copy (SSC) region of 18,093 bp and a pair of inverted repeats (IR) regions of 25,040 bp. A total of 111 unique genes were found, comprising 79 protein-coding genes, 28 tRNA genes, and 4 rRNA genes. The GC content of the cp genome was 37.5%. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that P. pteropoda nested in Pluchea clade, which was closely related to Ageratina adenophora and Senecio scandens. The work provides beneficial data for following researches on the genetic variation, species delimitation, phylogeny and classification of Pluchea genus