Effect of the location and size of thyroid nodules on the diagnostic performance of ultrasound elastography: A retrospective analysis

OBJECTIVES: Ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration biopsies are recommended for the detection of suspicious thyroid nodules. However, the best approach regarding suspicious ultrasound features for thyroid nodules is still unclear. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of location and size of thyroid nodules on the diagnostic performance of strain ultrasound elastography. In addition, this study evaluated whether ultrasound elastography predicts malignancy in thyroid nodules. METHODS: Data regarding the size, depth, and distance from the carotid artery of nodules, the elasticity contrast index, and the nature of nodules were analyzed. RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the depth (p=0.092) and the distance from the carotid artery (p=0.061) between benign and suspicious nodules. Suspicious nodules were smaller than benign nodules (po0.0001, q=23.84) and had a higher elasticity contrast index (po0.0001, q=21.05). The depth of nodules and the size of the nodule were not associated with the correct value of the elasticity contrast index (p40.05 for both). The diagnostic performance of ultrasound elastography was not affected by the distance of the nodules from the carotid artery if they were located X15 mm from the carotid artery (p=0.5960). However, if the suspicious nodules were located o15 mm from the carotid artery, the diagnostic accuracy was hampered (p=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: The strain ultrasound elastography should be carefully evaluated when small thyroid nodules are located near the carotid artery

Polarized signals from oriented frozen hydrometeors using passive microwave radiometry

Ice clouds play a significant role in energy budget of the earth-atmosphere system, and they also participate in global hydrological cycle. Thick ice clouds which are associated with precipitation transfer energy and water between the atmosphere and the earth. The net effects of ice clouds on the earth-atmosphere system highly depend on their microphysical properties. However, the complex and variable structure of ice clouds makes it difficult to capture them well in models. The oversimplified microphysical properties of ice clouds in retrievals introduce significant uncertainties in weather and climate studies. The knowledge on the orientation of ice particles is very limited. The orientation of frozen hydrometeors which induces polarization signatures determines the magnitude of polarized signals. In order to investigate the potential polarized signatures induced by the oriented frozen hydrometeors, ground-based polarization observations have been performed at “Umweltforschungsstation Schneefernerhaus” (UFS) on Mount Zugspitze (German Alps) at 2650 m above sea level. In this study, the polarization observations carried out by a ground-based dual polarized microwave radiometer (DPR) at 150 GHz are investigated together with auxiliary instruments deployed at UFS, i.e., a second microwave radiometer (HATPRO) and a K-band micro rain radar (MRR). HATPRO measures liquid water path (LWP) and integrated water vapor (IWV) during snowfall, and MRR operating at 24.1 GHz provides indirect snow water path (SWP) information. Based on the observations, the analysis of a single snow case and one-year snowfall data show that the brightness temperature (TB) differences between the vertical and horizontal polarizations reach up to −10 K at an elevation angle of 34.8^o during snowfall. The polarized signals during snowfall can be explained well by the occurrence of oriented snow particles. The analysis of the synergic observations shows the effects of snowfall parameters on polarization differences (PDs) observed with DPR at 150 GHz. The dependencies of the measured PD and TB on MRR integrated radar reflectivity and independently derived LWP are discussed. It shows that the high SWP indicated by high values of MRR integrated reflectivity enhances both TB and PD due to the scattering effects of snow particles. Meanwhile, TBs are found to be enhanced during snowfall when supercooled liquid water is present, while PD resulting from oriented snow particles is damped by the increase of LWP. The polarization observations support the potential role of polarization measurements in improving retrievals of snowfall microphysical parameters. To evaluate the effects of SWP and LWP on PD and TB, radiative transfer (RT) simulations assuming horizontally aligned snow oblates using a polarized RT model have been performed. PD and TB observations can be captured well by the RT model with given reasonable assumptions on the microphysical parameters of oriented snow oblates. Additionally, the uncertainties of PD and TB caused by snow microphysical properties are fully examined in the RT simulations. The “damping (enhancing)” effects of supercooled liquid water on PD (TB) are further interpreted by a simple physical model where the height of cloud liquid varies with respect to the dichroic snow layer. From the ground-based observations, it is found that PD resulting from oriented snow particles is absorbed by supercooled liquid below snow layers. When supercooled liquid water is located above snow layers, PD is damped since it is compensated by the emission of supercooled liquid water penetrating the snow layer. TB is generally enhanced by the presence of LWP: the warmer the supercooled liquid water, the larger the TB. The polarization observations promote the design of new instruments further. Under an assumption that ice particles are oriented, RT simulations are performed for the space-borne satellite FengYun-4 (FY-4) channels to examine polarization information content for ice cloud characterization. The results show that polarization can be beneficial for ice cloud retrievals and additional information can be provided by polarized signals to quantify ice cloud parameters, especially at high frequency channels. Therefore, the present work strongly suggests the deployment of microwave polarization channels for ice cloud observations

