Portable Ultrasound Data Acquisition System Design

Ultrasound is radiation-free, patient-friendly and less expensive when compared to other medical imaging techniques. Ultrasound scanning has the capability to image the organs in real time, thus offering quick diagnosis. Conventional medical ultrasound machines are not suited for remote health monitoring because of their large form factor and lack of trained sonographers limiting its use only to urban areas and well trained clinicians. This thesis discusses the implementation of portable ultrasound data acquisition system for Point of Care (POC) applications in both of the system-level Hardware and Firmware design level. In the Hardware design, we are targeting the compact able application as well as the extendable applications where the power, level of integration and the feasible of the replication are critical. The portable system architecture for 8-channel consists of ASICs for ultrasound and FPGA. Beam forming is the front end process to steer and focus the acoustic beam with in the region of interest for diagnosis

Decomposition of symmetric tensor fields in the presence of a flat contact projective structure

Let $M$ be an odd-dimensional Euclidean space endowed with a contact 1-form $\alpha$. We investigate the space of symmetric contravariant tensor fields on $M$ as a module over the Lie algebra of contact vector fields, i.e. over the Lie subalgebra made up by those vector fields that preserve the contact structure. If we consider symmetric tensor fields with coefficients in tensor densities, the vertical cotangent lift of contact form $\alpha$ is a contact invariant operator. We also extend the classical contact Hamiltonian to the space of symmetric density valued tensor fields. This generalized Hamiltonian operator on the symbol space is invariant with respect to the action of the projective contact algebra $sp(2n+2)$. The preceding invariant operators lead to a decomposition of the symbol space (expect for some critical density weights), which generalizes a splitting proposed by V. Ovsienko

FPGA-Based Portable Ultrasound Scanning System with Automatic Kidney Detection

Bedsides diagnosis using portable ultrasound scanning (PUS) offering comfortable diagnosis with various clinical advantages, in general, ultrasound scanners suffer from a poor signal-to-noise ratio, and physicians who operate the device at point-of-care may not be adequately trained to perform high level diagnosis. Such scenarios can be eradicated by incorporating ambient intelligence in PUS. In this paper, we propose an architecture for a PUS system, whose abilities include automated kidney detection in real time. Automated kidney detection is performed by training the Viola–Jones algorithm with a good set of kidney data consisting of diversified shapes and sizes. It is observed that the kidney detection algorithm delivers very good performance in terms of detection accuracy. The proposed PUS with kidney detection algorithm is implemented on a single Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA, integrated with a Raspberry Pi ARM processor running at 900 MHz

Light to Shape the Future: From Photolithography to 4D Printing

Over the last few decades, the demand of polymeric structures with well-defined features of different size, dimension, and functionality has increased from various application areas, including microelectronics, biotechnology, tissue engineering, and photonics, among others. The ability of light to control over space and time physicochemical processes is a unique tool for the structuring of polymeric materials, opening new avenues for technological progress in different fields of application. This article gives an overview of various photochemical reactions in polymers, photosensitive materials, and structuring techniques making use of light, and highlights most recent advances, emerging opportunities, and relevant applications

JAK2 V617F Constitutive Activation Requires JH2 Residue F595: A Pseudokinase Domain Target for Specific Inhibitors

The JAK2 V617F mutation present in over 95% of Polycythemia Vera patients and in 50% of Essential Thrombocythemia and Primary Myelofibrosis patients renders the kinase constitutively active. In the absence of a three-dimensional structure for the full-length protein, the mechanism of activation of JAK2 V617F has remained elusive. In this study, we used functional mutagenesis to investigate the involvement of the JH2 αC helix in the constitutive activation of JAK2 V617F. We show that residue F595, located in the middle of the αC helix of JH2, is indispensable for the constitutive activity of JAK2 V617F. Mutation of F595 to Ala, Lys, Val or Ile significantly decreases the constitutive activity of JAK2 V617F, but F595W and F595Y are able to restore it, implying an aromaticity requirement at position 595. Substitution of F595 to Ala was also able to decrease the constitutive activity of two other JAK2 mutants, T875N and R683G, as well as JAK2 K539L, albeit to a lower extent. In contrast, the F595 mutants are activated by erythropoietin-bound EpoR. We also explored the relationship between the dimeric conformation of EpoR and several JAK2 mutants. Since residue F595 is crucial to the constitutive activation of JAK2 V617F but not to initiation of JAK2 activation by cytokines, we suggest that small molecules that target the region around this residue might specifically block oncogenic JAK2 and spare JAK2 wild-type

First Measurement of the Ti (e,e′) X Cross Section at Jefferson Lab

To probe CP violation in the leptonic sector using GeV energy neutrino beams in current and future experiments using argon detectors, precise models of the complex underlying neutrino and antineutrino interactions are needed. The E12-14-012 experiment at Jefferson Lab Hall A was designed to perform a combined analysis of inclusive and exclusive electron scatterings on both argon (N=22) and titanium (Z=22) nuclei using GeV-energy electron beams. The measurement on titanium nucleus provides essential information to understand the neutrino scattering on argon, large contribution to which comes from scattering off neutrons. Here we report the first experimental study of electron-titanium scattering as double-differential cross section at beam energy E=2.222 GeV and electron-scattering angle θ=15.541^{∘}, measured over a broad range of energy transfer, spanning the kinematical regions in which quasielastic scattering and delta production are the dominant reaction mechanisms. The data provide valuable new information needed to develop accurate theoretical models of the electromagnetic and weak cross sections of these complex nuclei in the kinematic regime of interest to neutrino experiments.National Science Foundation (U.S.) (CAREER Grant PHY-1352106

First Measurement of the Ti(e,e′)X(e,e^\prime){\rm X} Cross Section at Jefferson Lab

To probe CP violation in the leptonic sector using GeV energy neutrino beams in current and future experiments using argon detectors, precise models of the complex underlying neutrino and antineutrino interactions are needed. The E12-14-012 experiment at Jefferson Lab Hall A was designed to perform a combined analysis of inclusive and exclusive electron scatterings on both argon ($N = 22$) and titanium ($Z = 22$) nuclei using GeV energy electron beams. The measurement on titanium nucleus provides essential information to understand the neutrino scattering on argon, large contribution to which comes from scattering off neutrons. Here we report the first experimental study of electron-titanium scattering as double differential cross section at beam energy $E=2.222$ GeV and electron scattering angle $\theta = 15.541$ deg, measured over a broad range of energy transfer, spanning the kinematical regions in which quasielastic scattering and delta production are the dominant reaction mechanisms. The data provide valuable new information needed to develop accurate theoretical models of the electromagnetic and weak cross sections of these complex nuclei in the kinematic regime of interest to neutrino experiments.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Version published in Physical Review

Measurement of the Cross Sections for Inclusive Electron Scattering in the E12-14-012 Experiment at Jefferson Lab

The E12-14-012 experiment performed at Jefferson Lab Hall A has collected inclusive electron-scattering data for different targets at the kinematics corresponding to beam energy 2.222 GeV and scattering angle 15.54°. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of the collected data and compare the double-differential cross sections for inclusive scattering of electrons, extracted using solid targets (aluminum, carbon, and titanium) and a closed argon-gas cell. The data extend over broad range of energy transfer, where quasielastic interaction, Δ-resonance excitation, and inelastic scattering yield contributions to the cross section. The double-differential cross sections are reported with high precision (∼3%) for all targets over the covered kinematic range