Value of thrombus CT Characteristics in Patients with Acute Ischemic Stroke

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Thrombus CT characteristics might be useful for patient selection for intra-arterial treatment. Our objective was to study the association of thrombus CT characteristics with outcome and treatment effect in patients with acute ischemic stroke. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included 199 patients for whom thin-section NCCT and CTA within 30 minutes from each other were available in the Multicenter Randomized Clinical Trial of Endovascular Treatment for Acute ischemic stroke in the Netherlands (MR CLEAN) study. We assessed the following thrombus characteristics: location, distance from ICA terminus to thrombus, length, volume, absolute and relative density

qTICI: Quantitative assessment of brain tissue reperfusion on digital subtraction angiograms of acute ischemic stroke patients

Background: The Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction (TICI) scale is an important outcome measure to evaluate the quality of endovascular stroke therapy. The TICI scale is ordinal and observer-dependent, which may result in suboptimal prediction of patient outcome and inconsistent reperfusion grading. Aims: We present a semi-automated quantitative reperfusion measure (quantified TICI (qTICI)) using image processing techniques based on the TICI methodology. Methods: We included patients with an intracranial proximal large vessel occlusion with complete, good quality runs of anteroposterior and lateral digital subtraction angiography from the MR CLEAN Registry. For each vessel occlusion, we identified the target downstream territory and automatically segmented the reperfused area in the target downstream territory on final digital subtraction angiography. qTICI was defined as the percentage of reperfused area in target downstream territory. The value of qTICI and extended TICI (eTICI) in predicting favorable functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale 0–2) was compared using area under receiver operating characteristics curve and binary logistic regression analysis unadjusted and adjusted for known prognostic factors. Results: In total, 408 patients with M1 or internal carotid artery occlusion were included. The median qTICI was 78 (interquartile range 58–88) and 215 patients (53%) had an eTICI of 2C or higher. qTICI was comparable to eTICI in predicting favorable outcome with area under receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.63 vs. 0.62 (P = 0.8) and 0.87 vs. 0.86 (P = 0.87), for the unadjusted and adjusted analysis, respectively. In the adjusted regression analyses, both qTICI and eTICI were independently associated with functional outcome. Conclusion: qTICI provides a quantitative measure of reperfusion with similar prognostic value for functional outcome to eTICI score

Scale issues in soil moisture modelling: problems and prospects

Soil moisture storage is an important component of the hydrological cycle and plays a key role in land-surface-atmosphere interaction. The soil-moisture storage equation in this study considers precipitation as an input and soil moisture as a residual term for runoff and evapotranspiration. A number of models have been developed to estimate soil moisture storage and the components of the soil-moisture storage equation. A detailed discussion of the impli cation of the scale of application of these models reports that it is not possible to extrapolate processes and their estimates from the small to the large scale. It is also noted that physically based models for small-scale applications are sufficiently detailed to reproduce land-surface- atmosphere interactions. On the other hand, models for large-scale applications oversimplify the processes. Recently developed physically based models for large-scale applications can only be applied to limited uses because of data restrictions and the problems associated with land surface characterization. It is reported that remote sensing can play an important role in over coming the problems related to the unavailability of data and the land surface characterization of large-scale applications of these physically based models when estimating soil moisture storage.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

The effect of oral immuno-stimulation in juvenile carp (Cyprinus carpio L.).

Contains fulltext : 51001.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)The effect of a 2-week period of oral immuno-stimulation from the age of 2 or 6 weeks post-fertilisation (wpf; before and after reaching the ability to produce antibodies) onwards was investigated on various immune functions of the common carp, Cyprinus carpio. The immuno-stimulants Aeromonas salmonicida lipopolysaccharide, Yeast DNA (containing unmethylated CpG motifs) or high-M alginate (an extract of algae containing poly-mannuronic acid) were used. The effect of this treatment was studied on the kinetics of B cells in head kidney and peripheral blood leucocytes using flow cytometry, on the total plasma IgM level using ELISA, on cytokine and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression in the intestine, and acute phase protein expression in the liver, using real time quantitative PCR, and on exposure to Vibrio anguillarum. Oral administration of immuno-stimulants from 6 wpf resulted in decreased WCI12(+) (B) cell percentages in PBL (only after administration of LPS) and head kidney (all test groups), and a decreased total IgM level in plasma, suggesting that suppressive effects are strongly indicative of oral or juvenile tolerance. After administration from 2 wpf, the effects on WCI12(+) (B) cell percentages were less pronounced: the group fed with Yeast DNA showed higher percentages compared to the control group at 6 wpf, but lower percentages at 8 wpf. No changes were observed in the cytokine or iNOS expression levels in the intestine or acute phase protein expression in the liver. A challenge with V. anguillarum resulted in an initially higher cumulative mortality in the group fed with LPS, but lower mortality in the groups fed with Yeast DNA or high-M alginate compared to the control group, providing a provisional warning especially for the use of pathogen-derived immuno-stimulants, such as A. salmonicida LPS, in larval and juvenile fish