Research on Sensor Network Spectrum Detection Technology based on Cognitive Radio Network

With the bursting development of computer science and the hardware technology, Internet of Things and wireless sensor networks has been popularly studied in the community of engineering. Under the environment of Internet of Things, we carry out theoretical analysis and numerical simulation on the sensor network spectrum detection technology based on cognitive radio network. As a means of information and intelligence, information service system is an important research hotspot in the field of Internet of things. Wireless sensor network is composed of a large number of micro sensor nodes, which have the function of information collection, data processing, and wireless communication, characterized by the integration of wireless self-organization. However, most of the methodologies proposed by the other institutes are suffering form the high complexity while with the high time-consuming when processing information. Therefore, this study is to assess the economic feasibility of using the optimized multipath protocol availability and the increased bandwidth and several mobile operators through the use of cost-benefit analysis, single path selection model is to develop more path agreement to achieve better performance. To test the robustness, we compare our method with the other state-of-the-art approach in the simulation section and proves the effectiveness of our methodology. The experimental result reflected that our approach could achieve higher accuracy with low time-consuming when dealing with complex sources of information

Three-Dimensional Medical Image Fusion with Deformable Cross-Attention

Multimodal medical image fusion plays an instrumental role in several areas of medical image processing, particularly in disease recognition and tumor detection. Traditional fusion methods tend to process each modality independently before combining the features and reconstructing the fusion image. However, this approach often neglects the fundamental commonalities and disparities between multimodal information. Furthermore, the prevailing methodologies are largely confined to fusing two-dimensional (2D) medical image slices, leading to a lack of contextual supervision in the fusion images and subsequently, a decreased information yield for physicians relative to three-dimensional (3D) images. In this study, we introduce an innovative unsupervised feature mutual learning fusion network designed to rectify these limitations. Our approach incorporates a Deformable Cross Feature Blend (DCFB) module that facilitates the dual modalities in discerning their respective similarities and differences. We have applied our model to the fusion of 3D MRI and PET images obtained from 660 patients in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) dataset. Through the application of the DCFB module, our network generates high-quality MRI-PET fusion images. Experimental results demonstrate that our method surpasses traditional 2D image fusion methods in performance metrics such as Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Structural Similarity Index Measure (SSIM). Importantly, the capacity of our method to fuse 3D images enhances the information available to physicians and researchers, thus marking a significant step forward in the field. The code will soon be available online

A transcriptomic and epigenomic cell atlas of the mouse primary motor cortex

Single-cell transcriptomics can provide quantitative molecular signatures for large, unbiased samples of the diverse cell types in the brai

Precipitation and microphysical processes observed by three polarimetric X-band radars and ground-based instrumentation during HOPE