A Multiscale Approach to the Representation of 3D Images, with Application to Polymer Solar Cells

A multiscale approach to the description of geometrically complex 3D image data is proposed which distinguishes between morphological features on a ‘macro-scale’ and a ‘micro-scale’. Since our method is mainly tailored to nanostructures observed in composite materials consisting of two different phases, an appropriate binarization of grayscale images is required first. Then, a morphological smoothing is applied to extract the structural information from binarized image data on the ‘macro-scale’. A stochastic algorithm is developed for the morphologically smoothed images whose goal is to find a suitable representation of the macro-scale structure by unions of overlapping spheres. Such representations can be interpreted as marked point patterns. They lead to an enormous reduction of data and allow the application of well-known tools from point-process theory for their analysis and structural modeling. All those voxels which have been ‘misspecified’ by the morphological smoothing and subsequent representation by unions of overlapping spheres are interpreted as ‘micro-scale’ structure. The exemplary data sets considered in this paper are 3D grayscale images of photoactive layers in hybrid solar cells gained by electron tomography. These composite materials consist of two phases: a polymer phase and a zinc oxide phase. The macro-scale structure of the latter is represented by unions of overlapping spheres.

Controlling the Morphology and Efficiency of Hybrid ZnO:Polythiophene Solar Cells Via Side Chain Functionalization

The efficiency of polymer – metal oxide hybrid solar cells depends critically on the intimacy of mixing of the two semiconductors. The effect of side chain functionalization on the morphology and performance of conjugated polymer:ZnO solar cells is investigated. Using an ester-functionalized side chain poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) derivative (P3HT-E), the nanoscale morphology of ZnO:polymer solar cells is significantly more intimately mixed compared to ZnO:poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (ZnO:P3HT), as evidenced experimentally from a 3D reconstruction of the phase separation using electron tomography. Photoinduced absorption reveals nearly quantitative charge generation for the ZnO:P3HT-E blend but not for ZnO:P3HT, consistent with the results obtained from solving the 3D diffusion equation for excitons formed in the polymer within the two experimental ZnO morphologies. For thin ZnO:P3HT-E active layers (~50 nm) this yields a significant improvement of the solar cell performance. For thicker cells, however, the reduced hole mobility and a reduced percolation of ZnO pathways hinders charge carrier collection, limiting the power conversion efficiency.

qTICI: quantitative assessment of brain tissue reperfusion on digital subtraction angiograms of acute ischemic stroke patients

BackgroundThe Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction (TICI) scale is an important outcome measure to evaluate the quality of endovascular stroke therapy. The TICI scale is ordinal and observer-dependent, which may result in suboptimal prediction of patient outcome and inconsistent reperfusion grading.AimsWe present a semi-automated quantitative reperfusion measure (quantified TICI (qTICI)) using image processing techniques based on the TICI methodology.MethodsWe included patients with an intracranial proximal large vessel occlusion with complete, good quality runs of anteroposterior and lateral digital subtraction angiography from the MR CLEAN Registry. For each vessel occlusion, we identified the target downstream territory and automatically segmented the reperfused area in the target downstream territory on final digital subtraction angiography. qTICI was defined as the percentage of reperfused area in target downstream territory. The value of qTICI and extended TICI (eTICI) in predicting favorable functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale 0-2) was compared using area under receiver operating characteristics curve and binary logistic regression analysis unadjusted and adjusted for known prognostic factors.ResultsIn total, 408 patients with M1 or internal carotid artery occlusion were included. The median qTICI was 78 (interquartile range 58-88) and 215 patients (53%) had an eTICI of 2C or higher. qTICI was comparable to eTICI in predicting favorable outcome with area under receiver operating characteristics curve of 0.63 vs. 0.62 (P = 0.8) and 0.87 vs. 0.86 (P = 0.87), for the unadjusted and adjusted analysis, respectively. In the adjusted regression analyses, both qTICI and eTICI were independently associated with functional outcome.ConclusionqTICI provides a quantitative measure of reperfusion with similar prognostic value for functional outcome to eTICI score