This study presents a first analysis of precipitation and related microphysical processes observed by three polarimetric X-band Doppler radars (BoXPol, JuXPol and KiXPol) in conjunction with a ground-based network of disdrometers, rain gauges and vertically pointing micro rain radars (MRRs) during the High Definition Clouds and Precipitation for advancing Climate Prediction (HD(CP)²) Observational Prototype Experiment (HOPE) during April and May 2013 in Germany. While JuXPol and KiXPol were continuously observing the central HOPE area near Forschungszentrum Jülich at a close distance, BoXPol observed the area from a distance of about 48.5 km. MRRs were deployed in the central HOPE area and one MRR close to BoXPol in Bonn, Germany. Seven disdrometers and three rain gauges providing point precipitation observations were deployed at five locations within a 5 km  ×  5 km region, while three other disdrometers were collocated with the MRR in Bonn. The daily rainfall accumulation at each rain gauge/disdrometer location estimated from the three X-band polarimetric radar observations showed very good agreement. Accompanying microphysical processes during the evolution of precipitation systems were well captured by the polarimetric X-band radars and corroborated by independent observations from the other ground-based instrument

Effects of carrier injection profile on low noise thin Al0.85Ga0.15As0.56Sb0.44 avalanche photodiodes

Avalanche photodiodes (APDs) with thin avalanche regions have shown low excess noise characteristics and high gain-bandwidth products, so they are suited for long-haul optical communications. In this work, we investigated how carrier injection profile affects the avalanche gain and excess noise factors of Al0.85Ga0.15As0.56Sb0.44 (lattice-matched to InP substrates) p-i-n and n-i-p diodes with total depletion widths of 145-240 nm. Different carrier injection profiles were achieved by using light with wavelengths of 420, 543 and 633nm. For p-i-n diodes, shorter wavelength light produces higher avalanche gains for a given reverse bias and lower excess noise factors at a given gain, compared to longer wavelength light. Thus, using 420 nm light on the p-i-n diodes, corresponding to pure electron injection conditions, gave the highest gain and lowest excess noise. In n-i-p diodes, pure hole injection yields significantly lower gain and higher excess noise, compared to mixed carrier injection. These show that the electron ionization coefficient, α, is higher than the hole ionization coefficient, β. Using pure electron injection, excess noise factor characteristics with effective ionization ratios, keff, of 0.08-0.1 were obtained. This is significantly lower than those of InP and In0.52Al0.48As, the commonly used avalanche materials combined with In0.53Ga0.47As absorber. The data reported in this paper is available from the ORDA digital repository (DOI: 10.15131/shef. DATA: 5787318)

Efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine adjuvant therapy for severe pneumonia: evidence mapping of the randomized controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses

Background and Objective: Severe pneumonia is a critical respiratory disease with high mortality. There is insufficient evidence on the efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) adjuvant therapy for severe pneumonia. This study aims to identify, describe, assess, and summarize the currently available high-quality design evidence on TCM adjuvant therapy for severe pneumonia to identify evidence gaps using the evidence mapping approach.Methods: Systematic searches were performed on English and Chinese online databases (PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, CNKI, WanFang Data, CQVIP, and SinoMed) to identify papers from inception until August 2023 for inclusion into the review. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs), systematic reviews (SRs), and meta-analyses concerning TCM adjuvant therapy for severe pneumonia or its complications in adults were included. The risk of bias in RCTs was evaluated by using the Cochrane Handbook ROB tool. The Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews 2 (AMSTAR-2), the Risk of Bias in Systematic Review (ROBIS) tool, and the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) system were used to assess the methodological quality, risk of bias, and evidence quality of SRs or meta-analyses, respectively. Then, a bubble plot was designed to visually display information in four dimensions.Results: A total of 354 RCTs and 17 SRs or meta-analyses met the inclusion criteria. The published RCTs had several flaws, such as unreasonable design, limited sample size, insufficient attention to non-drug therapy studies and syndrome differentiation, improper selection or use of outcome indicators, and failure to provide high-quality evidence. Sixteen SRs or meta-analyses of methodological quality scored “Critically Low” confidence. Twelve SRs or meta-analyses were rated as “High Risk.” Most outcomes were rated as “Low” evidence quality. We found that TCM combined with conventional treatment could improve the clinical total effective rate and the TCM syndromes efficacy. The combined approach could also shorten mechanical ventilation time, infection control time, and length of hospital and ICU stay; significantly reduce temperature, respiratory rate, heart rate, white blood cell counts, levels of C-reactive protein, procalcitonin, blood inflammatory factors, bacteriological response, and D-dimer; decrease CPIS, APACHE II score, and PSI score; improve pulmonary imaging features, arterial blood gas indicators (including arterial oxygen pressure, arterial oxygen saturation, and oxygen index), and lung function (including forced vital capacity and forced expiratory volume in the first second) for severe pneumonia compared with conventional treatment only (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in adverse reactions and incidence of adverse events (p > 0.05). In addition, compared with conventional treatment only, most SRs or meta-analyses concluded that TCM combined with conventional treatment was “Beneficial” or “Probably beneficial.”Conclusion: TCM combined with conventional treatment had advantages in efficacy, clinical signs, laboratory results, and life quality outcomes of severe pneumonia, with no difference in safety outcomes compared with conventional treatment only. QingJin Huatan decoction is the most promising target, and Xuanbai Chengqi decoction has a “Probably beneficial” conclusion. XueBiJing injection and TanReQing injection are two commonly used Chinese herbal injections for treating severe pneumonia, and both are “Probably beneficial.” However, there was a need for multicenter RCTs with large sample sizes and high methodological quality in the future. In addition, the methodological design and quality of SRs or meta-analyses should be improved to form high-quality, evidence-based medical evidence and provide evidence for the effectiveness and safety of TCM adjuvant therapy for severe pneumonia

Characteristics of Air-Sea Fluxes Based on In Situ Observations from a Platform in the Bohai Gulf during Early Mid-August 2011

An eddy covariance system and other atmospheric and oceanic parameters were measured simultaneously from a fixed Platform-A in the Bohai Gulf during early mid-August 2011. One of the main goals of the comprehensive observation was to reveal the basic meteorological and hydrological characteristics of the Bohai Gulf. The results indicated that the diurnal characteristic curve for the air temperature (AT) was steeply unimodal, while the curve of the SST was a bimodal valley type and mainly influenced by tides with its valley value corresponding to the high water level during the observation period. Southeasterly winds dominated and the wind speed was generally lower than 8 m/s, and the atmospheric stability over the Bohai Gulf was generally unstable. The wave strength levels were generally below level 3, with a greater number of swell waves than wind waves. The latter were usually associated with more momentum transport, a larger difference between AT and SST, and less heat transport. During the observational period, the mean momentum, sensible, and latent heat turbulent fluxes were 0.21, 21.6, and 27.8 W/m2, respectively. The ratio of the mean latent and sensible turbulent fluxes was about 1.3 and much lower than that in the South China Sea during the summer

Evaluation of six satellite-based terrestrial latent heat flux products in the vegetation dominated Haihe river basin of north China

In this study, six satellite-based terrestrial latent heat flux (LE) products were evaluated in the vegetation dominated Haihe River basin of North China. These LE products include Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) LE product, FLUXCOM LE product, Penman-Monteith-Leuning V2 (PML_V2) LE product, Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model datasets (GLEAM) LE product, Breathing Earth System Simulator (BESS) LE product, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (MOD16) LE product. Eddy covariance (EC) data collected from six flux tower sites and water balance method derived evapotranspiration (WBET) were used to evaluate these LE products at site and basin scales. The results indicated that all six LE products were able to capture the seasonal cycle of LE in comparison to EC observations. At site scale, GLASS LE product showed the highest coefficients of determination (R2) (0.58, p 2), followed by FLUXCOM and PML products. At basin scale, the LE estimates from GLASS product provided comparable performance (R2 = 0.79, RMSE = 18.8 mm) against WBET, compared with other LE products. Additionally, there was similar spatiotemporal variability of estimated LE from the six LE products. This study provides a vital basis for choosing LE datasets to assess regional water budget